Schenck House at the Brooklyn Museum

Built in Canarsie around the time of the Revolutionary War, the Schenck House takes Brooklyn Museum visitors back to an age when most of what is now New York was farmland and a distinctively American culture was just coming into existence.

Kenny Scharf Gates on the Bowery

The Sweet Life

Like most long married couples, over the years our interests have melded. Case in point: when we first met, one of us believed that candy was only appropriate in movie theaters and on Halloween. Fast forward almost a decade, and together we cruise the city's sweeteries, looking for such things as softy pops, two chunky marshmallows dipped in caramel, milk chocolate, and sea salt, and peanut butter pretzel poppers. The Sweet Life, on the Lower East Side, also offered Jelly Bellys--- not the regulation 50 official flavors, mind you, but a good supply, as well as fruit slices and halwa and Turkish delight and gummies of all varieties.

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Sausage and Broccoli from the Greenmarket

If Top Chef has taught us anything, it's that even non-cooks like us can make good food if we start with good ingredients --- and then don't do a whole lot. Recently we bought some pheasant sausage from Quattro's Game Farm at the Greenmarket and some fresh broccoli, roasted 'em with garlic and onion, tossed everything with rigatoni, and topped with pecorino. Less time prepping and cooking dinner means more time sitting in front of the tv and making fun of this season's cheftestants.   

Overunder, ND'A, IRGH Mural

 

Xocolatti

Sold out of a tiny storefront in Soho that's decorated with interlocking rows of Xocolatti-branded boxes, these slivers and slabs aren't like your run-of-the-mill chocolate. Instead, they offer contrasts and conundrums, sharp angles and smooth finishes, full of cashews and saffron, Iranian rose and masala, pistachio and burnt caramel.

Occupy Inside Out

Occupy. Inside. Out. seeks to document some of those involved in Occupy Wall Street. The folks behind this project photographed 99 people, captured their stories, and pasted posters around town, another way of representing the 99%.

Cholula

Manhattanites can boast of a few good bodega taquerias --- Tehuitzingo, Guelaguetza, Zaragoza, a handful of places in East Harlem --- but our favorite might be the Cholula chainlet in Bushwick, Brooklyn. Here, actual tablecloths (albeit mysteriously reminiscent of those found in Little Italy) adorn the bright, cheery space, and the food is plated with care before it's served by a friendly waitress. They have an extensive menu of Mexican standards, like the sopes below, but Cholula's razon de ser is the taco. The pollo ranks among the best we could recall having, and the al pastor and longaniza tacos would take some beating as well. Plus, you can pick up giant jugs of Jarritos, which always warms our hearts. 

The Brooklyn Historical Society

The Brooklyn Historical Society, housed in a lovely building in Brooklyn Heights, may not be as vast as the city's most populous borough deserves, but what it lacks in size it makes up in charm. Particularly interesting (and endearing) is the current exhibit on the Dodgers, those legendary bums whose departure for Los Angeles more than half a century ago still smarts in some Brooklyn breasts.