Brooklyn Through and Through

Back again in the BK and what a weekend it was. I drove around the streets of Brooklyn neighborhoods I missed and reminisce about on almost a weekly basis. It feels good to be home and in my element. When so often I am out of my element I feel exhilarated and happy. Clearly and most definitely happy. Brooklyn of my youth, you are there in spirit and essence. Some of you is gone but most of you welcomes me with open arms and I thank you.

I took my dad for a haircut out in Gravesend. We drove down Ocean Parkway to Ave T and then Ave U and then down to West Street, just shy of McDonald Avenue. Across the street was an Italian food shop, luckily open that early in the day so A and I went to check it out while my dad waited his turn. It had all of the things you could never, ever get here. Fresh mozzarella, fresh tomatoes caprice, fresh cheeses, biscoitti, coffee not from Starbucks' brand, fresh salamis and deli  meats, fresh pastas hand made and rolled. There was so much it was hard to choose. We settled on some plain and pumpkin filled gnocchi and a salami. We paid and left and expressed some remorse for things we should have gotten too like the spinach pies, or more cheeses like the fresh mozzarella. But, it would not have made the 4 hour + drive home the next day and it would seem a sin to ruin fresh mozzarella like that.

But I felt at home and revelled in my being there and I felt confident and sure of myself just ordering the food and paying for the items. Like it was my everyday thing to get fresh products like these at my neighborhood Italian deli / goods shop. I e-mailed a fellow blogger who grew up in Gravesend. She told me I was in her old stomping ground. A small world it is.

Later that day I had to get fish from the fish store my mom usually goes to. I drove down to Ave U and 27th. Just in time, too because all of the fresh fishes were put away for the day and the floors and display areas were being cleaned by a group of latino men. The man who took my order (the owner?) was kind and efficient and pleased to have my business. I ordered the farm-raised salmon. 2.38 lbs. For six of us it would be plenty. We were in and out in less than 10 minutes. I got a parking spot right in front. I am quite certain this would not be on any other day and if I lived there but it was nice to have things fall into place this way.

Later we celebrated my dad's birthday with cupcakes from Magnolia, now near my brother's work so he had ordered a bunch the day before. What a nice way to spend my weekend: with my family, in the place of my birth and my youth, so much more familiar to me than where I am daily. What a pleasant feeling and thought I have because of it: a warm feeling in my inner being that brings a smirky Brooklyn-smile to my face.