It’s been months since I’ve had a slice of pie. Months. For a girl who can eat pie as easily as ice cream, I was in dire straits. My nostalgia for running along the seawall in Vancouver rivalled my nostalgia for heading to Aphrodite’s after dinner for tea and a slice of raspberry rhubarb. Cookies, cupcakes, ice cream, gelato, frozen yogurt. Everywhere. Pie? Good pie? NYC seems like a ghost town.

I knew very well about Four & Twenty Blackbirds. I knew all about the pie legend that is their salted caramel apple. And salty honey. And lemon chess. They have received glowing reviews and lots of press. But, um, how can you go for dessert when the shop closes at 6? Not very dessert friendly. I know, I know. They make limited numbers for optimal freshness, and the shop IS in the industrial-not-dessert-friendly area of Gowanus, but still. I like dessert after dinner, when the sun’s away, and the time is ripe for catching up and settling down.

Fall is my favourite time for pies (obviously), and so with a crazy craving, I decided to have pie for brunch. What’s wrong with that? Pancakes are by and large equivalent to dessert, so why not just cut the BS and outright have dessert. Being only a 15 minute walk away, I took in some warm Sunday sun and made my way past the toxic Gowanus canal. The place itself is exceedingly cute and cozy and much more apt for a lazy afternoon than a quiet evening.

What can they get me? Pear bourbon crumble. Fruit makes it much more appropriate for first thing, right? While the execution of the pie was perfect (crust, texture, composition), the overall effect was too sweet for me. I couldn’t taste any bourbon, so the pear and crumble were sweet + sweet. My coffee was the perfect foil as its bitterness cut right through that pairing. The brown butter pumpkin I took home for that night’s dessert, however, was outstanding. A double pie day equally so.

Only a 15 minute walk away, and it took me almost six months to visit. Shameful.
Americans celebrating Thanksgiving in November means an extra six weeks of pumpkin pie on the menu. Jackpot.

Four & Twenty Blackbirds
439 3rd Avenue, Brooklyn 

Today’s Special:  Caprese sandwich, Sullivan Street Bakery (Chelsea location), New York

Forgive me. I forgot about this sandwich. I came across the photo and cursed myself for not posting about it at the height of summer, at the height of tomatoes. I don’t even know if the Sullivan Street Bakery is still making this sandwich at this time of year. I can pretty much guarantee, however, that whatever kind of sandwiches they’re making, you’re going to love them.

As a big fan of Jim Lahey and his no-knead bread method, I made sure that the SSB was on my list of places to visit. But, with the original location in Hell’s Kitchen and the second in Chelsea, I never found myself in the neighbourhood (I’m not a West side kind of girl), and a weekend trek was just too much of a trek. Then came Summer Fridays at work. By working extra each day, I could get every second Friday afternoon off.  I could hardly say no. I promised myself I wouldn’t spend that time cleaning house or doing laundry. On one hot summer Friday, I made a list of Chelsea galleries to visit and a beeline for the Chelsea SSB.

The sandwich screams “fresh!” Fresh pizza bianca, fresh heirloom tomatoes, fresh basil, fresh mozzarella. All brought together with some grassy slips of olive oil. The cheese was so fresh that I had a puddle of milky whey gracing my plate from the pressure that my hands brought while eating. Oh, and there was a sprinkling of sea salt. My perfect bite(s) came when my  teeth cut through a juicy tomato, then the creamy cheese, then the crack of a salt crystal.  More, please.

Sullivan Street Bakery 236 9th Avenue, New York

Ample Hills Creamery: Peanut butter flake, cinnamon, and salted crack caramel

Blah blah blah. Rhianna likes gelato. Blah blah blah. Thick, creamy, and cold is her favourite texture. Blah blah blah. New York offers endless opportunities for such indulgences. Yes, I know you’re probably tired of the frozen creamy treat posts, but get over it. It’s summer. It’s hot everywhere. And if you’re in this city with me, you need to know that we’ll be making our way toward such treats at some point.

Here’s the rundown on three new hangouts.

Ample Hills Creamery: A mix of classic and creative flavours that are entirely homemade. Like, everything. The cookies in the cookies and cream, the fudge sauce, the cones. Service is incredibly warm and friendly, and you can easily tack a visit here on to one to the Brooklyn Museum, Botanical Gardens, or Prospect Park. The gods were looking down on me when one of my besties moved into the neighbourhood. What goes better with friends than ice cream?

Forty Carrots: Chocolate and plain swirl

Sure, I like Pinkberry. Everybody likes Pinkberry because it is now EVERYWHERE. We can all be like Jenny Humphrey and have it for lunch. But… I don’t know, I don’t know how I feel about franchised frozen yogurt anymore. I mean, we remember Yogen Fruz, right? The proximity of Bloomingdale’s to my office has become dangerous for more than just sale clothing and impulse cosmetics purchases. The seventh floor stocks bedding, but it also stocks the most luscious frozen yogurt from Forty Carrots. Much more creamy and much less icy than Pinkberry, Forty Carrots is why I avoid carrying cash. Toppings are not free, but portion sizes more than make up for it. The coffee is a crowd favourite, but I’ve become partial to this chocolate-plain swirl, with the plain having that good yogurt tang without any pucker.

Victory Garden: Goat milk yogurt and rose hibiscus sorbet swirl

Victory Garden serves goat milk soft serve. GOAT MILK SOFT SERVE. This is the winner for my new favourite place to be. Ahhhhhhhh I’m in heaven. The texture of the ice cream, yogurt, and sorbets extruded from the magic machines is perfect: it’s thick and holds its shape, no melty, watery substandard product. The owners are Turkish, and some of the flavours usually have a Mediterranean twist. Although, the best seller is salted caramel, which is excellent. I’ve also had my tongue around a herbal special, the pictured flavours, and chocolate lavender. The goat milkiness is not all that strong; it’s a little bit tangy but not something that you really notice. The originality of the flavours and the texture are what put me over the moon. It’s also in one of the most perfect stroll-with-an-ice-cream ‘hoods: the West Village.

I cannot promise that this is the end of the ice cream posts.

Ample Hills Creamery 623 Vanderbilt Avenue, Brooklyn

Forty Carrots, Bloomingdale’s
East 59th Street and Lexington Avenue, New York 

Victory Garden 31 Carmine Street, New York 

Today’s special: Duck rillettes and egg salad crostini, Colonie, Brooklyn

I chose to live in the Carroll Gardens/Cobble Hill area of Brooklyn because it was an area that became familiar and dear to my heart after a number of visits to friends who lived in that ‘hood. The brownstones, the trees, the mix of young people, families, and lifers, whose families have lived in the area for generations. Oh, and the restaurants. Williamsburg is tops for Brooklyn trendy, but my neighbourhood always ends up just plain tops. Reviews of places always mention the subway trip from the city being worth it. And hardly a trip it is. It may be twenty minutes for Manhattanites to get to some of the neighbourhood haunts, but for me? A five to ten minute walk. So so dangerous to the waistline and the pocketbook.

Ten minutes to Colonie on Atlantic Avenue from my apartment. And that’s considered far by New Yorker standards. Although I generally hate small plate eating, you can manage it very well at Colonie, especially if there’s only two of you. (They have big plates too, but the small ones and the salads sounded so much more interesting.) The uniquely topped and well-sized crostini definitely help you make the small become satisfying. Although I had read that the ricotta crostini were outstanding, the server’s sell on the egg salad with bone marrow and the duck rillettes with rhubarb meant that the ricotta could wait.  My affinity for duck won out over my aversion to pasty meat, and I was thankfully rewarded with rillettes that looked just a bit manhandled by a fork. The sour rhubarb paired well with the rich meat. The egg salad was was more like extra creamy scrambled eggs, with the bone marrow and veal jus acting like dollops of melted butter: salty and rich. A gold star to whoever chose and toasted the bread. It was crispy enough to hold the weight of the toppings and offer textural contrast, yet it was still chewy enough not to shatter during a bite (no knife and fork for crostini!).

Each of the other dishes I tried easily could receive its own post as well.
So, so dangerous.

Colonie
127 Atlantic Avenue, Brooklyn 

Today’s Special: Whisky bread, Gwynett St

The reservation stars aligned on Saturday. OpenTable presented me with a table for two during prime time at East Williamsburg hot spot Gwynett St. Since opening last fall, the number of positive write ups have been been steadily climbing, with a number of them being published during the last few weeks. My friend and I had a wonderful dinner, letting our hunger guide us to our fair share of menu items, including a maitake mushroom covered in ribbons of salty lardo and a coconut panna cotta touched by all that’s fun and inspiring in molecular gastronomy. The ball got rolling with their baked-to-order whisky bread. With the texture of a biscuit and the aroma of a saloon—in the best possible way—I fell head over heels for this little loaf. The bread could have been cooked a bit longer to achieve a greater contrast between spongy middle and golden crust, but that’s just a quibble. The texture keeps you from filling up on this bread, which has a benefit beyond room for the rest of your meal: leftovers. Toasted and slathered with butter the next morning had me moaning with pleasure and looking to my calendar for an appropriate date to go back for more.

Gwynett St
312 Graham Ave, Williamsburg, New York