Rich Mintz  

It’s blueberry season here in New York, and by that I mean not only that blueberries are ripe and sweet, but they’re for sale everywhere, from the supermarket to the food cart, at low prices. (Though not as low as last year.)

As a result I’ll be eating roughly a pint of blueberries per day from now until they disappear, and I’m reacquainting myself with the relative sweetness and deliciousness of the wares available from my various blueberry sources. (Last year, Jersey blueberries from Fairway were the most reliable, but the Mississipi blueberries I picked up this week at Fairway gave them a run for their money.)

I’m also musing on the following Dr. Science question: Crush a blueberry, say with a rolled-up newspaper, and it stains the newspaper blue (or, more precisely, purple). Crush a blueberry in your mouth and dribble the juice on, say, a kitten, and it stains the kitten blue. (I think.) But crush 500 or 1,000 blueberries in your mouth and swallow them, and the blue, uh, disappears! (Please don’t ask me to explain what I mean. Just ask a five-year-old.) Where does it go?

I’ve done my research (thanks, Internet) and am not satisfied with the answers — many of which seem to contradict the premise of my question by suggesting that the blue is in fact, uh, reemerging at the end of the, uh, rainbow, I’m just not noticing. (Not bloody likely!). So this will have to remain one of biochemistry’s little mysteries for now.

In the meantime, as long as you’re not worried about swelling up like Violet Beauregarde (and if it hasn’t happened to me yet, it probably isn’t going to), join me in enjoying one of summer’s treats. They’re delicious and good for you — and, at least here in New York City, at the moment they’re everywhere.

Made a quick lunchtime visit today to the Limelight Marketplace, the church-turned-nightclub-turned-empty-building-full-of-pigeons-turned-fashion-retail-minimall around the corner from my office. I hadn’t been inside, but I’d watched the transformation on the way to and from the subway, and had seen the coverage.

The press was largely approving (with the obligatory acknowledgments of the end of the Old New York and its replacement with a commercialized simulacrum of itself), and I have to say that (my obligatory acknowledgments aside, which should be taken for granted) I agree. They did a respectful job of converting the interior of the historic church building into an interestingly-laid-out space with small retail areas (most of them larger than kiosks, smaller than shops) on three levels. The interior was larger than I expected and the retail mix was much better than I expected, and I could imagine coming back and browsing here for longer than I did.

The biggest surprise was a large gourmet food hall on the ground floor, with a fresh produce stand in the courtyard. The food hall is no Harrods or even Zeytuna, but it was quite a bit more capacious than I expected. I picked up some Tanzanian peaberry coffee beans roasted right on the premises.

I do feel sorry for the girl whose job it is to smile and say “Hi, welcome to [name of food counter]” to everyone who comes around a certain corner — that must get old after about the 3,000th time.

Just wanted to put in a quick lunch plug for A Desi Diner, on 31st Street between 5th and Madison (open until 4am — and 24 hours on weekends). At lunchtime during the week, they serve impeccable, freshly prepared Indian steam-table dishes, to eat in or take out, for a price so low I can’t believe they make money doing it. And they deliver from 23rd to 42nd Street, almost river to river. It’s the kind of neighborhood place I wish I had in my neighborhood!

Via Hagan Blount, this Engadget post, complete with video, showing an iPad deployed on the front of a kitchen cabinet. On the heels of this video, I’m even more sure that it’s time to find me some heavy-duty Velcro this week and do some experimenting…

Last night I said I thought Henrietta’s Table in Cambridge, Massachusetts was my favorite restaurant in America, because I couldn’t think of another restaurant I’d gladly eat in four times a week for the rest of my life. And I still can’t. (I’ve already eaten there again since I wrote that, and I’m having breakfast there in the morning.) But I do want to call out one other place that I like, on its best days, for some of the same reasons: Fairway Cafe and Steakhouse, upstairs from the flabbergastingly superb Fairway supermarket at 74th and Broadway in New York City.

This isn’t really the time or place to talk about Fairway the supermarket, other than to say that this small local supermarket chain — the chain is small, not the stores — carries the best combination I know of fresh produce and meat and cheese and baked goods, affordably priced and creatively sourced gourmet and specialty products, and ordinary groceries. I think after a particularly difficult case of weekend shopping exhaustion I once described the Red Hook Fairway (the Brooklyn outpost, full of Park Slope stroller families in their Zipcars on “big weekend shop” excursions) as “imagine that Trader Joe’s had a baby with Ikea,” but that isn’t quite sufficient, because the raison d’être of Fairway is its produce and meat and cheese, which are truly spectacular.

But I digress. Today’s topic is Fairway’s upstairs restaurant, which (like Henrietta’s) aspires to a cuisine that might be called “fresh and honest,” although with the look-how-fresh-and-honest-I-am brassiness of a New York place. And I have to say I’ve consumed plenty of excellence at Fairway Cafe, which shares some of the traits I like about Henrietta’s (starting with the open kitchen, which I neglected to mention about Henrietta’s last night). It makes a steak that is very good indeed, along with great cafe dishes like chicken schnitzel; traditional sandwiches (like egg salad on black bread) are exceptionally sharp and good; the by-the-glass wine list is extensive; the desserts are classics, and much less snooty than the ones at Henrietta’s. Salads are well composed; vegetables are always fresh. It won’t do for everything Henrietta’s will do for (I wouldn’t take a client there, for instance), but it’s the sort of place that I want to want to eat in four times a week.

The food itself, in other words, is steady, in the best sense. The sourcing is not as fastidious as Henrietta’s, but it’s quite good (hello! it’s inside of Fairway — there is no better retail source for consistent fresh food in New York City). And the prices are reasonable.

The problem with Fairway Cafe is that the service is irregular. The staff have their friendly and competent moments, and everyone means well, but there are times when it takes forever to get someone’s attention and another forever to get what you wanted. (At Henrietta’s, all I have to do is look in the general direction of “up” and someone is at my side asking what I need.) Plating at Fairway can be slapdash; I’ve had orders go in a little wrong; and generally the experience just doesn’t feel tight.

I am endlessly giving Fairway Cafe second chances, because when it is good it is very good indeed, and I like the setting (looking out on Broadway from a big second-floor window, left alone to read a good book while I eat a delicious and reasonably priced meal). I keep bringing friends there in the hope that they’ll have a one-of-its-best-days experience and see the magic that I see. They rarely do. Maybe with a little pressure from my millions of readers they’ll tighten up the ship just a bit and it will become the place it deserves to be.

My work has put me in Harvard Square’s Charles Hotel for two nights this week, which I’m happy about for several reasons. Despite the New Englandiness of the room decor — “quilty, feathery beds” is as emblematic an image as any, and I bet you can guess that isn’t really my thing — the Charles is an exceptionally well-run hotel.

In dozens of small ways, it feels like the management understands what its guests need in order to be comfortable and work efficiently, and this reveals itself over time — you may not completely get it on your first visit, but come back (presumably after visiting some less-impressive hotels in the interim) and you will. Given its location, the Charles is basically a business hotel for people whose business has a cultural or intellectual component, and in the decor and furnishings there’s some whimsy and thoughtfulness (of the let’s-not-get-caught-trying-TOO-hard Boston variety, to be sure, but still). Even the underground parking facility (which is independently run) is a “green garage.”

Besides, in the closet they give you real hangers. You can probably even steal them. I bet they won’t even care!

But what I really love about the Charles is Henrietta’s Table, which I think may be my favorite restaurant in America. That sounds like a wild claim, but I’m sitting here trying to think of another restaurant, anywhere, that I’d be happy to eat in four times a week for the rest of my life and I don’t think there is one.

Henrietta’s calls itself a “fresh and honest” American restaurant, but that doesn’t begin to cover what I like about this place:

Fresh ingredients, locally sourced and thoughtfully prepared. This isn’t the kind of restaurant where the plates are gorgeous (although they often are); it’s the kind of restaurant where you can assume that if there’s a tomato or a beet or a pork chop on your plate, someone chose it for flavor, from a reputable source, and it will deliver. There’s an emphasis on regional and local ingredients, and they report the provenance of ingredients when they can. Tonight I ordered something that in most restaurants would be forgettable or even worth avoiding — a dish of stone-ground grits with fresh vegetables — and it was flavorful and balanced without being gratuitously rich. On my salad plate were probably the tastiest tomatoes I’ve eaten in three years. The last time I was here, I had a steak, and it was the second-best steak I’ve ever had. In my whole life. (The winner: Magnolia Steak in Norfolk, which (alas) is now closed.)

Daily menu, but very little attitude. Most places that have a menu that changes daily feel like they’re trying too hard, but I rarely get that embarrassed “jeez, ratchet it back a little” feeling here — except sometimes when the dessert menu comes, but the desserts are so good that all is forgiven.

Extensive wine-by-the-glass list, many under $10. To do this they need a lot of turnover, which they get (it’s a large hotel, and there is a lot of community patronage, too — another indication that they’re on to something). Tonight I had a Long Island Cabernet Franc that was so good I’d stock it at home.

Absolutely the most reliable, hearty, no-tricks American breakfast I’ve ever had. Perfectly consistent from visit to visit. Eggs cooked exactly to order; gigantic portions of ham and sausage; superb breakfast potatoes (note: roughly 1 lb. butter per lb. potatoes); honest wheaty bread and very good biscuits (second only to America’s best biscuit, Atlanta’s Flying Biscuit). Strong coffee of a quality that’s hard to duplicate at home. Fresh, rich butter; preserves in abundance.

Spacious dining room, with comfortable farmhouse tables and a large outdoor patio in good weather. The place never feels full, even when it is.

The very best kind of service: attentive without ever crowding you, anticipating what you’ll need, backing off when it’s clear you’re enjoying your food and friends.

All in all, Henrietta’s Table is nice enough for informal entertaining (e.g., a business dinner that isn’t too stuffy), but you don’t end up paying as much as you might expect. It’s very possible to get through dinner for under 40 bucks a person, including dessert and a glass of wine. At a restaurant of this caliber, that’s difficult to match. And that’s why I’ll be eating there, what, 6 times between now and Friday?

Matt Yglesias’ post “The Nordic Passion for Coffee” observes that the Nordic countries don’t just drink a lot of coffee — they drink more than their neighbors, more than anyone else in the world, by a statistically significant margin. He excerpts this map, which is striking:

I happened to read this while on an enforced coffee “fast” (during my long weekend in the country with a large group, where our sleep/wake schedule didn’t make it convenient to have coffee at the times and in the dosages I normally do). I really, really felt the lack. Consequently I am having a cup of strong coffee now that I’m home, at 11pm on a school night, despite knowing that it’ll put me to sleep late and mess me up in the morning. But it is delicious, especially with these cookies that my houseguest left me as a hostess, er, host gift. Thanks, houseguest!