We always offer a cold salad bar every night for Family Meal, which usually includes leftover lunch from the day before (potato salad, coleslaw, etc.), a large fruit salad and lettuce with vegetables and dressing. The items are all placed in a huge ice bath, and it is someone's responsibility about a half hour before the meal to grab two humongous bins from the dishwashers and fill them with ice from the machine in the main kitchen. We were serving sesame chicken, and I was done making the sauce so I volunteered to fill the bins with ice (which is usually done by one of the guys…and I soon realized why). One of the bins was sitting up on the top shelf of a cart, and I tipped it quickly to make sure it was empty. All of a sudden, like a scene from a surfing movie when the novice finds himself out in the middle of the ocean with a swelling wave coming straight for him, I was blindsided by a tidal wave of ice water that hit my face, then my neck, stopping at my (previously) dry neckerchief. Wow. WOW! What a refresher! Free air conditioning. I dragged the bins to the main kitchen, set them down in front of the massive ice machine and began digging. Five minutes later, my back and right shoulder were aching yet I had only filled the first bin about a fourth of the way. The only thing keeping me happy was the fact that my head, right arm and half of my torso were literally inside an ice machine. That's like sticking your head in a freezer – it's delightful.
Once a month Steve and I take turns planning a "Date Night," choosing something that we'd want to do together (i.e. live sports events are frowned upon) and have never tried before. It was my turn to plan the night, so I took my guy on a tour of the Brooklyn Brewery! It was really cool to be inside a real-life, functioning beer brewery, and we hung out around the bottling machines and bags of hops sipping our local brew, listening to the tour guide tell stories of the old-school Brooklyn mafia and the meek beginnings of the city's favorite ale. We then ventured a few blocks through Williamsburg (Brooklyn, not Virginia) to Fette Sau ("Fat Pig"), deemed one of the best barbecue joints in the city. We found a cramped spot on a wooden picnic bench inside the side-street-garage setting. The concrete walls were covered with drawings of butcher cuts and sharp knives, and the food was served in piles on metal trays. We got a 1/3 of a pound each of brisket and pulled pork, sides of country coleslaw, broccoli salad and a "Half-Pickle" (a pickle that's only been pickled halfway through) and finished it all off with a key lime tart. While I wouldn't call it my BEST barbecue experience, it was highly delicious. We were crammed on the picnic bench, flanked by strangers and trying to have a conversation across a 4' table when I caught someone near me saying, "fried chicken and pie." I fine tuned my listening muscles and heard "walk there for dessert." I've never been one to shy away from interrupting strangers, so I tapped him on the arm and said, "Excuse me sir, did I just hear you say there's a place nearby that serves fried chicken and pie?" "Yes I did. It's called 'Pies 'n' Thighs', and that's all they serve: slices of pie and fried chicken." I stared at him for a good ten seconds; I think he thought I was hard of hearing, because I was still caught in a blank state of utter amazement (Ponies? Rainbows? Kittens??) when he took out his iPhone and showed me the name and address. We couldn't pass up the opportunity to fill our bellies with a second dessert, so we took a leisurely stroll through Brooklyn until we reached the fabled "Pies 'n' Thighs." From the front, it looked like a teensie neighborhood restaurant that was filled to the brim, but we were soon taken to a small table out on one of their spacious outdoor concrete patios, where we were able to enjoy the setting sun and the end of our Brooklyn date night al fresco. My chocolate pudding pie was delicious, but no match for Steve's banana cream pie. We were already too full to sample the fried chicken, but rest assured - we'll be back for some thighs. That's my favorite thing about New York City in the summer: it's full of seemingly tiny and crowded establishments that open up in the back rooms to reveal garden patios and porches that thrive in the warm weather and sunshine. July in the city may be hot, but there's always a patio, garden, park or roof on which to cool off.
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