Each week we'll preview what you can expect in our 24/Seven print edition, out Thursday for you southern Brooklynites and Friday for the downtown neighborhoods.
Highlights include:
Fun and Film: Thankgiving Eve, if you find yourself with nothing to do, how about a scavenger hunt? Or a documentary film festival during the week? Or a dance party? We preview Nov. 25 goings-on in Brooklyn for those of you not heading out of town.
Music: Brooklyn indie rockers Bishop Allen make it a homecoming, ending their month-long in support of their latest, "Grrr...," with two shows in the borough - Nov. 20 at Union Hall and Nov. 21 at the Bell House.
Food: For waterfront dining, head to Il Fornetto in Sheepshead Bay, which provides Italian offerings from both land and sea.
Cook-off: The Chili Take-Down returns, heating things up at the Bell House Nov. 22.
Columns: Pumps & Pleats makes a trip to Pasarela on Kings Highway for of-the-moment fashions that won’t bust your budget, while the Kitchen Klutz Klutz tackles her mom’s classic recipe for chicken cutlets, and the Reporter's Table shares her family’s hands-down favorite party dip.
For these stories and more, pick up a copy in your nabe or check back here later this week!
I’m tired! Sometimes, okay, all the time, when I get home after a long day at the office, I’m too exhausted to cook. (Hence, the reason I rely on takeout and need this column to gain some cooking skills!)
On one such sleepy evening, I dragged myself into the kitchen and stared at the shiny panini maker and the not-so-shiny Chinese takeout menu. Which to choose? Hmm.
After much debate (and internal whining), I opted to make a panini! Aren’t you proud of me?
Now for ingredients. I had ham and turkey cold cuts on hand so those were definitely in! There was a brick of mozzarella cheese in the fridge, which would also join the party. But no lettuce! What’s a sandwich without some greenery?
I poked around the produce bin and spotted a green pepper and large onion. I do enjoy these two sautéed but have never attempted to cook them myself. What the heck? I’ll give it a shot!
To start, I sliced the green pepper and onion into strips. With tears in my eyes, I coated a frying pan with olive oil and tossed in the onions. On high heat, I let the onions caramelize until they were light brown. They smelled so good! Then, I added the peppers and reached for whatever spices were close by. Since I have no idea how to season peppers and onions I had to wing it. On went salt, black pepper, oregano, thyme and rosemary. That seemed about right.
To assemble my panini, I put two slices each of ham and turkey cold cuts in a hunk of Italian bread. That was topped with a generous heaping of peppers and onions (still smelling mouth-watering) and two slices of mozzarella. After a few impatient minutes in the panini maker, my smushed sandwich was ready to eat!
Verdict: I love paninis! The bread was crunchy, the cold cuts were warm and the cheese was gooey. The sautéed peppers and onions were so tasty and flavorful that I devoured all the loose caramelized onion bits. This satisfying ’wich left me in need of just one thing — a breath mint.
Ham-key panini
Ingredients
1/2 loaf Italian bread
4 slices ham cold cuts
4 slices turkey cold cuts
2 ounces mozzarella cheese
1 large onion
1 green pepper
Seasonings: salt, black pepper, oregano, thyme, rosemary
Directions
Slice onions, green pepper and mozzarella into thin strips. Coat frying pan with olive oil. Add onions and sauté over high heat until brown. Add green pepper and season to taste. Sauté until tender. On Italian bread, stack ham and turkey cold cuts, sautéed peppers and onions and mozzarella. Toast in panini maker for five minutes or until crisp. Makes two paninis.
Kitchen Klutz follows 20-something Michèle De Meglio as she burns casseroles and her fingers, all in hope of trading frozen dinners for home cooking.
While the real estate market is not what it once was, one thing in Brooklyn is booming - music.
This week's New York Magazine takes a look at Brooklyn's "sonic boom," complete with a feature on one of the borough's biggest acts, Dirty Projectors (pictured), their top 40 songs from local acts, and the voices in the blogosphere that matter.
Of course, the best part about music is hearing it. Here are their picks for the best upcoming shows from Brooklyn acts (culled down to just the Brooklyn-based gigs for you):
Pterodactyl, Fiasco at Death by Audio, November 13 The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, Crystal Stilts at the Bell House, November 14 Awesome Color at Glasslands Gallery, November 15 Dirty Projectors at Music Hall of Williamsburg, November 19 and 21 (sold out) Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson at the Bell House, November 19 F--k Buttons at the Market Hotel, November 27 The Big Pink, Crystal Antlers, Von Haze at Music Hall of Williamsburg, December 4
The New York Times Diner's Journal notes thatBrooklyn Kitchen Labs, your one stop for making your dinner in its entirety, with its cooking school, butcher shop, and brewing and winemaking supply store, will open November 16.
With classes often selling out at the Brooklyn Kitchen in Williamsburg, the owners decided it was high time to open a space for bigger classes.
A who's who of the Brooklyn culinary scene, the labs will feature Tom Mylan, formerly of the butcher shop Marlow & Daughters, and his new butcher shop, the Meat Hook, and Ben Turley and Brent Young, of the restaurant Marlow & Sons.
Brooklyn Kitchen Labs will be held in a 7,000 square foot warehouse two blocks from the Brooklyn Kitchen, at 100 First Street. For more information, call 718-349-5033.
BAM's popular Eat, Drink & Be Literary series returns next year, bringing major contemporary authors to BAMcafé for intimate dinners, readings, and engaging discussions.
Quick to sell out, tickets for the 2010 season are on sale November 16 to the public, though Friends of BAM can purchase tickets starting today.
Here's a look at the who's coming to Brooklyn:
January 7: Actor and writer Wallace Shawn, who in his newest work Essayswrites on art, war, culture, politics, and privilege
January 21: The prolific E.L. Doctorow, whose latest novel is the best-selling “Homer & Langley,” a fictionalized telling of the Collyers brothers' story, the infamous New York pack rats, a male "Grey Gardens."
March 11: Sam Lipsyte, author of the forthcoming "Ask: The Novel," conveniently out a week before his reading
April 8: Colm Toibin, most recently the author of "Brooklyn," an immigrant story set in the 1950s
April 22: Joshua Ferris, whose next novel is "The Unnamed," out early next year, follows up his critically acclaimed debut and National Book Award finalist"Then We Came To The End"
May 6: Short story writer Jayne Anne Phillips, known for her poetic novels
June 3: Oscar-nominated actor, director and Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Sam Shepard, whose most recent book is the short story collection "Day Out of Days."
Read more...
Proving once again that less is more, Spike Jonze’s disappointing treatment of Maurice Sendak’s classic storybook “Where the Wild Things Are” begs the question, just because you can make a movie based on a beloved children’s tale, does that mean that you should?
Sendak himself might beg to differ, but it’s tough to figure out just what the director has accomplished here in attaching 101 minutes of film to the briskly paced picture book.
Newcomer Max Records certainly does bring wonderful three dimensional life to Sendak’s bratty protagonist; unfortunately his “Wild Things” are consistently wooden and cloyingly annoying.
Far from deepening the magic of the original, the power of speech has simply stripped the iconic beasts of all their laconic charm and intrigue.
As voiced here, the “Wild Things” are purely pedestrian and mundane despite their monstrous appearances.
The screenplay follows the story of young Max retreating into his own imaginary world after throwing a temper tantrum and biting his mom.
Since you can’t make a feature-length film based on a few scant pages that probably contain as many sentences as illustrations, the filmmakers are left to their own devices.
What they’ve come up with is a heavy-handed theme revolving around a sensitive child’s innate fear of one day having to grow up and face one’s own mortality.
It’s a rich place to start, but the drama of how Max fools the “Wild Things” into making him their king and then losing their trust just isn’t that compelling, either visually or contextually.
Kids will most likely be twisting in their seats while “Wild Things” chatter on.
“Where the Wild Things Are” isn’t horrible, but it’s also not very memorable.
“Where the Wild Thins Are.” Directed by Spike Jonze. Starring Max Records, James Gandolfini and Catherine Keener. Rated PG, 101 minutes.
Every gal and guy at your local gym probably wears the same old boring silver or black Nikes, right? Yep, right. Why not find a crazy cool pair of kicks that represents your own unique style? Yes!
Central Sports on Kings Highway has more than 900 sneakers on display. That’s right, 900! And we’re not talking basic high-top Reeboks here. The shop carries the hottest colors and the latest styles in so many brands and models it’ll make your head spin. Did I say they have 900 pairs of shoes? Hell-o!
A special section for men in the back of the store offers wall after wall after wall lined with fresh styles.The newest Jordans may occupy a series of shelves but the real fun is over by the Nike wall. The bravest gentleman can choose casual low-tops in a variety of rainbow (and sometimes iridescent) shades. If you’re really courageous, grab a pair of yellow and black suede high-tops coated with a collage of kissable lips.
Not to be outdone, the ladies section has its own crazy-sexy-cool fashions.
A slew of classic Pumas and the latest sweater-clad UGG boots pale in comparison to the oodles of colorful kicks in Central Sports.
There’s a strong showing of Nike Dunks in several color-block shades. Choose from lime green and burgundy or plum and white or even neon yellow and orange. You’ll definitely get attention!
Any girly girl would love the navy Nikes with a delicate white daisy flower print. Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!
Two pairs of shoes are truly cutting edge. One is a pair of calf-high Nike Shox in black with red laces. The other is the Nike Air Rift, which is a split-toe sneaker that runners swear is comfortable. Maybe so, but it makes your foot look like a hoof. I’m all about standout sneaks but those are just freaky.
Central Sports is located at 1412 Kings Highway. For hours call 718-946-6006.
Michèle De Meglio is a native Brooklynite addicted to all things chic. Check out Pumps & Pleats each week for more adventures as she scours the borough for fab duds and accessories.Read more...
27/Seven is a weekly entertainment guide found in the Brooklyn Courier-Life newspaper chain of the Community Newspaper Group, where each week you can find articles on music, arts and community happenings in Brooklyn. This weblog format will further enable coverage of events and developments in the borough's vibrant arts scene on a daily basis to supplement our weekly coverage.
Send questions, comments or tips to editorial@cnglocal.com.
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