Brooklyn Delivers

Highlights, and I'm not talking hair.

FOOD First.

Luscious Food: http://www.lusciousbrooklyn.com/

I like that the icon for Press is a fish. Then you click on the fish and get...a larger fish. New York Magazine rated these cookies The Best. Up there with monoliths like City Bakery and Jacques Torres. And, (insert pat on shoulder), I stumbled upon this little joint. No iphone! No internet! No article! Simply, walking down the street like a normal person before meeting a friend @ Flatbush Barn/Farm. Another cute, candlelit place, and a good find at 6:30pm with plenty of empty tables, dark wood, and a long bar - a ridiculous GLASS of red wine from Oregon priced at $14, but still.

By 8pm, I counted seven sets of women getting drinks together and one couple. Guess it's no newsflash that ladies may outnumber men here. But it couldn't ruin my night. Luscious had amazing split pea soup and a huge bowl (5 bucks), fresh, soft bread with a crunchy crust and vanillas cupcakes with star-sprinkles. All homemade. Who's home? I don't know. I don't care. Yum!


Park Slope Yoga Center
http://www.parkslopeyoga.com/

This place is perfect. I've long regaled friends and family with my yoga tales. Cliche as it may be, I really fell in love with yoga in the East Village over a decade ago at Bhava Yoga, a small studio run by a lovely couple. The room was, how shall I say this? A dump? But a brightly, purply and orangely, painted, cheery one, and nobody cared - it was always, 100% packed, and hot, with the exhalations of yogis. They had 2 hour classes that were cheap and well done with amazing music - no Enya-rock garden, drops of rain stuff, more like R&B, Guns'n Roses, Stevie Wonder, Neil Young.

Sadly, the couple got priced out (though they re-located to Brattleboro, Vermont and one day soon I hope to re-visit them and their classes). Park Slope Yoga Center - located on the second floor of a brownstone, is the closest I've come - in my years of searching East and West Coast - to Bhava. Nothing fancy, nothing chic. Smart, mellow, larger type, earthy lady instructor who adjusts you, excellent pace - challenging, and they offer 20% off a 10 class card if you join after your first drop-in class ($10). When I told them I didn't have a job yet, I got a coupon for a free class & a note on it, that I could apply the 20% discount any time.

Free yoga? My heart almost exploded from happiness on the spot.

Portland, Brooklyn, Coffee
http://www.cafegrumpy.com/

Cafe Grumpy. Second time visiting the one on the 7th Ave in Park Slope. Met a lovely barista there a few weeks back, who, when he heard I moved back from Portland said that he hoped he'd made my Americano okay and gave me lots of encouragement about living North Slope/Greenwood area. Nice and quiet, as quiet as say...a cemetery.

This visit, two lesbian punk girl baristas/children (one from PDX). I ordered wrong. I wanted something chocolatey and so got a macchiato but i meant a mocha. I know. How pedestrian of me. Well, I received the smallest cup of coffee/espresso I have ever seen. The saving grace? A tiny white heart made of foamed milk. Love lives.

I still want to check out the Greenpoint Grumpy, where they serve a $12 cup of coffee and they roast their own beans right there. I'd been considering Greenpoint as a new possible home but I heard nightmares about the G train, there is no real park for my furry monster baby and there was a huge oil spill there, apparently, a sewage plant and a nature walk along the sewage plant.

Not exactly Mount Tabor Park.