Food and Away Games at Herk, Part II

 Sizzler,  a regular Herkimer lacrosse road trip stop

On many occasions our team had takeout pizza while going down the New York State thruway in the vans. And sit down meal meant middle-class midlevel chain informal family restaurants with buffets like Shoney’s and Sizzler. “We would go to these all you could eat places,” said teammate Jeff Fagan. Restaurant like Sizzler, which started in 1957 in a trailer in Culver City, California, had all you could eat buffets. “I remember all you could eat shrimp and salad bars we gorged on," said Fagan. Sizzlers had deals where you could order an inexpensive steak and get unlimited access to salad bars loaded with shrimp, potato salad, steamed beets, peas, cherry tomatoes, croutons and much more. The deal came with beverages and basket after basket of piping out dinner rolls and little glass dishes with individually wrapped butter squares. Coach would call ahead and haggle a deal with the restaurant manager that would stretch our $5 per diem, fill our stomachs and quench our thirst. For largely poor junior college student athletes, Sizzler’s seemed like a meal at the Tage Mahal. I’d love to hear comments on away game food from others who played for the coach Wehrum.

Food and Away Games at Herk

I will never forget my first Junior College (JUCO) lacrosse season as a freshmen at Herkimer County Community College. In high school teams traveled to away games on yellow school buses. At Herk we travelled in 2 sixteen passenger vans that our coaches drove. During my two years at Herkimer we traveled to Long Island to play Nassau County Community College, West Point, and Hobart College in Geneva, New York. But for reason that I will discuss later, the trip to Syracuse University stands out most in my mind. When we played against colleges and universities, we played the schools B team composed mostly of freshmen. After away games, we packed back into the vans without showering or changing. Funky and hungry we sped off for something to eat. In those days, the college allowed each player a $5 per diem for each meal which would have been fine; but Coach Wehrum did not think highly of fast food restaurants. As a result he had to come up with created ways to feed his teams. For example, he would organize with parents to host at family homes. They would both feed us and bed us in sleeping bags on the floor. Herk’s lacrosse budget made the cost of hotel too expensive for us.

I’d loved to hear about away game food stories from others who played for the great Paul Wehrum. Please share your thoughts and the years you played for him.

Herkimer Food Memories Continued: Now that’s a Thick Shake!

Classic Thick Shaker Maker from back in the Day

As a freshmen at Herkimer County Community College I went food exploring down town early on while other teammates searched for happy hours at town watering holes. The deal with me was I never liked carbonated drinks so I stayed clear of beer or soda. When I did drink soda, I shake up until it was flat, crazy but true. I quickly discovered that the same eatery that made great wedges also made a terrific vanilla thick shake and that's where I had my happy hour. We call them smoothies today but it was the same concept back then. They made the shake so thick and rich, with more vanilla ice cream than milk, that the straw would stand at attention in the 20 once cup it came in. My lips would get tired from drawing out the cold sweet vanilla bean flavored beverage. But I never stopped piercing my lips from around that straw until the last bit when down the back my throat. The taste of the shake merited the strenuous effort and it’s something that stays with me today put in a healthier form. Today I make smoothies for me and family vanilla soy milk and frozen fruit. Every brand of soy milk taste different so try several and stick with vanilla flavor soy milk, plane honestly tastes like chalk to me. The right one in the end is a healthy choice however. Instead of ice cream I use fresh frozen fruit and about a quarter cup of vanilla soy yogurt. My kids love strawberry smoothies which I mix with a little frozen banana, vanilla protein powder, and honey as a sweetener. I make the smoothies straw standing still thick just like back in Herk. I have burned out the motor in several blenders over the years. So I asked my wife to get me one of those high powdered professional blenders. They are like 300 bucks put they tell me they are well worth the investment and most come with a lifetime warranty. You know the ones. You seem them doing demos at Costco with them from time to time; they look like they have monster truck engine under the hood. Yes, that’s the bad boy I want for my birthday one day!

A Herkimer Food Memory: Hot Sandwiches Too Good To Be Legal

Classic Egg and Pepper Sandwich Like I Had in Herk in the 1980s

Phone conversations with Herk folk triggered other food memories from the Mohawk Valley. Coach Paul Wehrum, the only Junior College Lacrosse Coach in the National Lacrosse Hall of Fame, told me that Herkimer had an Italian immigrant community that dates back to the turn of the century. With them came Italian culinary culture that penetrated the menus’ of eateries in downtown Herk. Some of us student athletes at Herkimer County Community College (HCCC) remembered a place in down town, perhaps a pizza parlor, that sold these awesome hot Italian wedges, I think they call them subs in Herkimer County. The egg and pepper sandwich is the one I can still see and taste the most. The tradition developed as Italian Roman Catholics developed creative ways to eat well during the Lenten season six weeks before Easter. I never had such a sandwich growing up in Westchester even though I grew up around lots of Italian Americans--perhaps the sandwich became a regional tradition over time. This small Herk eatery made the sandwich to order cooking the ingredients in front of you: seasoned eggs and green peppers. The cook behind the counter filled a piece of Italian bread as long as my forearm with the eggs and peppers, It was a simple sandwich but oh so good! The cook wrapped the sandwich in foil with the top portion open and then put it in the oven used to make pizzas. After five minutes in the oven they pulled it from the oven with the top of the bread golden brown and the eggs and pepper steaming hot. Basketball player Ed Anderson of Rochester reminded me that the same restaurant also sold what can best be described as the Herk version of the Philly cheese steak. They made it on the same forearm length piece of Italian bread. They filled the bread with thinly sliced and sautéed pieces of roast beef, onions, and mushrooms. You could get it served with a choice of melted cheese or a red Italian gravy. Those sandwiches tasted so good that they should have been illegal!

Egg and Pepper Sandwich Recipe: http://prouditaliancook.blogspot.com/2008/01/humble-pepper-and-egg-sandwich.html

COUPON CLIPPING COOKING

Both Herkimer classmate Ed Anderson and I remembered shopping on a limited budget at the town’s Great American Super Market. I’d cut out food coupons and coming up with creative ideas for inexpensive meals. “I got money every two weeks from my folk, I had to make it last,” said Ed. Finding smoked and salted pork parts and sweet potatoes needed to make collards and pie represented a serious challenge in Herkimer’s Great American super market. Back then I ate a lot of meat. I quickly learned that turkey parts, especially the wings could be purchased cheaply. I made fried turkey wings smothered in gravy. I also prepared inexpensive side dishes such as corn bread, biscuits, cabbage, sautéed green beans, corn on the cob, turnips and carrots. I developed a really good recipe for glazed carrots and glazed turnips that still make today (recipe below). In part it’s part of a recipe I saw Todd Ernest’s (a hockey teammate) mom make in her Mt Kisco Kitchen.

Glazed carrots and or turnips:
3 cups of diced carrots or turnips; steam until soft but still crunchy (I use a pressure cooker which is fast and preserves the vitamins and nutrients
1/3 cup of brown sugar
½ teaspoon of cinnamon
½ teaspoon of sea salt
Table spoon of Grated orange peel
1 teaspoon of pectin
4 teaspoons of butter or butter substitute
1/3 cup of orange juice.
Directions: bring the juice and butter to slight boil then add salt, seasoning, and pectin. Lower the heat and let it cook (about 3 minutes) until the sauce gels. Stir in steamed vegetables and let cook for a minute and serve.

Yonkers' Police Called to Arrest Costco Food Coupon Thief

Photo of my Costco Coupon book, considered Like Gold by some customers, Photo, Frederick Douglass Opie

I am a regular Saturday morning grocery shopper at the Costco in Yonkers. I inquired at the entrance about if the store had the coupons that they mail out to all members. An employee said yes, “they are like gold man!” He repeated the phrase emphatically, “they are like gold!” He explained, earlier in the week a cop calling fight broke out over Costco Food coupons. While shopping in one of the aisles the first customer stepped away from her carriage with a coupons book inside it to get something off a shelf. The second customer helped herself to the coupons which resulted in a pitched battle in the middle of the Costco. My Costco informant said, the two women “got up in each others’ faces ready to fight!” The first women called the Yonkers police department on her cell phone to report a robbery. When the officers arrived on the scene and the first women demanded the arrest of the coupon thief immediately. One of the officers responded, “Lady if you ever call us again over some Costco food coupons, we will arrest you!” Folks this is a true storey worthy of the Brian Lehrer Show’s project “Uncommon Economic Indicators,” and the economy. Here’s a link to this exceptionally good local WNYC Public Radio station show: http://www.wnyc.org/shows/bl/economic_indicators/

BUFFALO WINGS

Hot Wings, Photo Asten Morgan Jr.

The folks in the Central New York are crazy about Buffalo wings! I found that out when I enrolled in Herkimer County Community College (HCCC) in the fall of 1981. In Herk (as we called the town and the college), all the pizza shops that I remember sold mild, hot, or very hot Buffalo wings. They would take un-breaded or battered wings and cook them in the same kind of deep fryer used to make French fries. Some places also broiled them in an oven. When they came out they soaked them briefly a a seasoned hot sauce and served them with celery sticks and blue cheese dressing as a dipping sauce. The competition for buffalo wing customers was fierce among the several pizza shop owners in Herk. And because of that we students could always find coupons for wing deals in the college newspaper. Anybody who went to college or just lived in an urban section of upstate New York knows what I am talking about. It’s an upstate New York eating tradition that is alive and competitive! The origins of the tradition date back to 1960s Buffalo, New York with a heated battle over who really started the food fad. The tradition spread south as Buffalo residents relocated to different regions of the North East including Florida. Hooters became the first restaurant chain to feature Buffalo wings as the center piece of their menu. Domino’s and Pizza Hut followed with their own Buffalo wings marketing campaign. Here’s a recipe: http://elise.com/recipes/archives/001675buffalo_wings.php

The Croton Dinner

Croton Dinner located on the corner of 9A and 129 in Croton-on-Hudson, NY. Great food at a family run business! 

I talked a lot about the town pizza parlors and delis. But we teen viewed the Croton Dinner as an iconic symbol of the town. The dinner had a Greek owner who wisely opened his place with 24 hour operating hours. In our small town no eatery competed with it. It had great affordable American cuisine; great baked good—including killer pies by the slice, the daily special, or breakfast food like pancakes 24 hour a day. Pete the owner knew what he was doing. The people who worked there, including many members of this family and extended family, provided excellent, warm, and friendly service. Croton teens went to the dinner following Friday night basketball games, plays, and parties. And we went there early in the morning for breakfast before Saturday Lacrosse games. At lunch time or late in the evening I often ordered a BLT sandwich that came with fries and a serving of coleslaw. They had the best thick steak fries always hot and golden brown. Sometimes I would just order of fries which I ate with salt and good old Heinz ketchup. Or I’d get a hot toasted corn muffin with butter and a glass of milk. The corn muffins, baked large and thick, kept me straight for two quarters of a Saturday lacrosse game out at the point. I needed that muffin to last until half time when we as a team devoured fresh meaty slices of juicy orange and a ton of water. By the way, congrats Pete on celebrating 40 years in business!

All You Can Eat Pasta and Garlic Bread

The Old Ossining Elks’ Club twenty years after I use to go there for spaghetti dinners. The club and the surrounding property are overgrown with vines and bushes. But back in the 1980s, on Friday nights, it transformed into a bustling Italian restaurant with a dreamlike menu for three hungry teenagers from Croton. Photo, Frederick Douglass Opie.

While on the topic of Italian cuisine, I want to talk about another senior year food escape, but this one in the next town over, Ossining. One Friday during school classmates Ray Fortini and Ed Pothast invited me to eat out with them. One of them asked, “he Op you want to get some good cheap eats tonight?” I jumped on the idea like a horse. Ray and Ed took me to the Elks’ Club in Ossining on the east working class side of Ossining overlooking the Hudson River. The members had taken a beautiful spacious mansion and converted into to their club; an all white working glass club that my classmates never thought might be problematic for me to enter. My mother grew up in Ossining and I knew the town did not have a history free of de-facto Jim Crow practices. Such practices and better schools spurred my folks to move with their three boys from Ossining to Croton in the mid-nineteen sixties. When we walked in it seemed like all eyes turned on us. Nobody made in hostile overtures but they looked surprised to see us. On Friday nights, the Elks’ Club members held an all you can eat spaghetti dinner for something like $4.00. The meal included all you could eat garlic bread and water too. The cooks in the club’s kitchen made very good homemade sauce for the spaghetti and the volunteers kept fantastic warm garlic bread coming by the basket full. Here we were three senior high school athletes with serious appetites. After my first time I became a regular even during summer vacations from college. It reflection it seems to me that perhaps I broke the clubs color line back then because I never saw another African American in the place. The clubs members treated me very well—but then again, I never inquired about becoming a member (smile).

Carvel

The tan building in the photo is a restaurant where the Carvel once stood in my home town of Croton-on-Hduson. It closed shortly after I graduated from high school (CHHS) in 1981. Photo Courtesy of Bill Tuttle

Croton is one of those small American towns that never became overrun by fast food restaurants. On summer nights the Carvel Ice Cream stand served as 8th through about 10th grade place to be; those years when you were cool but car less. I lived a 15 minute bike ride away from the Harmon based Carvel stand on the opposite side of town. As I rode closer and closer to the stand on my bike, a glowing light grew brighter and revealed droves of young people eating ice cream cones, flying saucers (ice cream sandwiches), and enjoying root beer floats. In reflection, the Carvel provided a space for Croton youth just entering purity to flirt. The right side of the drive way when you faced the serving counter to the stand remains linked in my mine with teenage asking out and going out rituals at their awkward best. The ice cream looked and tasted great and the conversations with girls I tried to impress unsuccessful. Night after summer night I'd peddle across town in pursuit of a carvel ice cream and a girl’s attention.

Let’s Talk Small Town New York Pizza

I spent several summers living in Guadalajara, Mexico with a host family learning Spanish in the 1990s. It’s a great place by the way for foodies with terrific eateries and very inexpensive. However hunting for a good slice of pizza represented one of the first things I did when I returned to Croton from Guadalajara. Let’s talk small town New York pizza for moment. In Croton, like other Hudson Valley villages, one could fine good pizza. You had King’s Pizza located in the village of Croton, Honey’s, a bar and grill on riverside avenue, which served Pizza I believe only on Fridays through Sundays, and what later became Capriccios located in lower Harmon. Those who commute to New York City via Metro North Railway will recognize Croton Harmon Station. I attended a Labor Day barbecue in Croton last week. I found a friendly debate about who made the best pizza in town and why very interesting. I wondered what Croton folks thought about this. Who had the best pizza parlor food during the 1960s to the 1980s and why? Also like the delis in town, how many different pizza parlor names and locations do you remember in Croton or Harmon? Whatever the opinions, Croton-on-Hudson remains a place where Pizza Hut, Dominoes Pizza, and out chains have not made in roads. For a brief while the town had a local chain called Pizza and Brew but that recently went under. The traditional pizza parlors where employees in days gone by talked to each other in Italian were just too good for locals to consider chain pizza. By the way, most of the great pizza we enjoy in the Hudson Valley and NYC today are made by employees talking to each in Spanish and receiving cash for their labor from Italian American parlor owners.

Labor Day Reflections Part II: Barbecuing Southern Style

Negro sitting on bench at side of barbecue stand made of galvanized metal, Corpus Christi, Tx, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Div LC-USF33- 012032-M2

Here’s an appropriate Labor Day reflection on barbecuing from research I did for my book Hog and Hominy which is now in print http://cup.columbia.edu/book/978-0-231-14638-8/hog-and-hominy/webFeatures. In the south, no barbecue was considered done unless the meat was “saturated with blistering sauces.” Cooks repeatedly basted the barbecuing meat, whether it be pork or beef ribs,chicken, or sausage for hours until it was a “aromatic brown,” with a “mixture of vinegar, mustard, catsup, Worchester sauce, olive oil, Tabasco sauce, lemon juice and whole red peppers in great quantity. The sauce [was] boiled for three minutes after mixture before being applied to the meat [sic].” (America Eats Project, WPA State Records, Alabama 1930s). Good barbecue in short is meat cooked slowly and frequently basted. For flavor some suggest adding hickory chips to your coals.

Labor Day Reflections Part I: Barbecues

Yesterday I attended a Labor Day family Barbecue at Croton Point Park in my home town. It was a great event with lots of good food and fellowship. We had macaroni salad, potato salad, and I fried some whitening and chicken wings there. My cousin, a great cook, barbecued some chicken. The barbecue chicken made me think of an oral history of Reginald T. Ward, that I did for my book Hog and Hominy: Soul Food from Africa to America http://cup.columbia.edu/book/978-0-231-14638-8/hog-and-hominy/webFeatures. Barbecue in his home town of Robbinsville, North Carolina meant “chopped barbecue.” He explained that barbecue in New York meant barbecue ribs or chicken. “But in North Carolina barbecue, a whole pig is barbecued, cooked, and they chop it up with the different spices in it like vinegar and red pepper.” I learned a lot about barbecue in the process of growing up in the Hudson Valley around Italian American classmates and relatives from North Carolina and Virginia. I also learned a lot writing a food history book, the book tour and book signings that have followed, and travel in and outside of the United States. The word barbecue varies so much from region to region. The differences are the equipment, what people barbecue and what they put on the item they are barbecuing before, during, and after the cooking process. If you are a hardcore Labor Day barbecue person you must read Black Panther Bobby Seale’s book Barbeque’n with Bobby Seale. Originally from Texas, Seale is a barbecue genius! His cook book tells you how to make sauces, baste marinades, side dishes, and both hickory and mesquite barbecue recipes for both meats and vegetables. Here’s a link to his book and website http://www.bobbyqueseale.com/. Have a great Labor Day barbecue!

Glazed and Jelly Customs at CHHS

When you entered Croton-Harmon High School (CHHS) in the 1970s, you quickly learned the morning school custom of eating delightful Ossining Italian Bakery donuts and drinking a carton of milk in the school cafeteria. As a fund raiser, each senior class at CHHS would sell donuts, (chocolate cookies) and milk in the school cafeteria. But most school alum would agree that the packed cookies paled in popularity compared to the freshly baked warm donuts. The smell of sweet glazed donuts and fruit flavored jelly donuts sprinkled with a sugar and cinnamon permeated the first floor of the building from the doors on the west of the school to steps leading up to the double doors for the library on the left and the shop on the right. That mouth-watering smell remains one of my most vivid high school memories. The bakery truck delivered the donuts every school morning from Ossining, the next village southeast of Croton on the banks of the Hudson River. On a cool Hudson Valley morning, eating one of those warm donuts for a quarter with a carton of cold milk for the same price tasted like heaven on earth. One of the faculty members of the school became so utterly roundly associated the daily morning ritual that we students dubbed him the “donut man.”

Hockey Rink Food and Friends

In middle school, I started watching a lot of ice hockey during the height of Hall of Famer Bobby Orr’s career with the Boston Bruins. Watching him sparked my short live hockey career which started in a house league hosted at the now defunct Westchester Skating Rink once located around the corner from the Westchester Medical Center. I played hockey from the sixth grade until my senior year in high school and the culinary habits formed then are still with me today. Most rinks have snack bars that cater to the culinary taste and habits of their clients. Many of the parents of the players in the leagues I played in the Hudson Valley region grew up in New York City (NYC) particularly in the ethnic Jewish, Irish, and Italian neighborhoods. As a result, the snack bars at the rinks stocked traditional stuff like hamburgers and hotdogs familiar to this Croton native. But rink food exposed me to bagels eaten a thousand different ways, a variety of knishes, and large hot NYC style pretzels best eaten with mustard on them. A knish is seasoned potato puree inside a golden colored crust and shaped like a small square water balloon. During my sophomore year in high school, I started playing for a junior B travel team called the Westchester Wings, defunct now too. The team included players from all over the county. Sleepovers at the homes of teammates from Mahopac, Mt Kisco, and Scarsdale also exposed me to new ethnic dishes such as haggis, what I describe as Scottish folks’ version of chitins.’

Traditional Scottish Haggis Recipe: http://www.rampantscotland.com/recipes/blrecipe_haggis.htm

Remembering Costa Soda

Photo of Costa Beverage Sign, location unknown

It’s amazing what you remember about your childhood. Memories of Costa sodas are another part of Rosario’s corner store that is fresh in my mind. Across from the registrar and the Good Humor ice cream freezer Rosario’s had Costa Cola refrigerator. Costa’s marketing department came up with a savvy idea. “Under the bottle cap you could win $. When you won, the soda was free! A great bonus after playing baseball or basketball at JFK on a hot day” remembered classmate Dave Perri. The gimmick worked because after buying a soda I immediately twisted off the top and peeled off the rubber insert under the cap looking to see if I won a free soda! I was cream and root beer guy, but they also had cola and orange flavor I believe. I tried to find some history on the Costa Beverage Company but came up with some information. First a Camp WoodCliff Alumni website in which former campers recalled, “Receiving canteen and 35 cents for the soda machine. Costa brand if I remember correctly.”(http://www.jlfurniture.com/camp_woodcliff.html) A blogger and Native of Newburgh, NY, up the Hudson River from Croton, writes, “If you lived in the Northeast from the 1950s through the ’80s, you probably came across a regional variety of brews called Costa Sodas, with that simple but distinctive logo. Costa Beverages was based in Newburgh, NY, and kept chugging for decades until shutting down in 1988.” The photo in this post is from the following website: http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.populationstatistic.com/images/costabevsign_newburghwashst.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.populationstatistic.com/archives/2006/05/14/&usg=__r3RyxxtSi4XwPjARLRV8AJyis5s=&h=299&w=455&sz=28&hl=en&start=1&tbnid=SkEC3guTH29dYM:&tbnh=84&tbnw=128&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dcosta%2Bsoda%26gbv%3D2%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26sa%3DG