Last week I was thinking about one of my favorite places to eat in NYC. A lot of my doctors are in NYC and I would be in NYC easily every 4-6 weeks for one appointment or another.
A by-product of all these appointments is that I would explore the neighborhoods and eventually have some places I would shop at or eat at regularly. Fatty Crab was one such place.
For a while (1-2 years) I would see my therapist on the UWS every 2 weeks (until we transitioned to phone-in appointments), and either before or after the appointment, I would head to Fatty Crab to strap on the ol' feedbag.
It was at Fatty Crab where I grew to love Indonesian and Malaysian food. The first time I ever had nasi goreng was there.
Fatty Crab closed around 2016, and ever since then I have wondered whatever happened to the restaurant and its chef, Zakary Pelaccio. (Turns out, it looks like he's somewhere's in upstate NY doing his thing.)
Related neuron: Sadly, I never got around to visiting Fatty Cue, which also closed.
Digging around online I didn't find much in the way of current stuff, most recent are articles about Fatty Crab's closure; however, I did find a NYT article about "Eat With Your Hands," a cookbook Pelaccio put out in 2012.
Finding this article then made me think of yet another favorite spot I'd regularly frequent, this time on the UES, Kitchen Arts & Letters, an independent book store which sells books devoted to food and drink.
The last time I visited Kitchen Arts and Letters was in "The Beforetimes," the time before COVID19, and my last purchase was The Mission Chinese Food Cook Book, by Chris Ying and Danny Bowien.
I decided I wanted to get Pelaccio's book, and I didn't see it on the site for Kitchen Arts & Letters, so I tweeted at them, and they replied quickly. They let me know they had the book in stock and they made it super easy for me to place my order. That was precisely three weeks ago.
Two Fridays ago, as I was setting up a batch of pork bone broth in my pressure cooker (with the intent for both, hot and sour soup, as well as broth for ramen), when there was a thud at my doorstep. Pelaccio's book arrived. Not only did the book arrive, it was also a SIGNED copy.
I spent most of the day reading the introduction of the book, daydreaming about the fun I will have exploring recipes as yet unfamiliar to me, as the aroma of the star anise in my bone broth wafts through the house, as my air conditioner hummed away.
In that moment, I was as close to happy as I've come in the last six months, which involved both, the 3-4 month shut down due to the pandemic, all the psychological warfare spewing out of the White House, and most importantly to me, the passing of my mom.
I love how in one section of the introduction of the book Pelaccio says: "A good drink helps to alleviate stress and numbs you to the trivial concerns of a broken society--and to any possible burns or cuts that occur as a result of cooking drunk."
How fitting--cooking is at times a full contact sport, but oftentimes, if I am not being too careful, it can become a BLOOD SPORT.
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