williamsburg brooklyn flea market

on sunday i got up early and took the train to new york city to meet up with britany for a trip to williamsburg to scope out the flea market.  the first good thing that happened was that i made the 10:56 am train from new haven...the second good thing was it was the brand new metro north train.....wow what luxury!!!!! i had a wonderful ride ....read the sunday times and had breakfast in comfort.  britany met me at the 6 subway station on bleecker and we headed out to la colombe torrefaction (the name sounds like a bit scary) for a good cup of coffee.  brit had olive oil cake and i had a chocolate walnut cookie.  the olive oil cake had a sort of zucchini bread texture and was very heavy on the nutmeg....the chocolate cookie was the perfect combination of slightly crisp on the the outside with deep fudgey gooey inside.   we split half of the cookie and i saved the rest......the olive oil cake ended up oozing oil all over the style section of the times.   we took the L train to williamsburg and got off at driggs and 7th. and walked toward the water.  i have never been to brooklyn on purpose.....the two other times i have been there were both by mistake....once was a wrong turn and the other a little miscommunication with the gps.  the neighborhood was interesting...kind of urban meets beachy bar vibe..... we found the flea market and had a great time walking from stall to stall and taking in all of the treasures/junk against a kind of eerie foggy back drop of the manhattan skyline.  there was 60's kitchy furniture.....stuff i remembered tilly and my mom having....kind of weird in a fun way.  (my  mom says it's only collectible if you did not own it the first time it was in)
one whole side of the flea market was devoted to food stalls.  there were quirky teams of folks selling all kinds of food....grilled corn on a skewer, huarache, molasses milk, various yummy looking baked goods....some odd looking pickles  and czechoslovakian pies......and so on.   we decided to sample some of the jams, the molasses milk...which was very good.  we ventured into the sunday gravy  special which was a slab of crusty bread with a tomato sauce that appeared to have multiple kinds of meat in a hearty ragu. this tasted really good. the bread was covered with toasted sesame seeds which had a great flavor that was nice with the ragu.

concetta's sunday gravy

 more after the jump

one of the last 3 pork sandwiches

 we notice two guys with an empty cutting board....3 foil wrapped sandwiches sitting there and one guy was carefully making a sign that said "sorry out of pork".... i quickly pulled out the 5 dollars for a sandwich and got one of the last three....the one guy had a half a roll he was using to mop up the remains of the pork loin on the cutting board....they sat there for the rest of the day selling salt which was they had left ....the pork by the way was fantastic.....really really good....brit and i split the one.   we sat for a while and soaked up the view and the atmosphere of the park by the water....looking up at the new gorgeous apartment buildings and thought about what a beautiful view they must have and ok fantasized about what it might be like to live there.  we had a debate over which way to go to get back to the subway station......we made it back to the city in time to squeeze in a visit to sur la table in soho and dessert crepes and a glass of white wine at balthazar on spring street.  i lost count of how many good things happened that day....who cares what the weather did it was a great day spending time with my daughter doing some stuff we both love to do..... oh and i had the other half of the awesome cookie for dinner on the train!  Loveshi Brit.