This past Sunday was NYC’s annual Puerto Rican day parade. Arguably the biggest and best parade of the summer in my opinion. Interestingly, all the flags and Boriquan pride reminded me it was a good time to eat some cupcakes. There has been a fantastic new comer to the overexposed, uber trendy cupcake market and this Sunday there was no better day to celebrate it. You see, this little shop doesn’t host a duo of pink checkered, puffy sleeved, laced fronted, A-line, above the knee, dress wearing hipsters. You won’t find the staff with thick framed colored glasses delicately icing and stacking their toy cakes like fresh baked jewels. On the contrary, behind the counter you’ll find a troop of hard working woman (and men) multiplying cupcakes faster than a wet mogwai. Every time I’ve visited the shop it’s been engulfed with fresh cakes in various states of completion. Boxes, trays and cake displays have pushed out of the kitchen hoping to find an empty front of house table to temporarily rest on before being escorted outside into the delivery truck. I’ve often wanted to ask if every little Brooklyn girl with a birthday placed an order simultaneously. Needless to say they are busy. They must be doing something right.

The power behind this miniature cake making madness are four amazing Puerto Rican and Italian woman. Besides turning out a moist and delicious cake they have brought some of their traditional flavors into the fold. Beyond their tasty and unique flavored cakes the shop has a noteworthy motive to give back to the community. Their philantropy and dedication to the neighborhood is awesome but let’s dig deeper into what makes these cupcakes such contenders. The flavors.

The no nonsense and highly functional packaging choice pictured above contains four of their most unique and latin of flavors. The Tres Leches (3 milk cake), Dulce de Leche (double condensed milk until it’s almost caramel), Flan(caramel custard) and Coquito (a rum, coconut eggnog) take on flavors you’ve never imagined in cupcake form. Popping in for an individual helping of some of these classic, flavorful latin specialties makes for an awesome mid-day pit stop. Pair it with a proper cafe con leche and you’ll become an instant regular.

Tres Leche

Dulce de Leche

Rounding out the above packaging are two flavors from their Italian side, a strawberry cheesecake and ingenious Rainbow Cookie cupcake. Bringing two goomba classics into personal cake form can only be great. The Rainbow cookie is worth a pause. This three layered cake of  almond-based sponge cake, apricot and raspberry jam topped with a chocolate coating is hard enough to perfect in a cookie, let alone a cupcake. They have succeeded with all the punch that a well made Italian nona’s cookie would have. Bright colored cake, distinctively tasting layers and a rich chocolate coating that works so well it could be stand alone makes this not only a taste bud pleaser but the winner for  the best looking internal cupcake you’ve ever seen.

The menu just keeps going and going. More Puerto Rican and Italian flavors include Guava Con Queso (a unique guava paste and cheese mixture) Morir Sonando (Orange Creamsicle-Like), Pistachio and french toast. That last one comes out of no where but it’s still a really unique idea just without the ethnic link.

Think we’re done with flavors? Think again.

Bananas Foster (Weekends Only) and Key Lime (Seasonal) amongst some of their heritage flavors.

Oreo

Tiramisu (Weekends Only)

Completing the line up with more standard but equally delicious flavors are Strawberry Shortcake, Crazy Carrot, Brooklyn Red Velvet, Coconut, Chocolate Coconut, Peanut Butter & Jelly, Chocolate Peanut Butter, Madagascar Vanilla and Chocolate Raspberry.

With all these choices it’s going to be tough to decided. My advice, bring some friends and get at least a six pack. Ohh yeah remember to leave your frilly cupcake ensemble at home. Instead brush up on your Luis Guzman knowledge endearingly referred to as Pachanga in my house.

The Canadian is having a France fetish this year. She recently dug into David Lebowitz book “The Sweet Life in Paris”, which she loved. It inspired a test kitchen experiment that began with this chocolate delight pulled from the pages of his book. It ended with some mini cake experiments, molten chocolate and tickets to Paris held on Kayak. All in an evenings work. Look for it on a Forking Tasty Supper menu soon.

If you know anything about how our family celebrates the holidays it is not like your ordinary family holiday. No, our holidays is packed with a ridiculous amount of food. Basically, if there is 10 people coming to eat we cook for 30. What do you expect, were Italian and we like to eat our delicious food more than just one day. We eat it over the course of a week, sometimes more. For instance, for dessert we made 15 different christmas cookies. Some of them were made 3x the regular recipe amount. Lets put it this way, picture your family dining room table that seats about 8. Now picture that entire table filled with tins of christmas cookies some 2 or 3 tins high. Oh and by the way, we also had a few cakes to make things interesting. Here is the rundown of the homemade goodness:

Black and White

Butter Horn

Pignoli Cookie

Long Walnut Cookie

Chocolate Filled Cookies

Tortalina

Rainbow Cookie

Chocolate Brownie Cookie

Peanutbutter Cookie

Gumdrop Cookie

Cherry Cookie

Butterfly Cookie

Butter Cookie

Pistachio Cherry Biscotti

I mentioned earlier that we had 15 different cookies but if you were counting I only have pictures of 14. There was a new comer to the christmas cookies this year. The Ricotta Minicakes and they were such a hit that they were all eaten before I could take a picture of it. I guess everyone was curious about the new cookie and they were really good so they went fast. No worries, I’m sure they will make it to christmas again next year.

…. Not that I am on a diet but I typically will not eat like this all at once. It was the southerners and my last night in Barcelona. The night before be had a massive dinner in Barcelona (post coming soon) and I think it expanded our stomachs creating this void that needed to be filled. What else but to fill that void with food that really tastes good but is really bad for you. We didn’t want to have a sit down dinner but to walk around and sample food here and there.

We needed some food to walk with to find MORE food. We came across the Super Dog. It’s a basic hot dog but they have some extra crunchy stuff added to it. It reminded me of the extra fried crumbs that fall off fried chicken. It gave it that extra added something that made it better than your classic hotdog. That crunch tweaked out appetite and the southerner started to crave fried chicken. Walking up La Rambla there just happen to be a KFC and we need to satisfy that fried craving. Two chicken legs later we were on the hunt for more food.

After a couple pieces of chicken we walked around town dipping our heads in and out of some small to-go type restaurants. I came across a Schwarma restaurant. In barcelona there are lots of doner kababs but not as many Schwarma’s. I go really excited and got a chicken and lamb schwarma and told them to load it up. See above. It was perfect, tender meats, perfect amount for sauce and spice and really big to boot. It was the best thing I ate all night by far. My mom would not be happy with me because I was not a good sharer when it came to my Schwarma. When I was done I wanted another but it was a good thing we were walking around and were far from the restaurant or I just might have had to get another.

On our way back we need to finish the food walk with some desert. We ended up right where we started near the Super Dog. Next to the Super Dog was a waffle stand. As we got closer and closer to the waffle stand the delicious smell of hot waffles and melted chocolate exhumed the air and the southerner needed her chocolate fill. It was really good but a little rich for me. Like may sharing skill with the schwarma the southerner did not share much of that waffle with me either.

I guess the only thing that I can feel good about is the fact that with all that good bad for me food, at least I was walking around while enjoying it.

Forking Tasty Italian Ice Cream Sandwich, Palermo Sicily from Anthony Anello on Vimeo.

A few posts ago Jay had a post about an ice cream sandwich called Literal Ice Cream Sandwich. Jay was not a fan at all. I’m a sandwich man and love making sandwiches out of everything. So I had to try the Literal Ice Cream sandwich. I went all the way to Palermo Sicily to try it out….

I recently took a road trip from South Carolina to Key West Florida with the southerner. The trip should take about 14 hours from start to finish. However, we did break up the trip and spent a couple days in a few places along the way and back.

On our way down, and after about 9 hours of driving we made a pit stop for the night at grandmas in Port St. Lucie Florida. It was a perfect stop because I have not seen my 90-year-old grandmother in 2-3 years and after 9 hours we were starting to get tired of driving and listening to our GPS. We were about 3 miles from Grandmas when we stop off at a Publix to pick up some flowers and strawberry short cakes. We were bringing my grandmother a bag of strawberries we picked the day before. (Check out the post on picking strawberries). When we got backing the car the GPS could not find the signal. So after 9 hours of driving we were 3 miles away and now, lost! We could not believe it and drove up and down to see if I could recognize anything. After about 15 minutes we used our back up GPS, the southerners phone, and made it to Grandmas. What an adventure but we finally made it there safe and tired.

The next day it was back on the road to Key West for my friends Jim and Cathryn’s Wedding. I have known Jim since I was 3 years old and I had never been to a beach wedding before. Needless to say I was excited. It was a long trip on the one lane road to Key West. We made it there by midday and headed straight for the pool. Our first forking tasty moment happened that night for dinner at the Hot Tin Roof, part of the Ocean Key Resort and Spa. It was nice and warm and we sat outside to watch the sun set. After ordering a bottle of wine we were going back and forth on the menu and then the waiter told us the specials. That through a wrench in our plan, and we ended up with the surf and turf special for 2. The meal was ridiculous. We both had an 8oz filet mignon and a lobster tail. On the side was a baked artichoke with melted cheese. It was delicious.

We could not come to Key west and not get a Key Lime Pie.

Our second forking tasty moment came at the wedding. The destination beach wedding was a small and simple wedding with lots of flavor. The cocktail hour had an assortment of cheeses and nuts along with a bunch of finger foods. My favorite was the mini bruschetta. I couldn’t stop eating them as the waiter and waitresses came by.

For dinner they had shredded beef and chicken wrapped in prosciutto with a cooked onion sauce. It was delicious.

Cupcakes for dessert.

The bride and groom looked great and they, along with the southerner and I, had a great time. It was my first beach wedding and hopefully not my last.

The next day we were on the road again to visit grandma before heading to Savannah Georgia for a night. Stay tune for a blog on Savannah……

The southerner and I spent the day walking around town and soaking in the rich history that Charleston has to offer. Of course we got hungry. We ended up at a restaurant called Coast where they had half price bottles of wine that particular night, lucky us. We had a couple of fish dishes for dinner but that is not what this post is about. It was where we went after for dessert that is postable. We walked down to Market Street and went to Kaminsky’s Café. We wanted another glass of wine and a bite of dessert. The great thing about Kaminsky is they make their desserts fresh everyday which means that don’t always have the same desserts. They don’t put the desserts on the menu but in a glass case as soon as you walk in. Great placement for their glass case, and I am sure many people have to stop and come in as they walk by and see the gorgeous desserts in the window. We settled on a double chocolate cheesecake. As you may or may not know I’m not big on sweets for a few reasons however I did take a couple of bites of this cheesecake. My first bite gave me a huge chill up my back. I have never had that happen to me before. Thinking maybe I just got cold I took another small bit and the same thing, a huge chill up my back. Very strange and I put down my fork. That cheesecake was so rich and delicious, two bits was enough for me.

If your ever in Charleston and you have a sweet tooth do yourself a favor and go to Kaminsky’s and check out their glass case….Delicious!

Nonsense happens at the holidays. I am sure for many families that comes in different forms. With no surprise my families nonsense comes in edible form. The crux of this derelict family trait is THE COOKIE TABLE. It sits in the corner of the dining room and taunts us all with silent sweetness. The first “official” cookie course doesn’t come until Christmas Eve but each of us quickly falls into temptation after the confectionery seduction uncrosses it’s proverbial legs. By the time dessert on Christmas Eve arrives each of has already dipped our fingers into one or more of the tightly sealed but loosely guarded cookie tins.

Every last dessert is made with an ingredient that I find precious and necessary to make delicious food. From my Aunt Joy’s pignoli cookies to my mom’s tortalina’s, pictured above, each has at least a half cup of love as a main ingredient. Now that might seem like whimsical bullshit but every single person I have ever seen eat a cookie off the table lights up with their first bite. I’m not implying back flips and cartwheels but if you take notice there is a little flicker as their incisors crack into the sweet dough like an internal dimmer switch was turned up.

This cookie table taunts us for three days as we struggle to keep away from it while preparing lunch, dinner and even breakfast. I thought I’d share some of the addictive residents calling this years table home so you can attempt to understand the crisis my family is subjected to each year. Ironically it’s self inflicted. Double ironically we are oblivious to our vice.

1. Tortalina (pictured above)

These are the most decadent and delicate of all the cookies. Two separate batters make up their character. A flakey outside crust cups a deep, rich decadent nut, brown sugar and vanilla flavored center. A powdered sugar drizzle completes the process. These are most irresistible late at night. Sneaking them causes powdered sugar trails so be careful to not wear the evidence. They also take a long time to make. Therefore, there is a lower numbers of them on the table. If too many of these are stolen it results in others noticing the dwindling tortalina population.

2. Orange-Crasin Cookies

New to the line up these bad boys tempt the tummy any time of day. A great breakfast coffee dunker is part of their charm. Luckily they come in abundance and are fast to make. The downside, they never run out. They are always bragging about their crunchy exterior and chewy soft interior. If a cookie could talk these would be stand up comedians.

3. Chocolate Truffles

The chemical warfare agent of the cookie world. These bad boys are silent until the first bite. They lure you in with their smooth and rounded tops and dropped white lace decoration. Once you bite you fall hard into the deep, dense chocolate center. It assaults your stomach as quickly as your tongue shooting signals around your body almost as fast as when you stepped on that rusty nail as a kid. Of course, it’s the good kind of pain.

4. Rainbow Cookies

A classic and a staple. In the Italian culture these fall in the same iconoclastic category as the horn, wife beater, IROC-Z and chicken parmigiana. Make no mistake that this cake-in-a-cookie disguise is a birth right. Eating one is more of a mandate instead of a choice. At least that is how we rationalize the consumption. The edible version of a nations flag is a tough thing to resist particularly when fruit preserves separate the colors.

5. Russian Tea Balls

Think palette cleanser between cookies. These scrumptious balls are lined up like powdered sugar soldiers in their airtight bunker waiting to be airlifted by a pair of sticky fingers into the tunnel labyrinth behind enemy lines that is your throat. I guess that description is a bit more Vietnam than the Cold War inferred name but in any case these deceiving simpletons pack a flavor punch and once across the DMZ fill up the tummy quickly. Tread lightly with these.

6. Gum Drop Cookies (top)
7. Butterhorns

Gum Drops are just what you think. A baked version of the childhood original candy. The colorful bite sized treats are surrounded by doughy goodness and then frosted. Probably the simplest on the table but that doesn’t mean they get ignored.

Butterhorn’s are another time consuming baking process. These cookies fall into the same delicate scrutiny as the tortalina’s. A butter dough is rolled out very thin and then cut into a triangle. It is sprinkled with cinnamon and finely chopped walnuts then rolled up into what look like mini croissants or “horns”. Although not inherently evil they will still get you in trouble.

8. Pignoli Cookies

A delicate darling but made right they trump the entire table. My aunt Joy’s rule the roost and at $40 per pound for the pignoli nuts they are the most costly as well. Unfortunately these are so easy to wack down and she makes so many, that it sometimes feels like you have one of these between every course. If I was stranded on a desert island with only one item on my cookie table it would be a pignoli. In fact, I think I need one now.

9. Butterflies

A cast iron, butterfly shaped sweetness wand is dipped in a simple batter and dunked into 400 degree oil. Deep fried to perfection they are then splashed with honey and sprinkles. Lots of people probably make these cookies in different shapes, sizes and styles but in this family it’s strictly a butterfly thing. Every household has the same iron and they are passed down generation to generation. That adds generational love to every cookie. Very powerful.

10. New York Style Cheesecake

You may already know of my penchant for the Italian cheesecake. I prefer the ricotta over the cream cheese any day unless that day is December 25th. My Uncle Doug kills it in the cheesecake department. I am not sure how the ricotta was lost when the Sicilians came over from Italy but the ingredient switch to cream cheese makes a denser and richer cake. Perhaps it should be blamed on the Jews and the overlap between NYC neighborhoods. This might also explain why Jews and Italians are so similar. Regardless of the reason, this graham cracker bottomed goodness sits a few feet from the table in the refrigerator but not out of reach of my paws. Those in the know also make the quick stop for a a forkful. It’s density makes it a lingering treat. Usually one of the last items to finish, we consume the cake as a delicate-bite-dessert instead of the “grab and go” chaos some of the other sweets endure. The moral of all this; keep an eye out for the non-direct table stuff.

11. Cannoli Cake

This is always crazy hyped as the best cake at Christmas. Personally, I beg to differ but filled with all the ingredients of a cannoli mixed with cake batter can’t really be bad. This is the only item not homemade but it’s close enough because we have the baker make this cake special for us each year.

12. Kiss Blossom
13. Chocolate Filled Walnut Cookies

Imagine a Hersey’s kiss jumped out of a burning building and a fresh ball of cookie dough broke its fall. Then imagine they were placed back in that burning building for 7 minutes, turned 180 degrees and removed after another 7 minutes. That is a Kiss Blossom. A layered and delightful contrast with the ability to distinctively taste the chocolate and the cookie dough in each bite.

Walnut cookies are one of my favorites. As a kid I pounded these down by the dozen. My mom traditionally makes them in logs icing them with red or green for the holidays and then slicing them into half inch wide cookies. Down south chocolate is folded into the logs before they hit the oven baking a rich velvety center into the light and brittle walnut dough. Iced the same it turns this childhood classic into an adult deviance.

14. Mini Marshmallow Topped Fudge

Watch yourself here. Danger. You can use these to build a cookie tin to keep all the other cookies fresh. That’s how dense they are. A tiny square goes a long way but with nuts inside and marshmallows on top there is just enough to break up the chocolate and trick you into grabbing another one. This is also a new addition to the table this year but they fared quite well against some of the classics. They play nice with a pignoli or a butterhorn but are sworn enemies of the truffles and cheesecake. Eat them in moderation and have milk or coffee at the ready.

I hope that I have been able to properly explain the incredible indulgence my family and I have to endure each year. I even hope I have inspired some of you to dig deep into the recipe books and perhaps pull out that long lost family recipe. If you do watch for that little glimmer that lights up in peoples eyes when they take a bite. But, what ever you do, don’t set them on a table out in the open. They will taunt you until you break. Unless of course you are that masochistic type.

Ferris Oyster Bar – Victoria B.C. from Anthony Anello on Vimeo.

I have not been to Victoria British Columbia a lot yet. I just started my next contract on the ship and was recommended by two friends to head to Ferris’ Upstairs Oysterbar. I only have a couple of weeks left on these Alaska runs and I can’t wait to go back. Victoria is a fun little city with lots of restaurants and bars. Hope I get a chance to try as many places as I can.

This morning was wonderful. One of those morning that unfolds with effortless decision making, timeless scheduling and non-strenuous motion only a lazy Sunday can produce. I have been living in Greenpoint for the better part of 5 years now and the restaurant scene is just now hitting it’s stride. I should quantify that, but will not waste your time with that in this post. This post is simple. It is easy. It is about something fun, yummy and frivolous.

Franklin St. has long been ignored when consuming booze or coffee is not top of mind. With shops like Word, Alter and Cookie Road making roots, I think the two years of infrastructure they burdened us Greenpointers with is starting to pay off. I for one love to watch urbanization in action. This morning, after a spontaneous stop at a very exciting breakfast find (post coming VERY soon), I stopped at Cookie Road. I should have visited this place a long time ago but, hey, I fall into my own self predicated demise of Franklin St. more times than not.

The shop specializes in fancy cookies but they also have some other amazing treats. The cookies come hand painted with all sorts of themes; Fashion, Sports, Celebrity or Fancy Schmancy as their site says. The other treats run the gamete from delicious sandwiches to this Guinness brownie.

Now that my office is located in Greenpoint, look for more coverage on all things edible between Franklin and McGuiness up and down the alphabets. For those Manhattanites, South Bklyners or ‘Burgers the alphabets is Ash St. to Greenpoint Avenue. (A)sh, (B)ox….(I)ndia, (J)ava…Ohhhhhh. You got it now.

Cookie Road
94 Franklin St
(between Noble St & Oak St)
Brooklyn, NY 11222
(718) 383-8094