GASTRONORMOUS

After going to the Flea nearly every weekend for the past month to search for items needed for our new apartment (specifically, a dining table, paintings, and miscellaneous objets), I have determined that, as much as I love perusing vintage junk, the best part of the Flea is the food. The increasingly enormous lines we have encountered offer testament to that.

We were hungry at noon with only coffee in our bellies, and there were plenty of options at the Flea to sate us. The Red Hook Ballfields Papusa vendor was indeed there (as long rumored), but the lines were prohibitively long (like seriously, a half-hour long), so we decided we could wait for the ballfields opening in June. Waffles and Dinges were not there for some reason, which left me forlorn until I took a bite of the sandwiches we ended up getting at the Choice Market booth. Hubs, The Predicate, and I enjoyed hangar steak and grilled vegetable sandwiches, which were totally delicious; loaded with perfectly proportioned meat, veggies and cheese, on super fresh bread. This fueled our shopping excursion.

Whilst shopping I had two food-people sightings: I spied someone who looked an awful lot like Zoi a “cheftestant” from Top Chef, being hugged and kissed by someone who did not look an awful lot like Jen, her girlfriend and co-cheftestant. About 10 seconds after seeing her, I saw Wylie Defresne and a companion, browsing the goods, not the foods.

Before leaving the Flea, we stopped to get a little sweet treat. The Predicate got a cannoli from Salvatore’s, which was 10 times better than the average NY cannoli (though it is in my opinion still no Boston cannoli, the likes of which send me into a bliss I cannot describe), and Hubs and I each had a mini cupcake from Kumquat Cupcakery (pistachio and strawberries-and-cream, respectively), which were much better than your average cupcake. I am picky about frosting in general and cupcakes in particular, and, well, let’s just say I scarfed mine down before I had a chance to take a picture of it, which is a shame because it was about as freakin’ adorable as a baked good can get.

See you next Sunday!