Tonight: Adult Education at Union Hall

I'm a little late in posting this, obviously, but I am hosting a great show at Union Hall in Park Slope.

Adult Education, a monthly lecture series run by the Hawthorne Street crew and our Park Slope comrade Jim Hanas, is discussing the Cuisines of the World. I think you should come. If you don't trust me, do you trust The New Yorker? They think you should come also.

ADULT EDUCATION PRESENTS: "Cuisines of the World"
Tuesday, April 5, 2011 - 8 pm (doors at 7:30)
Union Hall in Park Slope
702 Union St. @ 5th Ave
$5 cover (buy tickets online here)

ROBERT REID, "Defining the Sandwich: A Survey in Truth"
Robert Reid considers this humble foodstuff—from its murky origins among celebratory, starved Trojans and its mocked namesake, the 4th Earl of Sandwich, to recent court cases debating what it means to be a sandwich.

CAITLIN MACRAE, "Andre and the Egg"
MacRae explores the impact of brunch on society at large, tackles the nuances of kitchen Spanish, and examines the fine art of crying in a walk-in fridge.

C.A.B. FREDERICKS, "Californian Cuisine"
Fredericks explains how the Donner Party ate (their way into our) hearts.

THE CONFINED NOMAD, "Eating the UN, A-Z, Without Leaving NYC"
Kara Van Malssen, James Power, and David Cianci share methods for finding cuisines from forgotten and unknown corners of the globe, all within the five boroughs (and maybe New Jersey).

Delivery Options: Brooklyn Pita

Earlier this week we stopped in to Brooklyn Pita, an Israeli joint on 7th Avenue in Park Slope, to grab a quick bite. We had very good good falafel and shwarma, and then, after what we considered at the time a frivolous question, found out that they deliver to PLG.

With a $30 minimum order, they'll get on their horse and bring some Middle Eastern goodness to your door. They have the standard assortment that you'll find: falafel, kebabs, shwarma, a mix of simple sides (Israeli salad, beet salad, grilled eggplant, etc.) all done very well. With just the two of us, the $30 target is a bit high for dinner but it is definitely something to keep in mind for when we are having, say, a poker game at the house. (Note to self: have more poker games at the house.)

The number for delivery is 718-832-7482 and the menu is here. Happy eating.

Tonight: "Adult Education: War" at Union Hall

After a short summer hiatus, Adult Education is back and this time the topic is War.

We have lectures from two journalists who have written books about very different horrors from very different wars, an autodidact who has written about the use of music as propaganda in war and ... I am talking about food truck turf wars.

Here is the lineup:

JIM FREDERICK: Anatomy of a Breakdown: The Ordinary Men of 1st Platoon and Their Extraordinary Downfall
Frederick tells the story of 1st Platoon, a case of intrigue, rape, murder, toxic leadership and, occasionally, dumb luck that culminated in catastrophe.

KEN FREEDMAN: Seven Inches of Propaganda
WFMU's Ken Freedman gives an overview of American propaganda's hit records throughout the ages.

BRENDAN KOERNER: The Man Who Would Be Ang
World War II's most brutal backwater was the Indo-Burmese jungle, where 15,000 African-American GIs struggled to build a road to nowhere. Brendan I. Koerner will recount how one of those soldiers, Pvt. Herman Perry, wound up going native amidst a tribe of xenophobic headhunters.

CHARLES STAR: Food Trucks And the Fight For the Perfect Parking Space
Charles looks at some recent scuffles among and about food trucks and has found that it can get much more violent than you'd expect.

Speaker biographies after the jump.

The New Yorker and Time Out New York both recommend the show. Who are you to disagree?

Adult Ed Lecture Series Tonight in Park Slope

It's been a while since we indulged in blatant self-promotion, so allow me to mention that I'll be speaking tonight as part of Adult Education, a "useless lectures series" that Charles and I do at Union Hall in Park Slope on the first Tuesday of every month, at 8pm. The theme this time: "Animal Minds, Animal Bodies."

Canine cognition expert Alexandra Horowitz will look at anthropomorphic assumptions we make about dogs, photographer Kate Kunath will discuss the surreal world of rabbit breeding, and Kriota Wilberg will analyze how human anatomy could be altered to make us more like Spiderman, and I'll be talking about why you want a monkey. Should be a fun show. Come on down!

(And if you are coming, try to get there by 7:30 when the doors open because the show was listed on Flavorpill and the seats fill up even without that.)

Park Slope: a victim of its own success?

The Brooklyn Paper reports that the Tea Lounge in South Slope will be closing in July, due to a major rent hike. I was never a big fan of the place, but it's sad to see a cafe beloved by so many people bite the dust. Ironically, what I didn't love about the place was that it was always packed; there were too many loungers.

Tea Lounge is but the latest in a string of eateries along 7th Avenue to succumb to unaffordable rent increases. The excellent Red Hot Szechuan, just across the street, has closed, and:

In the past year, Seventh Avenue has lost Inaka Sushi House, at Fourth Street... Tempo Presto, at Third Street; Laila at 15th Street; Little Village, between 10th and 11th streets; and the Second Street Cafe, a beloved brunch spot that made headlines when it closed.

It happened in the '90s in SoHo and it is happening in Park Slope right now: Park Slope is falling victim to the process Jane Jacobs' wrote about in her seminal The Death and Life of Great American Cities. Local mom-and-pop businesses that helped make the neighborhood so inviting in the first place can no longer afford to stay. So 7th Avenue—once the place to be—is gradually transforming into a strip of real-estate offices, cell phone retailers, and banks. The street life is now moving to 5th Avenue, where restaurants can still stay afloat. Unfortunately, without any governing body to assure commercial diversity, chances are we'll start to see more of the same happening there: more chain stores and profit powerhouses.

In a way, it's parallel to the debate we've been having about residential housing in our own nabe. You can blame Chase and Starbucks all you want, but the real problem is a free market that does nothing to assure diversity.

No doubt some readers are giddy with schadenfreude about all this. If you read the New York Times story about Park Slope this weekend, you probably know what I'm talking about. The writer, Lynn Harris, pretty much hit the nail on the head. There seem to be a lot of Park Slope "haters" in PLG, which I find very curious... mainly because all of the annoying attitudes found by the Park Slope privileged are also very abundant here. And because the non-yuppies here can be equally annoying, albeit differently annoying. (I'm thinking of the alcoholic duo who came up our stoop a couple of weeks ago and demanded money for work we not only didn't ask them to do, but specifically asked them NOT to do.)