Farsighted Fly Girl

I'm excited to be participating in the Passports With A Purpose  fundraiser again.  This year, the travel bloggers fundraiser is raising $100,000 to build two wells in Haiti with Water.org. The raffle prizes will earn  money for two rural communities to enjoy the basic benefit of clean water. My prize is again a generous donation from Taste Harlem for two tickets for a two hour food tour.  The $110 value will supply heaping portions of soul food classics like chicken and waffles, shown above. Short ribs, collard greens, mac n cheese and candied yams will also be on the menu. If you win the tickets, go on an empty stomach and be prepared to stuff yourself silly. The tour also features interesting tidbits about Harlem music, history and culture. You'll pass historic murals, churches and museum, learning about the vibrant neighborhood's storied legacy. Even though I've experienced the tour many times, it never gets old. The food is ...

(Warning, do not read an empty stomach.)  My first visit to Harlem featured the sights and tastes of this legendary neighborhood during the Taste Harlem food and culture tour and I had to re-visit the experience with my husband.  The tour includes two and half hours of eating, sight-seeing and historical facts provided by owner Jackie Orange and it is not for the faint-hearted.  So many flavors, visions and sounds are packed into the tour that you need a few hours afterwards just to process it all.  It kicks off with Amy Ruth's Soul Food restaurant and the requisite chicken and waffles, a dish created in New York during the Harlem Renaissance. Next, we sampled Senegalese cuisine at Les Ambassades, a chic and popular eatery in the Little Senegal area of Harlem. Grilled tillapia and couscous was the taste treat and as you can see, it was a whole lot more than just a taste. Senegalese food is one of my personal favorites so while my husband scarfed down the til...

This is a new one on me. I know people love their pig. Give them bacon, pork chops, sausage and bellies but I didn't know pig feet were quite so beloved.  But I know now.  I did a piece on the wonderful Taste Harlem Food Tour for Relish Magazine and it came out last week.  I wrote the article on the details of the three-hour, high energy tour which serves up heaping doses of Harlem food and culture in the form of soul food dishes, Dominican delicacies and Senegalese samplings. In between the food, owner Jackie Orange illustrates with historical tidbits and cultural facts. Well, the story was severely edited, focusing on Jackie's favorite Harlem food fact, which happens to be Pig Foot Mary.   A legendary Harlem figure,  Pig Foot Mary's real name was Lillian Harris and she migrated from the Mississippi Delta to New York in 1901. She sold pig feet from an old baby buggy to Southern -born Harlemnites until she had acquired enough money to amass a fortune in N...

One of my favorite things about New York city is the vibrant art scene. You don't even have to step foot into an art gallery, art surrounds you everywhere.  I snapped these public art displays during my long strolls though Harlem. The first two murals were painted by school children and the next to last mural graces the subway. The stately bronze sculpture is of legendary freedom fighter Harriet Tubman, casting her protection over Harlem streets.

If there's any city that supplies international flair on every corner, it's New York. We arrived at our Harlem brownstone starved so we walked to the local cafe on the corner. We passed  African women wrapped in vibrant Senegalese dresses,  Mexican men selling tacos from a truck and Jamaicans peddling rasta hats and jewelry, only to arrive at a French bistro.  Cafe Lucienne offers the perfect sidewalk views for bustling New York life as well as an inventive mix of French and American fare. Okay, so gazpacho isn't so French but I love it and there's nothing better on a hot summer day. Cafe Lucienne's was bursting with fresh tomatoes and herbs. My husband is the one who gets into French food and he wasted no time ordering the requisite escargot. I don't eat creepy crawlies no matter how they're served but he insisted that they were excellent. He also dove into a pile of mussells, which is also something I don't go near. But they're pretty. The s...

I'm headed to the Big Apple and will be exploring as much as I can for the rest of the week.  I'll be celebrating our anniversary with my hubby, topped off with a Broadway visit to attend Fela! The Musical. (I have to stuff my dancing shoes into my carry on.)  We'll also stop by the Statue of Liberty, catch Alvin Ailey Dance Theatre at Summerstage in Central Park, make our way to Brooklyn and indulge in the decadent Taste Harlem food tour one more time.  Stay tuned for posts at the end of next week.

I adore rugelach. Actually, anything drenched in sugar, cinnamon and butter enthralls me but that's not the point. The point is that I have sampled authentic, oven-warmed rugelach in Austrian cafes. I have munched on kosher rugelach from Jewish bakeries. I've even tried generic rugelach from big chain grocery stores. But none of them have managed to inspire the buttery heaven that Mr. Lee's rugelach from Lee Lee's Baked Goods, conjures within me. Ensconced on a West Harlem side street, Lee Lee's store window proclaims "rugelach by a brother." It's not exactly the phrase you'd expect for a traditional Eastern European treat but Mr. Lee was trained by a Rabbi to create perfect rugelach. Mr. Lee's secret it seems, is that unlike most bakers, he skips cheap vegetable shortening and creates handmade butter dough for his rugelach. The flaky dough literally melts in your mouth and the generous sprinkling of raisins and nuts make them seriously addicti...

There's nothing I love to explore more on a trip than music, history and food. Combine all of them together and you have my dream of a perfect destination, where there's really no reason to leave. That's how I felt when I slipped into the dimly lit, thatched roof room of Ashford & Simpson's Sugar Bar . Nestled on a non-descript street on New York's Upper West Side,the place literally glows with energy. Bamboo, forged brass and walls washed in amber and deep cinnamon provide the backdrop for non-stop sensory stimulation. The narrow space is always crowded but Thursday nights are when Sugar Bar really jumps with an unbelievable open mic. The menu filled with creole and Caribbean delights is only the opening act. I ordered red snapper with plantains and greens, which I vaguely remember as well seasoned. My focus was not on my food because I was surrounded by such an engaging parade of artists. At the table next to me was the noted jazz flautist Bobbi Humphrey, whos...

Today marks the first day for the Passports With A Purpose fundraiser. Four Seattle travel bloggers decided to rally the travel blogging community to raise money and awareness for Heifer International, which is a charity that combats hunger by teaching sustainable farming methods and donating livestock. I couldn't pass up a chance to help so thanks to a generous donation from A Taste of Harlem founder Jacqueline Orange, my raffle prize is two tickets to the Taste of Harlem Food and Cultural Tour . This three hour tour features six restaurants, tours of an art gallery, a historic bed and breakfast, shops and landmarks that reflect Harlem's storied history. I grabbed a chance to experience this whirlwind excursion last year and it opened my eyes and taste buds to parts of New York history that I never knew. Nestled in the Manhattan borough, Harlem holds some cultural tidbits that might fascinate you. The neighborhood hosts a huge Dominican population, for instance. I sampled sa...