@Hunt That is one of the pure joys of living in the NYC–pardon if you will, celebrating Jewish Christmas, a nice Chinese meal and taking in several movies…
“Hegemony. Kind of at least. There’s sort of a connotation with it that it’s bad. It a communist word.”
Hegemony is a Greek word that means merely “leadership.” It did get co-opted by some communist countries and misused to mean “aggression,” but its original and more benign meaning is still around. The stem-word “hegemon” was a title of respect in ancient Greece that could be applied to more or less any leader.
“That is one of the pure joys of living in the NYC–pardon if you will, celebrating Jewish Christmas, a nice Chinese meal and taking in several movies…”
??? You can do that pretty much anywhere. That’s not restricted to NYC.
Wrong, you can do that only in major cities…
Oh. Well, you said NYC as if one couldn’t go to a Chinese restaurant and the movies on Christmas anywhere else. Did you know that even small towns have Chinese restaurants?
Would you just stop, if you have something to add, please do so…argumentive, putative and arrogant to take from you 24-7, must be exhausting.
So, go ahead and get authentic dim sum in Albuquerque on Christmas Day. Or Ashville, NC. Or Rehoboth Beach, Del. Here is fantastic idea for you, a sure money maker" why I know better than anyone else, and why I’m right or you’re always wrong!" A sure bet best seller self-help book…not.
I wasn’t arguing; it just struck me as odd to say it’s one of the joys of living in NY, that’s all. I’ve never lived in a place where there weren’t Chinese restaurants and movies both open on Xmas day. And that includes when I lived in Missouri.
PG, I lived in New Orleans and Mississippi, for a while, where pizza, bagels, etc. were available. They were close to inedible, but of course down there, there were other wonderful menu choices. Otoh, if what you were really hankering for was the Sunday NYT with a bagel/nova/shmear, you were SOL.
I understand there’s been a fair amount of effort at replicating NY bagels elsewhere, with limited success it seems (just like local specialties in other areas that always seem best in the place of origin).
I wonder how much of that is due to physical factors - the local water, ambient humidity, available flour, etc. - versus cooks who don’t quite know the right process.
^^ I had a friend, years ago, who thought he would make a fortune by trucking NYC water to Florida to make bagels. His idea fizzled.
I do agree the bagels elsewhere are not as good as NY!
My mother, a Brooklyn native generations before the boro went all hipster knew from bagels. She looked at the modern puffed up soft piece of dough and proclaimed, "This is not a bagel. A bagel is thin and hard.
As an excellent NY Times article about nouveau (actually retro) Jewish cuisine in NYC notes:
Many a “New York bagel” today is a puffy, sweet monstrosity, made like other industrial breads; quick-risen (instead of slow-fermented), stamped out of molds (instead of hand-rolled), steamed (instead of boiled) and then misted with sugar syrups before baking to achieve an appetizing shine.
Fortunately, there has been a return of “artisanal” (i.e., mom’s and pop’s grandkids) bagel bakeries–one of which is using an 80 year old starter from a long-closed Bronx bakery. The baker was lured back from Springfield, MA.
NYC’s main rival is Montreal. The hour I spent on line a year ago at Fairmount bagel was well worth it. Then we headed over to Schwartz’s to wait on another line for Montreal smoke meat on rye.
It felt good in the kishkes.
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/1798486-next-stop-harvardland.html#latest
I knew it’s a matter of time this thread will become a bagel thread, more interesting than Harvardland. How is the NYC bagel different from the Boston bagel? I used to live bear a bagel store in Brookline or Allston that I could smell them from my apartment.
I only went to movies and Chinese on Christmas in NYC. I’m not aware of it being such a ritual anywhere else but I certainly haven’t spent Christmas in every major city.
Well, I’m certainly aware of it in Philadelphia, Chicago and even flyover St Louis.
And even small towns in Wisconsin and Minnesota have Chinese restaurants, sheesh.
Chinese restaurants that are authentic and also serve solid dim sum, and open on Christmas Day and in walking distance to a theater??? Hardly, come now…
Dim sum is not the only kind of Chinese food. And why does it have to be walking distance from a theater? What does that have to do with anything?
All I can tell you is that the trope of going to a Chibese restaurant and a movie on Christmas is not something that’s unheard of in the Jewish communities of Phila, Chicago and St Loyis where I’ve lived. It’s a Jewish “thing” not necessarily a NYC thing.
And really, honestly, even when wandering around small towns in the Midwest you can find Chinese immigrants running Chinese restaurants, Thai immigrants running Thai restaurants, and so forth. We were in Bloomington, Indiana last year. They’ve got blocks upon blocks of authentic Asian cuisine - all types - run by various immigrant families. I’m guessing you’ve not spent any appreciable time outside NYC?
Forgive typos - am on iPhone
Los Angeles 23 years, NYC 14, San Francisco 10years, Portland 4 years, --also own a place in NM for the last 15 years.The whole experience is in incumbent of you seamlessly traveling from restaurant to theater (or visa versa) without making it a logistic field day, e.g. not traveling in your car all day looking for places open on December 25th.
Dim sum is very common in the NYC suburbs, and you can find quite a few places open on Dec. 25.
The inherent problem with Dec. 25 is Dec. 1 - Dec. 24, and now going back to Black Friday. Goodness forbid you want to go to the store and pick up a piece of clothing or actually shop, the places are mobbed. You can’t even drive within a mile of many malls for a month.
As for Harvardland, people are providing a service to give tours of prestigious colleges. They get money for driving buses around. And as for the suits, I knew no Asian international who dressed formally for college. Even at Wharton, I knew no student who wore a suit daily, regardless of national origin. People will calm down when they arrive.