Myers of Keswick celebrates its 25th anniversary

This has been a week of celebration for Myers of Keswick founder Peter Myers. Not only has he returned from England this week to celebrate the 25th anniversary of his Hudson Street bastion of all foods British, his daughter Jennifer Myers Pulidore, who now runs the shop, is expecting her first child on August 5th. Any customer who spends more than $30 will get a free Myers of Keswick mug all day tomorrow. Now is the time to stock up on English victuals in preparation for Sunday's World Cup finals! The only thing that could be better is if England were still in the contest....

Myers of Keswick
634 Hudson Street (between Jane and Horatio Streets)
New York, NY 10014-5167
(212) 691-4194

Where can't you watch the World Cup in our neighborhood?

I usually see interesting things on my Saturday morning rounds of the neighborhood, and today was no exception. This mobile ESPN tv truck was parked on Ninth Avenue just north of West 14th Street. There were quite a few people who either wanted to watch South Korea face off against Uruguay (they were eliminated, 2-1) or just take a break from the already brutal heat. I'm glad they didn't go as far as providing the vuvuzelas.

Bonsignour, for a latte and the World Cup

It wasn't your usual crowd this morning at Bonsignour on Jane Street at 8th Avenue. This largely Latino crowd looked like they were at Mass, worshipping at the altar of World Cup Soccer. It was Uruguay over Mexico, 1-0.

It’s not often that I meet someone whose love for Japanese confections rivals my own. So I was tickled when I arrived at chef Anita Lo’s West Village restaurant Annisa last month to take a picture of her for this profile I wrote for WestView.


The restaurant was not yet open, and two adorable little shih tzu dogs were in varying stages of relaxation close by the chef. I leaned over to pet one of them and asked Chef Lo what their names were. “Adzuki and Mochi,” she replied, adding, “If I had a third dog it would be named Kinako.”

Here was someone truly after my own heart! Adzuki (sometimes spelled “azuki”) are the little round, reddish-brown beans that are so beloved in Japan. They can be steamed whole with sweet rice to make the celebratory dish sekihan, or boiled, sweetened and either mashed and sieved into a smooth paste (koshi an), or left lumpy (tsubu an). The an is used to fill pounded sweet rice cakes (daifuku mochi, see photo below, left) or used as the base for the dessert soup shiruko. Kinako is a light brown powder made from toasted soybeans, often slightly sweetened and used to coat mochi (see photo below, right). If I had only these three ingredients to live on I would be as contented as Chef Lo's chrysanthemum-faced shih tzu looked.

As my article describes, Lo is a talented chef who has, with quiet determination, made a name for herself in the competitive world of New York fine dining. Although she did a brief turn on last season’s Bravo reality show "Top Chef Masters" (a highly rewarding yet grueling experience, she says, which makes "Iron Chef" seem like “a walk in the park”) she has not garnered the kind of attention that would be accorded a male chef of her stature.

For more on the relative lack of high-profile women chefs in New York and across America, take a look at this gourmet.com article from Laura Shapiro, Where Are the Women? Then go out and sample some of the fantastic cooking that is being done in the city by the likes of Lo, Alexandra Guarnaschelli (Butter), Gabrielle Hamilton (Prune) and Missy Robbins (A Voce).

World Cup fever at Myers of Keswick

Internal discord may be roiling the ranks of team England at the World Cup tournament in South Africa, but here in the West Village, Myers of Keswick on Hudson Street is helping the British community keep the focus on winning--preferably  while snacking on the store's delicious bangers, crisps and biscuits.

Periodical Heaven: Casa Magazines

Mohammed Ahmed has been running the West Village newspaper and magazine shop Casa Magazines for 15 years at the corner of Eighth Avenue and 12th Street. Casa is a magazine-lover's dream. If what you're looking for is not available, Mohammed will special order it for you. He and his longtime assistant, Syed Khalid-Wasi spoke recently to Walking and Talking and offered a glimpse into the periodical reading habits of West Villagers.

WT: What are your best-selling periodicals?

MA: The New York Times, for newspapers, and for magazines, Vogue, British Vogue, Paris Vogue and Fantastic Man.

WT: What are the most unusual or obscure periodical requests you have fielded?

MA: Zeek (a Jewish journal on thought and culture). I had to special order this. Also Memoir (a bi-annual journal of “memoir and prose, poetry, essay, graphics, lies and more”) and October (an intellectual journal of art, theory, criticism and politics from MIT Press).In order of popular subject matter, it’s fashion first, then design and decorating,, computer and cars, skateboarding, then health and fitness.

WT: What is your bestselling non-periodical item?

SKW: Natural American Spirit tobacco (organically grown in Santa Fe, NM by independent small farmers.)
WT: What do you yourself read in the store?
SKW: Only Time Out New York. I love my work. I have beautiful customers. They treat me like family. I have a good time here.
WT: What music do you play in the store?
MA: Always WQXR (105.9, all-classical music)!

Il Cantuccio: a new standard for biscotti

So far, from what I can tell Il Cantuccio, the new Italian bakery at 91 Christopher Street near Bleecker, puts a very high premium on chewiness. You have to like mastication in order to take pleasure in its products. Its signature cantucci are super chewy biscotti, which come in chocolate, almond, fig, prune and apricot flavors, and are a welcome change from those over-sized, crown-busting rocks that sit in a glass jar next to your local barista.

The schiacciata flatbread at Il Cantuccio are similar to focaccia, but flatter, with a muscular, elastic texture that puts the wimpy, fluffy texture of Genovese focaccia to shame. These flatbreads are as challenging to the jaws as the cantucci, and come plain or topped with tomato or large cubes of bacon. It is the combination of their austere flavor and their amazing texture that make the schiacciata so weirdly addictive. The brutti-boni (the name means “ugly but good”), are pale lumps of almond paste, egg whites, sugar, flour and salt that are baked at a low temperature to make them crisp on the outside, and –you guessed it—chewy on the inside.

Il Cantuccio also offers pizza on a Tuscan-style flat bread similar to its schiacciata, sandwiches, and various other round, sweet and softer breads baked with raisins, rosemary and chocolate. They are brought to us courtesy of Tuscan bakers and co-owners, Camilla Bottari, Simone Bertini, and Lorenzo Palombo, who came with their recipes from Prato, north of Florence. The bakery traces its roots back to its founder and patron saint of chewiness, Leonardo Santi, who began making his cookies in 1920 in the Besenzio valley’s Migliana.

Bottari notes that all Il Cantuccio’s ingredients are imported from Italy, which perhaps accounts for the intense flavorfulness of the dried fruit. The schiacciata is made from nothing more than flour, yeast, olive oil and salt. The most popular items, she says, are the chocolate and the apricot cantucci. New Yorkers may also be mesmerized by the fact that, in addition to packing a lot of flavor and texture, these cookies are made without butter or oil, consisting of only sugar, flour, eggs and their various fruit or chocolate components.

How do they manage this? Bottari gives away nothing, saying, “It’s been a secret recipe for 50 years.”