Feast of San Gennaro vs. the County Fair

I can sum up the Feast of San Gennaro in less than 10 words:

The county fair, with fewer rides but more cannoli.

The San Gennaro festival takes over the heart of Little Italy each year, running down about seven blocks of Mulberry Street and even bleeding into what looks more like Chinatown. This festival honoring the patron saint of Naples runs for 11 days, and the festival's website says more than 1 million people are expected to attend. I attended on Friday night, and it seemed that at least half that many people were crowding the streets for calamari, cannoli and ... beer pong.

OK, so not everything about the festival is authentically Italian. Did I really think it would be? However, it did have an Italian flair. I mean, at least zeppole were offered alongside the fried Oreos. And how many county fairs have pasta booths?

Family and Ferrara and a Visit to Little Italy

What would a visit to Little Italy be without a big scoop (or three) of gelato?

At least, that's what my cousin thought last weekend, and I have to say that I agree.

My Aunt Annette, Uncle Dave and two cousins from Indiana visited New York last weekend, and I was excited to play tour guide. Dave had been to New York before -- I believe as a teenager -- but the city was new to Annette, David (a student at Ball State) and Emily (an entering high school freshman). They arrived in Bay Ridge at 10 a.m. Saturday morning on the dot, and it wasn't long before we checked the first item off their to-do list: a visit to Little Italy.

I was happy not only to see my family, but also to take in some typical New York experiences that I hadn't done since we first moved here, or even since our honeymoon in New York almost seven years ago. Their visit gave me an excuse to do something I'm usually leery of nowadays -- be a tourist. It was an eye-opening -- and fun -- experience.

But back to Little Italy. The neighborhood is surrounded by Chinatown, so of course we couldn't see one without the other. The weather was sweltering, which made the fish markets smellier and the crowds sweatier. The black-market purse and watch dealers were out in full-force. We managed to make our way down the street without succumbing to the lures of a "Rolox" (unlike one of Paul's friends a few months back).


Little Italy is what they really wanted to see anyway, and Emily preferred not to leave with gelato -- and who are we to let her eat alone?! Of course, none of us could resist the air conditioned allure of Ferrara, perhaps the neighborhood's most well-known bakery and cafe (and just one of the places where I've searched for the city's best cannoli). Founded in 1892, it also bills itself as America's first espresso bar.


From about 15 or so flavors of gelati and sorbet, Paul and I settled for a scoop each of strawberry and raspberry gelato and blackberry sorbet. Paul didn't even put up a fuss when I nixed his suggestion of vanilla gelato. As if I'd waste one of my scoops on something so plain. Ha!

It was a good start to a pleasantly tiring weekend. More to come!

Jolly holiday

Paul's mom and sister visited us last Thursday through Sunday, so that meant more exploration. This time, however, we stuck mostly to our neighborhood.

Paul and I had never walked to the shore since we moved here, so that was the first order of business. It's an easy 20-minute stroll, and the views are lovely. Across the bay is Staten Island. Look south and you see the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. Look north and you see lower Manhattan and the Statue of Liberty. A nice hiking/jogging/walking trail hugs the bay, and I'm sure I'll be using it more next spring.

The shore is also lined with beautiful multi-million dollar homes with garages (sigh), along with more modest (but still outrageously expensive, I'm sure) houses on the side streets. We also walked down Third Avenue, which has a long stretch of restaurants and stores.

On Friday we rode the Staten Island Ferry and visited Chinatown and Little Italy. But I was most looking forward to seeing Mary Poppins on Broadway that night. For a little under $40 a pop, we got the second to last row in the balcony. No matter. I love the movie, and I found the show surprisingly different but still fun. The show has a few different songs (but "Jolly Holiday" was still included, hence the title of this post. I hope someone got that reference!), but the spirit is still the same. The backgrounds were beautiful and ornate, as was the theater itself.

Paul, Sherry and Becky went to the botanic gardens on Saturday morning, while I headed to the main Brooklyn Public Library. Another thing to add to my list of annoyances: I can only reserve five books at a time. In Columbus, I would reserve 10 or so books and just make a visit every month or so. In any case, I had to print out a few pages from the computer there, so I took the time to pick out a handful of books. The branch closest to our apartment is small and doesn't have much of a collection, so it was nice to actually be able to browse.

In search of the perfect cannoli and other adventures

The rain continued through Saturday morning and into the afternoon, but Paul, his friend Ryan and I braved the downpour and visited Chinatown and Little Italy. Carrying around an umbrella wasn't nearly as annoying as trying to bypass the small ponds that collected where the sidewalk met the street.

In any case, we ate at a small Chinese restaurant and walked down the streets. I liked peeking into the markets. Like the markets in our neighborhood, these had no front wall. However, they sold things that didn't look the least bit familiar, and the Chinese signs didn't help much.

Little Italy abuts Chinatown and is more my style. Lots of streetside cafes and restaurants, and the smells are hard to resist. Paul and Ryan got some gelato at Ferrara (which dubs itself "America's oldest pasticceria") while I continued on my quest for the perfect cannoli.

The pastry part of the one I got there was covered in chocolate, which I was surprised to find I didn't enjoy as much as the plain ones I've eated before. The search continues.

By the time we took the train to the Staten Island Ferry, the sun was shining and the weather was warm. We hopped on the 5:30 boat, which meant we had perfect views of the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island at dusk on the way there and lit up at night on the way back. We could also see our neighborhood near the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge.