Thoughts week ending 9/8/06

…I am not sure who the people that come to Augieland are, but I assume some of the more regular readers are from my neighborhood since most of the stuff I write about happens within 20 blocks of home. For a very loose and somewhat wide guide of the neighborhood I refer to you can simply look at the map of the 66th assembly district in New York. Well, neighbors and readers, it is time to get civic.

If you ever made it to the Blind Tiger Ale House at its old digs you know it was awesome – a true sawdust-on-the-floor seedy little place that took beer very very seriously. (In the interest of disclosure I entered their chili contest last year and lost to a bar employee so I am clearly biased against the place). It was one of the few actually great and real New York bars left. In the vein of Stoned Crow on Washington Place and Johnny’s on Greenwich, it was a place that welcomed and enveloped the neighborhood, unapologetically being a bar for people comfortable in their skins looking for camaraderie in the diverse city; catering to people who actually live here, who don’t really care what brand shoes you are wearing. It was a place that was pure NY in that if you loved good beer you were part of the Blind Tiger, and that was all it took.

The Blind Tiger was driven from its home at 518 Hudson by the current inflationary trend late last/early this year. According to a letter Eater published from the Blind Tiger, the biggest reason they have been given by the license board for not having their liquor license approved for their new place in our neighborhood is a letter the State Liquor Authority received from our Assemblywoman Deborah Glick. On her web page in the ’06 neighborhood update, Ms. Glick bemoans this exact dilemma of the people and places of character that make the Village and the rest of her district so wonderful being driven out by rising prices, making it seem strange that she would be trying to stand in the way of such a salt of the community place relocating within the district.

I have to assume that Ms. Glick had never actually been to the old Tiger and is basing her reaction on words like “beer” and “bar.” Well, being one of Deborah’s constituents and a Blind Tiger customer I have decided to:

1) sign the petition
2) call her office (212 674-5153)
3) email ([email protected]), and
4) write (853 Broadway Suite 2120 New York, NY 10003).

I hope you will do some of the same. Let Assemblywoman Glick know that we are independent people who want independent establishments and that our celebration of character and individuality is what has always made our community wonderful. The Village has always been home to revolutionary people and places and in a city of ever- spreading mediocrity where places like the Caliente Cab Co. have taken hold, Blind Tiger and places like it are both important and revolutionary. Tell Assemblywoman Glick that if she can find it in her heart to accommodate a new place called Pardo’s that represents itself as “The No. 1 Peruvian Rotisserie Chicken Chain” just around the corner from the Tiger’s new location at 281 Bleecker Street (where it is functioning as a coffee shop while awaiting approval of its liquor license) we should have to open at least one home-grown beer bar.

In the meantime, please go buy some coffee at the Blind Tiger (a lot and often). They are going to need income to fight the good fight…

… Almost across the board I find that beets, especially red beets, taste like dirt. It’s something I have come to accept and even expect as part of their flavor profile. My copy of The Organic Cook's Bible claims that all root vegetables, including beets, express terroir more than other vegetables and that this flavor of dirt indicates nutrient deficient soil, a concept that has caused me to move the credit for the couple of times I have had non- or less soily ones from a chef’s skill in cooking to his skill in sourcing. Red beets appeared in our CSA allotment this week and Wife simply roasted them (for about an hour in a 425 oven on tinfoil in their jackets) peeled and sliced them and put them on a salad. Our CSA is organic and in general I find their food most flavorful, but these beets are ridiculous, absolutely perfect. Anyway, this must also have something to do with the crazy weather this year as well as their nutrient dense organic compost, so I strongly suggest you seek out your favorite organic farmer in the NE of America and buy beets. After years of learning to accept the flavor of mud, these are life changing stuff…

… The truths and the statistics as I believe them are that raw milk is safe when produced by small farms from grass-fed cattle and that it tastes far better than pasteurized milk, therefore I consume it on a very regular basis. This article in the Daily Mail suggests that studies in Great Britain are showing strong evidence that it may also be why I haven’t suffered from seasonal allergies. Ha! Anyway, I’ll keep drinking it for its taste, but apparently if you suffer from hay fever or eczema you may want to stop cycling through uselessly small non-drowsy levels of Claritin and just partake in a couple glasses of raw cow’s milk (realmilk.com can tell you where to get it). Definitely don’t tell Schering-Plough, they will have the USDA shutting us down in seconds…

…Dude, what the eff???

Comments

[marb]

Thank you taking up the plight of the Tiger. Which chili was yours as I can recall many different varieties?

[augieland]

ours was called Bubby en Fuego

[Patrick J. Sauer]

I love the Tiger, so much that I wrote an elegiac essay when it closed last year.

(Read here: http://www.patricksauer.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=20&Itemid=28)

I like coffee, but we need to get the beer flowing. Sign the petition. Now!