Welcome to Eat This! Your insider's guide to the best food New York City has to offer. And that doesn't mean sending you to posh and trendy restaurants - you can read about those anywhere. Still, if that’s how you want to blow your dough, knock yourself out...

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Brooklyn's Red Hook
Ball Fields

We have just come from our second visit to the Red Hook Ball Fields in Brooklyn and are feeling quite satisfied, indeed. What? You haven't heard about the Ball Fields yet? Hardly seems possible really, but here's a bit about it.

Red Hook is a rapidly-changing neighborhood of Brooklyn located west of Carroll Gardens/Cobble Hill and bounded by the BQE [Brooklyn-Queens Expressway] and the New York Harbor. Its growth stymied by poor mass transit (before the Metrocard, it would have been considered a "two-fare zone"), it has recently surged in popularity, particularly amongst the hipster population. It is now home to the Fairway Market and soon, to a new IKEA. Don't blink or you'll miss all the US Civil War-era warehouses coming down to accommodate the new structures.

Red Hook is also home to lots of football fields - your football, that is. And every weekend in the warm months, in addition to several simultaneous games, it features the amazing cuisines of Latin America lovingly prepared by everyday cooks under homemade tents, charging far fewer pesos than seems possible. Like what? you might well ask. Our recent trip saw us scarfing down huge queso huaraches, the tortillas themselves made right in the booth, with guacamole, lettuce, tomatoes, more cheese, and all sorts of hot sauces (or not, as you wish) for the ridiculous price of $4.00. Meats are available as well, but we don't eat 'em. Let me know how that works out for you. The booth, the first one on the right as you enter the field, past the tchotchke stand, also makes tacos.

Not in the mood for hauraches? How about a grilled corn to knock your socks off? It's $2.00 and you can have it one of two ways: either with a squeeze of fresh lime juice and dusted with chili powders or, my fave, with a thin slather of mayonnaise, salt, grated queso, and chili powder. Sweet!

But what to wash all this goodness down with? Funny you should ask. Between the aforementioned taco stand and the gilled corn goddess is a juice stand. Oh my god, what a juice stand! Fresh watermelon juice will cool you off on the very hottest days that the summer can choke up, and at $2.00 for a medium or $3.75 for a large, it is a fabulous deal. Don't fancy watermelon? They have cantaloupe, pineapple, mango, lime, and horchata, to name a few.

Not satisfied yet? Tough customer. How about ceviche from the lady at the very last stand on the left? She puts together a silence-inducing tuna soup for $7.00 for the bowl. A posh restaurant would be charging double for less. Still no? What about pupusas? There are around two stands that put those together for you. They range from about $1.50 to $2.00, depending on the filling. Pupusas, so you know, are Salvadoran in origin and are a thick corn tortilla made from a masa (maize) dough (made on site, by the way) that is stuffed with one or more of the following: cheese (queso), fried pork rind (chicharrón), chicken (pollo), refried beans (frijoles refritos), or queso con loroco (loroco is a vine flower bud from Central America and purportedly an aphrodisiac).

There are also stands selling flautas, fruit (including mangos on a stick), baleadas, tacos, tamales, quesadillas, and taquitos, for starters. The food comes from Mexico, Central America, South America and the Caribbean. The entrance to the fields is on the corner of Clinton Street and Bay Street in Red Hook, Brooklyn. The stands are open Saturday and Sunday, rain or shine, from roughly May through October.

Recently, there has been noise about bidding out the permits to sell on the fields to the chain restaurants, which will force these hard-working and talented chefs out of the area. Get down there while you still can and enjoy one of the great, authentic culinary treats this city is famous for. You will not be sorry!

Greetings and welcome to…um…welcome to…okay, I don’t have a name yet for my column. Who starts a column without a name for said column? I do. But don’t worry; I shall come up with a catchy name soon. In the meantime, let’s just call it the “New York Brits Political Column.”

And what exactly will I be covering in the NYBPC?…Um…okay, seriously, who starts a column without a name and without knowing the content? I’m afraid to say I do. Let’s say for now I’ll be covering all things political.

It may seem as if I’m an incompetent fool who has been put in charge of politics. Which is the perfect segue to -

The President of the United States.

I shall begin with a basic understanding of our political system here in the good old U. S. of A. and what better place to start than with the President.

Our government is a federal government and consists of three branches: executive, legislative and judicial. The President is the leader and chief executive of the executive branch.

Every four years, nearly half of the voting population rushes to the polls to elect a new President and the candidate with the most votes becomes President. It’s that simple. There are rumors that the popular vote means diddly-poo and that the real vote happens in a secret stoning ritual in December at some place called Electoral College. Fiddle-faddle. No such college exists. You try finding the campus. The 2000 Presidential Election between Al Gore and George W. Bush is a perfect example of how well the voting system works. Yea democracy.

To date, the office of the president has been held by forty-two men and one halfwit. All of the presidents have been white Christian men between the ages of forty-two and seventy-seven, giving them a complete understanding of a woman’s right over her own body.

The current President is George W. Bush. He is sometimes referred to as “W.” The “W” stands for “wanker.”

The President is also the Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces. A grizzled veteran of the intricacies and ravages of war, the Commander-in-Chief knows exactly who our enemies are, whom we should attack, and when a mission is accomplished.

Despite what you might have heard recently, the Vice-President is also part of the executive branch. The current Vice-President is Lord Voldemort. The Dark Lord, as he is sometimes called, is currently gathering forces to wage an all-out war against the world.

The legislative branch, or Congress, is made up of the Senate and the House of Representatives. Congress makes laws, spends money wildly and declares wars based on honest to god factual evidence.

After being elected to Congress, new Senators and Representatives are matched up with issues that interest them most. Mark Foley, ex-Representative from Florida, for example, was made chairman of the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children because of his interest in teenaged boys and the exploitation of them.

The judicial branch consists of the Supreme Court and a bunch of other courts. The judicial branch recently came under the spell of the Dark Lord and now does his bidding. Beware - it is an evil branch.

There are basically two political parties in the United States: Democrats and Republicans. In broad generalities, Democrats are liberal and Republicans are conservative. Democrats support such things as pro-choice laws, the arts and fair taxes. Republicans hate gays, love guns, and believe their god trumps your god.

An easy way to remember which party is which is “Republican” begins with the letter “R” and so does the word “rong.”

So in a nutshell that’s our political system. Does it work? You bet your sweet crumpet it does. There’s no finer government in the world. It’s a government of the people, by the people, for the people. Fair, balanced and trustworthy.

God bless America...and the other countries, I suppose, but bless America more. We need it.

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