The Nosh #2: Summer in the City
Summer's small moments on screen and pairing your recipes with your playlist.
It’s Memorial Day weekend in America, meaning it’s the unofficial start of summer. Here in Brooklyn, summer ACTUALLY starts on the first Saturday it is sunny and above 70 degrees. WHEN this happens isn’t important. What IS important is that we survived the long, cruel winter and the testy, temperamental days of spring. The collective joy of this first warm day Summer buzzes alongside unmistakable jingle of a Mr. Softee Truck and the savory smell of smokers tenderizing jerk chicken. Watermelon is at its ripest, peaches are at their juiciest, and picnic-packing becomes a sport. Within a month, this communal happiness will inevitably turn into people complaining about the heat… but don’t let this kvetching fool you- New Yorkers live for summer. And here at The Nosh, we do too.
In today’s Nosh, we are exploring the sounds and tastes of summer with a celebration of summer’s small moments on screen and some thoughts on how to pair your recipes with your playlist.
Today’s Menu:
This Week In Culture: Sunscreen and Sam Cooke: Sylvie’s Love Nails Summer’s Small Moments, by Alexis
Your Next Nosh: An Apple Rhubarb Crisp to bake while you Listen to Ms.Tina Turner, by Jessie
The Nosh Recommends: We made you a start of summer playlist to blast at the cookout, on the beach or in your headphones during a summer stroll! Scroll down for the link.
Sunscreen and Sam Cooke: Sylvie’s Love Nails Summer’s Small Moments
There are many movies, TV shows and music videos that take place in New York City during the summer. There’s Spike Lee’s classic Do the Right Thing, which unfurls on a sweltering, endless day in Bed-Stuy where sweat pours like rain from foreheads and racial tensions in the neighborhood boil until they burst. There’s The Wackness, a mid movie with a great soundtrack released in 2008 but set in 1994 starring Josh Peck as a listless high school senior who spends his post-grad summer selling weed out of an ice cream cart and listening to A Tribe Called Quest. And speaking of Tribe, their video for Bonita Applebum is set against a backdrop of a huge summertime kickback in Hollis, Queens with Q-Tip rapping in the foreground as folks in denim shorts and crop tops dance, drink beer and shoot their shots behind him.
Given this extensive list of well-known NYC summer epics, Sylvie’s Love may seem like an obscure choice to open an essay about summertime in New York. Sylvie’s Love is a satisfying, and kinda sappy, romantic movie that slipped onto Amazon Prime into the deluge of content pushed out during the dark days of winter 2020. I chose it because Sylvie’s Love shows a version of summer that is rarely captured on film. While the above examples depict the massive block parties and heat induced political pressure cookers NYC streets play host to each summer, most New Yorkers spend much of our season on sidewalks, in parks and atop rooftops- just hanging out listening to music, looking for love (for the night or for life) or falling more deeply into it. Sylvie’s Love captures these moments of listening, looking and falling with ease.
Most of the movie is set in Harlem in the summer of 1957, and it stars Tessa Thompson as Sylvie (who, as my friend Chelsea has said, I would build houses for) and Nnamdi Asomugha (former NFL player, current husband to Kerry Washington) as Robert. Sylvie is a Harlem native who dreams of being a television producer, but spends most of her days working the counter at her father’s (played by the late, great Lance Reddick) record shop, Mr. Jay’s. Robert is a gifted saxophonist in an up and coming jazz quartet. They meet when Robert comes to Mr. Jay’s to buy Thelonius Monk’s Brilliant Corners and to inquire about the Help Wanted sign in the window. There’s a spark between them, mostly communicated through shy smiles and tentative eye contact exchanged while The Drifters' “Fools Fall in Love” twinkles in the background. Robert starts working at Mr. Jay’s, and he and Sylvie spend the first third of the movie connecting over music and falling in love.
Like most cinematic love stories, there are obstacles standing in their way. For one thing, Sylvie is engaged to a man who is off fighting in the Korean War. For another, they come from different worlds. Robert is a traveling jazz musician who just quit his job working at an auto plant in Detroit. Sylvie is the golden daughter of Harlem’s Eunice Johnson- owner of the Eunice Johnson School of Etiquette and Manners. Sylvie met her fiancée at a cotillion, Robert doesn’t know what that is.
Sylvie and Robert, alongside their supportive friends and skeptical parents, navigate these differences and nurturing their burgeoning attraction on the non-descript sidewalks and rooftops that are the quintessential social spaces of summer in NYC. One early scene opens with the dreamy opening bars of Otis Redding’s “You Send Me” floating over an aerial view of the rooftop of Sylvie’s parents' Harlem brownstone. Sylvie is lounging beside her cousin Mona. Mona, in a raspberry printed, high waisted bikini and gold cat eye sunglasses, is propped up on her elbow grilling Sylvie about her favorite song to *eyebrow raise* “mess around to.” Sylvie in her modest denim patchwork one piece (ever the daughter of an etiquette school owner) demurs. Several minutes later, Robert and Sylvie share their first kiss on the walk home from a night at a jazz bar, where they stride across steamy asphalt soaked from a summer storm. A few weeks into their romance, Robert joins Sylvie on her parents’ rooftop. The scene starts while the sun is up, but it quickly fades into night. The two move tentatively closer to each other as Robert drapes his sweater over Sylvie’s bare shoulders. Otis is back again for this moment, this time serenading the couple with “Summertime”. It’s implied that this is the night Robert and Sylvie first sleep together. A montage of summertime sweetness follows: Sylvie and Robert gliding through a field on a tandem bike, Sylvie in cigarette pants and a headscarf laying in high grass while Robert feeds her strawberries, Sylvie and Robert making out behind steamy car windows. These scenes are slow and sensual. They feel both lived in and fleeting, just like summer itself.
I usually experience summer as a collage of a few big moments that have a clear beginning and ending (like a week in a rented beach house or transcendent outdoor concert) sandwiched between a lot of small, repetitive moments that make up the sensory backdrop of the season. Sylvie’s Love nails these small moments. The scenes described above are cinematic representations of the myriad possibilities that live in the endless humid days that stretch into endless sticky nights. The ones where there is nothing better to do than sunbath and gossip with your best friend on a piping hot city rooftop while listening to the songs defining the current era of your life.
My summers are far less cinematic, but still filled with reliable summer constants that saturate the collage of my Brooklyn summer memories. I’ve lived in Brooklyn for almost my entire adult life. And while a lot has changed for me over the past 10 years, a lot has also stayed the same. Every year, somewhere around mid to late May, like clockwork I can count on the reappearance of those warm weather stand bys, including:
Hearing Fatman Scoop declare “Engine, Engine number 9 on the New York Transit Line…” from a passing car stereo, a block party speaker or a DJ booth at least once a week.
Pulling up to Herbert Von King or Prospect Park with a book in the middle of a “work” day to find a lot of other people who had the exact same idea
Putting up with the hour long A train ride or an overly packed ferry to spend a few hours at the Rockaways sipping nutcrackers and sunbathing
Accepting that the ocean water at the Rockaways will be too cold to comfortably swim in until at least late July
Sauntering down the Coney Island boardwalk to get a Nathan’s hot dog, passing by different combinations of boa constrictors, doomsday preachers, pickup ball players and funnel cake vendors on the way
Grabbing a cherry-coco ice from an icy cart on a sweltering day
Stretching out on the steps of the Brooklyn museum to people watch to a soundtrack of the songs competing to be crowned song of that current summer mixed with BK summer standards like Juicy, Wayne Wonder’s No Letting Go and Serani’s No Games (Side note: My boyfriend, Owa, and I were in Negril, Jamaica last week and it was a cool reminder that so many of these Brooklyn summer anthems are Caribbean party standards as well)
Feeling the pulsating energy of city that is at its most alive
Each Memorial Day, it seems like an infinite amount of humid days where the sun shines past 8pm are at my fingertips. Those days pass more quickly than I expect and October’s chill always comes sooner than I would like.
Sylvie and Robert may have felt this same way. Their summer courtship is cut short when Robert’s band books a European tour. He packs for Paris as Sylvie unpacks her cardigans to guard against the newly crisp New York air. They say goodbye in September, the sun setting behind them hours earlier than it did just a few weeks ago. Don’t worry, this moment is not the end of their love story. Nearly half the movie happens after this moment, but I wouldn’t want to spoil it for you.
And I don’t want to get ahead of myself, it’s only May. Why rush into fall when summer is just beginning? There are so many little moments to savor.
Your Next Nosh: Bake this Apple Rhubarb Crisp and Listen to Ms. Tina Turner
The summer I turned five is when I unequivocally fell in love with New York City. It’s when I first began to understand the magic of the fireflies, softees, bottomless sandwiches stuffed with cold cuts — and music everywhere. I even fell in love with the shortness of breath I experienced that I thought was sudden onset asthma, but I later learned was a thing called humidity. This was all part of what made New York City so special.
Summers in New York wouldn’t be the same without music pouring out in the streets and the foods that go with it. Cook-outs require epic playlists, s’mores benefit from acoustic accompaniment and the sound of Luther Vandross has been scientifically proven to enhance the taste of potato salad (okay maybe not scientifically proven, but trust me, the link is there!) I believe good music not only influences how food tastes but can be key to setting the right mood while cooking; Seu Jorge’s soothing bossa nova helps make sure my cheesecake is silky and creamy. Laminating complex pastry calls for Yo-Yo Ma, which makes me feel like a dessert savant capable of impressing Bake-Off’s Mary Berry. Music and food go hand and hand.
Accordingly, this week's recipe has a jam to go with it. This bright, delicious and tangy Apple Rhubarb crisp is easy, delicious, and endlessly adaptable; making it a fun way to start feeling some of that summer feelin’ and celebrate rhubarb coming into season. Memorial Day is technically for Veterans, so I asked my Uncle Oclad (a Vietnam Vet turned revolutionary) for a song to listen to while I baked and he told me, respectfully, that I should go listen to some Tina.
Recipe: Apple Rhubarb Crisp
Playlist: Tina Turner’s Greatest Hits
Filling Ingredients:
3 cups rhubarb cut into ½ inch pieces
2 cups apples (Honeycrisp or another baking apple) cut into ½ inch pieces
Zest 1 of lemon
1-2 tbs lemon juice
½ tsp vanilla
2 tbs flour
¼-1/2 cup sugar (very tangy-less tangy crisp)
Topping:
½ cup walnuts finely chopped
Dash of clove
½ tsp cinnamon
¼ tsp salt
1 cup oats
½ cup flour
½ cup light brown sugar
½ cup unsalted butter (melted)
Instructions:
Cut your fruit and cover in zest and lemon juice. Taste the sweetness of the apples. If they are super sweet, add a bit more lemon juice, if not add less. I know my apple to lemon juice ratio is right if I immediately go back for more tastes.
Add sugar, vanilla and flour and mix to coat all the fruit evenly. Pour into a round or square 8 inch small baking dish—you want the mixture to be 2-3 inches high, most small baking dishes will do the trick!
Topping:
Combine topping ingredients in a separate small bowl and taste! It should be delicious. If it’s not, you can add a dash more cinnamon or cloves until it's just right.
Evenly spread topping over fruit.
Baking:
Bake crisp in the oven at 350 for 40-45 minutes or until the fruit is bubbling and tender when stabbed with a fork.
Let the crisp sit for 10 minutes.
Enjoy with ice cream or some homemade whip cream with a dash of cardamom.
The Nosh Recommends:
You Listen: To The Nosh’s summer playlist! It is roughly divided into a few different sections: soul standards for the cookout, Afrobeats and Reggaeton for sanguine summer afternoons in the sun, and New York City rap classics and hot girl songs to hype you TF up.
To Nosh On: Each issue, we will pose a question to the community… because Noshing is better with a group!
What does summer sound and taste like to you? Share your go to summer recipes and songs in the comments below!
This week’s Nosh is dedicated to the one, the only Tina Turner. Thanks for everything.
