Eating In Translation

The Feast of St. Martin at the Church of St. Cyril

The Feast of St. Martin, as observed in Slovenia and at the Slovenian-American Church of St. Cyril, in the East Village, is an annual celebration of the harvest and of newly christened wine. (Tastings flowed freely.) My plate from the buffet, portioned out for me during a pass down the line, featured two dark brown chunks of roast goose; I also snagged a single incongruous apricot cookie with the thought that the flaky, buttery bowties might not last till the coffee hour. (They didn't.)

At the buffet I'd given an uncomprehending nod to the tan swatches at one edge of my sampler; soon I discovered that they had been prepared by one of my tablemates. Mlinci (Mlin-see), best-known in Slovenia and in the northern part of neighboring Croatia, is variously described as a pasta, a flatbread, or something in between. It's made from wheat-flour dough that's rolled out repeatedly until very thin, baked, and allowed to cool. Later the mlinci is broken into pieces and baked again, briefly, in liquid — ideally, the juices in a roasting pan, skimmed of their fat. Mlinci should be very wet when served, my chef-tablemate added. She had been savvy enough at the head of the buffet, I observed, to secure a partitioned plate that held a generous ladleful of roast drippings.

The Feast of St. Martin at the Church of St. Cyril
62 St. Mark's Pl. (First-Second Aves.), Manhattan
212-674-3442
www.SlovenskaCerkev-NY.si/novice/martinovanje-slovenian-thanksgiving-2017
(The 2017 celebration was held on November 12)

Samesa

(This venue is closed.) Tarragon, chives, and parsley are typical ingredients in kuku sabzi, a pillowy Persian frittata defined by fresh herbs. Not at all typical, but very becoming, is Samesa's finishing touch: green goddess dressing.

Samesa
495 Lorimer St. (Grand-Powers Sts.), Williamsburg, Brooklyn
718-599-1154
www.SamesaNYC.com

East Coast Restaurant

Shortbread crust, savory custardy filling, post-Thanksgiving portion: Guyanese cheese pie ($1.50).

East Coast Restaurant
658 Rogers Ave. (Clarkson-Parkside Aves.), Prospect Lefferts Gardens, Brooklyn
718-450-8393

Schmidt's Candy: Perfectly Imperfect

The charming sign outside Schmidt's Candy speaks eloquently, especially when we look closer. The words "home" and "made" frame a tall glass candy jar; we notice the slight irregularity of the brushstrokes, and we see that the candy jar is a bit out of true, as are the colorful candies inside it. Obviously the sign was painted by hand, and lovingly so. That theme continues inside the shop, where dozens and dozens of varieties — milk and dark, filled with nuts or caramel, jellies or cherries, marzipan or pretzel, almost anything that might be dipped — huddle on chocolate-smudged platforms inside glass-and-wood cabinets. Read more on Culinary Backstreets.

Saxelby Cheesemongers

Benchmark: McCadam extra sharp cheddar on buttered Pain D'Avignon pullman bread, the most classic of several grilled cheese sandwiches on the Saxelby menu. Outlier: a raclette-and-pickle "dog," shown below in one of its rare appearances, at the annual Lower East Side Pickle Day.

Saxelby Cheesemongers
75 Ninth Ave. (15th-16th Sts., inside Chelsea Market), Manhattan
646-892-3077
www.SaxelbyCheese.com

Danish Seamen's Church Christmas Fair

This flat but scenic landscape of smørrebrød is too vast for the tiny seamen's church, where Danish crafts, gifts, and delicacies crowd into narrow rooms and the ad hoc backyard café might generously be described as snug. Through the good graces of the church's Brooklyn Heights neighbors, however, the fair expands to the capacious hall of another place of worship nearby.

Norwegian Seamen's Church Christmas Fair

Navigate through the crafts-and-rummage displays — you can return later, especially to the shelves and tables crowded with Scandinavian packaged foods and home-baked seasonal specialties — to the selection of smørbrødene, drinks, and sweets.

Church of Sweden Christmas Fair

The brown-and-green sweet, to one side of the coconut-covered chokladboll, is a dammsugare (Dom-Sue-gah-ray). The name, literally "vacuum cleaner," alludes to an old (and apocryphal) practice of sweeping up crumbs from the baking table. In combination with butter, cocoa, and punsch, a Nordic liqueur, the collected crumbs formed the core of the confection, which was then rolled in marzipan and dipped, except for a distinctive center stripe, in chocolate. Latter-day recipes call for crumbs that are bespoke, not repurposed; the dammsugare lives up to its name only if you hoover it down.

Xiao Dong Bei

Hot and sour cassia root jelly, the restaurant calls it. The knotted bundle on top is merely decorative; below, what resemble buckwheat noodles are the namesake of the dish. As best as I can determine, these brown, slippery noodles are made from fern-root powder; cassia, the New World analog to Ceylon cinnamon, seems to be present only as a complementary seasoning to hot-and-sour. It's an insistent little come-on.

Also shown: "grandma's mixed cold dish," over two lunches the only item that our table ordered twice. Three times, if you count the takeout order that one happy fellow carried home. For many more photos, see the EIT page on Facebook.

H/T Jade Young

Xiao Dong Bei (aka Private Kitchen)
36-35 Main St. (37th Ave.-Northern Blvd.), Flushing, Queens
718-358-6667

Bab Marrakech

(This venue is closed.) Rfissa (ruh-Fee-sah) — a weekend special at this Moroccan restaurant, meaning that it's available Friday and Saturday only — boasts heaps of lentils, strips of onion, and a goodly portion of chicken meat. These long-simmered, turmeric-tinted ingredients are presented atop a layer of shredded bread (one protruding edge is shown in the photo below). Most recipes allow for day-old bread, in keeping with a tradition of thriftiness, but it's more likely that this rendition employed fresh-made msemmen. Bab Marrakech has plenty of that flatbread to spare, with or without honey. (At our table, with.) For more photos of a lunch headlined by lamb, see the EIT page on Facebook.

H/T Eat The World NYC, which also documented the celebration of Morocco's upset victory that secured its place at the 2018 World Cup

Bab Marrakech
7317 Fifth Ave. (73rd-74th Sts.), Bay Ridge, Brooklyn
718-491-6000
www.Facebook.com/BabMarrakechNYC