Brooklyn Kolache
~ Dedicated to Laura and Mike ~
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One might think an introduction happens only once. Allow Brooklyn Kolache to defy this innate construction. First introduction: meeting a couple in Red Hook, New York that met and fell in love while working at this cafe, a painted canvas depicting them in its foreground along with several versions shrunken into CD cover art crowning their impressive tapes collection. Then a re-introduction—the handshake of the differentiated and vibrant—offered by the two orthodox men that slowed my approach to the hot orange metal caging igniting the façade. I have had enough people in my life complain about using “first” and then not listing more numbers as transitions. Not this girl. Third, there was being introduced to the actual space, the steps off the black-and-white polygonal, arrowhead patterning through the door. The Golden Girls greet you on your right, courtesy of Cameron Stanford’s “Thank You For Being My Friends,” four gold-framed canvases of heat transferred vinyls. White-brushed brick, a worn wood counter, and a sharpie-assaulted menu in an angled, plastic sign holder (options dwindle as the day goes by), all signs that your environs are a Brooklyn beloved...and then there is a cookie sheet of kolache, catching whatever sunlight achieves passage through the portico and the main window. While taken together, the cafe cultivates a uniqueness all its own, it keeps going. A room in the back was the sanctuary for The Breakfast Club if they were Brooklinites (a white guy with a wireless mouse and headphones fused to his head, a girl in a hijab energetically remarking to her shabbily dressed friend that she didn’t have a Turkish accent, a Jake-from-Twilight fellow wearing fishnets and pointed black stilettos, and another two presences keeping to themselves at the final table) and the entire scene played out much like the first few minutes of the film’s Saturday detention—silence. It doesn’t feel stuffy, just focused. And, with the most gorgeous back garden, this cafe is each and every intro and is the worthy compound of every duction.
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Drink: Small Coffee
That hot hot blue cup and then the coffee? Perfect temperature. It’s hot enough to warm you up, but not to burn your tongue. The taste is a light kind of fruity, not hard on the cherry notes. What’s interesting though? It does start to lean chocolatey as you go along. I don’t know how...I decided to go online and check out how exactly Kitten Coffee describes its Alchemy roast. The description: “...bursting with chocolate and berry notes.” Well played, well played. And, I’m happy to report that it doesn’t back down, even at the last dregs.
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Food: Vegan Biscuit with Strawberry “Butter”
This baked good really hit the spot after 3.5 hours in the Brooklyn Museum and a 40-minute walk over (I’d had a bag of potato chips and a few dried cherries during that time). And, unbeknownst to me, they were promoting it on their Instagram, and it was available for the first time that day! Talk about getting in on the ground floor. I asked for it warmed up, and Jen was kind enough to oblige. Even after going to the bathroom, it was still warm in its green plastic basket. Ready for the kicker though? That strawberry “butter.” I was nervous about two things: the butter and the biscuit’s hardness. For the first apprehension, chuck it out the window. The butter didn’t even need to touch the biscuit to melt. It seemed to know the assignment. It really brightened up the biscuit too and, although it looked small, was the perfect amount. I need to fess up one thing: I did drizzle Choloula on it as well to contrast with the sweet. Totally unnecessary, but I’m a sadist. Then, regarding the biscuit’s hardness, an absolute non-issue. It was soft and yet the proper amount of dense for a biscuit. Vegans rejoice; non-vegans, the dare’s on the table.
Cherry Sweet Cheese Kolach
So pleasantly surprised. As I ate the sweet bread, I wondered why anyone would make it any other way. There could have been more filling, of course. But, what went ahead and impressed me was what my brain likened it to: a blueberry pastry I’d had at a farmer’s market on Jiřího z Poděbrad Square almost ten years ago. It must’ve bee a koláč. Delightful.