Shopping in Harlem (Sucks)

This is a long, pointless story, but it's my blog, so lump it.

This afternoon, I bicycled all the way down to the East Village to the Irving Plaza to buy tickets for tonight's Gogol Bordello concert ($23.50 from the box office vs. $35 from Ticket Fucker), but I got there at 4:03, and they nominally closed the doors at 4:00 (though another guy also disappointed said he got there at 4:01 and there was every sign the metal gates had been closed more than a minute earlier). Fuckers. Gogol Bordello is fun, but I'll be damned if I'll pay $35 to see them just because I was three minutes late.

Aaanyway, on my dejected ride home I cut through the Union Square farmer's market and found a woman selling Concord grapes.

Concord grapes smell like about eight years old to me. Our next door neighbor had a grape arbor and grew Concord grapes, and my grandmother made jelly from them. I loved my grandmother very much. She lived with us through all of my childhood.

In a fit of nostalgia, I decided I'd make grape jelly. All you need, really, is Concord grapes, sugar, pectin and cheese cloth. So, I had Concord grapes and sugar, all I needed was cheese cloth and pectin.

But where the hell do you get cheese cloth and pectin at 9pm on a Saturday night in Harlem? I jumped on my queer little Strida bicycle and decided to head off to Fairway Market, which bills itself simply as "Like no other market." Upper West Side New Yorkers get all hot and trembly when they talk about Fairway; it's got a huge cold room for meat and everything. I am lucky enough to live just a few blocks from the 132nd St. Fairway, which is actually even bigger (and cheaper!) than the 74th St. one. But, "like no other market?" Well, inasmuch as the large supermarkets I grew up patronizing in suburban New Jersey had fucking pectin, yes, Fairway is not like those markets. (In fairness, they did have cheese cloth. Big whoop.)

Next stop, a Pioneer market on Lenox at 116th, the largest supermarket I know of in Manhattan, quite like the big suburban markets of my youth...in every respect except for the fucking pectin!

If you want snouts, Harlem is for you. If you want pickled herring (another recent quest) or pectin, you need to shop downtown or west of the Hudson. Tomorrow moring: Zabar's.

UPDATE:
Zabar's, much to my surprise, was also a bust, though some nearby health food store finally came through.

FURTHER UPDATE:
You'll all be pleased to know that the jelly came out great.