Pizza Truck

There are so many different varieties of food vendors in NYC that sooner or later, I would see a pizza truck and voila, I saw one by Pizza Truck NYC on Union Square yesterday. Pizzas are sold by the slice ($2.50 for regular) and are served hot from the oven inside the vehicle.

So would you buy a slice of pizza from a truck parked outside a busy street?

Fish Flag

This seafood vendor at the Union Square Green Market has a colorful flag/kite flying above his of his table. It is definitely an innovative way to advertise his stalls, especially since it he is only there one day a week.

So have you ever flied a kite? If so, when was the last time you did it?

Hot Dog Vendor @ Central Park

We had a nice cool sunny weekend recently and everyone was out at Central Park. One of things to do when you go to Central Park is to eat a soft pretzel or a hot dog. And this vendor had a long line of people waiting to buy some hot dogs.

So do you like hot dogs, sausages and/or processed meats? I certainly do. :-)

Union Square Artist

Last weekend, I saw this artist at Union Square painting a street scene involving the famous street seller/demonstrator of the Swiss vegetable peeler. Check out the websites of Kitty of New York Portraits and Strangetastes of St. Louis Daily Photo for actual photos of the same scene.

So do you have a veggie peeler? I don't!!

To-may-toes, To-ma-toes

These tomatoes were sold at the Green Market in Union Square yesterday. I have never seen that many varieties of tomatoes in my life. There were big ones and small ones, purple ones and white ones, round ones and not-so-round ones, cute ones and ugly ones.

I have to admit, tomatoes are an acquired taste for me. When I was a kid, I hated raw tomatoes. Now it is one of my favorite things in a salad.

So what food items did you acquire a taste for recently?

Vinny's Nut House

Mulberry Street, the main restaurant and tourist alley in Little Italy, is usually closed to automobile traffic on weekends so the locals and tourists can enjoy browsing and hanging out in the neighborhood. One of the regular vendors on the street is Vinny's Nut House, which sells nougat candy (egg white, sugar and almonds), candied apples, marzipan (almond paste) fruits, lemon iced cookies and different types of biscottis.

I tried the nougat candy once and I didn't like it very much. It tasted like a dense, sticky version of mashmallow and it stuck to the inside of my mouth. Eck! Biscottis, on the other hand, are devine. I can eat those for breakfast, lunch and dinner...with a good cup of coffee.

So have you ever tried any of these sweets mentioned above?

Christmas Tree Vendor

My friend and I decided to go back to our old neighborhood in Astoria for dinner on Thursday night. That was where I saw this Christmas tree vendor on the corner of Ditmars Boulevard and 31st Street. I stopped and took a dozen or so photos of the scene.

A part of me understands the joy these trees bring to families who decorate them for the holiday season but another part of me feels sad because they will be tossed aside the day after the new year arrives. Life as a Christmas tree is not all it cracks up to be after all.

So when do you usually take down the holiday decorations?

Cold Weather Gear

It has been fairly windy and cold this weekend. During weather like this, I usually have to wear a skull cap to keep my head warm or else, I will get a severe headache later in the evening. While I was in SoHo a couple weekends ago, I saw these fancy caps on sale by a street vendor on Prince Street between Mercer and Broadway. The vendor told me she knitted the caps herself.

So do you wear a hat or a cap when you go outside during the winter?

Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire

Roasted chestnuts are usually associated with Christmas and the winter season. Although we have not had much of a winter weather this season, you can still get roasted chestnuts from hot dog and pretzel vendors in the city. They are usually available from early November to late January. A $2 bag will yield about 10 to 12 morsels of sweet chestnuts roasted in kosher salt.

Chestnusts are fairly vertatile in that they can be roasted, boiled or candied. They can also be grounded into powder for cakes or pureed into paste for pie fillings. But most often, they are found in turkey stuffing during Thanksgiving and Christmas.

This photo was taken in front of 55th Street and 5th Avenue in Manhattan. The roasted chestnuts and pretzels on the trays are for display only because they have been sitting in the open for hours and exposed to dirt and dust from the street. The vendor has a fresh supply of warm pretzels and chestnuts in the aluminium oven under the display trays.

Do you have a favorite chestnut recipe?

Fruit Vendors in Chinatown

Street vendors are a common sight in New York City. They provide a convenient and inexpensive option for commuters to pick up some fruits and vegetables on their way home from work. This is because the lines are shorter and the produce are usually fresher. Plus the low overhead expenses mean cheaper prices for the consumers.

The vendors in this photo taken in Chinatown sell exotic tropic fruits that you will not find in regular grocery stores. Some of the more interesting produce are fresh longans, dwarf bananas, pomelo, kumquats and persimmons.

Keropokman of Singapore Daily Photo recently posted a photo of durians, the supposed "stinkiest fruit in the world." Have you tried them??

Photos

You can find street vendors selling just about anything in New York City, from the ubiquitous hotdogs and pretzels to the occasional guy hawking fake watches and handbags. There are, however, some great stuff to be found on the streets if you look hard enough.

In SoHo, you will likely find amateur artists selling original, homemade jewelries, knitwears, cards, and whatnots. There are also entrepreneurial guys selling antique books, old photographs, and all thing used and worn.

This is a photo of a display stand, on Broadway Avenue between Spring and Prince Streets, that specializes in framed portraits of celebrities, movie posters, magazine covers, and other scenic images. I suspect the target customers are tourists but that doesn't mean a local New Yorker can't pick up some pictures for his or her apartment.

My favorite image in the photo is the one depicting the evolution of ape to man and finally, to woman -- woman being the most evolved! HA! Okay, I won't go there!! Audrey Hepburn in the turtleneck sweater is a favorite too. Which is yours?