Ye Olde Street Fayre

Despite the glorious weather offering C and I the promise of option paralysis, the siren call of $15 pashminas and heavily discounted "Aberkrombie & Fitch" clothing was too much to resist. It's street fair season in the city, and no one is safe.

As I walked Zoe this morning, I sniffed out the scent of a street fair hitting First Avenue. Besides the avenue being closed to traffic, I saw the telltale frames of tents about go up. That, and the workers ready to convince you that their earrings are not going inflict upon your earlobes such a burning rash, it will leave you crying for Mommy.

Like Pavlov's dogs, we're all out in full force

I can't explain it, but regardless of how street fairs are all the same wherever they are in the city, it's like I've got to check this out! I don't know if it's the sense of abandon in being able to walk in the middle of a city street, the pull of the madding crowds, or being suckered into thinking there are bargains galore to be had. Maybe I'm one of the last remaining people who haven't figured out how to burn my own mix of reggae club songs from 1994. Therefore, it's only natural that I should really want that unmarked CD with "Murder She Wrote" and "Mr. Loverman" on it?

Future guests of Lenox Hill Hospital's Stomach Pump room

Take the 9th Avenue Food Fair, for example. This is the unoffical start to street fair season and it's supposed to be The Big Shebang. 9th Avenue is a great place to have a Food Fair, if you're going to have one, because of the plethora of restaurants on either side of it. You can only imagine the different kinds of cuisine they would serve from their temporary set-ups on the street, right?

Wrong.

Like the sucker that I am, I try to go each year in hopes that somehow it will different this time. And there's still the same sausage and peppers, the same corn arepas, and the same crepes being sold, as they would at any other street fair. The same old, greasy shite served up on temporary burners, while restaurant workers hide behind their windows and laugh at all us lemmings looking for "authentic" cuisine. Surely we didn't think we'd get their food at street fair prices, did we?

Oh that's right, we did.

As evidenced by the street fair in my 'hood, however, it's still possible to obtain authentic cuisine if you look hard enough, as evidenced by this photo:

We're talking about cannoli imported allllll the way out from Bensonhurst, Brooklyn! Which, as cannoli connoisseurs will tell you, is of a finer quality than that from the borough of Queens. Earthier...crunchier...just like Mama used to make. So to curb the rampant smuggling of contraband cannoli and trucks illegally trafficking Sicilian grandmothers, the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol has apparently set up shop on the Brooklyn Bridge.