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03/15/2001 Archived Entry: "Jury Duty Eats"

I was on jury duty this week, for the first time in Brooklyn. Unfortunately (or fortunately for my waistline), there is no Chinatown near the courthouse, a lunch ritual for many who serve in Manhattan. Still, to amuse the food obsessed, there’s the Borough Hall Greenmarket on Tuesdays, and on Saturdays too, by the way).

Naturally, ‘tis not the season for great produce. However, there were crisp apples for me to snack on. The storage Crispins (also called Mutsus) are still wonderfully crisp and sweet. Martin’s Pennsylvania Dutch Pretzels have no season, and I love the salty ones. And I bought a truly great croissant and excellent rugelach from a company that calls itself Just Rugelach on its truck and Not Just Rugelach at its stall, which is set up at Borough Hall both market days, but also at the World Trade Center market, the Bowling Green market, and the Staten Island and Bay Ridge markets. Check www.justrugelach.com for the full schedule.

It is hard to find a great croissant in New York. Usually, they’re soft and flabby and far too fatty. Most of them I’d have to call grease bread because they are not even made with butter. Up until now, my favorite croissant in town is the crisp and fairly light one sold at City Bakery, Maury Rubin’s amazing baking emporium at 22 E. 17th St., between Broadway and Fifth Ave. It’s very near the Union Square Greenmarket, so many market-goers and the market managers hang out there. The Not Just Rugelach croissant is heavier, denser, wonderfully buttery and with a seriously crunchy exterior, different from but in every way as satisfying as City Bakery’s. I carried mine across the street to Hale and Hearty on Remsen St. to eat with a cup of soup. (More about H&H in a few paragraphs.) Plain croissants are $1.50. Ones filled with chocolate, almond, apple or cheese, which I did not taste, are $2.

I was so impressed by Just Rugelach’s croissant and abundantly filled, even more buttery rugelach, I called owner/baker Thomas Halik at his factory in Carney, New Jersey. A chef by trade, Thomas became a baker when, in his words, he got “sick of trying to prove myself as a chef and wanted to open a business and make some money for a change.” He remembered a rugelach he loved from his days working at the Shackamaxon Country Club in Scotch Plains, New Jersey. They bought them from an Austrian baker, he says, and he tried to duplicate them.

His main outlet for the rugelach is a store called Fifth Avenue Epicure, 144 Fifth Ave., near 19th St. You can also buy them mail-order by calling (212) 244-1256. They come in chocolate-hazelnut, walnut-raisin with raspberry, walnut-raisin with apricot, and cinnamon-raisin with no nuts. They are made with only butter and cream cheese, no margarine or other fats. At the Greenmarket stalls, the rugelach are $7 a pound. By mail they cost $16.95 for 1 1/2-pounds packed in a decorative tin, plus $4.75 for shipping; and $24.95 for a 2 1/2- pound tin, $5.75 for shipping. Credit cards are accepted, and a gift card can be inserted.

Among the other items that are Not Just Rugelach that Thomas sells at the Greenmarket are a cookie or biscotto that is particular to the Veneto, the northeast region of Italy of which Venice is the main city. This is the region where polenta, corn meal mush, finds it apogee. The biscotti are made with cornmeal and sultanas (golden raisins) and are called (in the plural) zaleti in dialect, zaletti in Italian. I can’t wait to try them. (I just learned the story of zaleti – what the name means, how to make them, etc. I’ll save it for when the friend that told me sends the recipe for me to publish here.)

Now to soup:

I continue to be impressed with Hale and Hearty, which I am familiar with from its outlet in the Chelsea Market. I suppose I am not the only one, because after the shakedown on soup stalls, of which there were far too many for a time, Hale and Hearty is still here.

One reason is certainly that they make salads and sandwiches besides excellent soups. The line for custom salads was longer than the soup line both days I went there for lunch. It’s an appealing formula: You pick the size of salad, the greens for which are already packed in plastic bowls in a refrigerated case behind the salad makers. The server turns the greens out into a mixing bowl and adds the free add-ons of cucumber, red onion, carrot and croutons. You choose your dressing from six to eight choices, then select any other add-ons priced from 50 cents to $1.50. The base price is $3.50 for a small salad, $4.50 for a large. Special daily salads, such as Monday’s Greek Salad, Wednesday’s Santa Fe Chicken, and Friday’s Ceasar, are $4.99 and $5.99 complete.

Soups, of which there are so many choices I had trouble deciding which to order, cost anywhere from $2.49 a cup to $6.59 a bowl. I tried the chicken mole poblano, a heady, complex brew of dark, rich chili and chocolate flavors with shredded chicken. Another day I had the chicken jambalaya, which was much spicier than the surprisingly mild Mexican soup and filled with rice. Both were more like stew than soup, which made the small serving very filling. Each soup comes with a choice of bread or a bag of excellent oyster crackers. You can also choose to have soup with a half sandwich, which are made on focaccia. I tried the tuna and it was pleasant, although hardly great, and probably with too much pepper for many people.

The help is polite, cheerful, and actually helpful. The only down side of the Borough Hall Hale and Hearty is that there are not many seats. It’s mainly for take-out. The store has just a counter and a few high tables with stools. Now that spring is here, however, you can take your Hale and Hearty lunch to the park just across the street, where the tulips are breaking ground and the daffodil buds were ready to burst.

There are other Hale & Hearty locations at 5 World Trade Center, Seventh Ave. at 35th St., 42nd St. between Fifth and Sixth Aves., 22 E. 47th St., 55 W. 56th St., Lexington Ave. and 64th St., and, as I said, in the Chelsea Market on Ninth Ave. and 15th St.