WHAT'S REALLY FOOD?

i recently spent a day in ossining, ny with my grandma and little brother.  i used to go up there as a little kid to visit a painter/chef friend of my grandma’s but also to complain about having to eat soup and other things he cooked which i’m sure were delicious but i was an ungrateful monster of a child.  we climbed up and down all these mountains that ossining called “streets” for a few hours before descending back to what i assume was the bustling “downtown” area, which had more than one portuguese restaurant in a “city” of like four places to eat.

docas restaurant was like every place in northwestern spain (and, i assume, portugal) that isn’t written up in lonely planet or spymap because the old men patrons (rightfully) bought up all the wooden seats years ago.  it was full of soccer memorabilia, wood paneling, and old men screaming at soccer on the tv.  my grandma immediately started yelling in broken-portuguese-mostly-spanish for red wine and bread.  she got some crazy-delicious salmon thing and my brother ate ice cream.  i got braised pork with clams and sauteed potatoes in oily broth.  the whole thing was a little too oily, even for me, and the pork a little too tough but the down-home flavors of northern spain and portugal were 100% accurate.  i dreamed about raising sheep in spain while soaking up broth with the endless supply of bread.  the vegetables were irrelevant so i gave them to my grandma.

and because ossining is little lisbon obviously, we ate dessert at the cidade cafe next door.  it is apparently run by a teenage girl and all of her teenage friends, which is also who runs italian bakeries in brooklyn, so totally normal.  i had a pastel de nata, which is a little egg custard tart and totally delicious.  in two-dessert fashion, i also had an almond cake, which is made of flaky dough, filled with sweet almond paste, and covered in powdered sugar.  my grandma had an eclair, which tasted stale and maybe was a metaphor for some italian-portuguese rivalry.  the end!  take metro-north and go to ossining with your grandma if you’re bored and hungover to stuff yourself full of the old country.