NYC Markets, episode 7. In which we flea indoors.

Not sure if you have noticed, but aside from being a collector-traveler I'm a traveler-foodie.  I've also been a "foodie" fan (of the expression) since its early 80s coinage.  When I am planning travel and compiling lists of sights to see and markets to flea, there are invariably lists of restaurants to sample and dishes to eat. Sometimes a dining location will be new to us:  something I've read about in a magazine or on a blog, some fine dining establishment I've seen in film or on TV, or a cafe or restaurant featured on a TV travel or food program.



In the case of my absolute favorite restaurant (that's saying a lot, believe me) it was based on a personal (still friends!) recommendation.  I have recommended Carmine's to everyone I knew headed in that direction since our first visit to the family style restaurant's theater district location on West 44th Street; we have shared hearty meals and equally enjoyable reunions with family, friends, and former students; and now I wholeheartedly recommend it to you, dear reader.  

Visit carminesnyc.com

for a no-calorie teaser.

Mari and I always start with the house salad (perfectly simple vinaigrette) and a delightful dip into the best varietal bread basket anywhere (the focaccia with tomato is my favorite).  Mari and I alternate deciding on a pasta dish to share.  On this visit it was rigatoni with meatballs--next time it will be my (lasagna) turn.  Just strap on your pedometer and be prepared to walk it off afterwards.  Most of your calories will melt away while you are fleamarketing the next day.

Just know you will not leave hungry.  (Evidence, stage right.)  I intended to photograph before we had served ourselves off the family platter, but you know how that goes.  Got a little too excited for my own foodie good.

Our sunny street art friend here spotted us as we found our way to sample a new location featured in the American Airlines seat-back magazine, another great source for travel recommendations.  I hope Sunny is still shining his psychedelically splashy smile today.  Here we are below at the Clinton Street Baking Company (all day brunch!) in our pre-blueberry-pancake pose.  Worth a visit if you are in the area (on Clinton Street between East Houston and Stanton) and willing to wait an (unfathomable?) hour for a table.

Visit clintonstreetbaking.com

to be tantalizingly tempted!

While you are fleamarketing at the GreenFlea on Sunday there will be plenty of tasty temptations to keep you nourished and bargain-alert as you wend your way through the well-organized school playground containing the tented tables and treasures you seek.  Make a plan and stick to it so you don't miss anything you've been missing.

Don't miss the mini quiche!

One of our tried-and-true flea- marketing strategies is to cover every market methodically.  You know we ain't about haphazardly wandering around, right?!  There's (always) a plan.  We always pick a corner and head there first, even if a market entrance plunks us awkwardly down mid-market.  Keep your blinders on and head to that first corner.  Now at your starting point, traverse each aisle, looking in one direction only, not from side-to-side. This (almost) ensures you don't miss anything that's been waiting to speak to you and join your collections. We'll survey the stock up and down the same aisle, looking first in one direction, then back down the same aisle in the other direction, then make our way to the next aisle and so forth until we've reached the opposite market end, then scan the perimeter tables.  It's a whole (obsessive-compulsive) thing, I know, but that's the way I fleamarket and I have to do it the same way every time.  I know there's a word for that...

It's the RIGHT way.

That's what it is.

Mari the Psych teacher can perhaps offer you a few other more descriptive terms from a textbook (or from the DSM-5), but let's stick with "right" shall we?

Once you have completely canvassed the courtyard, you will enter the school building itself and find vendors (and restrooms!) in the first floor hallway leading down to the cafeteria which is also lined with vendor tables.  The treasures you will find in the cafe might be categorized by some as a bit more precious (expensive) than the outdoor variety, but most of these items truly are vintage, antique, and more delicate in nature.  You'll find expert dealers with showcases and tables carefully laid out with jewelry, purses, coins, watches, china, and clothing.  One dealer has some beautiful vintage eyeglass frames which I am constantly admiring and telling myself "next time, next time" upon each visit.  Mari was tempted recently by a couture reseller's vintage Chanel buttons (long since detached from their posh apparel) that had now been fashioned into jewelry.  Can't argue with couture recycling!

I realize I recently shared this almost-too-adorable photo of our pampered pet, but Mamita wanted me to point out that she is modeling one of Mari's favorite GreenFleamarketed purchases.
A colorful necklace of hand carved and painted wooden beads that magically leaped out of a seemingly haphazard assemblage of household goods for sale by an itinerant vendor a few visits back. The right place at the right time.

It has been my intention these past few secondhand visits to impress upon you the great variety of greatness to be regularly and consistently found at the Sunday GreenFlea.  And there is something different and differently great every time (although the quiche is great EVERY time).  If there is a leisurely Sunday in your future, if your weekend to do list has been productively and efficiently checked off by bedtime Saturday (congratulations!), if you deserve or need a restorative break, or if you want a great place to meet friends, family, or have a pretty cool slash memorable date, then the GreenFlea is the place to be.  I believe it to be a great place for inspiration as well!  If you are in a "mood" or in a funk that isn't sufficiently electronic or "Uptown," then a GreenFlea Sunday full of friendly faces and collectible reminders of past amusements will do the trick.  Whether you are going organic with the tented green market or recycling the past in its marvelously varied collectible and colorful forms, this unique New York fleamarket is a social Sunday shopping experience eagerly awaiting your hungry browse.

We train to the Brooklyn Flea and I go a little nuts next time.