The (new) Museum of Modern Art (MOMA)
Just in case you thought Marketman is so obsessed with food and markets that I do nothing else but flit from butcher to baker then to the cheesemaker, I thought I would throw in a post on the new Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) which re-opened November 2004 after a serious 
architectural makeover that took several years. The new building is simply superb. I like it a lot. The new museum has lots of open space, clean lines, high ceilings (4+ stories in some atriums), and very modern materials and furniture. Matte muted stone in grey and green, glass, and steel combined with white walls make the building itself worth a visit, but even better, it provides a tremendous venue for the museum’s priceless collection of art. The galleries are extremely spacious and while starkly white, the walls seem to “float” and are an excellent foil for the spectacular collection of “modern” art that spans the over 110 years from the late 1890’s to the present and includes works by Monet, Manet, Matisse, de Kooning, Pollock, Botero, etc. The sculpture garden is also stunning and a wonderful open space in midtown Manhattan.
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At the Union Square Market, the mushroom selection was mouth-watering. This bowl of morels was spied at 7:30 am, just a little after opening, so I can’t imagine they lasted much longer than another half hour. They didn’t fit in with the menu we were shopping for that day so we didn’t buy any but they were stunning nonetheless! Morels are unique in that they don’t have a typical “cap” on a stem, instead they have a tall body that has lots of grooves in it, like a natural sponge or head of corral. The American morels tend to be noticeably bigger than their European cousins. These specimens were picked from the wild and the provedore was explaining to another customer that you have to pinpoint an area where they grow and keep checking it every year to harvest the highly sought after mushrooms. They should always be eaten cooked and they are absolutely delicious.
Union Square Market this May. As the market has grown in popularity and locals come in droves, the vendors have responded with more and more variety in the flowers and produce that they bring to market. I was truly amazed to see the different varieties or hybrids of tulips available… First, a stunning orange tulip that had curly petals and hints of white and cream. Orange is the “it” color of the season and all of the clothing and accessories shops in New York scream orange. The U.S. has followed suit with Europe where the fashion Gods meet several times a year and determine what the “it” color will be and they madly put out collections in various hues of the selected color. I don’t particularly like orange but these were stunning tulips. At 6 to a bunch for $10, they were not cheap but they were stunning.
Outdoor Market at Union Square (14th Street and Broadway in Manhattan). I used to frequent this market every Saturday when I lived in the city in the late 1980’s. It was just a few years old then but already a very welcome addition to city’s rapidly expanding food scene. In mid-May there isn’t much locally grown produce yet so the market seemed a bit sparse but there were several items of interest. First, the tail end of Spring’s first flowers…
array of Greek groceries and pastries. The store had a good selection of olives, with several bowls of olives set up at an olive bar for customers to select what they like. In the refrigerated section they had several cans of the most spectacular anchovies on display. There were darker varieties and lighter ones as well… and highly salted to lower sodium content. My wife is an anchovy die-hard, so we got some of the anchovies to munch on back in the apartment and they were delicious. In addition to the impressive selection of anchovies was one of the widest selections of feta cheeses I have ever seen. There were at least a dozen different types of cheese and it was mind-boggling (or was it the jet lag?) and a pleasant jerk to the senses…
with 200 plus capiz boxes that were to be used as favors at my nephew’s upcoming wedding. That along with three “smuggler” sized suitcases with two more nested within meant we were a liability to any yellow taxi cab at the JFK airport. My brother-in-law surprised us by picking us up with a rented van and we cruised back to Manhattan in mini-van splendor. The following day, the rented van was parked just outside the apartment, just begging for an excursion. In answer to the question “Where’s the Meat?” we piled into the van and headed to the borough of Queens (the largest of the five NY boroughs at over 100 square miles), just over one of the midtown bridges in search of the Greek section of Astoria. First stop was the International Meat Market on Grand Avenue in Astoria, Queens.