Europe Bag Of Bones Raritan

1. Europe Bag Of Bones Raritan Valley
2. Europe Bag Of Bones Raritan Nj

WITH a fresh breeze blowing off Sheepshead Bay, and the midafternoon sun heating the waterside promenade along Emmons Avenue, the pitchmen were in full cry. 'Fresh fish, we got 'em here,' one shouted. 'Live crabs, live crabs here,' a rival answered.

Across from Pier 6, George Kartsanis swung into action. 'Get your scalers right here, ladies, 'cause you never know when a fish will drop in,' he barked out to passers-by. 'I got the scalers to clean the fish, I got the knives to cut 'em, and I know they're sharp, 'cause look at my fingers.'

How to live on a boat: cleaning, provisioning, security, fishing, galley, laundry, etc.

A boat appeared at the mouth of the bay and sounded three blasts on its foghorn. Mr. Kartsanis smiled. 'That's the Jet, and if she's blowing a song, she's got fish.'

It wasn't much of a song, but the prospect of fresh fish on the way galvanized the crowd that had been lazily strolling along the piers. In a half-run, people rushed to Pier 8 to stake out a good spot for inspecting the catch, haggling with the deckhands and handing over money.

Sheepshead Bay is the people's fish market. For at least a century, this inlet just northeast of Coney Island and Brighton Beach has been the place where ordinary New Yorkers can step on a party boat and fish for half a day or wait until the boats come in around 3 P.M. and buy a dinner's worth of fish from deckhands looking to make a few extra bucks. It used to be the Italians and Irish who crowded the shoreline. Nowadays the eager buyers include Chinese, Koreans and West Indians, all eager to get their hands on the freshest, best-tasting fish that money can buy.

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'People live in this big city, and they don't realize what they have,' said Bill Lind, the captain of the Sunshine. 'The fish we have in New York waters is the best on the East Coast.'

Right now, after a short winter nap, the boats are sailing again, bringing back flounder, blackfish and ling, a humble member of the whiting family. As the season goes on, the menu changes. Mackerel will begin to run this month, followed by fluke, porgy and sea bass. There are about 15 party boats, offering a simple deal. From late March until well into January, they leave in the morning, between 7 and 9, and return around 3 P.M. A few boats fish year-round. For a flat fee of about $34, fishermen get a rod and bait. If a ship's mate fillets your catch, it's customary to leave a tip.

In the summer, some of the boats will head out at 7 P.M. after big, bad bluefish, tough street fighters with a three-time loser's will to resist capture. 'It's like pulling in a German shepherd,' said Joe Lind, the owner of the Sunshine and Bill Lind's brother. The payoff for an all-night bluefish battle is a rich, full-flavored fish, dense and firm, one that is often despised by consumers who encounter it after the oils in the flesh have begun to turn rancid. Fresh from the water, and baked or roasted with a big Mediterranean-style sauce, bluefish is hard to beat.

Aboard the Jet, workers spread flounder and blackfish on the foredeck. Flounder were about $10 for a 'pile' or a 'bunch' -- anywhere from three to six fish. Today the asking price for blackfish -- a stocky, bigheaded character with lots of meat on the bones -- was $20 for a 10-pound specimen.

Hanging over the pier's metal rail, onlookers watched in semihorrified fascination as a deckhand filleted a blackfish and tossed scraps overboard to be snatched up by waiting gulls. Meanwhile, gentle flounders, one-pounders the size of a dinner plate, simply lay there, their ivory-white bellies a bright promise of the sweet flesh inside. A deckhand pointed to the fish and made his pitch: 'Flounders here, people.'

Other boats pulled in, some tooting their horns, some slipping quietly into port. The Sunshine, back from Raritan Bay, discharged onto Pier 2 a pack of happy anglers laden with flounder. At a worktable set up on the afterdeck, the hands went to work, swiftly filleting the flounder for fishermen who don't want to be bothered. Using a long, flexible boning knife, Ryan Smith, a ship's mate, made an incision the length of the backbone and worked down the sides, separating one perfect fillet, then the other. 'You just ride the bone,' he said. 'It's all using the tip of the knife. You don't want to leave any fish, not here in Sheepshead Bay. They want it all.'

WHEN I made my first foray to Sheepshead Bay, Chinese customers rushed the boats, money in hand, determined to get the best of the few flounder that were coming in that cold, overcast day. As it turned out, they got all of them. Wavering, I lost my chance. When the Ocean Eagle II pulled in, I raced with the crowd, determined to get my hands on a flounder, and shouted out my order early, waving a $10 bill. The ship's mate put three good-looking fish into a plastic bag, winning points for honesty when he threw aside a sundial fish, a flatfish with a passing resemblance to a flounder but very little flesh.

An hour later, I was filleting the flounder in my kitchen. My wife dipped the fillets, dragged them through seasoned bread crumbs and sauteed them for a minute or two in good olive oil. We squeezed lemon juice over the fillets and applied our forks.

Glory be. This fish, sweet and succulent, had nothing in common with the watery, tasteless product sold under the same name in our local fish store. There is fish, and then there is fish. This was definitely fish.

But not all the seafood at Sheephead Bay is fresh. Some of the boats never leave the dock. They simply sell fish from the Fulton Fish Market, and not always in good condition. Others come back with a fresh catch but do a sideline in market-bought fish. When a boat pulls in selling one or two species, that's a good sign. If it offers everything from bags of shrimp to tuna and salmon, proceed to the next pier.

SHEEPSHEAD BAY and fish have been intertwined since time immemorial. The name itself comes from a fish, the sheepshead, also known as striped porgy, which swam in large numbers nearby. Once the site of a Canarsee Indian village, the neighborhood, a small farming community known as the Cove, slumbered in obscurity more than two centuries after the English settled nearby Gravesend in 1645. Not until the 1870's, when Ocean Parkway was completed and a railroad was extended from Brooklyn Bridge to Coney Island, did Sheepshead Bay amount to much more than a fishing village of wooden shacks, with a few hotels and inns catering to New Yorkers in search of fresh air and steaming bowls of clam chowder.

But by the late 19th century, Coney Island, Brighton Beach, Manhattan Beach and Sheepshead Bay formed a glittering constellation of pleasure spots, luring New Yorkers with race tracks, hotels and beaches. By the 1920's, however, the race tracks had closed, the grand hotels had been torn down, the high rollers had moved on, and the neighborhood reverted to its previous character. In 1922, The Brooklyn Eagle described it as a series of weather-beaten shacks and narrow wharves that extended over the expanse of malodorous mud exposed when the tide went out. 'At the same time this conglomeration of shacks is an important market for fish, clams, lobsters and other seafood, and the base of a fleet of more than 1,000 fishing boats, yachts and other small craft,' the paper reported. In the 1930's, the city stepped in. It deepened the inlet and created a bulkhead with 10 piers.

Herman Brodsky, a regular on Emmons Avenue, started fishing from the boats in the late 20's, when the fabled Lundy's restaurant opened its doors. In 1960, he moved to Emmons Avenue, a convenience for someone who likes to board the boats and fish every day. A recent back injury has placed him on the sidelines for the moment. He waved off the advice of a fishing pal that he fish his way through the pain.

'Years ago, it was great, but then the commercial draggers really did a job out there,' he said. 'It's still one of the best fishing grounds there is though.'

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THE boats follow the fish. As the waters warm up, flounder stir farther and farther from shore. The boats seek out wrecks and rocks where blackfish like to gather. 'This is a very productive area for fish, and this is the safest port around for getting in and out,' said Greg Nardiello, the captain of the Ocean Eagle II. 'I'll go up to 20 miles out, but most of the fishing is done within three miles of the Jersey shore or the Brooklyn shore or Long Island.' There is fine flounder fishing in the Coney Island flats and as close in as Jamaica Bay.

'I grew up about a mile and a half from Sheepshead Bay, and it was always a big thing to do on a weekend, to get up at 4 A.M. and go fishing for the day,' said Robert Cornfield, the author of 'Lundy's,' a history of Sheepshead Bay's most famous restaurant, which HarperCollins will publish in June. 'We'd bring home bass or bluefish, and my mother would scream because she had to clean them.'

Among the boats that still offer a day of fishing are the Jet, (718) 743-2063; the Sunshine, (718) 680-2207, and the Ocean Eagle II, (718) 981-9750.

When Mr. Cornfield grew up in the late 1940's and early 50's, the neighborhood was mostly Jewish and Italian, with a small black community that was established when the Sheepshead Bay track opened in 1880. Their ranks have been joined by Chinese, Russians, Indians, Pakistanis, Vietnamese and Filipinos.

The crowds that come looking for fish, especially on Sundays, have always been mixed, because the bay draws customers from all over Brooklyn.

The crews no longer pay attention when Korean fishermen eat their catch raw with kochujang, a spicy condiment made of bean paste and ground red pepper. 'They do the sushi thing with fluke, sea bass, blackfish and even moon snails,' Mr. Nardiello said. 'They won't touch flounder. It moves too slow, they say, and they worry about parasites.'

Porgies are popular with Chinese and with West Indians, who make an escabeche, bathing the raw fish in a lime juice marinade. Some Chinese restaurants in the area will cook your catch for you, taking half the fish as a fee. The porgy that was happily swimming that morning will rest in a black-bean sauce by sunset.

The American approach to the Sheepshead Bay catch is simple: if it ain't broke, don't fix it. 'I steam the fish for four minutes,' Mr. Brodsky said firmly, with an expression that implied, What else do you need to do to a piece of fresh fish?

For generations, Lundy's did a land-office business serving local fish, which it took pains not to disturb. You wanted a fish, you got it broiled, in butter. For diners who want complications, there's always Le Bernardin. At the people's market, the fish comes fresh as the breeze off the Atlantic. Don't mess with it.

Europe Bag Of Bones Raritan Valley

WHOLE ROASTED FISH WITH POTATOES, FENNEL AND SHALLOTS

Europe Bag Of Bones Raritan Nj

Adapted from 'Lundy's' by Robert Cornfield (HarperCollins, June 1998)

Time: 1 hour

4 medium potatoes (Yukon Gold or other baking potato), peeled and quartered

2 large sprigs fresh rosemary

2 whole red snappers or pompano, cleaned and gutted

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

1 large fennel bulb

4 tablespoons olive oil

4 medium shallots, peeled

3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

1 lemon, cut into wedges, for garnish.

1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Half fill a medium saucepan with water, and bring it to a boil over high heat. Add potatoes, and cook for 5 minutes. Rinse under cold water to stop the cooking, and drain.

2. Place a rosemary sprig in each fish cavity. Season with salt and pepper. Make three shallow diagonal slits in the skins.

3. Cut the fennel lengthwise into thin slices, leaving some of the core to hold the slices together. Place 1 tablespoon of oil in a large shallow roasting pan or in two medium-size pans. Place pan in oven to heat until oil is very hot, about 1 to 2 minutes. Remove pan from oven, and place fish in pan surrounded by potatoes, fennel and shallots. Drizzle with 1 tablespoon oil, and toss vegetables to coat.

4. Roast until fish feels firm at thickest point and flesh is opaque, 20 to 30 minutes. Remove fish and vegetables from oven, and transfer to a large platter. Drizzle with remaining oil and lemon juice, and serve sizzling hot, garnished with lemon wedges.

Yield: 4 servings.

Correction: April 16, 1998

A recipe in the Dining section yesterday for Whole Roasted Fish With Potatoes, Fennel and Shallots, with an article about the fish market in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, omitted the author of the recipe, which was adapted from Robert Cornfield's forthcoming book 'Lundy's.' The recipe author is Kathy Gunst.

The ninth studio album from the Swedish metal veterans finds Europe singing the blues. Big, beefy, melodic, and bristling with '70s riffage and croaking Hammond B-3 swells, Bag of Bones, which follows 2009's more opulent Last Look at Eden, revels in hard rock clichés, but does so with enough energy and attitude to warrant more than a cursory listen. The Led Zeppelin aping, as has been the case in the years since they achieved stadium rock sainthood with 'The Final Countdown,' is still in full effect, especially on the summery 'That's the Way'/'Bron-Y-Aur Stomp'-inspired 'Drink and a Smile,' but at least they've got it down to a science. Caught somewhere between Badmotorfinger-era Soundgarden, early Deep Purple, and Stevie Ray Vaughan, Bag of Bones offers up some gems in the blistering Euro debt crisis opener 'Riches to Rags,' the neo-prog-pop of 'Firebox,' and the Bad Company-meets-Cinderella balladry of the moody title cut.

Sample	Title/Composer	Performer	Time
1	3:05
2	5:13
3	3:46
4	5:31
5	0:28
6	John Leven / Joey Tempest	4:25
7	3:58
8	Mic Michaeli / Joey Tempest	2:21
9	3:58
10	John Norum / Joey Tempest	4:31
11	3:39

blue highlight denotes track pick