hamantashen love

i love hamantashen so i have photographed my favorite cookie . enjoy my photos and have a fabulous hamantahsen filled purim.

tis the (purim) season

i was in the east village today and went to moishe's kosher bake shop to have my first hamantashen of the season when lo and behold a policeman followed me into the store.  not unusual i know. it was a bakery and you dont  have to be jewish to eat baked goods from a kosher bakery. well, after i purchased my poppy seed hamantashen, my policeman friend purchased some cherry filled hamantashen. well maybe he is jewish , or maybe he just likes hamantashen . you never know.
another fun culinary fact for all of the gastro jews out there is the story of  alvin lee. his bakery is not kosher, and lee is black and gentile,  but its worth a mention none the less. alvin lee saw a recipe for rugalach in a newspaper forty years ago and perfected the art of making rugalach. now he owns a bakery in harlem which carries rugalach . people love his rugalach so much that when he had to close his doors last may due to financial reasons his former patrons rallied to help him stay open because they loved his rugalach so much. hmmm so i guess there is a reason some people stay connected to judaism just for the food.... even a non jewish harlem man got into the act to make a jewish culinary dessert !

pre-purim in midwood

the best hamantashen of midwood 2010 award in my humble opinion goes to ostrovitsky's bakery on avenue j. my favorite is poppy seed, but im sure the other flavors are good too.

the store with the most purim spirit is pomegranate. they have all of their cashiers wearing purim hats. some are wearing jester hats while others are wearing crowns and cowboy hats. none of them seem to be jewish so im not sure how much fun they are having wearing these get ups, but i can say that im enjoying it.

i really want to get some cute purim boxes or bags with an actual purim design on them . amazing savings probably has some but im dreading the crowds of other last minuters who are searching for the perfect shalach manos supplies.

hamantashen

ive been rather disappointed this year, not as many midwood bakeries have poppy seed /moon hamantashen which are my favorite. i went to isaacs bakery and ostrovitky's on avenue j . ostravitsky's tried to pass off a poppy seed pastry as a hamantashen instead of admitting all they had was prune and apricot. weiss's bakery on m only had small poppy seed hamantashen, not the large ones. schrieber's on avenue m had small poppy seed hamantashen , but they didnt have any large hamantashen when i was in their store today. ostrovitsky's hamantashen are some of the best in midwood in my opinion, but they only get half a vote because i had to have a prune one instead of a poppy one this year. i dont especially like apricot hamantashen, but every bakery seems to carry them.

i ended up getting hamantashen from schrieber's . i actually bought the less desirable apricot as well as my favorite poppy ones. i need some shalach manos supplies that i wont be tempted to eat before purim. i DEFINITELY wont be eating the apricot ones.

happy purim to all

purim is definitely one of my favorite holidays because i am a big fan of hamantashen. every year i go to as many bakeries as i can in search of the best hamantashen. more specifically i search for the best poppyseed hamantashen which is my favorite. the first challenge is finding a bakery that actually has moon flavored hamantashen. often all they will have is apricot (blech) or raspberry (double blech). they dont even have prune sometimes!!! my second favorite flavor.
this year however , i was rather successful. most bakeries did carry moon flavored hamantashen. the winner this year is ostravitsky's on avenue j. runner up is isaac's bakery on avenue j. i did try a hamantashen at j2 in manhattan, but they didnt have poppy so i had prune . i have to admit that i did find it tasty.
though ive done my share of taste testing over the past few days i still have some room left for a few more hamantashen on purim day!!!
Have a Happy and Healthy Purim !!!