Kielbasa on Rye

I had to drown my sorrows, for Margy left me.

I mean, she left me at home for ten days while she went to frolic by the lake with the women in her family. So I rounded up the troops and did what comes naturally: go to the Bohemian Beer Garden in Queens.

If you've never been, the place is a massive fenced-in tree-studded yard that can accommodate, and I'm guessing here, oh, about a thousand people at its dozens of long wooden benches. There's an outdoor bar and an indoor bar (indoor dining rooms too, though no one really goes inside except to order a drink or use the bathroom), and a stand that sells kielbasa and hamburgers. There's also a full menu and, somewhere, a full kitchen.

The beer, it went down smooth. We mostly drank Spaten. When it was time for a kielbasa, I led the charge. The sausage was too salty, the fries too soggy, but that didn't matter a bit. Washed down with more Spaten, it was the perfect beer garden meal. It's sad that the place is the only remaining outpost of its kind in New York City. We need to hark back to the days when there was a beer garden on every block.

A quick message from CFM: Caryn, a good friend and loyal supporter, is embarking on a strange and terrifying journey on Saturday, July 29, and she needs your help. She will be blogging for 24 hours straight. Okay, so maybe straight isn't the right word. But from 9am on Saturday the 29th till 9am on Sunday the 30th, she'll be posting to her blog every half-hour as part of a Blogathon to benefit the cause of literacy. She's even pledging to run a Webcam in the wee hours, "so you can see just what insanity looks like at 3am." Please check her out during the Blogathon -- she'll make it worth your while -- and lend a bit of support as she confronts the Herculean task of facing a blank screen every 30 minutes.