Breakfast at Bickfords

I don't watch a lot of TV.  In fact, the last time I watched an entire program, it was probably BJ and the Bear.  I couldn't tell you what episode it was.  All I remember is Sheriff Lobo hassling Billie Joe McKay over a legitimate contract hauling job.  It was a big misunderstanding.

There are actually two things better than watching a rerun of BJ and the Bear, if you can imagine that.  One of them is building a model of BJ's Kenworth K-100 semi truck and living out your own, pretend, trucker adventures.

The other thing is pulling whatever you're driving into the Bickford's at 77 Gallivan Blvd in Dorchester.  There's ample parking.  Indeed, you can pull an eighteen wheeler into the lot and many hungry road warriors do.  Why is breakfast at this Bickford's better than reviewing your beta tape BJ and the Bear archives?  Because, for the majority of the people reading this, breakfast at this Bickford's will make you feel young.

When I eat at this Bickford's, I am the youngest person in the building by twenty years at least.  Usually more, much more.  I don't mean my fellow diners only.  I mean the waitresses, the manager, the assistant manager, the fry cook, the prep cook, and the dishwasher.  This may not seem like much if you're ten, but I'm forty-five.  It's not many places anymore that I can say that I'm the youngest person in the room by far.  I can say it any morning of the week at 77 Gallivan Boulevard.  If you're feeling a tad over the hill, a trip to Dorchester may be the psychological cure you need.  Especially first thing in the day.

 A nod to Slay, Monstrobot of the Deep!! for the 80s flashback graphic.

That Dorchester aroma

When someone says something smells like Dorchester, they don't mean it smells like urine in a back alley.  They don't mean it smells like surreptitious marijuana being smoked behind a cupped hand at the Mattapan T stop either.  They don't mean it smells like overripe garbage dumped in an abandoned lot on a street few people travel.  They don't mean it smells like gunpowder.  They don't mean it smells like a paper mill and neither do they mean to say it smells like a chocolate factory.  Fish guts, rat droppings, deep fat fryer drippings, mold, industrial exhaust, dirty diapers, rotten fruit, sweat...you can smell these things in Dorchester, but other aromas linger in the air as well.

I was in a bakery in Concord this morning.  An older couple walked in as I was buying a buttered roll.  The lady said to the gentleman, "It smells just like Dorchester here."  They were from Adams Village.

I was in Flushing, Queens a month ago, in a Vietnamese neighborhood, reading the menu of a local pho restaurant.  An elderly Asian couple passed me and pushed open the door.  When the air from inside hit their faces they exchanged comments I didn't understand except for the word "Dorchester."  I impulsively said to them, "It smells like Dorchester?"  The man gave me a big grin and a thumbs-up followed by a Victory sign followed by a vigorously pumping thumbs-up again.  "Dorchester, Mass. A-Okay! Best pho number one!" he said in reply as he walked into the dining room.

We were in Topsfield, Mass., just passing through, but we needed a restroom so we stopped at a pizzeria for a soda and the chance to rest and relieve ourselves.  While sitting in a booth, we overheard some fellow, teenaged travellers.  The girls were all giggling, saying it smelled funny in Topsfield.  The boys played along, "It smells like s**t," they guffawed.  The girls agreed but they also said parts of Topsfield smelled like nothing at all.  "It's either nothing or s**t," one girl said.  One of the boys chimed in, "This doesn't smell like Dorchester."

In Wewoka, OK, of all places, I was in front of the public library a few years ago, before I even knew Dorchester was part of Boston.  I was still living in Connecticut at the time.  I was taking photographs when a passer-by stopped me.  He asked me to take his picture while posed like he was sleeping on a park bench.   I agreed but I asked why.  "Because," he said, "This pure air in front of this fine library reminds me of Dorchester, Mass.  I don't know why because no Dot library looks like this, but the whole communal knowledge of Wewoka is stored in this building the way the best knowledge in Boston is tucked away in Dot.  Plus, the wind off the plains smells so pretty it reminds me of home."  I took his picture and a few years later I moved to Dorchester.

It smells good here.

A zephyr blows through Dorchester

March 18th.

The day after St. Patrick's Day, one would think the breeze off the Atlantic would be carrying scents carried from the Emerald Isle, clover and barley. Nope. Green wine, virgin olive oil and fresh fish filled the air of Dorchester's streets, the smell of Cabo Verde. The trees still lacked leaves, but when their bare branches rubbed each other in the wind, they clacked with an accent that had Portuguese roots.

Corned beef and cabbage still hung heavily in the atmosphere, especially around the dumpsters behind old bars and restaurants. Then the wind changed and it blew from the West. From over long distances, the aroma of pho filled people's nostrils and they salivated. Beef is the stuff that builds sturdy bones in Dorchester. Beef, fresh fish, and a sense of community.

A neighborhood of transplants, Dorchesterites don't pigeon hole strangers by their ethnicity but by the strength of a handshake. Being invited home for a meal is an act of acceptance. You have a good idea what you'll be eating from the host's background, but it may as often be a variety bucket from the KFC at Everett Square which has zero grams of trans fat but plenty of other, savory kinds.

Hospitality blows through Dorchester. It is a hallmark, a benchmark, a symptom that you have hit a bull's eye's center dot. Good company isn't a disease. It is what makes Dorchester hum and thrive. The wind off the bay sweeps away preconceptions and ushers new flavors. So many different people with different tastes so close together build a community that contains a rainbow of scents that can satisfy any and every nose.

Dorchester, Mass., the biggest and best part of Boston, passes the smell test.

Vietnamese Delights

Crimeny! This joint is crowded and hopping with people trying to navigate the aisles. I went to the Phu Cuong Market on the corner of Pearl Street and Dot Ave to pick up some mung bean sprouts for a special dinner. Unfortunately, I was shouldering my Chrome messenger bag to carry my purchase home and it made me the biggest person in the building. The aisles are narrow and the produce spills into traffic. As if the layout didn't provide enough obstacles, the store is full of people pinching the fruit, sniffing the vegetables and poking at the seafood to test for freshness.

This blue, ceramic-tiled building may not be the most appealing establishment but it's busy. I can't say it's the busiest in the neighborhood though. It is right across the street from the Ba-Le Bakery (buy two baguettes get one free!) where patrons tie up traffic by double parking and milling about the thoroughfare with bags laden with sandwiches and, of course, baguettes. Dorchester is a busy place but this intersection takes the cake. I don't want to imply it's a nuisance, because it's not. Who can begrudge success? Besides, this little knot in Dot Ave's tapestry provides a chance to stop and enjoy the locale rather than speeding by.

The shop's congestion must be good for business. Once I located the bean sprouts I had come for, I was trapped in an eddy of fellow patrons grabbing for daikon in one direction and a cross-current of people shopping for basil. The situation made me notice and pick up a bag of fresh chilies and a pound of greens I've never seen before. They smelled good so I thought I'd add them to the stovetop. While waiting in line at the counter I was buffeted back by the crowd, so I impulsively picked up a bottle of hoisin sauce as I watched one of the staff hoist some eels out of a try-bucket. All around me was bustle and commerce. When I finally had my purchases rung up they totaled $6.35, considerably more than I would have spent if I had just walked in, picked up my sprouts, and walked out.

Dorchester's Umami Mile

When I went to school we were taught there are four basic tastes: sweet, salty, sour and bitter. First described in scientific literature in 1907, umami is now considered the fifth basic taste. I don't know if the public school curriculum has caught up with science. You'll have to ask an elementary school student.

Umami, or "savory," has long been recognized in eastern cultures. The appropriately named German chemist Karl Heinrich Leopold Ritthausen discovered the food chemical responsible for this flavor in 1866, but it took a Japanese researcher, Kikunae Ikeda, to perfect its mass production. Since that fateful event monosodium glutemate has made Chinese food taste better.

You don't have to go to Chinatown to get your MSG fix. Between JFK/UMASS and Field's Corner there are a number of Asian grocers located along Dot Ave. This is Dorchester's famed Umami Mile. Large and small concerns are located every three or four blocks. They do a healthy business.

Some people will always go to Chinatown because it is picturesque and more compact. They are cheating themselves out of Dorchester's umami experience. After all, on Dot Ave you can pick up your bok choy, MSG, hoisin and rock crabs for the week at the Truong Thinh Supermarket and then walk up to the Harp and Bard for a Guiness and corned beef platter. You can't do that in Chinatown.

That fresh feeling

The farmers' market at Field's Corner stopped operating last week. No more fresh vegetables are for sale in the parking lot on the corner of Dot Ave and Park Street. Not to worry, spring is fast approaching. This doesn't mean there aren't fresh vegetables to be found in Dorchester. Everything is fresh in Dorchester, even the canned goods.

The farmers' market is a popular, warmer-month staple of Dorchester produce shopping but there is still Lambert's on Morrisey Boulevard. There is also the Stop & Shop down the road on Morrisey, the Stop & Shop at South Bay Center, the Shaw's Supermarket at Harbor Point, and the innumerable little grocery stores that offer seasonal fruits and vegetables imported from the depots in Newmarket and trucked across Boston to points-of-purchase. The Field's Corner farmers' market is nice because it is close to the Field's Corner T station and it is nice to bump shoulders with your fellow citizens while you dicker over the price of sweet potatoes and lettuce.

Few people where I live shop the big supermarket chains. There are plenty of smaller grocers that are still big enough to compete with the multi-state corporations. On Dot Ave, most of them have managers of Asian descent, mostly Vietnamese, but they offer the gamut of fresh food off vine or tree or out of the ground. Visiting these establishments can be a culinary eye-opener. There are many old, Irish household kitchens on Savin Hill and Pope's Hill that regularly use Thai chilies and bok choy as regular ingredients for their meals. If a city is a melting pot, Dorchester's stew pots certainly provide the proof. New dishes are being cooked up every day.