116 Comments

This was a stew-pendous issue.

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Arggghhhhh. You beat me by a minute!

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I'm a diligent stew-dent of awful puns

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I'm stew-pified to learn I'm not the only one.

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“The stew burned a little. The pot was set on "high" (stewpid mistake).”

A story: For a period of ten years or so, my in-laws hosted a yearly event that morphed into being called the “Annual Sauce-Off.”

It started from an argument between my brother and sister-in-law over who made the best pasta sauce and took off because none of the other family members thought their sauce was very good. POINT BEING, it was VERY competitive and cutthroat and the mystery of who turned up the heat from simmer, to high, in order to scorch my brother-in-law’s sauces is still debated (there were so many suspects!) https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1dX9xQ-JtDAofO88hDIP96-R11qmWl8m0?usp=sharing

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Jul 10, 2023Liked by Anne Kadet

Anne, I love these articles. They sure beat the hell out of reading about anything negative and depressing. I will let this article stew for a while.

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So funny. Thank you Justin! I'm so glad you're enjoying!

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"I'm disappointed that nobody brought anything that shouldn't be in a stew," I said.'

I'm disappointed that no one punked the server by asking for a "skwon, instead of broad."

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What an issue of fun, zany, sharing (1) glad to see the return of the doorman -- you owe your audience updates on the rubber band ball(s) although the Dogs of Brooklyn sounds viral :) (2) Minnie is a star and part Steve McQueen (Papillon!) -- this is what I call in dogs a high-energy model!!! (3) Doesn't matter whether we call it stew, booyah or gumbo it is cool when something ends up with so many ingredients. It takes an A-STEW-T reporter to capture the fun -- hard to believe you can make something when everyone brings whatever they want??? (4) Finally so happy to hear about Marcos -- it sounds like a WHOLE LOT OF RANDOM kindness to offer him a hand up (5) Outrageous hope -- if the STEW event becomes a thing, I would bet there is a CAFE ANNE reader who is local who has figured out how to make a stable tow trailer for a bicycle that maybe next year's stew crowd can do a fundraiser for Marcos to tow the cauldron next year -- like the relay to light the Olympic flame. Marcos could use the mini-trailer the other times to deliver stuff lots of other bicycles cannot and become a fixture in the neighborhood! Maybe even Trader Joe's might consider sponsoring the trailer as an example of an NYC success story. I have seen these sorts of trailers in the "Co-op area" of town and they always make me smile. The extra torque of an e-bike makes modest towing a thing with a bicycle!!! (6) THANK YOU ANNE -- lots of people walk by those among us that need help and have an uneasy coexistence with the poor. To use your voice to transform life one person at a time is a great thing. YOU ROCK.

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Mr. Dolan!

1) As you may recall, I had the rubber band balls on my shrine for a spell, and even when Mr. Santiago returned from his knee surgery, I "forgot" to return them. Then they started to fall apart! Which was not cool. I figured they missed their real owner so I finally brought them back downstairs. He was very nice about it, ("No worries!) and I believe he is once again adding rubber bands.

2) Was Steve McQueen a Papillon?

3) Yes, I was VERY surprised some smart alec didn't come along and try to add, say, candy or watermelon or what have you.

4) I am so happy too. I can hardly BELIEVE this story had such a good ending. I mean, it's not over til it's over, but what is?

5) Marcos towing the stew! What a vision! I love it!

6) Awww thank you! And thank you for your thoughtful comments every week. It means a lot.

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Jul 10, 2023·edited Jul 10, 2023Liked by Anne Kadet

(2) Steve McQueen/Dustin Hoffman -- Papillon was an AWESOME movie and McQueen sort of lived his life as a very energetic, high-adrenaline guy -- he could have been a border collie / papillon mix :) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070511/ (3) every firehall in the Midwest seems to do a Fall Booyah event. Always fun to see someone stirring a pot with an oar-like spoon. Will try and get a photo this fall -- not sure what's in booyah although they have their recipes rather than the free for all. (4) I was just so glad to hear all of these other resources and options seemed to emerge for Marcos -- while you won't take a bow I am sure your prior reporting inspired A LOT OF IT.

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“The stew burned a little. The pot was set on "high" (stewpid mistake).”

Burned stew reminds me of a story: For a period of ten years or so, my bro and sis-in-laws hosted a yearly event that morphed into being called the “Annual Sauce-Off.” At the end it was quite sophisticated with small, anonymously numbered, distinct crock-pots containing pasta sauce that could be sampled on pasta or bread or your finger and voted upon. The proceedings were as honest as the day is long, with lots of shenanigans. https://youtu.be/YN76MpTJhQE

The contest started up from an argument between my brother and sister-in-law over who made the best pasta sauce and took off because none of the other family members thought their sauce was very good. So everyone, about 12 contestants at one point, entered their sauce.

POINT BEING, it was VERY competitive and cutthroat; the winner got a commemorative plate to keep for a year.

So the "burned stew" brought to mind the mystery of who slyly turned up the heat from simmer, to high, in order to scorch my brother-in-law’s sauce one year is still debated (there were so many suspects!)

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1dX9xQ-JtDAofO88hDIP96-R11qmWl8m0?usp=sharing

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Wow JRB, was just looking at the photos. You guys were NOT f'ing around with this. So fun!

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The best part was counting the ballots and reading the comments, which were mandatory and were meant to insult the person's sauce to the max...Ajax, Murphy's Oil Soap and Decon were most often mentioned...we made sure that the losers had a ride home if there were bridges to cross on the way and we shut off their gas at the meter, once home...

it was a running joke for years that my sister-in-law, Rhonda, never received a vote, THOUGH SHE VOTED FOR HER OWN SAUCE EACH YEAR! Much skulduggery...I'm still being teased mercilessly that I must have mistakenly thought it was a "Salsa-Off" because of the chunky sauce I made one year...

you are correct about the family NOT f'ing around...it's starts with a spark of imagination and becomes a conflagration...for example when we decided to do "Carpool Karaoke" videos at Christmas...the beginning of this one is a family joke of brother John teasing sister Sandy with an exaggerated 'Merrrrrrrrrrry Christmassssss" causing her signature reply, "Don't you start with me!!" It starts slowly but builds up....bro-in-law Eddie is Santa...there are funny outtakes at the end... https://drive.google.com/file/d/1F4MHvfa2A-5t2z-nHaBNjfKyWJSpOX_w/view?usp=sharing

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PS...one contestant got banned from competition for 3 years for submitting a sauce made with Ragu and Spam...I liked it and voted for it!!!

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Jul 10, 2023Liked by Anne Kadet

I (an Episcopal priest) am EXTREMELY EXCITED that this piece was published today, since I will have plenty of time to work it into my sermon for Sunday 7/16, when the lectionary has us reading from Genesis 25, in which Esau trades his birthright for STEW. “It’s not about the stew.”

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You can start a stew club at church!

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"The crowd went bananas."

Anne! Are you sure they didn't go crackers or nuts?!

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Haha! I considered and made this choice quite intentionally, JRB!

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“It's Stew York City, Baby!”

OMG!! That’s as far as I got and I’m LOL, LOL, PMP, PMP!! “I want to be a part of it, Stew York, Stew York!!”

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Jul 11, 2023·edited Jul 11, 2023Liked by Anne Kadet

If you can stew it there

You can stew anywhere

It’s up to you,

Stew York, Stew York!

Fun issue.

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Now I will have that playing in my head all day. Thanks Mark haha!

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Jul 12, 2023·edited Jul 12, 2023Liked by Anne Kadet

It needed a theme song! 🤣

Start stirring the stew

We’re eating today

I want to be a part of it

In old Stew York….

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“Every day I wake up happy!” he said.”

MISSION ACCOMPLSHED, ANNE!!! Wow! That Williamsburg Safe Haven should go national.

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What a stew-pendous newsletter! (Do I get a prize for making the first stew-comment?

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I'm so sorry Tad beat you! You must have been in a stewpor!

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Well, my entire morning is ruined and I'm stewing over being cheated out of my victory.

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Or just too stewpid!!

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Are the people responsible for the cook offs considered stewards and stewardesses? I believe Anne, since she researched and participated in this event might be considered stewdious.

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PMP!! AGAIN!! They are stew-wards and stew-wardesses. Did you know that phonetically most words in the English language start with the "stew" sound!! I defy you to name a word that doesn't!!

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Hello. Cat. Dog. I think I’m missing something here... 🥸

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I apologize, Beth! You are not missing anything...I was just being ludicrous...but there are quite a few words ...there is stewpid, stewpider, stewpidest, stewpendous, stewvedor, stewage, stewaway, stewer, stewest, stewardess, steward, on and on...and never forget Disco Stew (Stu) https://youtu.be/e6LOWKVq5sQ

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"It is, for sure, in the running," he said. "It's the biggest stew-related night of my life."

NOW THAT'S SO GD FUNNY!!! PMP!!! It has me wondering what was the biggest stew-related night of my life??

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I need a newsletter from Annie documenting the stew in a diary style, this was great content!!

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Emily, Annie continues to update the stew-log here:

https://www.perpetualstew.club/

You can also sign up for her mailing list!

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Amazing! I was reading about perpetual stew just this week - and then this turned up in my Substack inbox! I am SOOOO going to fire up a cauldron of my own - I've got to act on what the universe is telling me, right? Following advice to keep it veggie....

My friend's dad is very proud of his post-Christmas turkey soup, which he keeps on the stove and adds things to every day until New Year's Day, and every year my friend has has serious qualms about every staying over at Christmas, believing that surely THIS time tired-turkey soup tragedy will strike...

Reminds me of the wonderful 'stone soup' folk tale - do you know it? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stone_Soup#Story

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Yes! My mom read me the stone soup story when I was little and it always made me so hungry. But your story about your dad's turkey soup made me even hungry.

So curious—what are you going to start your stew with?

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Gosh, not my dad - he's a great cook, and not one to leave liquid leftover turkey steeping at less than boiling point for festive days on end - it's my friend's dad. (Dad, if you're reading this, you're welcome.) 🤣

I like the thought of beans or pearl barley as a starting stewpoint, celery and onions because a pot of food is nothing without those two; some tomato puree, a robust, 'mmm, what IS that, I can't quite place it?' flavour like cumin... and - because I'm the wild type - something crazy like ginger. There'll be a glut of courgettes pretty soon - so those'll go in with a shedload of strong flavours to balance their own lack of oomph.

I have a long history of making 'bottom of the fridge' soup/stew/curry the night before my scheduled grocery delivery, so I reckon we'll do okay!

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Love that stone soup concept. Very clever. You can take the stone with you as a starter for the next batch! 🤣

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Oh, turkey soup??!! A true tragedy that ruins the holiday https://youtu.be/gVdEINfm7H4

Reminds me of my sister-in-law's "Easter Cheese" she make every Easter...ugh!! I've spit out more of that stuff than than I ever swallowed...every family has one...I have to go have a mint just thinking about turkey soup and Easter Cheese!!!

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"Easter cheese."

No.

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JRB, I have just had to Google 'Easter Cheese' - and I wish I hadn't!

"... it's a ball of eggs and milk that have been cooked until the proteins separate into curds and the liquid separates into the whey."

Blimey.

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See!! Easter Cheese is the turkey soup of cheeses!!

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How wonderful about the stew! What a great community!

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I'm with you! It's very cool.

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Mr. Ramos is a gem of a human! Amazing. And I need to hit up the stew scene when I return to NYC. I didn’t even know it existed!

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Jillian, you and stew night are made for each other.

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In my youth, when we had a stove that heated our house and our hot water, we often had perpetual stew. As long as the stew boils for at least ten minutes a day, it can be kept ‘forever’. Very much a fact of life on Aussie farms and English households last century as far as I know. We’d start afresh periodically just to change the flavour range, but it was wonderful to come in on a cold day and be able to help yourself to something so warming and nourishing.

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Wow this is fascinating Beth. And being an extremely lazy cook in general I'd love to try this myself in the wintertime. How do you make sure the house doesn't accidentally burn down when you're away for the afternoon?

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It’s a stove or oven with a wood compartment on one side burning away, a flu running up through the ceiling, an oven for baking on the right and hot plates on top. The fancy collectable ones were ‘kooka’s, but ours was just an ancient heavy cast iron thing. The stew pot lived on the back gently simmering away. A great way to warm the house and cook the food. It took a skilled cook to get the heat just right to cook scones to perfection but Mum became pretty good at it.

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Okay, that's not going to work in my Brooklyn sixth-floor one-bedroom. Do you think I could just use an Instant Pot?

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Had to look up what an Instant Pot was / is. A very fancy device!! At uni when I tried something similar, I just used to use a saucepan with a good lid and make sure I boiled it for at least ten minutes a day to kill off any goobies and it seemed to work ok. I never kept it for more than a few days as I’d head home on weekends. The old cauldron concept is what they used to use, but I think Mum just used a good solid stock pot.

Actually, thinking about it, that Instant Pot might work really well! Looks like they’re pretty solid devices with a well-fitting lid and good temperature control. Intriguing! Best of luck with it. Your unit will smell divine!

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Jul 10, 2023Liked by Anne Kadet

This stew concept is an old time one. There is even a famous folk story called Stone Soup, where one person brings a pot and a stone and some water in the pot, and then goes around asking neighbors or strangers if they can make the soup a bit tastier by adding some more ingredients.

About ten years ago, there was a young woman named Katie who was known as the Soup Girl, and she invited people to her home to either add to the soup selection or to have a bowl of soup. I guess it is new to New York, and what you have written about is more like what we used to call a Happening, a spontaneous event somewhere.

As to Marcos, once he gets a place to stay and a job, he should be able to put his time at Trader Joe's behind him.

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Hi Irene! My brother-in-law also reminded me of the stone soup story. My mom used to read that to me when I was a kid and it made me so hungry and then I'd try making it out in the backyard in a pot but I did not have a fire so it did not work.

Nice to hear your memories of Soup Girl. I think there is this thing here in NYC where when we take something people have always done, but now we're doing it in New York so it seems new and novel and funny.

I am hoping to never see Marcos having to panhandle in front of the Trader Joe's ever again. But also I will miss seeing him!

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On July 6, following an anonymous complaint, the NYC Department of Health arrested Annie, the founder of the Perpetual Stew Club, on charges of being an unlicensed food vendor.

On July 7, the NYC Department of Taxation and Finance, fined said Annie $5,000 for failing to declare the assorted beans, vegetables and mysterious green things as unsolicited income.

On July 8, the NYC Department of Motor Vehicles, fined said Annie $10,000 for driving an unlicensed four-wheeled mini dolly.

On July 9, Annie released a statement from her cell on Rikers Island that she was setting up a Go Fund Me defense fund.

As of noon on July 10, Annie announced her Go Fund Me had reached $300,000 and Netflix had signed her up for a pilot series on her adventure.

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Mr. Greenberg, so funny! It would be surprising if that WASN'T what actually happened!

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Jul 10, 2023Liked by Anne Kadet

Oh my gosh, I'm weeping with joy for Marcos! And he's praying for his donors? 😭 His heart is so big! ❤️❤️❤️ PLEASE keep us posted on his journey.

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Yes Katie, he really is a sweetheart. I'll keep you posted as best I can!

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"One, two, three, everybody say 'stew!'" said Annie. "STEW!" they shouted, and jumped in unison."

That photo literally screams Stew York!!

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"If I could make stew there...I'll make it anywhere...It's up to you, Stew York, Stew York!"

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Ooooh noooooos.....!

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PMP!!! TO INFINITY!!

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