For the first Central Brooklyn Eating Liberally meeting of 2012 we will meet Tuesday, Jan. 10, 7 PM at Coco Roco, a great Peruvian restaurant on 5th Ave in the South Slope:

Coco Roco in Park Slope
392 Fifth Ave. (6th & 7th St.)
Brooklyn, NY 11215
PH: 718-965-3376

http://cocorocorestaurant.com

I haven't been to Coco Roco for some time, but it was once one of our favorite local restaurants. I particularly like their Pan con Chicharon, a simple pork sandwich but very tasty and satisfying. Their Rotisserie Chicken is also fabulous. Great Ceviche as well, though when we found we tended to overspend if we started hitting that part of the menu. Worth it, though.

So how about those Republican primaries, huh?

The two “Johns” of whom I write are John Liu and John Sampson. Liu is the NYC comptroller. Sampson is the state senator from Brooklyn’s 19th district. He is also the conference leader of the senate democrats. I want to believe he is actually the senate minority leader but some folks tell me that’s not official.

Anyway, both Liu and Sampson have come in for some serious ragging in mainstream media lately. I want to believe there is more to this than meets the unsuspecting naked eye.

A few columns aback I told you folks that the three major newspapers (Times, Daily News and N.Y. Post) are in the tank for NYC council speaker Christine Quinn: with the objective being to make her the next mayor of this city. They have been trying without subtlety to decimate those they perceive as her main opponents in the 2013 mayoral primary. Thus, over the last few years, they have been taking occasional pot shots at people like Marty Markowitz, Bill DiBlasio, Adolfo Carrion, Scott Stringer and Bill Thompson (don’t forget Anthony Wiener also). It is sad. These forces seem to believe that many aren’t observing all this. They are wrong in that assessment.  read more »

This month's Central Brooklyn Eating Liberally meeting will be Tuesday, Dec. 13th, 7 PM at Kaz an nou in Prospect Heights.

Kaz an nou
53 6th Ave,
http://kazannou.com

This is one of the best restaurants in our rotation and tends to fill up even on a Tuesday, so best to arrive right around 7 PM to make sure we get a big enough table.

Hope you can join us for excellent food and some good political discussion.

Back in the summer of 2003, freshman NYC council member James Davis was shot to death in the NYC council chambers at City Hall; mere moments before a stated meeting of the council was called to order. The most poignant memory of that terrible event was probably that of a distraught Geoffrey Davis (James’s younger brother) continuously sobbing:”they assassinated my brother; they assassinated my brother”. Television-news coverage showed the palpable grief. The pain was real. James and his younger brother Geoffrey were real close. James was Geoffrey’s first hero. Geoffrey nicknamed him: “Rocky”.

James Davis was the charismatic ex-cop, ex-jock, ex-preacher, ex-charmer, from Crown Heights, Brooklyn. He was the founder of the James E. Davis Stop the Violence Foundation. Every August for almost two decades now, the foundation has held an annual march to inspire and motivate kids to “love themselves and stop the violence”. I know very well. I have marched with them quite a few times over the years.  read more »

As I said before: truth by its very nature is controversial. And since my first column with this title, I have had to defend a president of whom I have been critical at times; and with whom I disagree on quite a wide range of policy-approaches and position-takes in both foreign-policy and domestic spheres. Look; I am a man who loves to give Jack his jacket and Jim his gym shoes: thus I must give President Barack Obama his props (as they say in the hood).

On paper, none of the current Republican challengers should defeat BO next year November; but paper is very thin, so I hold my reservations. Plus the republican base is smelling blood -and that’s not a good sign for perennially lethargic democrats. Republicans are motivated like hell; at this point in time democrats are not.  read more »