New York Spring: Henry Street

The Magnolias soulangeana in the little park at Henry and Pacific have opened and are proverbially breathtaking. They look as though they have had one too many martinis.

And here is an interesting thing: a real quince. Not the flowering quince (Chaemomeles japonica or a cultivar) that I have been blathering on about for weeks, but a quince: Cydonia oblonga - of fruit fame: the incomparably perfumed, pale yellow fruit that means autumn, fall, is here. Or there. That can be stuffed and baked like an apple, or cut up and stewed for dessert, or slowly poached to turn burgundy (if you add the seeds and skins to the cooking water, thank you Bevan, and I do so miss Anatoli) and eaten with thick cream, made at home or purchased from a gleaming window in Istanbul, with buffalo cream; or cooked with lamb...or put in your desk drawer, to open and inspire you with its scent a la...which poet?

That quince. I know because last fall it had a quince, which I nearly stole. Should've...The flowers are purity itself. The tree stands lonely and apart on the corner of Atlantic and Henry, outside the little diner I should still investigate, a throwback to other times; sailors, one thinks, and the Brooklyn of which fond uncles speak whenever they see you and remember the New York they knew for a few days, having put in with the navy...