The New Rockaway Snack Corner: DiCosmo's Ice and Rockaway Taco

by CH Contributor

by Ariston Anderson

Every summer surfers and sun-seekers visit Rockaway, Queens to join the locals in enjoying some of NYC's finest beaches. Until recently, however, dining options were limited to the typical pizza and bar food dotting the beach area. But this year, a New Jersey classic, DiCosmo's famous ice, takes up shop next to Rockaway Taco, a David Selig venture that opened last summer, to form a local food destination changing the way we look at beach food. The two businesses share a beach shack that is quickly becoming a reason in and of itself to visit the gorgeous Rockaways during summertime.

The DiCosmo family brought over their secret family recipe for ices in 1915 to Elizabeth, New Jersey, where visitors often make the trek today to try the famous cold treat. In June, Fourth-generation John DiCosmo brought the recipe to Rockaway, making fresh batches daily of flavors like coconut, lime, chocolate, raspberry, grapefruit, pineapple, banana and of course lemon. It's one of the few ice spots that make ice like it should be made using four ingredients (fresh fruit, juice, water and a little bit of sugar) only.

After eating a DiCosmo ice, you'll never be able to eat Rita's, Ralph's, or any of the dozens of others in the city that make theirs from a mix. If you're lucky enough to catch DiCosmo on one of his experimental days, you might even get to try one of his one of his organic ice creams or agave-sweetened ices, which will soon be a menu staple.

Over at Rockaway Taco, Chef Andrew Day Field is on the grill daily, serving up some of the finest fish tacos in New York. Field worked for years around Mexico studying street food to find the perfect recipe for his Baja-style fried tilapia tacos, which he serves with spicy mayonnaise and guacamole. There's also a chorizo or a tofu option for those who prefer more or less meat, as well as quesadillas, corn and cucumber with chile and lime.

Be sure to try the salsa negra, an extra spicy sauce that comes from a Puerto Vallarta recipe that took Field four years to learn. He recommends eating the tacos on their outdoor patio, rather than getting them to go, because the optimal lifespan of a taco ends at just under four minutes.

Rockaway Taco also recently started serving a weekend breakfast before 11am of chilaquiles with a fried egg, fresh fruit juices, Jack's cold-brew iced coffee and yogurt (coming soon) sourced from the farmer's market, like many of their ingredients.

DiCosmo's Ice Rockaway and Rockaway Taco
Beach 96th Street at Rockaway Beach Boulevard
Queens, New York 11694 map
tel. +1 347 213 7466

Bill Owens x Altamont Apparel

by Karen Day

Selecting Bill Owens' photographs from the infamous 1969 Altamont Speedway concert as the new graphics for skate-inspired label Altamont may seem an obvious choice, but the connection runs deeper than a shared name.

The Altamont credo, "Find a job you love and you’ll never have to work a day in your life," embodies not just how the brand feels about designing clothing, but also speaks the spirit of Owens and his photographs.

Monetarily forced to quit his passion after a successful run—one which includes the critically acclaimed book "Suburbia,"—Owens never fully surrendered and today continues to create inspirational work in both photography and video.

In addition to his books, the Altamont Speedway photos represent Owens' interest in showing how people really live. On assignment as a photojournalist, he attended the subversive show in upstate California where he captured the enthusiasm of the youth culture during that time, much as the Altamont brand does today with their line of apparel boasting artwork from up-and-coming wavemakers.

The Bill Owens collection includes tees (click above images for detail), caps and hoodies, which can be purchased online from the Altamont website.

Ceramic Speakers by Joey Roth

by Ami Kealoha

Designer Joey Roth (of Sorapot fame) recently sent us images of his sharp-looking new speakers, which soft-launched at Nooka's pop-up store at Den in NYC (see details below). Made from porcelain, wood and cork, Roth chose the materials not only for the aesthetic appeal they add to desktops, but also because porcelain's density and "acoustical deadness" rivals that of wood or plastic enabling the cone shape. The upshot contrasts the thoroughly contemporary mix of textures and colors with a four-inch silhouette that conjures gramophones of the past.

Due out in October, Roth will be accepting pre-orders via his site starting September. No official word on pricing yet, but Roth expects they will be in the $400-500 range—stay tuned for more.

Nooka Pop-up at Den
Through 16 August 2009
328 East 11th Street
New York, NY 10003 map
tel. +1 212 475 0666

Attitude Chair by Deger Cengiz

by Brian Fichtner

New York designer Deger Cengiz's elegant standard chair features an extra pair of hinged legs that swing into place when the user tilts backward. While he's not the first to come up with the idea (see Homer Simpson's similar version in "The Wizard of Evergreen Terrace"), the finished chair bears the quality of timelessness rarely found in such gimmicky conceits.

Apparently inspired by ill-tempered teens, the Attitude Chair seems appropriate for anyone who still likes to kick back while at the table. Fashioned from wood and MDF, it's limited to an edition of 13. You can have your very own Attitude for $500 from Voos Furniture, the Brooklyn outpost for New York design.

via Dezeen

Sonos CR200 Touchscreen Controller

by Josh Rubin

Putting control of multi-room music playback into a smaller, easier to navigate device, Sonos' new remote makes their already winning system even better. Over the past several years using Sonos' Multi-Room Music System, we've been loving the balance it offers between quality, control and options.

For the uninitiated, the Sonos system plays music from computers, the Internet or any attached storage device, wirelessly and in multiple rooms. Because the Sonos system creates a proprietary network, sound doesn't suffer from a loss of quality or frustrating interference like other networks can. It even has the capability of playing different music in each room simultaneously. Always central to the Sonos brand, overall usability and elegant solutions for managing the various features are out-of-the box intuitive, the latest of which is the CR200.

Representing a huge user-friendly leap forward, it emulates the design of their iPhone application, ditching the scroll wheel of its predecessor for a touch interface that dramatically improves text entry for searching and setting up internet radio stations, in addition to the basic functions. It's also about half the size of its predecessor and more ergonomic, which makes one-handed use a breeze.

Buy it from Sonos for $350.