NYC NOW - December 25, 2023 : Midday News

Episode Date: December 25, 2023

Our team is taking some time off, but all this week we’re looking back at the year’s top stories. Today, we start with WNYC’s Stephen Nessen and his trip with a record-seeking subway enthusiast. And finally, we share a couple of family recipes sure to put you in the holiday spirit.

Welcome to NYC Now, your source for local news in and around New York City from WNYC. I'm Jene Pierre. Happy Christmas, if you're celebrating. Today, our team is taking the day off. But all this week, we're looking back at the year's top stories, the ones that really stuck with us and with you. Back in the spring, folks at Guinness World Records were busy keeping up with record-seeking subway enthusiasts. In April, former New Yorker Kate Jones broke the record for the fastest trip to visit all 472 subway stations. She completed the feat in 22 hours, 14 minutes, and 10 seconds.

The next month, a new challenger entered the ring, and WMYC's Stephen Nesson went along for the ride. It's 1 a.m. at the Far Rockaway Mott Avenue A-Train stop. Queens resident Daniel Wells is about to embark on a grueling merit. known as the Subway Challenge. He has his route all planned out. This one was a lot of guess and check. When can I make these transfers? It's going to take me X number of minutes, make it from this stop to this stop by running. And there are rules he must follow to ensure his time is official. He needs to take a photo of each station. He carries a clipboard to document what time doors open and close. He also needs video evidence

of every transfer. And dangling from his neck is a stopwatch, tracking his time. His wife sees him off at the first station. All right. I think we're good to board the train here. And we're off. But already, there's a problem. The A train is leaving more than 10 minutes behind schedule. But Wells knows that's part of the challenge.

I mean, in the end, MTA is going to MTA. It's New York. It's crazy. Weird things happen. A lot of it's just luck. He'll need better luck if he hopes to beat the record set by Kate Jones, who flew in from Switzerland just for the challenge.

She nearly gave up after her third attempt went awry when she got on a train going in the wrong direction. But her fourth try was a winner. Wells has just one shot. I only have so many vacation days. They're doing a lot of construction over the summer. You need to visit every station. Jones and Wells both agree,

you have to knock out the A-line first. It's got those pesky shuttle stops, and it's just really long. And they agree you need to end. and on the seven line in flushing. All other plans can change on the fly. You're like running? I'm going to call an audible.

Yeah. At the Ozone Park Stop, Wells thinks if he sprints, he can catch an A-train at Rockaway Boulevard, possibly shaving an extra 20 minutes off his wait time. All right, it's one mile. He makes it, but it doesn't save much time. And three hours later... A-train adventures up for a train.

Thank you. A-train adventures up. are over. That's just one line completed. Next, it's a brisk walk to the one train. Seven hours later, after going to lower Manhattan, we're back in the Bronx. I call it quits.

While I wait for Wells to finish, I called Jones to find out about her run. She says months before she broke the record, she'd injured her ankle. I lost the instincts to, like, run. you know, the way like a light changes and you want to run across an intersection. Turns out it was a major fracture. She had two rods, two plates, and ten screws in her ankle.

But she says the subway challenge was her motivation to run again. When there's a train on the platform and the doors are closing, you have to run down the stairs and dive onto that train. My brain took over again, and it was really wonderful. It was such a wonderful experience for me. Nearly a day later, Wells finally checks in with his time. He finished, but it took 23 hours, 27 minutes, and 9 seconds. So for now, Kate Jones remains the undisputed champion of the Subway Challenge.

That's WMYC's Stephen Nesson. This year, we were able to connect with a bunch of New Yorkers through WMYC's Community Partnerships Desk. And as we gather with family and friends this holiday season, some of us are reminded of special family recipes. We ask some New Yorkers to share what comes to mind when thinking about a certain dish. My name is Yami Nijoshi. I'm from Mumbai, India. And I'm here in New York City, Q Garden from 1999. I grew up in a very conservative family where all the daughter has to learn all household

thing when they grown up because they believe one day daughter has to go to in-law's house and she has to do all the responsibility of the family. And then my father and mother want me to start cooking at the age of 10. So I started cooking kichidi. It is very digestive dish and very easy to cook. It is made out of the rice and lentil, the split lentil, which is called mongdal. The kichid is the best food for all ages. Like if you start feeding your baby a six-month-old,

so kichari is the best food from six months to 80 years. So I feel the best food in the world is the kichari to nourish your body. Kichari remind me my grandfather because when we're sitting together, eating together, and grandpa adding more ghee in the kichari and feeding us and saying, eat it. It will be make you more stronger, more smarter. and more beautiful like that way. So I love my grandpa and I love the kichidi.

I invented many dishes after that. I learned many dishes from my neighbors, from my family, from mother-in-law, from father and from my other maternal grandmother, a lot of pickle recipe also learned from my maternal grandmother. All that memory is still in my heart. And whenever I'm cooking something, I remember that person, I always be anxious to cook something else, anxious to feed my family. I like whoever come to my door, I like to feed something special, something special.

That's my nature. My name is Michelle Carlo, and I live in South Slope, Brooklyn, where I've been since, wait for it. 1988. Both sides of my family are from the island of Puerto Rico. My father's family came here in the late 1920. my mother's in the late 1930s, which, as the diaspora goes, kind of makes us like Mayflower.

One of the holiday traditions from Puerto Rico is Coquito. It's a beverage. It's a quintessential holiday libation. If you've never had it, it is a Caribbean vacation in a glass, and the recipes for Coquito are guarded like classified secrets, handed down for one person to another, and there is no share. My abuela made Coquito every single Christmas. People like wait for it. It was like the big reveal.

Coquito, yeah, because it's just so good. But when my grandmother, my abuela, died unexpectedly in 1994, the recipe went with her. Or so, my family thought, because the next Christmas, I showed up at my titis, my aunt scattering, and my family was like, what? You're trying to make Coquito?

Until they tasted it. And they were like, what? How? How? Because Abuela never let anybody watch her make coquito. I mean, you know, the kitchen would be full of people helping, you know, during the big meal preparation, but she would shoe everybody out because nobody can watch and make the coquito. But I did because I was a nosy and hungry child, teenager, and young adult. And on this one day in time, while Abuela was in the kitchen making a holiday magic, I was trying to see what kind of snack I could sneak.

And there she was, making the coquito. And I can tell you, it is a delicious, sweet, creamy blend of rum, coconut, rum, milk, rum, vanilla, rum, eggs, rum, spices, and rum. That was Michelle Carlo in South Slope, Brooklyn. She wouldn't share her recipe with us, of course, but we do have the recipe for Kishidi, which we heard before from Yomani Yoshi in Kew Gardens, Queens. You can find it at WMYC.org. Thanks for listening to NYC now from WMYC. All this week, we'll have one story a day plus the latest headlines.

Hope you're having a wonderful holiday. I'm Jenae Pierre. We'll be back tomorrow.