Brooklyn Home Companion
Obviously, we’ve got some issues right now. Trying to switch some things around and I messed everything up; moved into a compound and then it was 4th of July weekend and now I am finally going to try and fix it. Bear with me, please and thank you. Be back soon.
Is that a banana in your pocket, or did you just drink some of Brooklyn’s “Magic Power Coffee?”
INZ Distributors Inc./Magic Power Coffee Inc. of Brooklyn, NY announced today that it is conducting a voluntary nationwide recall of the dietary supplement product sold under the name, Magic Power Coffee. The Company has been informed by representatives of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) that lab analysis of one lot of the product by the FDA found that the product contains undeclared hydroxythiohomosildenafil, similar in structure to Sildenafil, an FDA-approved drug used for the treatment of male Erectile Dysfunction (ED), making Magic Power Coffee an unapproved drug. [Emphasis mine]
Latest Unicycles mix from Jables, just in time for wherever you may be traveling and needing summer songs (or if you just need something to pep you up at your computer). Enjoy! I’ll be posting my own mix-summer mix soon …
[Steam/Download: http://goddamncobras.com/uni073/]
[x-posted, Brooklyn Home Companion]
Last week, I successfully sprouted some mixed sprouts for the first time. On my initial try, after a few days, I ended up with a moldy-smelling mess instead of fresh sprouts because I didn’t realize that—unlike when soaking, say, quinoa or beans—you don’t leave the seeds submerged in water. If you’re new to sprouting, or just need a refresher, here’s my guide to sprouting in 5 quick steps:
1. Buy sprout seeds. I always thought I didn’t like sprouts because I’d only tried the conventional, alfalfa variety, but I’ve since learned that there are a remarkable variety of different kinds (my favorite so far have been spicy daikon sprouts) .
2. Pour seeds into a cheese cloth bag (some experienced sprouters recommend a hemp bag). This makes it easier to drain water from your seeds.
3. Rinse seeds in bag thoroughly. Put sprouts in glass jar or other container, and fill with water so bag of sprouts is submerged for now. Let sit overnight, or for an equivalent amount of hours, in a dark place, like a kitchen cabinet.
4. Drain. In the morning, remove bag of seeds from jar, rinse, then empty excess water from the jar and place seeds back in.
5. Continue rinsing twice a day (removing excess water from jar before placing bag back in each time) until your seeds have sprouted (2-4 days).
Finished! Eat on sandwiches or salads, or experiment—the people I bought my seeds from were serving a mix of different kinds of sprouts lightly covered in Thai peanut sauce. See some sprout recipes for every meal here.
We wanted to share with you a new report we published on Thursday which concludes that the vast majority of New York City street fairs are bland and repetitive. Our report features ideas for improving these staples of summer from 25 innovative New Yorkers, including the founder of Chowhound, the organizer of Red Hook Food Vendors and the founders of successful markets like the New York City Greenmarket, Union Square Holiday Market, Brooklyn Flea and Chelsea Market. — Center for an Urban Future, publicizing its report, “New Visions for New York Street Fairs“
I tend to think most street fairs are overrated—there are only so many cheaply-made faux-ethnic earring booths one can tolerate—so I look forward to reading these folks suggestions for improvements.
Got some suggestions of your own? Send them to streetfairs@nycfuture.org; CUF will publish some of the ones they like later this summer. Or leave some ideas in the comments here! This is an idea we’ve been discussing a lot lately round these parts, in light of the Greenpoint Food Market situation, so I definitely plan to compile and send in some thoughts …
Here’s some more coverage of the CUF report:
Samba Show? Artisans? Group Reimagines NYC Street Fairs >>
How Do You Get NY’s Street Fairs Past Fried Dough? >>
Will There Be a Street Fair (R)Evolution? >>
A few days ago, the New York Post reported on Mayor Bloomberg’s promises to further limit the city’s street fairs (the Post, or at least one of its contributors, seems to feel pretty strongly that the correct number to “limit” the fairs to is zero).
Perhaps most disappointing (but least surprising) is realizing that what’s holding back some of the visions of what the city’s street fairs could be like from becoming a reality is the city itself, or at least those that govern it.
… officials said they face significant legal hurdles in trying to limit and re-engineer the fairs, including the right of community sponsors to select the vendors they want.
The city is “looking into” (I’m beginning to loathe this phrase) changing regulations to allow more “more efficient use of street space and city resources,” a spokeswoman says.
There’s no timetable for the new regulations.
The city took in $1.6 million in fees from fairs last year, but spent $4 million on police overtime.
Whole Foods—the world’s leading retailer of natural and organic foods—has pulled all kombucha from its shelves. More on my other blog …
• NY Health Department Announces Rules for Restaurant Grades
• Students nurture dreams of being farmers in urban Miami-Dade
• Italy fears for Nutella with new EU food labels
• Tim Carney @ Washington Examiner brings up the Greenpoint Food Market and asks if “more corporatism in Brooklyn” will drive folks here to libertarianism
• Cops crack down on art spaces and alcohol in Bushwick
• New York’s wonderful investigative journalism magazine, City Limits, needs support—you can get a year’s subscription for $25, or donate $5 via text instantly. Give the website a look; it’s really an under-appreciated NY publication, I think.
• Recipe: Date syrup (raw)
• Strangely mesmerizing: Video for Sunglasses’ “Whiplash”:
The Greenpoint Food Market was featured in a New York Times article at the beginning of June. Good for Greenpoint, right?
Perhaps not. The market’s vendors operate on a wide spectrum of the professionalism and legality scale. For some, this is a career; for others, it’s a hobby, a community-bonding activity, a stepping-stone to bigger things, a way to earn a little extra cash, or a great lab to test out new recipes and products. But, as mentioned (very briefly) in the Times article, the New York Department of Health requires that all food vendors must a) have a permit for handling food, and b) concoct their wares in a commercial kitchen (a luxury out of reach for many vendors, whose profit margins are thin or nonexistent as is).
Immediately following the article, market organizer Joann Kim—who started the market to avoid the regulatory hassles involved in selling at shops—was contacted by various media and government officials. Kim began meeting with folks from the local government and the health department, along with the organizers of other city food markets (a number of the city’s food markets operate under the same sort of ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy with vendors as the Greenpoint market does - vendors aren’t required to show, nor generally even asked about, licenses). This is what she found out:
To keep the market functioning and to prevent the market from being not only shut down but fined (each vendor fined at a min. of $500) we need to now adhere to the following DoH requirements:
- Each vendor must produce their food at a certified commercial kitchen, whether it’s a friend’s restaurant you’re using during off hours or it’s a rental kitchen in LIC, I’ll need some sort of documentation that you’re not making food from home. A letter with the kitchen’s letterhead stating “this vendor produces food at this kitchen” would suffice.
- Each vendor must obtain their food protection certificate. The 15 hour course can be taken online for free and afterwards you take the test in Harlem for $25 and wait 2 weeks for the cert to come. If you don’t have this yet, I suggest you get on this ASAP.
- Each time a vendor participates at the market, you have to obtain a Temporary Food Establishment Permit. It’s $20 each time and involves visiting the Dept of Consumer Affairs located at 42 Broadway 5th floor. You can apply as either an individual or corporation. You will need a vendor/sponsor (me) letter of agreement which I will send out after market sign up email, which will list participating vendors for that specific date.
In light of all this, Kim is canceling the previously scheduled June 26 market. Instead, she and Griffin Thomas, pastor of the Lutheran Church of the Messiah where the market is held, are putting together a “Think Tank Potluck,” where vendors, community members, government officials and food policy folks can come together and discuss the issues all of this has raised. Speakers will include a representative from the health department, NY City Council member Stephen Levin, Harry and Taylor of Brooklyn Kitchen, Rich Awn of Mombucha, Danielle Gould of Brooklyn Food Coalition and others. Kim says the panel will cover:
- How you know when you’ve got a viable product to start a small food business with.
- How to figure out city codes and regulations.
- How to tap into available commercial kitchen resources.
- What changes need to be made in legislation to make it more accessible to food start ups with high overhead and low profit margins.
- How possible it would be to run a non-profit incubator kitchen funded and supported by local gov that all vendors can use and can host GFM (long term project).
Last Thursday, after staring at a laptop for 8+ hours, I decided to ease my digitally-overloaded mind by flipping through Trowel and Error: Over 700 Tips, Remedies and Shortcuts for the Gardener
It’s the kind of book you can read word for word or opt to read only the parts that pertain to you—frequent illustrations, diagrams and headings make it easy to quickly gauge what a page or section is about. The graphics can be a little hokey (think the kind of cozy, pastoral scenes and muted-colored woodland creatures you might see on a birthday card from your grandma); Lovejoy’s enthusiasm a little too Chicken Soup for the Soul (“One of my greatest joys is an early-morning walk in the garden,” she begins).
But what Trowel & Error lacks in edge, it more than makes up for in practical tips and advice (even my hippie boyfriend seemed impressed by her novel suggestion for seed-starting containers: hollowed-out citrus). Not only are all of the gardening solutions Lovejoy offers organic, many of them can be implemented with things you probably already have around the house—vinegar, spices, newspapers, even your own hair.
Since finishing the book, I’ve been coating the area around my fire-escape garden with chili pepper & vinegar to try and repel the obese squirrel that’s been plaguing my french sorrel; so far, he hasn’t been back.
More of my favorite advice from Trowel & Error:
FreshDirect, the major grocery-delivery company servicing the NYC area, has announced that it’s significantly upping its local-food offerings. Cool Hunting reports:
The online grocer will travel to over 30 farms found within 300 miles of NYC to gather goods like Grafton Village cheeses, Nature’s Yoke eggs, Wickham’s Fruit Farm tomatoes, Brooklyn Brewery beer and much more. Focusing on family-run or small-scale producers, many of the foods go from the garden to your table in less than 48 hours.
When I lived in DC, I sometimes ordered groceries through Peapod, and if you asked me about it I recommended it so highly friends got suspicious I wasn’t a secret Big Grocery operative. But I’m not so sure about FreshDirect. While I like it better than Peapod in theory—the products from nearby farms, the emphasis on healthy eating and seasonal produce—I’ve ended up with bad or nearly bad (as in, it started molding a day after I got it) produce from FreshDirect a handful of times …
