(BKLYN)

A Quest for Dasheen and Salt Cod in the West Indies of Brooklyn

By A.H. Avouris

Crown Heights lies at the center of Brooklyn’s Caribbean community, home to one of the largest expatriate populations in the US with immigrants from Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Grenada, Haiti, and elsewhere. Nostrand Avenue, running north-south through Crown Heights, is dotted with roti shops and groceries, making it an ideal place to shop for West Indian ingredients.

February 8, 2011 Boroughing, Food, Things to Do

tags: Crown Heights, Fresh Produce, Neighborhood Guides, Recipes

Complete Kitchen: Working Class Foodie Rebecca Lando

By A.H. Avouris

From pie weights to Pyrex, each of us considers a different set of elements to be crucial to our cooking, and we often have strong opinions as to why. In this column, I will ask chefs, foodies, and restaurateurs from across the borough for the top ten necessities—both edible and utensil—that they keep stocked in their home kitchens. In this installment, Working Class Foodies producer Rebecca Lando gives us her top ten must-haves.

February 1, 2011 Beats Playlist, Boroughing, Classic, Culture, Food, Multi/Media, Video

tags: Complete Kitchen, Foodies, Fresh Produce

Nevermind the Babies, Here’s Park Slope

By A.H. Avouris

We’ve heard all the jokes before: The sidewalks are so clogged with strollers that they’ve become impassible. Bars are about as hip as a windbreaker, are perpetually overrun by the under-5 contingent, and you’ll be shushed if you curse in public. There are no restaurants other than high-chair strewn pizza parlors, making it ludicrous for North Brooklynites to bother leaving their adult environs and subject themselves to the mercurial whims of the F train. Wary travelers take note – there’s a lot more to Park Slope than Gerber Organic.

December 14, 2010 Bars, Boroughing, Things to Do

tags: Brooklyn Parents, Foodies, Greenmarket, Park Slope

The Dish: Stuffed Collards

By A.H. Avouris

For a nontraditional, Midwestern, Polish-American (via Brooklyn) Thanksgiving, try these stuffed collards with beef and rice. Soft, succulent, and slightly sweet – the perfect cold-weather meal.

November 22, 2010 Boroughing, Classic, Food, Recipes

tags: Fresh Produce, Holiday Season, The Dish

The Dish: The ABCs of Winter CSAs

By A.H. Avouris

The increasingly-popular CSA, or Community Supported Agriculture, is a method by which members buy into a farm’s harvest before the season begins. In exchange for their funding, they receive a portion of the farm’s produce, eggs, or other products throughout the year. But what do you get in the winter? And how does one go about joining?

November 15, 2010 Boroughing, Food

tags: Crown Heights CSA, Fresh Produce, The Dish

The Dish: Tamarind

By A.H. Avouris

Tamarind is the most popular fruit that you’ve never heard of. Ubiquitous throughout South East Asia, the Indian subcontinent, and Mexico, it’s rarely used or mentioned in the U.S. Learn where in Brooklyn to find this sweet-sour fruit and how to use it at home.

October 27, 2010 Food, Recipes

tags: Fresh Produce, The Dish

The New Brooklyn Cookbook and the New Brooklyn Mind

By A.H. Avouris

The New Brooklyn Cookbook, out last week from William Morrow, was written by Melissa and Brendan Vaughan, recipe developer and magazine editor, respectively, who are sensitive to the idea that “New Brooklyn” is both difficult to define and somewhat polarizing.

October 12, 2010 Classic, Food, Shared Content

tags: Carroll Gardens, Fort Greene, Park Slope, Prospect Heights, Roberta's Restaurant, Urban Farming

Riot Grrrl Molly Neuman Gets Back in the Kitchen

By A.H. Avouris

I’m sitting in Molly Neuman’s kitchen, where the punk rocker, newly incarnated as a chef and proprietor of Simple Social Kitchen, is making a tortilla de patata. She’s hardly the first musician to create a new career in food, but although it’s not quite a movement, there is something superficially similar about the two careers. “For me the connection is creativity, being able to make something from an idea,” she says, when I ask her what the similarities are between cooking and music. Of course, there’s much more to it than that.

October 5, 2010 Classic, Food, Multi/Media, Photo

tags: Fresh Produce, Molly Neuman, Punk Rock, Recipes

The Dish: Spicy Long Pie Pumpkin Soup

By A.H. Avouris

Why is it that pumpkin-flavored food items are always better in theory than in practice? Here’s a pumpkin-flavored thing that doesn’t disappoint: Pumpkin.

September 28, 2010 Classic, Food, Recipes

tags: Fresh Produce, Greenmarket, Recipes

Complete Kitchen: Sarah Peck of Ortine Shares Her Must-Haves

By A.H. Avouris

From pie weights to Pyrex, each of us considers a different set of elements to be crucial to our cooking, and we often have strong opinions as to why. In this column, we ask chefs, foodies, and restaurateurs from across the borough for the top ten necessities—both edible and utensil—that they keep stocked in their home kitchens. In this installment, Sarah Peck of Ortine in Prospect Heights shares her top ten list.

September 20, 2010 Classic, Food, Restaurants

tags: Fresh Produce, Prospect Heights

Buy Food from Ten Countries in Five Blocks on Church Avenue in Kensington

By A.H. Avouris

When Kensington was developed in the late 19th century, there surely was no concept of what the neighborhood would become—the crossroads of countries, a confluence of cultures, an ethnic food shopper’s paradise. See what I found, traipsing through ten countries in five blocks of Church Avenue.

September 16, 2010 Things to Do

tags: Fresh Produce, Grocery Stores, Kensington, Neighborhood Guides

The Dish: Amaranth and Goat Cheese Frittata

By A.H. Avouris

Amaranth was brought to the New World by West African slaves, and is a staple of Caribbean cuisine, appearing in Callaloo and also as a juice, in soups, and in places elsewhere occupied by spinach. I used mine in a frittata with goat cheese; for the recipe, read on.

September 8, 2010 Classic, Recipes

tags: Fresh Produce, Greenmarket, Prospect Heights, Recipes

Complete Kitchen: Amy Marks of Radish Shares Her Secrets

By A.H. Avouris

From pie weights to Pyrex, each of us considers a different set of elements to be crucial to our cooking, and we often have strong opinions as to why. In this column, I will ask chefs, foodies, and restaurateurs from across the borough for the top ten necessities—both edible and utensil—that they keep stocked in their home kitchens. In this first installment, Amy Marks of Williamsburg’s Radish shares her top ten list.

September 7, 2010 Classic, Food

tags: Complete Kitchen, Fresh Produce, Williamsburg

A Guide To Partying with Russians in Brighton Beach

By A.H. Avouris

Nowhere in Brooklyn is there a more foreign enclave than Brighton. Under the elevated tracks of the B and Q, caressed by sea breezes, the sidewalks of Brighton Beach Avenue vibrate with a cacophony of voices: the Russian of women hawking pastries, the English of sand-seeking day trippers, the hum of shoppers hailing from Omsk to Kiev.

August 19, 2010 Things to Do

tags: Fresh Produce, Neighborhood Guides

The Dish: Visit the Sunset Park Greenmarket for Guacamole with Papalo

By A.H. Avouris

Despite its tiny size, the Sunset Park Greenmarket has a sizeable proportion of produce geared towards the Latin market, with crates of fresh peppers (poblanos, jalapeños, cherry peppers), tomatillos, squash, epazote, and other herbs both foreign and flavorful. Find out what I did with this amazing array of fresh herbs and veggies with a recipe for guacamole and papalo.

August 16, 2010 Classic, Food, In Brooklyn, Multi/Media, Photo, Recipes

tags: Fresh Produce, Greenmarket, Recipes

Uncovering Huitlacoche – the ‘Mexican Truffle’ – in Brooklyn

By A.H. Avouris

Huitlacoche, known as “corn mushroom”, “corn fungus” or as “Mexican truffle,” was prized by the Aztecs and is still commonly found as an ingredient in Mexican and Central American cuisine. In the US, meanwhile, huitlacoche research is the recipient of millions in funding—to eradicate it from our crops.

August 9, 2010 Classic, Food, Restaurants, Things to Do

tags: Foodies, Fresh Produce

The Dish: Sweet Corn Humitas

By A.H. Avouris

Like a fresh version of the tamale, the South American humita is a custard-like mixture of ground corn kernels, packed in its own husks and steamed on top of stripped cobs, sweet and sometimes spicy, often made with quesillo or queso fresco. Stop by your local Farmer’s Market, grab a few cobs and get started on this homemade treat.

August 3, 2010 Classic, In Brooklyn, Multi/Media, Photo, Recipes

tags: Greenmarket