It’s summer. There’s produce, plenty of it local. It’s coming to supermarkets, restaurants and Greenmarkets throughout New York City. But one place you won’t hardly ever find it at is a bodega, those convenient, often round-the-clock shops where you can get toothpaste and telephone cards or tonight’s dinner of ramen and chips. Unfortunately, this is the only type of grocery store that exists in increasingly more communities here.
That’s why the Healthy Bodegas Initiative was formed in 2005, aimed at increasing access to fresh food and improving the health of all New Yorkers through its bodegas. Targeting the most underserved areas, or healthy “food deserts,” the mission has partnered with many bodegas and local organizations, such as the Greenmarket of Grow NYC (previously called CENYC). Check out Kerry Trueman’s great interview with the initiative’s founder, Donya Williams, on Food Systems NYC. And read below for an interview with Justone Bossert, Director of NYC Operations for Red Jacket Orchards, an upstate, family-operated fruit farm that’s joined the cause. Read the rest of this entry »
It’s another video! Just when you thought I couldn’t get any worse on camera, here’s the latest installment of my ongoing battle with awkwardness. Um, um… yeah.
Greenmarkets are particularly exciting at this time of the year, because, like the public parks they often border, they’re budding with fresh, botanical diversity. Grand Army Plaza’s market is Brooklyn’s largest, with regularly a dozen or more vendors at any given Saturday throughout the year (it’s the second largest one in NYC, after Union Square). If this guided tour isn’t cheesy enough to turn you away from it, I hope you get to enjoy the scene soon, and cheer on your evidently very hard-working tri-state area farmers. (Video/genius credit: Matt Bagdanoff.)
Just a few blocks south of where the hip boutiques of Nolita give way to the small produce stands and herbal medicine shops of Chinatown lies the comparatively mammoth Elizabeth Street supermarket, Dynasty. Here’s where the bulk of one’s Asian food shopping can be done in one stop. It’s such a popular destination for this — and its prices so reasonable — that on weekends you’ll often see shuttle vans waiting outside, transporting zealous shoppers from surrounding areas as they load up for the week. Because Chinese, Thai and Japanese foods can be found in its aisles, Dynasty has also long been a trusty resource for any New Yorker looking for ingredients to impress their friends with. Read the rest of this entry »
Last Tuesday, I was inspired. I don’t mean that I had rushed home with a fresh purchase of groceries and a spontaneous, must-make-tonight, dish idea. Or that I was struck with an urge to expound upon any national cuisine, penny-pinching technique, or environmental cause. No: I had just roamed the gourmet, European-style food hall in Grand Central Terminal, and the beauty of it was still sinking in. I was in food shopper’s bliss. Read the rest of this entry »
