Introducing Lunch at Sixpoint, where I’m cooking from now

So, last week, I launched a new site to start off a new chapter in my writing about food. Have you seen it yet? It’s called Lunch at Sixpoint, and it’ll cover gardening and growing food as well as cooking it at home. Or, not exactly at home. At the office kitchen of Sixpoint Craft Ales, a brewery in Brooklyn that was founded by my boyfriend. Lunches at Sixpoint began as a casual, occasional affair — I’d be at the brewery, helping out in the fledgling rooftop garden or doing some other work, and I’d make lunch. And share it with everyone. Sandwiches, stuffed with a smorgasbord of fillings set out on the long table, or pizzas baked in the oven with a smattering of toppings like a newly cracked egg from the chicken coop that morning. It was fun for me, as getting to cook for a hungry audience always has been. And it was fun for everyone who got to eat. It was also more efficient, having someone making healthy, nutritious and hopefully yummy meals for the group, with all the food grown right on the roof.

So… that’s what I’ll be doing from here on out, and I hope you’ll follow my adventures in food at Lunch at Sixpoint. In the coming weeks, I’ll be revamping Not Eating Out in New York so that it’s a more search-friendly resource for recipes, cooking and entertaining tips, food event recaps, and, of course, Reasons For Not Eating Out. It will be an easy-to-access archive. But the real story has moved on. As much as I still want to stress “not eating out” as a benefit for the body, soul and wallet, I want to add home gardening, and communal dining onto that mantra, which is what we’ll be seeing on Lunch at Sixpoint.

some freshly harvested lettuces

beaker and MeiMei, two of the heritage hens, peck at pea shoots

This comes at a time when I feel that the message of “consuming less, eating more” has caught on with more and more of the people around me, and those afar. For instance, this week’s issue of Newsweek ran an article that basically dissed a new “eco” restaurant chain which I will not mention (I have never eaten at, nor heard about it before this piece). The bottom line of the article? Just don’t go out to restaurants as much, if you’re looking to reduce your carbon footprint. And they quoted a line from this blog, to my very humbled surprise.

As motivating and heartwarming as nods like these have been, I’m simply itching to branch out. Lunch at Sixpoint also just reflects my real life right now, and I always blogged from that vantage point here. Let’s face it, I’m no longer not eating out as a strict rule anymore, as much as those two years in which I did were life-altering (and fun). I hope to share you my next ones. Let’s keep eating, cooking, and feeding each other, and it’s high time for home gardening right now — get dirty!