Help Healthy Bodega Initiative & Red Jacket Orchard Bring Local Produce to Bodegas

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 … Read More

Watching the Markets: Grand Army Plaza Greenmarket

posted in: Markets, Video | 11

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 … Read More

Watching the Markets: Dynasty Supermarket

posted in: Markets | 15

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 … Read More

Watching the Markets: Grand Central

posted in: Markets | 12

sweet dolci spreads at Bella Cucina 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.