Home Brewer May Soon Be Selling Beer Ice CreamDan Suarez, a 23-year-old former Murray’s Cheese Shop employee, grows hops in his parents’ backyard in Park Slope (there’s video) and brews beer in their basement.
Eat, Drink, and Smoke at Nat Sherman’s Secret LairNat Sherman is still fuming about the city’s assault on smoking. Its phone message even takes a dig at the Man: “Your freedom of choice, often denied to you as a smoker, can be exercised here by choosing from the following menu.” But living well is the best revenge, and so Sherman plans on opening up the Johnson Club Room in the third week in February, on the bottom floor of its new location at 12 East 42nd Street. You’ll need to be a member eventually, but you will be able to pay the dues as you go for the first few months.
The New York Diet
Designer Steven Alan Hungers for Cowboy Cookies After Jellied Squash
Yes, Steven Alan, the man who New York says “reinvented the button-down for artfully ruffled hipsters,” conducted his phone interview with us over brown rice at M Café in Los Angeles (he’s there to sort out the details of his upcoming Hollywood store, while scouting out a location for another store in Venice, where he went to high school). But that doesn’t mean he isn’t a New York eater at heart. He grew up here and lives in Chinatown, where he indulges in Malaysian noodle breakfasts and Shanghai dumplings. We asked him what he ate around town during a frenetic week of preparing his men’s and women’s lines for his first ever Fashion Week presentation.
At the Market
Fancy Food Show Brings Colonial Fruit Drinks and Our Old Friend Kulfi
We took a break from our regularly scheduled Greenmarket food fest to hike through acres of fancy foods from the world over at last week’s Fancy Food Show. Over 2,000 displays filled the Javits Center with everything from antifreeze-green Chilean avocado oil to Brooklyn-made gummy bears that were actually the size of honey bears. To avoid going into fancy-food shock, we honed in on the (often overlapping) new and organic/natural categories. Here’s highlights, all currently available in the city.
Neighborhood Watch
Red Hook Food Vendors’ Meeting With the City Postponed Until TomorrowBridgehampton: Almond restaurant has just added more local labels to its wine list. [Hamptons]
East Village: New vegan restaurant Health Conscious Express, on First Avenue and 3rd Street, impresses with its wide range of patties, but the Rasta vibes are totally intense. [Super Vegan]
Red Hook: A meeting between the representative for ball fields’ food vendors and the Parks Department has been postponed until tomorrow afternoon. [The Gowanus Lounge]
West Village: Only a couple seats left for Murray’s class on local cheeses, tonight at 6:30 p.m. [Murray’s Cheese]
Williamsburg: Brick Oven Gallery has reopened after its Department of Health–enforced hiatus. [Eater]
Neighborhood Watch
Chelsea Mourns the Loss of Chinese Vegetable Burritosstrong>Bronx: Ditri Coffee Shop has sold coffee and work boots for 28 years; it’s amazing this business model doesn’t seem to have been duplicated. [Lost City]
Chelsea: There’s a makeshift memorial set outside Bright Food Shop, which has closed along with sister-restaurant Kitchen/Market thanks to high rents. [Crazy Fingers by way of Blog Chelsea] Tasty Korean takeout near FIT. [Gothamist]
Clinton Hill: A bake sale gets frisky with a Middle Eastern dance performance this Sunday at 289 Grand Avenue. [Clinton Hill Blog]
Dumbo: Chestnut, Olea, and Sweet Melissa Patisserie are all participating in Tuesday’s tasting event at powerHouse Arena to benefit the American Cancer Society. [Dumbo NYC]
East Village: Bowery Whole Foods unveils plans to start serving brunch. [Down by the Hipster]
West Village: Murray’s Cheese is hosting a sparkling-wine course that includes cheese pairings on June 5th at 6:30 p.m. [Gothamist]
NewsFeed
World’s Biggest Cheese in Town Today
To say that we felt only excited at the prospect of seeing the world’s biggest cheese today would be an understatement. It was more like awe. Six-feet wide and weighing over 1,300 pounds, the Gouda-style cheese is the star of a special exhibit co-sponsored by Murray’s Cheese and the Beemster company of Holland. A bothersome case of gout will be keeping us from the cheese’s press conference, which we are told is scheduled for 11:30 a.m. But we’ve thought of some ways the milk monument might be put to use.
