Feature

The Urban Forager: From Beans to Bloodys

This week’s gourmet grocery list.

By Robin Raisfeld & Rob Patronite
Published Apr 7, 2008

Photographs by New York Magazine

The Milkman Cometh:
It’s not every day that a new bottled milk comes along—let alone one that can be delivered to your door as if it were 1955. Despite its name, Manhattan Milk is coaxed from contented pasture-raised cows on small Amish farms. It’s got a big, fatty, cream-on-top flavor, and is certified organic. Available now for $5.95 a quart, exclusively at Batch, Pichet Ong’s new sweets shop (150B W. 10th St., nr. Waverly Pl.; 212-929-0250), and, beginning April 21, for delivery (manhattanmilk.com or 917-388-2713).

Brunch Basics:
Blue Ribbon Bakery Market, the eclectic purveyor of Mexican honeys, St. Louis spare ribs, and matzo-ball soup, has started selling its own fresh Bloody Mary mix, $5.50 a sixteen-ounce container. Just add vodka and the Sunday Times (14 Bedford St., nr. Downing St.; 212-647-0408).

Sugar and Spice:
Lassi’s Heather Carlucci-Rodriguez, a pastry chef in her own right, has outsourced the Indian takeout shop’s inventive new line of chocolate bars and bonbons ($4 to $7) to Damion Badalamenti, a Barcelona-trained confectioner who’s something of a chocolate whisperer. His goal, according to his Website, is not simply to make chocolate, but “to understand and respect it so that it will be willing to do and be all that he could imagine” (28 Greenwich Ave., nr. W. 10th St.; 212-675-2688).

Boutique Beans:
The California company Rancho Gordo grows and sells heirloom-bean varieties of such distinction you may never open a can of Goya again. They’re becoming popular among East Coast chefs, but for now the only local place to find them is at Marlow & Sons ($6.50; 81 Broadway, at Berry St., Williamsburg; 718-384-1441).