Tag Archives: food made in brooklyn

Summer Ruiner: Fracking Chemicals in Your Beer?

Posted on June 10, 2012 by Alden Wicker

$Brooklyn-brewery-fracking$ You have to admit relaxing in one of NYC’s many beer gardens on a warm summer’s day is one of the best pleasures of living in New York. And often, when you’re doing that, you’re sipping on one of Brooklyn Brewery’s many varieties (the summer ale is a personal favorite).

But now one of your favorite local beers is under threat. Actually, all of your favorite local beers–including Sixpoint and Greenpoint–could be ruined along with your drinking water if plans to pursue fracking in upstate New York go through.

Fracking has a tendency to dump nasty, toxic chemicals in the water. And since NYC gets its water from upstate, that means what I and many others consider some of the sweetest-tasting water in the world could soon become anything but. And your beer will taste nasty too.

“You can’t brew out benzene. You can’t brew out ethylene glycol, otherwise known as antifreeze,” says Mackenzie Schoonmaker, a staff attorney at Riverkeepers, in the video.

Watch the video to learn more:

via Grist

Posted in Activism, Brooklyn, Food, Health, New York, Queens, Sustainability | Tagged beer garden, food made in brooklyn, local beer | Leave a comment

How to Put Together the Perfect Gift for a Brooklyn Foodie

Posted on December 1, 2010 by Alden Wicker

This post is a long time coming, as Mike’s birthday was exactly one month ago. But I thought you readers would want to know about the fun I had putting together a birthday gift basket full of Brooklyn yummies.

Brooklyn is a fecund place for those wishing to start their own food company, or just wallow in adorably hand-made foods. You can find Brooklyn-made ketchup, fancy butter, cookies, cakes, cheese, and any manner of snacks, foods and drinks. In fact, if you are pregnant, Brooklyn is the place to be. There are at least three excellent companies each that make pickles and chocolate. Yum!

Yes, it is more expensive than what you can find in your Costco. But if you can afford the extra dollar or so, it’s well worth it for the taste alone. And who would you rather give your money to? An executive with a McMansion in Connecticut, or a pair of enterprising 20-somethings hustling to make it?

So knowing that Mike loves good food and loves Brooklyn, I decided to marry the two for his birthday.

Liz was game for an outing, so we picked a Sunday (market day!) to fulfill my quest. I did research beforehand and came up with some companies I wanted to include:

Kale Chips

McClure’s Pickles

Mast Brothers Chocolate

Murray’s Cheese

Anarchy in a Jar

Breuckelen Distillery

Junior’s Cheesecake

And that was just a rough starting list. I knew that some of it would be hard to get to or find. I decided to just hit up two markets and see what we could get. If I fell short, I could stop in some stores like Bedford Cheese Shop, The Meat Hook, Marlow & Daughters, Brooklyn Farmacy and Soda Fountain, Green Grape Provisions, Bklyn Larder, and Bierkraft to supplement, knowing they all carry at least a couple Brooklyn brands. In fact, if you are feeling lazy, Stinky Bklyn in Carrol Gardens offers a ready-made Brooklyn food gift basket. But where is the fun in that?

Here are some tips before we get started:

1. Bring a sturdy backpack. It will get heavy.

2. Edit. If you pick up everything you see, you will find yourself with way too much chocolate and pickles and not enough variety. Unless you want to make a chocolate and pickle gift basket. That would make a good baby shower gift, come to think of it….

3. Know your purveyors beforehand and plan accordingly. Many shops overlap in what they carry, so you don’t need to visit every one. Two shops in, say, Carrol Gardens or two Sunday markets will yield more than enough to fill a basket.

4. Buy small. A whole jar of McClure’s Pickles is tempting, but having done this once, I can attest to the wisdom of getting the smallest size available of everything. Do it for your back’s sake.

5. Know your recipient’s taste. You will be asked at least ten times to choose between spicy, savory, and sweet as you peruse the offerings.

6. Talk to the sellers! Buying from small food makers is half the fun, and they can help you decide on the perfect flavor.

We started our adventure at the New Amsterdam Market by the South Street Seaport in Manhattan, naturally, which allows only New York City vendors to sell their wares. I was immediately awarded with jerky from Marlow & Daughters, spicy chocolate from Mast Brothers, Schoolhouse Kitchen chutney, pickled peppers from Sourpuss Pickles, a “slurtle” (Brooklyn Brewery beer in a chocolate turtle) from Liddabits, Salvatore Brooklyn ricotta from the Saxelby Cheesemongers, and Kombucha Brooklyn in a refillable growler. Of course, we sampled everything we passed, even if it wasn’t from Brooklyn.

Then off the the Brooklyn Flea, where we pawed through jewelry and knickknacks before getting McClure’s Pickles. I had to pass up on some more Brooklyn-made chocolate, since it was getting a little ridiculous.

Finally, after sojourning to Cherry Tree for a beer, we found ourselves at Greene Grape Provisions, where I picked up tomato sauce and The Good Batch cookies.

By this point my backpack was groaning under the weight, and I wasn’t even done. During the week I went to Astor Wine and Spirits in Manhattan, where I bought gin from Breuckelen Distillery and moonshine from Kings County Distillery. My basket was complete.

Well, in reality, I was still missing some essentials, like Kale Chips, Anarchy in a Jar, Sir Kensington Ketchup and a few others. But at this point my birthday basket was at risk of turning into a birthday shopping cart, so I had to draw the line.