Months ago, Katie mentioned here that we were “starting a commune.” I’d like to amend that statement slightly, based on our now enlightened understanding of vocabulary: we are staring a compound, not a commune. Or have started, rather. [Compound (enclosure), a cluster of buildings having a shared purpose, usually inside a fence or wall; a [...]

Recovering from early summer’s Great Kombucha Rapture, Vibranz kombucha is returning to stores, AP reports. And the good news is that Vibranz is raw, probiotic and under 0.5% alcohol (I was a bit worried that only pseudo-kombucha like the kind being made by Red Bull would get back into the national chains in a timely manner). GT [...]

Men & ladies are welcome.

• Strawberry Spice Macaron recipe • Small update from The Brooklyn Paper on the proposed Greenpoint pier / ferry • Free composting workshop at the McKarren Park / Greenpoint Greenmarket this Saturday a.m.; more info on Greenpointers … • Also via Greenpointers: Veronica’s People Club now open. The Franklin Street bar / coffee window and [...]

Mark my words: In Sex and the City 4, the girls are gonna do the same shit again in a different country or location, but SJP’s going to be chomping down on a macraron. No, not the tiny little Jewish coconut kind; the fancy French kind (more about the difference here) popular at frou-frou bakeries [...]

No sooner had I first read the word ‘jicama’ this summer than a recipe I wanted to make called for it. Until this point, I couldn’t have told you if jicama was a vegetable, a female name, or a Mexican city. Looking at the vegetable itself isn’t much help, either; the jicama I bought looked [...]

Last Friday, around 9 p.m., some friends and I happened upon a concert at East River State Park in Williamsburg. A Weezer concert. It was at capacity, so we found our way to a bench about a block away where we could still see and hear the concert. A bench behind a soccer field. The [...]

As you may have noticed from the 87.5 different WordPress skins that have graced this blog’s css code over the past few weeks, we’ve been experimenting. And working to make this blog better, more functional, more exciting, all that good stuff. So bear with us, please. We’ll be back up and running normally, whatever that [...]

Latest Unicycles mix from Jables, just in time for wherever you may be traveling and needing summer songs (or if you just need something to pep you up at your computer). Enjoy! I’ll be posting my own mix-summer mix soon …

Last week, I successfully sprouted some mixed sprouts for the first time. On my initial try, after a few days, I ended up with a moldy-smelling mess instead of fresh sprouts because I didn’t realize that—unlike when soaking, say, quinoa or beans—you don’t leave the seeds submerged in water. If you’re new to sprouting, or [...]

We wanted to share with you a new report we published on Thursday which concludes that the vast majority of New York City street fairs are bland and repetitive. Our report features ideas for improving these staples of summer from 25 innovative New Yorkers, including the founder of Chowhound, the organizer of Red Hook Food [...]

Whole Foods—the world’s leading retailer of natural and organic foods—has pulled all kombucha from its shelves. More on my other blog …

• NY Health Department Announces Rules for Restaurant Grades • Students nurture dreams of being farmers in urban Miami-Dade • Italy fears for Nutella with new EU food labels • Tim Carney @ Washington Examiner brings up the Greenpoint Food Market and asks if “more corporatism in Brooklyn” will drive folks here to libertarianism • [...]

The Greenpoint Food Market was featured in a New York Times article at the beginning of June. Good for Greenpoint, right? Perhaps not. The market’s vendors operate on a wide spectrum of the professionalism and legality scale. For some, this is a career; for others, it’s a hobby, a community-bonding activity, a stepping-stone to bigger things, [...]

Is that a banana in your pocket, or did you just drink some of Brooklyn’s “Magic Power Coffee?” INZ Distributors Inc./Magic Power Coffee Inc. of Brooklyn, NY announced today that it is conducting a voluntary nationwide recall of the dietary supplement product sold under the name, Magic Power Coffee. The Company has been informed by [...]

Last Thursday, after staring at a laptop for 8+ hours, I decided to ease my digitally-overloaded mind by flipping through Trowel and Error: Over 700 Tips, Remedies and Shortcuts for the Gardener by Sharon Lovejoy, a recent birthday gift from a friend. It’s the kind of book you can read word for word or opt [...]

FreshDirect, the major grocery-delivery company servicing the NYC area, has announced that it’s significantly upping its local-food offerings. Cool Hunting reports: The online grocer will travel to over 30 farms found within 300 miles of NYC to gather goods like Grafton Village cheeses, Nature’s Yoke eggs, Wickham’s Fruit Farm tomatoes, Brooklyn Brewery beer and much [...]

Through cumulative recent-birthday power, this household has found itself in possession of a slew of new food- and gardening-related books, sending us into a tizzy of re-working our summer reading lists & experimenting with new recipes. And as long as we’re making all that effort, we might as well share it with you, yes? So, [...]

Ibsen in Bushwick … why not? Saint Jude of the Cats is putting on Lady from the Sea (Henrik Ibsen’s “quirky 1888 drama of necromancy, gender politics, and family dysfunction”) at Chez Bushwick this weekend (Thurs., Fri. & Sat. @ 8 p.m.; 304 Boerum Street #11). If it’s good, I’m pulling for Chekhov’s “The Cherry [...]

The paper has compiled lists of Brooklyn’s summer street festivals, outdoor movie screenings, farmer’s markets and free concerts. Some North Brooklyn highlights: June 24: Rooftop Films presents “The Rural Life and Spirit” (a collection of “cute cartoons, fascinating fictions, and delightful documentaries”) on the Automotive High School lawn, 8 pm [50 Bedford Ave. at N. [...]

I a glutton for the sun, but it dries out my hair. Less moisture means limper curls or waves (my naturally full waves start to take on a a deflated-accordion crimpiness reminiscent of my mom’s hair in the 90s when she was overdue for her next perm). One of the ways I try to combat [...]

June is the beginning of my year. New York manifests itself as a Technicolor utopia of sunbathing book readers, of shirtless banjo boys, of the girls with ribboned straw hats. We’re children again. Life is patiently weaving daisy chains and licking coconut yogurt cones for a heated moment. Everyone is so nice, we’ll say. With [...]

I am this. close. to getting out of the city. On a Bolt Bus somewhere on the near outskirts of Manhattan, heading to Boston for the night before taking another bus and then a ferry to Martha’s Vineyard. I’ve never really been on the New England coast before, so I have no idea what to [...]

Back in the 60s and 70s young people migrated back to the countryside to make a go of farming. Novella Carpenter’s parents were part of that movement. But it didn’t last. People found that growing food is very hard and rural life can be extremely isolating. The motives of today’s generation of farmers are different, [...]

After my earlier seed-sprouting mishaps (I forgot which seeds were which and what needed what), I’ve come up with a system this time: If the powers that be were making a prequel book to “Seed Sprouting for Dummies,” the should ask me to write it. The amount of things I’m unsure about that you’d think [...]