You can keep tabs on Katie, too, at katharinehenner.com.

thanks for reading!

Elizabeth

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 commune is an intentional community of people living together, sharing common interests, property, possessions, resources, work, and income.]

Yes, earlier this month, the Goddamn Cobras & friends took over the entirety of an apartment building in Greenpoint (3 floors, 3 apartments, 11 bedrooms, 13 people, 2 cats), + an apartment across the street (add one floor, an additional backyard, 3 bedrooms, 4 people and 1 dog). While we’ve got a community lending library, and always have somewhere to turn to borrow a cup of (herbed goat) butter, we all have our own jobs and our own bills and the like. But most of us do share a purpose, or several purposes, along with interests, resources, dinners, and sometimes lovers. So far, we’ve lived here about 4 weeks. All I can say is this year is going to be both impossibly worse and a trillion times better than we could ever imagine, and in completely unexpected ways. We’ve taken to referring to our home as the Cobra Compound, the Cobrodrome or just by the street name. We are planning an epic housewarming party to coincide with our street’s block-fest later this month.

Last week, Katie’s mom took it upon herself to send our household a kiddie pool, after having seen the way we fawned over a friend’s pool when she was in town. I don’t think she knows that the Cobras have a bad history with kiddie pools:

www.goddamncobras.com

Kombucha Brooklyn

Even in this hipster/locavore/weirdo-food haven that is North Brooklyn, the going got rough there for a moment, with kombucha briefly but conspicuously absent from the likes of Brooklyn Standard, even (thank goodness for Mombucha, who makes home deliveries!). I really need to start brewing my own soon … Help! Someone bring me a mother!

Anyway: stay tuned. I should have a nice, big article about alcohol levels in kombucha and the fed’s efforts to regulate it coming out soon …

Men & ladies are welcome.

• 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 the sister’s of East Village dive Heather’s. More here and here.

• Reps. in Congress this week introduced the Safe Cosmetics Act of 2010, which would give the FDA more power to regulate toxins and ingredients in beauty products.

• Slate‘s lady blog talks moonshine and “edible authenticity”

• Faux-vintage bamboo tupperware alert! from Raw Food Nerd

• Bob of Bob’s Red Mill products sounds like a cute old guy

Pistacio macaron at Greenpoint Food Market. Image via: http://www.brooklynnom.com

In two years, somewhere in Georgetown, a gaggle of girls in short skirts and sensible shoes will be waiting outside the Georgetown Macaronerie. And I will be pleased, because who the hell wants a $4 cupcake, anyway?

[P.s. researching an article on these little fellas, so if you know of any bakeries or small, indie vendors with good macarons, in Brooklyn or anywhere, let me know!]

Jicama

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.

Here’s the recipe I made (ish; I’m never much for following recipes closely), from Clean Food: A Seasonal Guide to Eating Close to the Source

Bring water to boil and add quinoa and salt. Cover, reduce heat and simmer until all water is absorbed (about 15 minutes). Remove from heat and set aside to cool.

Place beans, onion, mango and jicama in large bowl. Fluff cooled quinoa with fork, add to bowl and gently fold to combine.

In small bowl, whisk together all dressing ingredients. Pour dressing over salad and toss to coat. Fold in tomatoes, sunflower seeds and pumpkin seeds just before serving.

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 field was brimming with young folk on this Friday night, all clean cut and athletic looking. The lights from the field reflected brightly off the glass walls of the neighboring condo building, which rose at least 15 stories high, and as Rivers Cuomo segued deftly between covering MGMT to covering Lady Gaga, it seemed as apt an epitome as any of what my boyfriend calls “the new new Williamsburg.”

“People are awesome!” Cuomo shouted, by way of audience interaction, but of course all my friends and I could talk about was Pinkerton and M. Butterfly and how disappointing it was when we realized Cuomo had an Asian fetish.
Next week is Modest Mouse.

[Steam/Download: http://goddamncobras.com/uni073/]

[x-posted, Brooklyn Home Companion]

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 just need a refresher, here’s my guide to sprouting in 5 quick steps:
1. Buy sprout seeds. I always thought I didn’t like sprouts because I’d only tried the conventional, alfalfa variety, but I’ve since learned that there are a remarkable variety of different kinds (my favorite so far have been spicy daikon sprouts) .

2. Pour seeds into a cheese cloth bag (some experienced sprouters recommend a hemp bag). This makes  it easier to drain water from your seeds.

3. Rinse seeds in bag thoroughly. Put sprouts in glass jar or other container, and fill with water so bag of sprouts is submerged for now. Let sit overnight, or for an equivalent amount of hours, in a dark place, like a kitchen cabinet.

4. Drain. In the morning, remove bag of seeds from jar, rinse, then empty excess water from the jar and place seeds back in.

5. Continue rinsing twice a day (removing excess water from jar before placing bag back in each time) until your seeds have sprouted (2-4 days).

Finished! Eat on sandwiches or salads, or experiment—the people I bought my seeds from were serving a mix of different kinds of sprouts lightly covered in Thai peanut sauce. See some sprout recipes for every meal here.

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 Vendors and the founders of successful markets like the New York City Greenmarket, Union Square Holiday Market, Brooklyn Flea and Chelsea Market. — Center for an Urban Future, publicizing its report, “New Visions for New York Street Fairs“

I tend to think most street fairs are overrated—there are only so many cheaply-made faux-ethnic earring booths one can tolerate—so I look forward to reading these folks suggestions for improvements.

Got some suggestions of your own? Send them to streetfairs@nycfuture.org; CUF will publish some of the ones they like later this summer. Or leave some ideas in the comments here! This is an idea we’ve been discussing a lot lately round these parts, in light of the Greenpoint Food Market situation, so I definitely plan to compile and send in some thoughts …

Here’s some more coverage of the CUF report:

Samba Show? Artisans? Group Reimagines NYC Street Fairs >>

How Do You Get NY’s Street Fairs Past Fried Dough? >>

Will There Be a Street Fair (R)Evolution? >>

A few days ago, the New York Post reported on Mayor Bloomberg’s promises to further limit the city’s street fairs (the Post, or at least one of its contributors, seems to feel pretty strongly that the correct number to “limit” the fairs to is zero).

Perhaps most disappointing (but least surprising) is realizing that what’s holding back some of the visions of what the city’s street fairs could be like from becoming a reality is the city itself, or at least those that govern it.

… officials said they face significant legal hurdles in trying to limit and re-engineer the fairs, including the right of community sponsors to select the vendors they want.

The city is “looking into” (I’m beginning to loathe this phrase) changing regulations to allow more “more efficient use of street space and city resources,” a spokeswoman says.

There’s no timetable for the new regulations.

The city took in $1.6 million in fees from fairs last year, but spent $4 million on police overtime.

• 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

• Cops crack down on art spaces and alcohol in Bushwick

• New York’s wonderful investigative journalism magazine, City Limits, needs support—you can get a year’s subscription for $25, or donate $5 via text instantly. Give the website a look; it’s really an under-appreciated NY publication, I think.

• Recipe: Date syrup (raw)

• Strangely mesmerizing: Video for Sunglasses’ “Whiplash”:

[vimeo 10728808]

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, a way to earn a little extra cash, or a great lab to test out new recipes and products. But, as mentioned (very briefly) in the Times article, the New York Department of Health requires that all food vendors must a) have a permit for handling food, and b) concoct their wares in a commercial kitchen (a luxury out of reach for many vendors, whose profit margins are thin or nonexistent as is).

Immediately following the article, market organizer Joann Kim—who started the market to avoid the regulatory hassles involved in selling at shops—was contacted by various media and government officials. Kim began meeting with folks from the local government and the health department, along with the organizers of other city food markets (a number of the city’s food markets operate under the same sort of ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy with vendors as the Greenpoint market does - vendors aren’t required to show, nor generally even asked about, licenses). This is what she found out:

To keep the market functioning and to prevent the market from being not only shut down but fined (each vendor fined at a min. of $500) we need to now adhere to the following DoH requirements:

- Each vendor must produce their food at a certified commercial kitchen, whether it’s a friend’s restaurant you’re using during off hours or it’s a rental kitchen in LIC, I’ll need some sort of documentation that you’re not making food from home. A letter with the kitchen’s letterhead stating “this vendor produces food at this kitchen” would suffice.

- Each vendor must obtain their food protection certificate. The 15 hour course can be taken online for free and afterwards you take the test in Harlem for $25 and wait 2 weeks for the cert to come. If you don’t have this yet, I suggest you get on this ASAP.

- Each time a vendor participates at the market, you have to obtain a Temporary Food Establishment Permit. It’s $20 each time and involves visiting the Dept of Consumer Affairs located at 42 Broadway 5th floor. You can apply as either an individual or corporation. You will need a vendor/sponsor (me) letter of agreement which I will send out after market sign up email, which will list participating vendors for that specific date.

In light of all this, Kim is canceling the previously scheduled June 26 market. Instead, she and Griffin Thomas, pastor of the Lutheran Church of the Messiah where the market is held, are putting together a “Think Tank Potluck,” where vendors, community members, government officials and food policy folks can come together and discuss the issues all of this has raised. Speakers will include a representative from the health department, NY City Council member Stephen Levin, Harry and Taylor of Brooklyn Kitchen, Rich Awn of Mombucha, Danielle Gould of Brooklyn Food Coalition and others. Kim says the panel will cover:

- How you know when you’ve got a viable product to start a small food business with.
- How to figure out city codes and regulations.
- How to tap into available commercial kitchen resources.
- What changes need to be made in legislation to make it more accessible to food start ups with high overhead and low profit margins.
- How possible it would be to run a non-profit incubator kitchen funded and supported by local gov that all vendors can use and can host GFM (long term project).

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 representatives of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) that lab analysis of one lot of the product by the FDA found that the product contains undeclared hydroxythiohomosildenafil, similar in structure to Sildenafil, an FDA-approved drug used for the treatment of male Erectile Dysfunction (ED), making Magic Power Coffee an unapproved drug. [Emphasis mine]

Trowel and Error: Over 700 Tips, Remedies and Shortcuts for the Gardener

It’s the kind of book you can read word for word or opt to read only the parts that pertain to you—frequent illustrations, diagrams and headings make it easy to quickly gauge what a page or section is about. The graphics can be a little hokey (think the kind of cozy, pastoral scenes and muted-colored woodland creatures you might see on a birthday card from your grandma); Lovejoy’s enthusiasm a little too Chicken Soup for the Soul (“One of my greatest joys is an early-morning walk in the garden,” she begins).

But what Trowel & Error lacks in edge, it more than makes up for in practical tips and advice (even my hippie boyfriend seemed impressed by her novel suggestion for seed-starting containers: hollowed-out citrus). Not only are all of the gardening solutions Lovejoy offers organic, many of them can be implemented with things you probably already have around the house—vinegar, spices, newspapers, even your own hair.

Since finishing the book, I’ve been coating the area around my fire-escape garden with chili pepper & vinegar to try and repel the obese squirrel that’s been plaguing my french sorrel; so far, he hasn’t been back.

More of my favorite advice from Trowel & Error:

• L’Eau CHaud: Many French Provencal gardeners set old half-barrels throughout their gardens to catch rainwater. The proximity of the barrels to their work area makes hand-watering with a can easier.
• Aspirin (uncoated)—dissolved in water, fights mildew, black spot and more.
• Cardboard egg cartons can be recycled into perfect seed-starting flats.
• Hair today, gone tomorrow: Bury pieces of human or dog hair around seedlings to deter the critters who try to feast on them. Hair also contains nutrients that will nourish young seedlings.

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 more. Focusing on family-run or small-scale producers, many of the foods go from the garden to your table in less than 48 hours.

When I lived in DC, I sometimes ordered groceries through Peapod, and if you asked me about it I recommended it so highly friends got suspicious I wasn’t a secret Big Grocery operative. But I’m not so sure about FreshDirect. While I like it better than Peapod in theory—the products from nearby farms, the emphasis on healthy eating and seasonal produce—I’ve ended up with bad or nearly bad (as in, it started molding a day after I got it) produce from FreshDirect a handful of times …

So, between now & September 22, we promise to (probably) read & review (in no particular order) (subject to change):

Made from Scratch: Discovering the Pleasures of a Handmade Life

Farmer Jane: Women Changing The Way We Eat

Kitchen Essays (Persephone Classics)

Trowel and Error: Over 700 Tips, Remedies and Shortcuts for the Gardener

Deeply Rooted: Unconventional Farmers in the Age of Agribusiness

Raw Energy: 124 Raw Food Recipes for Energy Bars, Smoothies, and Other Snacks

I’m planning to Julie Powell my way through this last one this summer. My original plan was to attempt a mostly-raw foods diet for the entire summer, but something about that just doesn’t make sense to me—there are plenty of very healthy non-raw foods that I eat. Much like the current push not for folks to be strict vegetarians but just to eat less meat, I think aiming to eat more raw foods is a lot more sustainable than saying, “I am on a raw foods diet.” I figure challenging myself to start preparing a bunch of new raw dishes is a good way to make sure I don’t just fall back on apples, salad & Lara bars for the raw portion of my diet.

Look forward to raw, vegan banana cocoa shakes, fruit creams, granola bars, curried cashew-pesto dip, etc.

• Via Greenpointers: Forest Natural on Norman Ave. has reinvented itself as “Lunchbox Brooklyn,” a smoothie/sandwich/coffee kind of joint that seems to be offering pretty much the exact same (mediocre) items as it did before.

• There’s a new yoga & dance studio opening at The Loom (the strange art gallery / lounge / events space / retail center in Bushwick—think 3rd Ward meets suburban mini-mall—which I visited for the first time during Bushwick Open Studios this past weekend). Loom Studios is offering Vinyasa and Hatha yoga; Samba, improv and belly dance; and scattered modern dance, Pilates, movement and other classes. Besides being just about the only place I know of in these parts to offer dance, all June classes are only $5!

[My dream studio would offer tap, pilates, hula-hooping, baton, historical burlesque & modern jazz, among other things; who wants to make this a reality in Greenpoint???]

• Brooklyn music crush du jour: Xenia Rubinos. Like MIA (sans the political posturing) meets MiMi from Rent, singing Cuban & Puerto Rican children’s rhymes on top of weird keyboard beats. And, somehow, that is much more pleasant and exciting than it sounds.

• 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. 13th Street]

• Bushwick Farmer’s Market opened last weekend, and will be operating on Linden Street and Broadway, every Wednesdays from 10 am to 6 pm.

And a few things the paper missed:

• Crest Hardware Art Show + Festival in Williamsburg, coming up June 19th.
• The second-annual Northside Festival in Greenpoint & Williamsburg, coming up the weekend after that (June 24-27) and featuring some 18 million bands & concerts (which, if the festival is anything like CMJ — and it sounds like it is — will likely be terribly mismanaged & nearly impossible to get into, yet we’ll all think it’s a good idea to try at some point anyway) and, according to the L magazine, “infinity percent more movies” than last year. I’m looking forward to seeing Slow Club (my favorite band of the summer), Forest Fire & Woods, at least, but the schedule’s still partly TBD.

What else?

1. Mash up a ripe avocado (you can add essential oil to the mix if you want it to smell good).

2. Coat your hair with the mix. I usually slather it on by hand, then comb it all through.

3. Cover hair with towel or shower cap. There’s really no leaving it on too long. For best results, leave it on overnight, or for an hour or so in the sunshine or direct heat.

Or I guess you could just wear a hat outside. I’m trying that today.

I’ve never really been on the New England coast before, so I have no idea what to expect (but I’ve packed a long cable knit sweater, a pink shirt with seahorses on it, a sundress and jean shorts, so I guess that gives a clue what I at least subconscious expect: garden parties, morning deck coffee, late-night fire pits and sunny afternoons. The whole thing is substantially less fleshed out in my head than the concept of The South, which involves sitting on porches drinking sweet tea and entertaining gentleman callers in the stifling heat (which, incidentally, is also my concept of Sacramento, Calif.).

But enough of this concept nonsense! The point is, I’ll be playing and working from the great eastern seaboard for the next week, and my excitement is making it hard to concentrate on any … thing … but … sun … and …….. Oh, dear. I better just have at these Friday links before I start modeling my panama hat for you.

• Why Have Green Roofs Not Caught On In New York City?

… considering that green roofs are probably the most beautiful non-architectural manifestation of green building that we’ve yet seen, and that New York City has worked hard to incentivize green roof construction with a property tax credit of up to $100,000, it’s both baffling and kind of sad that green roofs just aren’t catching on in New York City.

• My roommate’s girlfriend, Lucy, sent me this link to a post called Cats are the New Floral. I really wish she hadn’t, because I kind of have to buy the fabric for, like, six people now.

• Turns out my desire to move to Beacon, N.Y. is like North Brooklynites still calling certain parts of Bushwick “East Williamsburg” — frightfully out of vogue, at least so says this NYT article about Rosendale, N.Y., “90 miles upstate,” with “a Brooklyn feel.” In all seriousness, the problem with upstate, where my boyfriend desperately wants to move after another year in the city, is that I feel like I might as well move to Kentucky. It’s hard for me to get into Manhattan more than once a week (if that) while living in Greenpoint; I really can’t see making the trip very much from Rosendale. [h/t to Peter Suderman, who sends me every link about Brooklyn hipsters he ever can as a desperate form of self-denial.]

• OMG OMG OMG. The guy(s?) who run Book Thug Nation in Williamsburg are opening an indie movie theater nearby (Kent Ave. b/w S 1st & 2nd).

The small theater — it only has 12 rows, 93 seats and a 17-foot-by-8-foot screen — is expected have its official opening as an independent film house in late June.

It’s supposed to eventually get food & booze, too.

And I’m going to close on a vacation note again: I’m researching a couple articles on natural sunscreens and natural bug sprays right now. If you have any recommendations or links to resources, please leave them in the comments or send them my way, thanks. Happy Memorial Day weekend, folks.

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, and more communitarian. They’re not trying to drop out. They’re trying to engage more fully with the world around them. —via Civil Eats » Is the Urban Farming Movement Here to Stay?

This reminds me of when my friend Johnny told his mom about my interest in communes, and she began telling me about her time in a 1970s commune full of sexual abstainers practicing yoga and alternative medicine. While I wouldn’t turn away a yogi or the asexual (give me your abstinent, your limber, your acupuncturists yearning for green tea…), the idea of a “lifestyle” commune like that now seems silly, like fighting about whether or not you supported the Vietnam war. For me, communal living (or my idealized version thereof) presents an opportunity to pool resources, engage in creative projects and, potentially, eventually navigate/renegotiate the nuclear-family model of Getting Older.