Diner Journal Has Valentine's Day Crush

On the New Amsterdam Market!

Please support our mission to establish a permanent, indoor public market in the City of New York, where purveyors such as butchers, grocers, mongers, and other vendors will source and sell food from the region.

By incubating and supporting these local businesses, New Amsterdam Market will provide additional outlets and opportunities for farmers too busy or too distant to attend New York's thriving Greenmarkets - a need made all the more critical by the economic collapse.

Our aim in 2009 is to begin holding New Amsterdam Market once every month. We have been speaking with the City about use of a public site in Lower Manhattan and are encouraged by this prospect. More news will follow!

Your generous support will help us start the market.

Purchase Tickets for you and all your friends NOW!

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It May Not Be Made of Bay Leaves but...

it sure is pretty. On Saturday December 13th, Blooming Hill Farm will be selling their wild, local, organic, seasonal, beautiful, handmade, holiday wreaths and decor in the parking lot across from Diner on Berry Street.

As Guy says "it's a lot of work to drag all that stuff out of the woods." Not to mention making it into something beautiful.

When:
Saturday, 13th of December
11 am until dark

Where:
The corner of Broadway and Berry.

Who:
Blooming Hill Farm

Why:
Beauty and Cheer

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Snowfalkes Are Always Cool

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America Unchained: Action Number Two

This Saturday, November 22nd we ask you to support your local independent businesses. Imagine the impact on your community if everyone shopped locally owned. You can stop imagining and help make it a reality.

On November 22, communities around continent will be urged to "unchain" for just that one day—to maximize the impact of their dollars and inject potentially millions more into the local economy through joining other residents to do their shopping, dining out and other business only with locally-owned independent businesses.

This important message is timed to reach citizens before they are inundated with a clutter of holiday ads and events. The American Independent Business Alliance hopes you will carry this message with you as you do all of their holiday purchasing and other business.

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Words of the Week

"This marks a new dawn for the curvy cucumber and the knobbly carrot!" said Mariann Fischer Boel, European commissioner for agriculture. This in response to the European Union lifting it's ban on twenty-six types of edibles born on the farm ugly or sadly misshapen the New York Times reports. However if you are an apple, peach, pair or strawberry watch out. If you don't look your best you will be "allowed onto the market provided they are marked as being substandard or intended for cooking or processing." Not for acting in movies, modeling or running for office.

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Thursday Night New Amsterdam

The Markets of New Amsterdam
6:30pm

Join our beloved Robert LaValva, Director of the New Amsterdam Public Market Association and senior writer at the Diner Journal, for an exploration into four centuries of public markets - from Stuyvesant's proclamation of 1656 to current efforts to create a Seaport market.This is part of the Five Dutch Days Celebration.

Free. Reservations required, RSVP to 212.228.2781 or info@smhlf.org

Organized by St. Mark's Historic Landmark Fund
smhlf.org

Dyckman Farmhouse Museum
dyckmanfarmhouse.org


New Amsterdam Public Market Association
newamsterdammarket.org

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The Barista Bares All

Well, it finally happened. The long-anticipated and much talked about plans to renovate the Marlow coffee counter suddenly came to fruition. It's a big change. A fast working speed depends on and demands habitual motions which inevitably run off course when things move around. But the sleepless night that our beloved Jeremy and his team put in hammering, caulking and drilling, did leave us with a radically improved (if less nostalgic) workspace. But what it took to get us there is another story.

I walked to Marlow's Wednesday morning to see a big paper sign on the door: written with chalk in that signature Cheffie scribble I read:

Due to some much-needed renovation,
Marlow and Sons will open mid-morning.

It was then that I knew this was no ordinary morning. This assumption was confirmed when I opened the door and almost tripped over a box of screws. The place was a mess. The new counter was installed, but the plumbers were still working on hooking up all other water and electric lines. It smelled like melting plastic from the plumbing glue they were using, and I had no idea why I was there prepared to serve coffee. Mid-morning? We'd be lucky to open the place for dinner!

I walked through the store, weaving my way around tool boxes, displaced store goods and the work crew. "Does this mean I can go back to bed?" I asked Caroline when I saw her. The answer was a firm NO, and I soon realized why. All of us there who weren't part of the work crew were to take this "perfect opportunity" to clean. Fantastic. With that, we each found a job to do. Colin ambitiously set to work washing the outside top windows, while Mercedez and I cleaned plastic spoons and coffee beans from behind the register area.

Around 9am things were as hectic as could be. The plumbers still weren't done, the bakers had muffins and scones piling up in the kitchen, and at least five people were directed out of the store after they obliviously stepped up to the disarrayed counter and ordered a latte. One dude even walked around the table that guarded the door, stepped over a huge box of tools, and ripped up the cover to the drink cooler to grab himself an Odwalla orange juice. We stood and watched him in disbelief until he came to the counter to pay.

"Um, we're closed, man," somebody told him.
"Oh, really?" He sounded a bit cool. "Well, ya'll got your aprons on. How was I supposed to know?" Never mind that we're obviously under construction. This was hilarious, I'll have you know. Another lady looked like she might cry when I told her we weren't serving coffee.

"No coffee?...oh no!"

Around ten thirty, we had people calling us, asking if we were open yet. "Just five minutes" was Caroline's overly optimistic response. The working crew was now gone, but we didn't even have any coffee yet and the place still smelled like a shoe factory. The darling candy section had to be stocked, all the shelves had been cleared so we could clean them and the store's dry goods were scattered everywhere. Meanwhile, a certain boss of mine (we won't mention names) was walking in and out of the place, commenting on the fact that we weren't open yet.

But somehow, we managed to do it. By 11am mostly everything from behind the counter was in place, and we let in our first customer right around 11:05. Though getting the store in shape was hard, the rest of the day wasn't exactly easy. Stainless steel counters and a new location for the espresso machine take a lot of getting used to. However they're so easy to clean! Nothing like that butcher block wood that took several scrubs to getting kind of clean. Now we just wipe everything down! And with the espresso machine in its own little corner there's no more rubbing-asses with the person trying to scoot by to get a croissant. What I can't believe is how much we put up with before: limited space and storage and battling constant coffee grime. There are a few things I will miss, however: the delicate sidestep one had to do to avoid spilling a cappuccino, or the strain I'd feel in my shoulders each time I pulled the woebegone freezer from under the old wooden counter. But yes, I say "Well done!" to those of you who made these changes possible. You just made our job a whole lot easier.

by Lindsay Debach

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Needle and Loom

This clipping is from 1870. I love this language: Nothing appears to be neglected by the management that would be at all likely to add to the success of the of the undertaking. Francis, our favorite coffee in the morning regular, brought this to our attention. She pointed out we have a wealth of producers and products in our fair county and we should have a Fair. I totally agree. Let's do it again! Hi Charlotte! (That's Fancis' dog.)

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It's four am and you need a Sparks and some calling cards...

Here in Brooklyn we are a continent of markets. Some nights it feels like Brooklyn has more bodegas than the sky has stars. That might just be light pollution but the bodega is our unpredictable borough's common denominator. Every corner has one, and everyone has a favorite. The bodega is a bootlegger, a dance floor, a grocer, a day care center, a domino hall. It is your only friend at five am when you need one more beer and a pack of smokes and your best friend at seven am when you've run out of toothpaste. New York's neon has historically been the beacon of the smutty midtown XXXs or peep shows. These days the city glows with mom and pop commerce, mostly Dominican. Dominican's own more than half a million bodegas in the five boroughs.

They live a risky business. Bodegas are often the target of violent crimes and violent economies. Today in the paper was a triumphant story about the survival of Moore Street Market. Moore Street, a kind of "house that bodegas built", is a unique community hub selling anything from haircuts to records to all Goya products under the blazing August sun. Knowing it is there has always provided me with a sense of relief even though up until today I had no idea it was in jeopardy. The vendors at Moore street will be signing a new five year lease and in and interesting turn of events new vendors will be limited to selling only food and agricultural products… What did the city want with Moore Street? To tear it down and build… Rental Apartments.

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Every Thursday 8-4 till November

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UnFancy and Crafty

Sasha is busy making the UnFancy Food Show medals while I am busy staring adoringly at her. How can I not love someone who reminds me that every once in a while, or more often than not, it is SHOT O'CLOCK! Thanks again to the UnFancy Food Show and New Amsterdam Market.

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This week in the news: Mark at the Market!

Sunday was a wild success on the island and in the borough. While most of my peers were selling out of ham and pickle sandwiches and helping the lovely Robert LaValva promote the New Amsterdam Market, Grant and I kept it really real with many plastic cups of Sweet Action at the UnFancy Food Show. I would like to thank Sasha Davies, Tom Mylan and Robert for again creating a thoughtful and fun way to raise awareness about food, how we consume it and who makes it. Here is an endlessly cute interview with the causal duo on gothamist and a impressive photo essay of the seaport market on eater.

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