Brooklyn Artisan

‘Bill Jones’ Rules for White House, State, IRS (Wall Street, We Wish!) and Your Business Too

May 18, 2013 By Anne Mollegen Smith Leave a Comment

REMOVE THE DOUBT — THAT’S ANOTHER WAY OF SAYING HEADS MUST ROLL when certain types of screw-ups occur. So after the IRS’s targeting of Tea Party groups to search out 501 (c) 4 violations made such big news, the acting head of the agency had his “resignation asked for and accepted.” Could he have survived in the job if he’d broken the findings to the President himself simultaneously with firing the hands-on people involved? Maybe.

And maybe even if he couldn’t get out in front of the news, but had acted quickly to remove those most responsible. That’s what Hillary Clinton and her management cadre at the State Department did after the tragic news from Benghazi broke; when she “accepted responsibility” for inadequate security at the Benghazi post, it was clear she was speaking in code — it happened in her agency and she was handling it: The faulty decision-makers were already on the way out the door .

We’re still waiting to see what the fallout will be after what looks like excessive phone monitoring of the AP in an effort to find the recent big leaker.

Even more, we’re still waiting for Wall Street and banking to “accept responsibility” and clean up after the financial crisis, the “liar’s loan” mortgage mess and the wrongly foreclosed housing.

In a small-business context, when a client’s order has been screwed up, it’s up to you to ‘fess up, clean up, sometimes even pay up, and show what action you’re taking to be sure it never happens again. A change of employees, a new procedure, or taking over that dawn delivery route yourself — whatever will “remove the doubt.” That’s a business fundamental.

Filed Under: best practices, Brain Candy, Look, The Business Side Tagged With: ARP phone monitoring, Benghazi, Bill Jones, IRS firing, motivational posters, small batch producers' business tips, small-business fundamental, State Department firings, White House trifecta

Brooklyn Aerodrome: Taking to the Skies of North Brooklyn

May 14, 2013 By Phil Scott 1 Comment

Forget Area 51, this is North Brooklyn's mystery aircraft, built from Kit 145.

Forget Area 51, this is North Brooklyn’s mystery aircraft, built from Brooklyn Aerodrome’s Kit 145 ($250.).

BROOKLYN HARDLY SEEMS THE PLACE TO TAKE FLYING LESSONS, given the utter and complete dearth of airports in the borough. But that hasn’t stopped computer scientist Breck Baldwin and schoolteacher Andrew Woodbridge from starting the Brooklyn Aerodrome Flight School. It offers training, clocks hours of flight time and then issues pilot licenses – to middle-schoolers.

The program began in 2010 with 15 students. Most of the curriculum is online, and the textbook can be bought online for $30. In complete and utter contrast with No Child Left Behind, the law of the land in which students study for nothing but the exam, the new Brooklyn Aerodrome Flight School actually teaches real-world applications for science and technology in a context that interests these students: making and flying planes. Brooklyn Aerodrome showed at last fall’s World Maker Faire in Queens and got a lot of attention, including from Wired Magazine. But a failed Kickstarter campaign in the first quarter of this year was a setback. Despite that they’re still up and running; for more info go to brooklynaerodrome.com.

Okay, there’s no functional Brooklyn airport, which goes to say no full-size airplanes either. So the kids go to the other most logical site, Brooklyn’s own McCarren Park in Williamsburg, and fly their own easy-to-build model called Flack, for Flying Hack. “It’s an electric-powered remote-control airplane built out of recycled trash,” Baldwin says. “Kids can build one in three to four hours.”

“It’s about aeronautics, that’s the core of it,” says Baldwin. “But the whole thing is trying to get kids to think about math, science and engineering and make it fun and play—not sit in a room and be lectured, but to go outside and do it.” In other words it’s not rote book learning, but real-world, hands-on knowledge and experience.

“Solving workbook math problems is not how the world works, but students might have to do a lot of math to get something to work,” Baldwin adds, the “something” being their airplanes. The program is not ignoring the liberal arts either: the students write reports, too, technical ones, not a “My Favorite Superhero Is…” essay.

And what do the kids get out of it? Not only math and science (and lots of fun), but they learn how general aviation really works, along with its rules and regulations. That last part may not be glamorous but it is essential, Baldwin says: “It makes it more real, adds depth to it, but it also provides structure. You have to have permission to enter the ‘runway,’ then you have to get permission to take off, and then the next plane goes.

“There’s a lot of necessary structure to flying,” Baldwin says, before he pauses and adds, “Imagine 30 kids with powered airplanes.”

Executive Editor Phil Scott has clocked some air time himself, no only in airplanes but also a replica of a Wright Brothers glider at Kitty Hawk, N.C.,.

Filed Under: Craft/Design, Handmade, histories

Bill Jones to Jeffrey Krusinki: What were you thinking (with)?

May 13, 2013 By Anne Mollegen Smith Leave a Comment

As has widely been reported, less than two weeks ago Lt. Col. Jeffrey Krusinski, head of the Air Force’s Sexual Assault Prevention and Response program, was arrested and charged for allegedly sexually assaulting a woman in a suburban parking lot in Virginia.

The fictional Bill Jones was the voice of career advice in the 1920s and 30s posters put out by a British printing company. Though the advice here was meant in another context, it’s not hard to imagine what Bill Jones would have thought about sexual assault or harassment, or derailing one’s career in this way.

Filed Under: best practices, Brain Candy, Look, The Business Side, Think

Rhetorical Rhinos and Flights of Inspiration

May 11, 2013 By Anne Mollegen Smith Leave a Comment

(Mather Company, posters from 1920s and 30s)

(Mather Company and Bill Jones posters from 1920s and 30s)

A GREAT GRAPHIC, BUT A DOUBTFUL METAPHOR. Unlike the rhetorical rhinoceros in the closet. this rhino in the bush probably isn’t going to be just stared down successfully. Arming yourself with appropriate resources seems like a much better idea. “Facing troubles” is Step One; “turning worry into effective action” would be Step Two. And thanks to Bill Jones, here — still in “Out of Africa” mode — is inspiration for making the effort.

Filed Under: The Business Side, Look, best practices

Getting Your Message Across?

May 9, 2013 By Anne Mollegen Smith 1 Comment

IT’S A 140 CHARACTER WORLD NOW, and what used to be called a magazine article is now “long-form journalism.” But this Mather poster advocates not only brevity but “snap.” Brooklyn Artisan long ago offered thoughts on quotability, but here snap means directness, too.

Some examples of this are in the Brooklyn Artisan photo pool. A favorite:

Filed Under: Chalkboard, Look, The Business Side, Think

Staying Motivated in a “401 k World”

May 3, 2013 By Anne Mollegen Smith 1 Comment

FIRST IT WAS TOM FRIEDMAN writing in the New York Times two days ago about the 401 k world where pension responsibility is thrust back on the individual worker, instead of custodial employers, unions, the Social Security Administration. Next came the Matthew Yglesias piece in Slate yesterday, “It’s a 401 k World and It Sucks.”

It’s hard for the small-business owner and artisanal producer – who’s very often the supply-buyer, the marketer, the Flea Market hawker, the copywriter and the chalkboard artist , and sometimes also holding down a day job too– to stay motivated in a such a low-payoff world. Too often there’s no über-corporation to put matching funds into one’s artisanal retirement account. But wait!

Let Bill Jones keep you pumped! Out of the pages of history comes a bunch of illustrated sayings of this fictional Brit, in inspirational posters put out by a printing company called Parker-Holladay. We’ve pulled some together from various archives, and mixed in others from sources like the Chicago-based Mather Company and the WPA, and will be posting them from time to time to fuel your creativity – and/or your staff.

Because of the eras in which they were created, most are addressed to men, but it’s out of this tradition that WWII’s Rosie the Riveter came to celebrate and motivate the women who were serving the country. For the collector, poster historian and art director Steven Heller looks to the Reinhard Brown Gallery. (And just in case the artisanal chili-pepper face cream business never takes off, you might want to take out the thumbtacks and stash your dad’s Milton Glaser poster of Dylan with the psychedelic hair (1966) and even your Shepard Fairey Obama “Hope” poster into sturdy archival tubes.)

Filed Under: Look, Think

Chalk-worthy Announcements on 5th Avenue

April 24, 2013 By Anne Mollegen Smith Leave a Comment

Seen at 184 Fifth Avenue in Park Slope, HiHo Batik sharing its news from a recent issue of New York Magazine. This is a batik shop with a DIY spin.

Seen at 184 Fifth Avenue in Park Slope, news from a recent issue of New York Magazine.

The flip side of the HiHo Batik sign.

THE HIHO BATIK STOREFRONT invites craft wannabes for a DIY session with a difference–in this case, the D stands for Dye. And its recent designation as a Best Thing about New York by New York Magazine is definitely something to chalk about. The crafts and storytelling session announcement for ages 2 to 4 sounds right on target this part of town (Park Slope).

Filed Under: Chalkboard, Craft/Design, Look

The Best of Brooklyn is outdoors this weekend, April 20 & 21

April 19, 2013 By Joy Makon Leave a Comment

“What a strange thing! to be alive beneath cherry blossoms,” Kobayashi Issa.

CherryWatch Blossom Status Map for those of you who really want to know what's in bloom at Brooklyn Botanic Garden, is updated every weekday during the season. (Photograph, taken on Thursday by Brooklyn Artisan Photo Pool.)

A cloudy Thursday at the Garden. (Photograph, Brooklyn Artisan Photo Pool.)
CherryWatch Blossom Status Map is for those of us who really want to know what’s in bloom at Brooklyn Botanic Garden, and is updated every weekday during the season.

Take a Walk • Downtown Brooklyn Partnership recommends a self-guided Architectural Walking Tour that hits eleven gems from DUMBO to the Barclays Center. Two highlights: 1) near Borough Hall stop to admire the circa 1901 Beaux-Arts style Temple Bar Building; 2) at 365 Jay Street, view the Old Brooklyn Fire Headquarters, described by the NYC Landmarks Commission as one of the city’s best and most striking architectural compositions. With regular stops for snacks, drinks or lunch along the route, this can make an interesting day of discovery. Brooklyn Artisan suggests a start with Juliana’s in DUMBO, an iced coffee from Betty Bakery, and a pop into Ample Hills Creamery to end.

Capsaicin Alert • 1st annual NYC Hot Sauce Expo. With a claim that hot sauce production is one of the 10 fastest-growing industries in the U.S., the Hot Sauce Expo promises to have spicy food vendors, live music, fire breathers, eating challenges and contests and lots of tasting opps both local and beyond. Hot Sauce vendors include PuckerButt Pepper Company, Fort Mill, SC; NW Elixirs, Portland, OR; Evil Seed Sauce Company, Jacksonville, FL; lots more. East River State Park, Williamsburg. Saturday and Sunday, 10am-6pm.

Babydoll lambs with mom Ginger—how cute is this? (Photograph, Julie Larsen Maher © WCS)

How cute is this? At the Zoo, newborn Babydoll lambs pose with mom Ginger. (Photograph, Julie Larsen Maher © WCS)

Saturday

• If you need a reason to go to the park, the Prospect Park Fair, at the Bandshell could be it. Enjoy a great spring day and check out the activities and programs featuring a pop-up Audubon Center, tennis demonstrations, food trucks, and volunteering info. Specials from local businesses include The Great Googa Mooga, Brooklyn Cyclones, New York Guitar Academy, and several others. Sponsored by the Prospect Park Alliance. 11am-3pm.

• Before or after the Prospect Park Fair, you might want to stop by the Prospect Park Zoo and meet Kings County’s cutest duo, two babydoll lambs named Arthur and Brooklyn. Brother and sister, born in March to Ginger, may just unseat baby walrus Mitik as the sweetest faces in the borough.

• Maypoles, horse shoes, hydroponic gardens • Wyckoff Farmhouse, NYC’s oldest house, holds a Spring Fling: A Celebration of Spring’s Traditions. English country and contra dances led by renowned caller Tom Amesse, folklore tales by storyteller Robin Bady, carnival games, crafts, and more. Sustainable Flatbush (see Sunday, below) will demonstrate the solar hydroponic garden system being installed on premises, while the the house itself will also be on tour. Flatbush. 1pm-6pm.

On Church Avenue: Magpies poptarts won’t ruin anyone’s appetite.

Sunday

Meet the neighbors • While shopping at the Church Avenue Street Fair, grab a bite at the Pop-Up Picnic Plaza that includes $1 specials from neighborhood eateries Lark, Am-thai, Shayna’s and more. Belly dancing demos, on-site animal adoptions, a children’s concert, make-up and hair styling discounts, and Magpies homemade poptarts are all part of the fun. Prospect Park South. 12pm-6pm.

For a greener thumb • Grassroots organization Sustainable Flatbush and community-owned Flatbush Food Coop have paired up to sponsor a Spring Plant Swap. Trade perennials and other plants, meet and learn from other gardeners, get help starting your garden. At the Flatbush Food Coop, Ditmas Park. 12pm-3pm.

Earth Day at Brooklyn’s largest park • The Brooklyn Dance Ensemble performs Earth Dances at the Salt Marsh Nature Center. As a perfect backdrop to today’s celebration, these 530 acres of grassland and salt marsh are considered a birdwatcher’s paradise. In NYC, the Salt Marsh Nature Center is protected as a Forever Wild Preserve. In addition to the dance performance, Roman “Red Hawk” Perez will perform Native American drumming and narratives. Marine Park. 2pm.

Familiar turf • Zip through the borough courtesy of the Brooklyn Brewery Mash:

Joy Makon curates Brooklyn Artisan’s Craft & Design coverage and creates the weekly Best of Brooklyn lists. Send items for listings to brooklynartisan@joymakondesign.com

Filed Under: Architecture, Community, Craft/Design, farms/gardens, Food/Drink, Guilds/Fairs, Joy's Best of Brooklyn Weekend Listings, Uncategorized, Winery, brewery, distiller Tagged With: Am-thai, Ample Hills Creamery, babydoll lambs, Betty Bakery, Brooklyn Brewery Mash, Brooklyn Dance Ensemble, Church Avenue, Ditmas Park, Downtown Brooklyn Partnership, Flatbush Food Coop, Juliana's Pizza, Lark, Magpies, Marine Park, NYC Hot Sauce Expo, Old Brooklyn Fire Headquarters, Prospect Park, Prospect Park Alliance, Prospect Park Zoo, Salt Marsh Nature Center, Shayna's, Sustainable Flatbush, Temple Bar Building, Williamsburg, Wyckoff House Museum

Joy’s Best of Brooklyn for Saturday, April 13

April 12, 2013 By Joy Makon Leave a Comment

Third Street, Park Slope. (Photograph, Brooklyn Artisan Photo Pool)

Wednesday on Third Street in the Slope. (Photograph, Brooklyn Artisan Photo Pool)

Earth Day is officially on Monday, April 22, but in Brooklyn,
the festivities begin this Saturday:

Citi Bike (finally) at the Yard.
(Photograph, Streetsblog.org)

Brooklyn Navy Yard by Bike The Yard is a national leader for sustainable urban industrial parks, so it seems quite natural that biking would be a smart way to check out the goings on there. Citi Bike, the new(ish) network of bike-share stations, has several locations at the Yard, including BLDG 92 and riders are finally getting the chance to take the bikes out for a spin. There are two opportunities on Saturday at the Yard to get out and pedal:

♦ A two-hour bicycle tour of the Yard’s sustainability features that includes NYC’s first building-mounted wind turbines, historic structures brought back to life, and a new green manufacturing center. 12pm-2pm.

♦ Brooklyn Skillshare presents a class on Urban Cycling Skills with topics such as biking rules, the best way to lock a bike, how to plot a route, and ends with an hour-long group ride up the Kent Avenue Greenway and back. Recycle-A-Bicycle and Transportation Alternatives are among the groups that will be attending. 2pm-4pm.

Spruce up the route Columbia Street Greenway Cleanup, sponsored by Brooklyn Greenway Initiative. As part of the 14-mile Brooklyn Waterfront Greenway, the Columbia Street Connector aims to add important pedestrian and recreational green space in Red Hook. All ages are invited to pitch in—tools and gloves will be provided—to make the area a little nicer. Red Hook. 10am-12pm.

A fruity Serviceberry tree can be yours.

Get & plant a free tree 200 trees will be given away by the Pratt Area Community Council, New York Restoration Project and milliontreesNYC. The tree must be planted within the five boroughs, and placed in the ground, not a container. Register online to reserve a Serviceberry, American Hornbeam, American Persimmon or Bald Cypress. Planting and care instructions will be provided. First-come, first-served until supplies run out. Bed-Stuy. 11am-1pm.

GREEN TIP: Get 20% off Seeds of Change seed packets plus make a donation of 20% of your purchase price to New York Restoration Project (NYRP) with code 20NYRP20.

Pedal away for a smoothie!
(Photograph, Habana Outpost)

Earth Day Expo at Habana Outpost, a solar-powered restaurant and marketplace. This sounds like it’s chock-full of eco-friendly fun and an easy way to learn about sustainable living. Make a smoothie using alternative energy from the Human Powered Bike Blender, participate in a plastic cap mural art project, and talk to local businesses and eco-organizations that are part of the afternoon Expo. Fort Greene. 12pm-4pm.

Earth Day Celebration at Brooklyn Center for the Performing Arts at Brooklyn College. At 2pm, the environmental performance group Bash the Trash will perform Tales of Anansi, a musical storytelling of folk tales from West Africa and the Caribbean. The musical instruments used are inspired by traditional African designs but made from recycled and reused materials. Following this performance, Bash the Trash will show everyone how to make musical instruments from found and recycled materials. Other interactive family activities with demonstrations, exhibits and hands-on activities will be part of the festivities. Flatbush. 2pm-4pm.

The first Earth Day poster by Walt Kelly.

Joy Makon participated in the first Earth Day as a high school student. Joy curates Brooklyn Artisan’s Craft & Design coverage and creates the weekly Best of Brooklyn lists. Send items for listings to brooklynartisan@joymakondesign.com

Filed Under: Architecture, Community, Joy's Best of Brooklyn Weekend Listings, Uncategorized, urban planning Tagged With: Bash the Trash, Bed-Stuy, BLDG 92, Brooklyn Center for the Performing Arts, Brooklyn Navy Yard, Brooklyn Skillshare, Brooklyn Waterfront Greenway, Citi Bike, Earth Day, Flatbush, Fort Greene, Habana Outpost, Human Powered Bike Blender, MillionTreesNYC, New York Restoration Project, Pratt Area, Recycle-A-Bicycle, Red Hook, Tales of Anansi, Transportation Alternatives

Sargent’s Watercolors: How Does He DO That?

April 10, 2013 By Anne Mollegen Smith 1 Comment

The Venice series: La Dogana was painted 102 years ago, using opaque and transparent watercolor, with wax resist on paper. At the Brooklyn Museum now until July 28. (Photo: Brooklyn Museum)

From the Venice series: La Dogana was painted 102 years ago, using opaque and transparent watercolor, with wax resist on paper. At the Brooklyn Museum now until July 28. (Photo: Brooklyn Museum)

OUR BROOKLYN MUSEUM’S SHOW OF NEARLY 100 WATERCOLORS BY JOHN SINGER SARGENT, created jointly with Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts — pooling art from both collections and wisdom from both museums’ curators and conservators — is every bit as good as you’ve probably read and heard by now. Good coverage is on the museum site and in Judith Dobrzynski’s piece in the New York Times, which tells how the successful society-portrait painter’s mid-life crisis sent him on the road to the Middle East and around Europe, watercolor kit in hand. When he was finally persuaded to show this work, he did not expect the flurry of acclaim his watercolors received here — at least until the art world’s fickle attention shifted to Cubism and abstract painting following the game-changing 1913 Armory Show.

A highpoint for me: Standing by Sargent’s actual painting and watching the accompanying wall-mounted video of someone knowledgeably copying it. As the hand filled in paint with brushstrokes this way and that, I stood rapt, lost in the delicious fantasy that I could do that — that in fact, I was doing that; that was my hand holding the brush. I invite you to share my fantasy anytime (and several times) between now and July 28. My advice is start early and go often — this is a once-in-a-generation show. You can also catch up with it in Boston October 13 to next January 20, and at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston sometime after that.

The Bedouins shows the intensity of Sargent’s more-accomplished techniques from 1905-1906. (Photo: Courtesy of the Brooklyn Museum)

Filed Under: Encore, Look, museums

Joy’s Best of Brooklyn for April 6 and 7

April 5, 2013 By Joy Makon Leave a Comment

A short list of weekend openings and events

John Singer Sargent, Villa di Marlia, Lucca: A Fountain, 1910. Watercolor over graphite pencil on paper. The Hayden Collection—Charles Henry Hayden Fund. At Brooklyn Museum, now.

S A T U R D A Y

Maker + Materials: tree house architect Romero. (Photograph, Caroline Voagen Nelson)

A Tree House grows in Brooklyn Botanic Garden. Wood from reclaimed trees felled by Hurricane Sandy is showing up in many uses and locations. Reclaim NYC, with designs implemented out of Sandy debris, will be exhibiting at NYCxDesign in May. Opening Saturday, tree house architect Roderick Romero is constructing a new site-specific installation using trees downed by Sandy. This promises to be part artwork, part open-air classroom, and will certainly be fun to view and walk through.

New exhibition, “That Perfectly Arranged Mouth,” paintings by Katharine Colona Hopkins. At 440 Gallery, Park Slope.

Inaugural exhibition, “Next Generation,” by Park Slope artist Lori Nelson.
At Ground Floor Gallery, Park Slope. 6pm-10pm.

GO: New exhibition, “John Singer Sargent Watercolors,” plus Target First Saturday. Brooklyn Museum.

Great for kids: Spring Seed Celebration & Swap, an annual celebration of making things grow. At Old Stone House and Washington Park. Park Slope. 10am-4pm.

Lumpia Shack’s back @ Smorg

Return of Smorgasburg! Over 100 vendors in a new location in Williamsburg, at East River State Park. 11am-6pm.

Smorg vendors I’m seeking out: Brooklyn Piggies, Bolivian Llama Party, ISH Premium Horseradish, Lumpia Shack…let us know what you recommend.

Jazz Healing Force of The Universe. Saxophonist Hamiet Bluiett does two sets at Sistas’ Place Coffee House, Bed Stuy. 9pm and 10:30pm. Part of the month-long Central Brooklyn Jazz Festival presented by the Central Brooklyn Jazz Consortium. For the 14th year, this longest running grassroots festival features more than 500 artists performing in 50 venues throughout Brooklyn.

S U N D A Y

Whether at Smorgasburg, above, or at a Food Truck Rally, food always seems to taste better al fresco.

The food trucks return to the Park with a Food Truck Rally at Grand Army Plaza. Every first and third Sunday of the month will give everyone the chance to dine in style at Mike’n’Willie’s, Milk Truck, Rickshaw Dumplings, plus a dozen more vendors. Afterwards, you could run or walk it off around the Park’s 3.35 mile loop. Prospect Park at Grand Army Plaza. 11am-5pm.

Return of Smorgasburg! Over 75 vendors are back at the historic Tobacco Warehouse in Brooklyn Bridge Park, DUMBO. 11am-6pm.

Recycle easily and safely: Spring NYC SAFE (solvents, automotive, flammable, electronics) disposal event. Here’s a one-stop way to get rid of potentially harmful household products. Depending on the product, materials collected will either be recycled, blended for fuel, or sent to licensed hazardous waste treatment facilities for safe disposal. Prospect Park, corner of Parkside Avenue and Prospect Park SW. 10am-4pm.

W E D N E S D A Y, April 10

Purchase tickets soon for A Taste of Fifth at the Grand Prospect Hall. We’re liking that $20 of your $45 ticket will go to a non-profit Fifth Avenue BID member of your choice. This is a chance to try some of the most talked about food and drink from places you never seem to get to, such as Fleisher’s, Campo Di Fiori, Leske’s Bakery, Pork Slope, lots more. The Grand Prospect Hall has to be one of the more ornate party places in the area—can you name a film it appeared in? Park Slope. 6:30pm.

Joy Makon curates Brooklyn Artisan’s Craft & Design coverage and creates the weekly Best of Brooklyn lists. Send items for listings to brooklynartisan@joymakondesign.com

Filed Under: Community, Craft/Design, Galleries, Joy's Best of Brooklyn Weekend Listings, museums, Uncategorized Tagged With: 440 Gallery, A Taste of Fifth, Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn Botanic Garden, Brooklyn Bridge Park, Brooklyn Museum, Central Brooklyn Jazz, DUMBO, Fifth Avenue BID, Grand Army Plaza, Grand Prospect Hall, Ground Floor Gallery, John Singer Sargent, Lumpia Shack, NYC Food Truck Rally, NYC SAFE, NYCxDESIGN, Old Stone House, Park Slope, Prospect Park, Reclaim NYC, Roderick Romero, seed swap, Sistas' Place, Smorgasburg, Target First Saturday, tree house, watercolor, Williamsburg

Spring Sunshine, Not a Moment Too Soon

April 2, 2013 By Brooklyn Artisan Leave a Comment

OH, THE JOY OF A BOY (or two) in the sun-warmed sandbox after a long, wet and wintry early spring.

Filed Under: Community, Look

Chalk Talk, resumed….

April 2, 2013 By Anne Mollegen Smith Leave a Comment

SEEN ON FIFTH AVENUE: When you rise from hibernation, feeling like–well, like a bear, here’s the cure.

Filed Under: Chalkboard, Food/Drink, Uncategorized

Joy’s Hurry Up Spring for the last week of March

March 28, 2013 By Joy Makon Leave a Comment

Out like a lamb? The Parks Department just removed a diseased Linden from the front sidewalk, and a new tree is on order. The squirrels have been feasting on emerging flower shoots in my Brooklyn Backyard and they seem quite pleased with their handiwork (grrrr). Spring’s warmth and flowers can’t get here soon enough so I’ve been living vicariously through other sources that I’m sharing in this week’s post:

Cherry blossoms soon

• Artist Sally Mara Sturman’s new illustration for YogaCity NYC captures the beauty of spring. Recently, Sturman left the familiarity of Brooklyn for a few weeks in sunnier, warmer California—the influence is showing in her newest watercolors. Now back home, she also custom paints ceramic pieces and works at Blue Moon Fish at the Greenmarkets in NYC. Find Sally’s work at her Etsy Shop.

Three stores on the to-visit list

1 • Ditmas Park Many creative types work several gigs at once; so does Sycamore. A bar, a flowershop, and an event space in one location seems to work for everyone and keeps the space active all day. Stems Architectural Florist hangs there everyday and offers flowers as well as plants—a recent post states that cuttings for fig trees from Flatbush Fig Farm are available for purchase. How Brooklyn is that? Check the site for scheduled music and brew events.

2 • Red Hook Saipua, a family-owned business focusing on small-batch olive oil soap and seasonal flowers and plants is definitely a do-what-you-love enterprise for all involved. Founder Susan Ryhanen retired from 30 years of teaching and started tinkering in her basement with handmade olive oil soap—Saipua on Van Dyke Street is the storefront result of her love of flowers and soap. Daughter Sarah is a co-owner of the shop and creates breathtaking floral arrangements. On Saturday, March 30, Saipua will have a houseplant sale, offering unusual varieties of ferns, begonias, succulents and free growing advice. Profits will go to The Farm at Worlds End, the flower farm that Sarah runs upstate, to fund the purchase of a tractor.

3 • Park Slope Long time Slopers, as well as newcomers, know that a visit to Zuzu’s Petals is always a blast of color and fragrance. Owner Fonda is the ultimate flowergirl with helpful plant advice and recommendations. What I respect most about Zuzu’s Petals is the dedication of this local business to the neighborhood, along with the beautiful dog that’s always there to greet customers. It’s the ideal example of shopping small in the neighborhood. And you know what the name means?

Two sites of note

1 • Brooklyn Visual Heritage is an online compilation of several picture collections from Pratt, Brooklyn Historical Society, Brooklyn Museum and The Brooklyn Public Library. A keyword search for spring turned up plenty of images of the Brooklyn Dodgers and Ralph Branca. This image took a little more effort to find; it’s from the 1952 Brooklyn Eagle and is captioned “girl in a garden with magnolia at Brooklyn Botanic Garden.” Explore to find fun, retro, relevant images of familiar Brooklyn places.

2 • A Way to Garden.com is author, editor Margaret Roach’s site for “horticultural how-to and woo-woo.” Roach’s weekly newsletter links to tidbits and resources that gardeners at any level will find useful, entertaining and attractive. I learned this week about alternatives to planting impatiens in a shade garden; a mildew-type fungus affected plants in 35 states last year. Roach’s writing is humorous yet straight-forward—she answers questions promptly and provides knowledgeable resources on a lot of different topics. Other sites may get a quick browse depending on my interest, but this one gets read.

Here’s Hoping…

By the time this posts, maybe we will be able to stash the winter coats away. Here’s a reminder, however, that April weather can be fickle:
Pansies, from my Brooklyn Backyard, April 8, 2003.

Happy Holidays.

Joy Makon curates Brooklyn Artisan’s Craft & Design coverage and creates the weekly Best of Brooklyn lists. Send items for listings to brooklynartisan@joymakondesign.com

Filed Under: Community, farms/gardens, Joy's Best of Brooklyn Weekend Listings, Uncategorized Tagged With: Brooklyn fig trees, Brooklyn Visual Heritage, Ditmas Park, Margaret Roach, Park Slope, Red Hook, Saipua, Sally Mara Sturman, Shop Small, Sycamore, The Farm at Worlds End, Zuzu's Petals

Joy’s Best of Brooklyn for March 21 through March 24

March 20, 2013 By Joy Makon 1 Comment

This weekend starts early on Thursday and it’s also the last day for Dine-In Brooklyn.

Winslow Homer, The Unruly Calf, circa 1875. Graphite and white opaque watercolor on blue-
gray wove paper. Brooklyn Museum, part of Fine Lines: American Drawings. See below.

Three reasons to go out on Thursday, March 21

1 • Brooklyn Museum stays open until 10pm on Thursdays so that visitors can linger in the galleries and take advantage of special evening programs. Several new exhibits have opened in the past few weeks including Fine Lines: American Drawings and the spectacular Gravity and Grace: Monumental Works by El Anatsui. At 7:30, a Drawing Workshop for all ages will explore the drawing process and help budding artists develop professional techniques.

2 • The March edition of Steamboat, the comedy series, at Greenlight Bookstore gets down to funny business with comedian and author Bob Powers hosting some of the city’s best humor writers. Tonight’s roster includes multi-tasking Brooklynite Rosie Schaap, author of Drinking With Men: A Memoir, and Dave Bry, author of Public Apology: In Which a Man Grapples with a Lifetime of Regret, One Incident at a Time. Fort Greene. 7:30pm.

A different take on a traditional Hagaddah.

3 • Brooklyn by the Book: The Bronfman Hagaddah. In time for Passover, author Edgar M. Bronfman and illustrator Jan Aronson will speak with Rabbi Andy Bachman of Congregation Beth Elohim about this contemporary retelling of the Exodus story. With its underlying message of human rights and freedom, The Bronfman Hagaddah brings together readings from diverse sources such as abolitionist Frederick Douglas to Ralph Waldo Emerson and poet Marge Piercy. At 6:30 there will be a kosher-wine tasting by Slope Cellars, food from Brooklyn-based Gefilteria (read more about them, below) and a book sale by Community Bookstore. Discussion begins at 7:30. Park Slope.

Three things to do involving seams, screams and Bob Ross

1 • Saturday & Sunday Learn to Sew a Vintage-Style Men’s Shirt at Brooklyn General Store. This two-day intensive, for those with intermediate sewing skills, will cover techniques including felled seams, a lined back yoke and sleeve plackets. Instructor Heather Love is a Brooklyn-based mixed-media artist. Her Etsy shop hellomello handspun features her knit-based crafts and materials. North Red Hook is the home of Brooklyn General Store, the former Frank’s Department Store, and is an updated and welcome throwback to the era when Union Street used to be a thriving shopping block for food and goods. 9am-6pm.

2 • Sunday Season Opener at Luna Park. Normally I might wait until warmer weather arrives to get excited about Coney Island, but this year’s opener has significance after all the rebuilding and restoration after Hurricane Sandy. The 86-year-old Cyclone is back in full operation, along with the Soaring Eagle and Steeplechase, a spinning disk called the Zenobio, and the Human Slingshot. As is the tradition, Marty Markowitz will christen the Cyclone by smashing a bottle of egg cream on her bow. Coney Island. 12pm-10pm.

3 • Sunday 1st annual Painting Takedown, a charity event to benefit Citymeals-on-Wheels. You remember Bob Ross, right? Twenty Brooklyn artists will be asked to throw away all taste and aesthetics by creating a painting à la Bob Ross. Audience members can bid and buy the finished canvases, while the painters will receive prizes for crowd favorites. Expect drinks from SixPoint Brewery, lots of chili, and goofy bad art. At former-feather-factory-now-arts-center The Active Space, Bushwick. 6pm-9pm.

caption and credit for Vermatzah goes here see item below

Eco-Kosher Vermatzah connects modern ecology with Jewish dietary laws and ethical standards.

Three purveyors of note for Passover and beyond

1 • Way Outer Brooklyn Vermatzah, small-batch, wood-fired matzah from Naga Bakehouse, Vermont. Locally-sourced wheat and farro go into the hand-shaped rounds produced by this eco-kosher baker. Albeit not kosher for Passover, this matzah is produced with care. With each order, the company attaches a small bag of wheat seeds to give home growers and cooks a chance to farm in their own homes. Order by Thursday for mail delivery for a seder, or revisit after the holiday.

2 • Gefilte fish is a Jewish food that does not have any religious symbolism, but is a part of traditional Eastern European cuisine, especially at holidays. My grandmother used to purchase live carp and whitefish and keep them swimming in the bathtub until it was time to cook and grind the fish for the quenelle-shaped pieces. My mother resorted to jars of prepared gefilte fish that contained an unappealing aspic-sort of jelly and a couple of slices of limp carrot. No wonder we resorted to massive amounts of horseradish, jarred of course, to make it palatable. Forward to 2012, and three Brooklyn entrepreneurs open Gefilteria to specialize in artisanal gefilte fish with freshness, sustainability and flavor added to the traditional food. The founders describe themselves as “a trio of New York foodies, reimagining Old World Jewish food by adapting Ashkenazi classics to the values and tastes of a new generation.” Fish as well as several styles of horseradish are kosher for Passover and can be purchased at local retailers and online, but hurry, as supplies are sure to be snapped up.

(Photograph, Katie Sokoler/Gothamist)

3 • We can still go stand in line at Zabars or Russ & Daughters on a Sunday morning for a novy fix, but the neighborhood appetizing store, stocked with smoked and cured fish and dairy products, has largely faded away. Enter caterer Peter Shelsky in 2012, and he’s returned appetizing back to Brooklyn with Shelsky’s Smoked Fish in Carroll Gardens. Shelsky’s extensive kosher-style Passover menu offers tempting dishes such as Grandma Yetta’s savory gefilte fish, house-pickled herring in cream sauce, fresh apple horseradish sauce, vegetarian matzah ball soup, strawberry rhubarb matzah crumble, and homemade matzah. Beyond Passover, there’s always the sandwich menu; try the Brooklyn Native: eastern Gaspé salmon, smoked whitefish salad, pickled herring, sour pickle all piled on a bialy.

Joy Makon curates Brooklyn Artisan’s Craft & Design coverage and creates the weekly Best of Brooklyn lists. Send items for listings to brooklynartisan@joymakondesign.com

Filed Under: Craft/Design, Food/Drink, Galleries, Handmade, Joy's Best of Brooklyn Weekend Listings, Method/Materials, museums, Outer Brooklyn, Uncategorized Tagged With: Beth Elohim, Bob Powers, Bob Ross, Brooklyn General Store, Brookyn Museum, Bushwick, Carroll Gardens, Citymeals-on-Wheels, Community Bookstore, Coney Island, Cyclone, Dave Bry, Dine In Brooklyn, eco-kosher, Fort Greene, gefilte fish, Gefilteria, Greenlight Bookstore, Luna Park, Marty Markowitz, Naga Bakehouse, Painting Takedown, Park Slope, Passover, Rabbi Andy Bachman, Rosie Schaap, Shelksy's Smoked Fish, Slope Cellars, Steamboat, The Active Space, The Bronfman Hagaddah, Vermatzah

Joy’s Best of Brooklyn for March 15 through March 18

March 14, 2013 By Joy Makon Leave a Comment

CSA Signups • Maker Opportunities Big and Small • Art and Literary Openings

Now on location in DUMBO: Heartwalk, a 30-foot art installation made from Sandy-salvaged wood. Situ Studio, a DUMBO-based design studio was commissioned to create this piece for the Times Square Alliance and the Design Trust for Public Space where the Heart was installed in Times Square. Boardwalk boards from Long Beach, NY; Sea Girt, NJ; Atlantic City, NJ were repurposed for the installation. Through April 30, DUMBO visitors are encouraged to interact with the piece and tweet/instagram photos to #DUMBOHeartwalk@DUMBOBID.

Art and Literary Happenings

Elizabeth Welsh, Quilt, circa 1825–40.
Brooklyn Museum, Gift of The Roebling Society

Friday, March 15 Workt by Hand: Hidden Labor and Historical Quilts at Brooklyn Museum’s Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art. Until the late twentieth century, much of quiltmaking was thought of as a craft, and makers were often anonymous. This exhibit of 35 quilt masterpieces will explore the way quilts have been seen and understood as both an art form and a craft. Traditionally, quilts have been displayed horizontally to represent the beds for which they were originally designed. Workt by Hand displays some quilts vertically—in the manner of a painting or print—to encourage viewers to think of them as art objects. Opening Friday. On display through September 15.

Friday, March 15 Currency, juried solo exhibition by Denis Beaubois at New York Art Residency & Studio Foundation. Currency asks us to consider: How much is an hour of your time worth and what is the worth of each dollar you make? This exhibit examines thoughts about economy and labor, the value of a work of art, the worth of one day’s work, all on a global scale. Sydney, Australia-based artist Denis Beaubois will talk at 7pm. Sunset Park. 6pm-8pm.

Saturday, March 16 Gotham: Writers in the City at the Brooklyn Public Library. Novelist and short-story writer Nathan Englander discusses his latest book, What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank, with WNYC’s Leonard Lopate. Grand Army Plaza. 4pm.

CSA signups happening now

The Vernal Equinox is on Wednesday at 7:02am. Balancing eggs on end: urban myth? Better to eat locally-sourced eggs—you could sign up now and get them through a Community Supported Agriculture group. CSAs work something like a magazine subscription in that members buy shares at the beginning of the season and receive regular deliveries of produce directly from the farmer. Now is the time that many CSAs are signing up customers for spring and summer shares. Just Food is a useful site listing all the CSAs in Brooklyn, and there are a lot. Here’s a short list of a few; check the site to locate more.

Monday, meet New Paltz-based
Partners Trace during Huckleberry
Bar’s CSA Happy Hour.

< • Partners Trace CSA at Huckleberry Bar, Williamsburg. New Paltz, NY based Partners Trace offers produce and flowers with an under-two-hour travel distance to Brooklyn. On Monday, March 18 from 5pm-7pm, Huckleberry Bar will host a CSA Happy Hour for signups and information.

• Iliamna Fish Company, a family-owned fishing cooperative on the Bering Sea in Bristol Bay, Alaska, offers shares in their wild red salmon harvests. The sockeye salmon from Iliamna contains the highest Omega-3 oil content and naturally occurring anti-oxidants of any Pacific salmon species. Customers include Blue Hill at Stone Barns, Applewood, and Dean & DeLuca. Shares will be available in late summer with pickup location in Brooklyn.

• Brooklyn Beet CSA, serving Boerum Hill and Downtown Brooklyn. Season starts June 3 for 26 weeks.

• Clinton Hill CSA, for Bed-Stuy, Clinton Hill and Fort Greene. Check out their informative newsletter The Beet.

For Makers and DIYers

Saturday, March 16 Brooklyn Craft Camp. This is a day-long DIY chance to craft your heart out, socialize and have fun. This may not start you on the road to Etsy-ville, but it sounds like a swell way to spend a Saturday learning some new techniques with like-minded craft lovers. The day will consist of four classes (with four finished projects); a chance to meet and work with craft-focused authors, bloggers and designers; and tastes of local food and drink. Brooklyn Craft Camp was founded by Brett Bara, a lifelong crafter turned DIY professional. Sponsors include West Elm, Purl Soho, Juice Box, The Crochet Dude, Vogue Knitting Live. Classes are filling up, so registration asap is advised. Greenpoint. 10am-7pm.

Sunday, March 17 Anthropomorphic Insect Shadowbox Class: Easter/Spring Equinox Edition, part of The Morbid Anatomy Art Academy. The Academy offers a fascinating series of classes that reflect an interest in taxidermy, animal and insect anatomy, fine art techniques and arcane subjects. This 3-hour workshop will have you working with Rhinoceros beetles (thankfully they are provided), to make a shadowbox diorama. The class is taught by a former insect preparator from the American Museum of Natural History, and may cause you to see nature’s tiny giants in a whole new way. At Observatory, Gowanus. 1pm-4pm.

Gyroid, by Bathsheba, an example of 3D Printing by Shapeways.

Monday, March 18 The Future of 3D Manufacturing—Brooklyn Style: an evening of panel discussions and demonstrations hosted by Brooklyn Futurist Meetup. This energetic, well-attended Meetup will be joined by Brooklyn Tech and Volumetric Society Meetups for a lively session with all-star 3D enthusiasts. Robert Steiner, from MakerBot will speak and demonstrate a MakerBot. D-Shape, Shapeways and Make editor Brian Jepson are among other participants. The event is wait-listed, but you can attend by following the instructions on the site. At Brooklyn Law School, Moot Court Room, Downtown Brooklyn. 7pm-9:30pm.

Sunday, April 28 Lettering class at L’Ecole Des Beaux Arts. Classes at LDBA fill up and sell out almost immediately, so consider this a heads up if you’re interested in attending any future sessions. This 90 minute class, for 6 students only, will provide instruction and materials to learn classic hand-rendered lettering and font techniques to produce cards and envelopes. LDBA is a hardware, housewares and artist supply store and site founded by artist Sara Moffat. “We provide tools, techniques and materials to allow people to excel in their medium,” says Sara. Other unique classes are offered for all age groups, and include Knot Tying (a hot topic, apparently), Make Your Own Bow and Arrows, Picasso and Kandinsky Study for ages 5 and up, and all seem to fill up right away. Williamsburg.

October 1, 2012 (Photograph,
Brooklyn Artisan Photo Pool.)

A post-Sandy update

Monday, March 18 Nathan’s Coney Island location on the Boardwalk is scheduled to reopen. And next weekend, as part of Coney Island’s opening weekend celebrations, the first qualifier round of the 2013 July 4th Hot Dog Eating Contest will be held. There’s nothing slow-food or artisan about these dogs, but what’s better than enjoying one by the Atlantic’s surf? Nathan’s main location on Surf Avenue is still being repaired and will reopen Memorial Day Weekend.

Joy Makon curates Brooklyn Artisan’s Craft & Design coverage and creates the weekly Best of Brooklyn lists. Send items for listings to brooklynartisan@joymakondesign.com

Happy 32 Sol ♥

Filed Under: Collectives, Community, Craft/Design, farms/gardens, Food/Drink, Galleries, Guilds/Fairs, Handmade, Joy's Best of Brooklyn Weekend Listings, Method/Materials, museums, Uncategorized, urban planning Tagged With: Applewood, Boerum Hill, Brett Bara, Brooklyn Beet CSA, Brooklyn Craft Camp, Brooklyn Futurist Meetup, Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn Public Library, Clinton Hill CSA, Coney Island, CSA, D-Shape, DUMBO, Fort Greene, Gowanus, Greenpoint, Heartwalk, Hot Dog Eating Contest, Huckleberry Bar, Iliamna Fish Company, Juice Box, Just Food, LDBA, Leonard Lopate, Make, MakerBot, Morbid Anatomy Art Academy, NARS, Nathan Englander, Nathan's Coney Island, Observatory, Partners Trace CSA, Purl Soho, quilt making, Sara Moffat, Shapeways, Situ Studio, sockeye salmon, Sunset Park, The Crochet Dude, Vogue Knitting Live, Volumetric Society Meetup, West Elm, Williamsburg, Writers in the City

Shoptalk for Artisans

March 13, 2013 By Basia Hellwig Leave a Comment

Start-up selling savvy, restaurant license bootcamp, legal advice for trademarking

March 13 (tonight!), 8–10 pm
Learn How to Sell Your Product
Are you ready to share that artisanal product that your friends are raving about with the wider world? Wondering how to sell it? Edible Brooklyn and Brooklyn Brewery are presenting a workshop with a panel of successful artisans who’ve already done it. Hear from the folks behind such companies as Saucy by Nature, Salty Road and Sweet Deliverance NYC, who will share stories and how-tos. Tickets $5; doors open at 7:30. At Brooklyn Brewery, Williamsburg.

March 19, 2–5 pm
Restaurant Management Bootcamp
For budding restaurateurs, this seminar from New York Business Solutions, a city agency program, will fill you in on all the rules and regs for employing staff and getting the licenses and permits for operating a restaurant in NYC, including how to use the new online licensing system Business Express—and avoid fines! Registration required for this free seminar. At 9 Bond Street, 5th floor.

March 26, 10 am–12:30 pm
Fare Trade NYC Trademark Workshop
Trademarking your brand can be confusing and expensive. And yet after all the work you’ve put into your business, you want to protect what’s yours, right? Fare Trade NYC, a community of food entrepreneurs who share information and pool resources, is hosting a half-day course to fill the gap between generic online trademark services and costly trademark attorneys. Fare Trade NYC has partnered with attorney Jason Foscolo, whose practice focuses on food businesses, to cover everything from different types of trademarks, doing a trademark search, the application process, troubleshooting and more. Fare Trade NYC’s intention is to leave you ready to file your application at the end of the workshop; Foscolo will be also available to answer follow-up questions from seminar attendees as you work through your trademark registration. Registration required; $200 (Fare Trade members), $250 (nonmembers). At 61 Local, 61 Bergen St.

Filed Under: Food/Drink, The Business Side, Uncategorized Tagged With: Brooklyn brewery, Business Express, Edible Brooklyn, Fare Trade NYC, Jason Foscolo, Learn How to Sell Your Product, licensing, New York Business Solutions, Restaurant Management Bootcamp, restaurant permits, Salty Road, Saucy by Nature, Sweet Deilverance NYC, The Food Law Firm, trademark

Joy’s Best of Brooklyn for March 7 through March 10

March 6, 2013 By Joy Makon Leave a Comment

Events sell out fast…sign up, buy tickets, reserve…don’t miss out.

Brooklyn Arts Council, Larry Racioppo, Silver Mermaid, 2002 C-print, 20" x 24")

Larry Racioppo, Silver Mermaid, 2002 C-print. Thursday evening opening reception for Sea Drift, a new show at Brooklyn Arts Council. Part of Armory Arts Week, see below.

Local and Beyond: food, gardens, environment

An early-season scene from Windflower Farm.

Thursday Park Slope CSA membership orientation for the 2013 season. Learn about the benefits of membership in a Community Supported Agriculture partnership. The Park Slope CSA’s deadline for the 2013 season is April 19, and you can sign up for full or part shares of deliveries by Farmer Ted from Windflower Farm, along with eggs and meat from Lewis Waite Farm and Hot Bread Kitchen. Distribution is at the Garden of Union, a community garden on Union Street between Fourth and Fifth Avenues in Park Slope. Learn more this evening, along with a cooking demonstration and refreshments at the Old Stone House, Park Slope. 6pm-8pm.

Friday Former Vice President Al Gore will discuss his latest book, The Future: Six Drivers of Global Change. This new book is billed as a frank, visionary, and ultimately hopeful investigation of six critical drivers of global change in the decades to come, written by a man who has looked ahead before and been proven all too right. Ticket purchase guarantees an autographed copy of the book. At powerHouse Arena, DUMBO. 6pm-8pm.

Saturday 32nd Annual Making Brooklyn Bloom sponsored by Brooklyn Botanic Garden and Slow Food NYC’s Urban Harvest program. This is a free day-long event at BBG featuring hands-on workshops, exhibits and speakers taught by community gardeners, BBG staff and greening experts. Gardening for a Resilient City is this year’s topic: to explore our local resources to rebuild a more verdant, sustainable Brooklyn in response to recovery efforts after Hurricane Sandy. Workshops include: Upcycled Treasure: Tree Guards to Greenhouses; Using Stormwater in the Garden; The Global Gardener: Growing Food from Around the World; Brooklyn Urban Gardener Volunteer Program. Exhibits and Activities include: Therapeutic Horticulture; School Gardening; exhibits from local greening organizations. Dr. Vandana Shiva, global environmental activist, author and founder of Navdanya will present the keynote address Cultivating Resilience: Diversity, Democracy, Community. Advanced registration is requested for many events. 10am-4pm.

Fort Greene’s iCi received Snail recognition in 2012.

Related: Slow Food NYC Snail of Approval, a website/directory of restaurants, bars, food and beverage artisans that have been awarded the SFNYC Snail of Approval. To be considered for this distinction, establishments must meet standards that contribute to the quality, authenticity and sustainability of the food we eat and drink in New York City. 2013 recent awardees from Brooklyn include Red Hook-based Waterfront Wines & Spirits and Uncouth Vermouth. Previous-year awardees include Ted & Honey, One Girl Cookies, Lot2 and many more.

Saturday Bread & Brew: A Celebration of Dutch Foodways in Breukelen at Wyckoff House Museum. Tour NYC’s oldest house and learn about brood and bier, important foods in the Dutch-colonial diet. Brooklyn Brewery’s beers will be available to sip; taste bread (including beer bread) that has been baked using traditional colonial methods on an outdoor fire pit. Reservations requested. East Flatbush. 4pm-6:30pm.

Bunnycutlet Gallery exhibit Printmouse. Alexandria Kwan, KVDZV, silkscreen

Alexandria Kwan, KVDZV, silkscreen. Printmouse exhibit at Bunnycutlet Gallery, part of Williamsburg After Hours.

Armory Arts Week in Brooklyn

The Armory Show is an international contemporary and modern art fair held every March, not in an armory, but on Piers 92 & 94 in Outer Brooklyn. The Show has expanded to include arts events and exhibitions throughout all of NYC during Armory Arts Week, where neighborhood arts scenes are highlighted. Below, here’s a small selection of what’s happening in Brooklyn. Check the website for the complete list of events.

• Thursday First Thursday Gallery Walk, DUMBO.
This newly-retooled website (check out the DUMBO Decoder) has tons of gallery events as well as other info for the area:

A.I.R. Gallery, the first all female cooperative gallery in the U.S., opens this evening with 40/40: A Double Vision. Celebrating 40 years of advocating for women in the visual arts, this exhibition celebrates the past, present and future of A.I.R. Gallery. 6pm-9pm.

Brooklyn Arts Council, Sea Drift, a group exhibition featuring the work of seven Brooklyn-based artists, presents a meeting of mythic ideas and realities regarding the waters surrounding Brooklyn. Opening reception, 6pm-8pm.

Related: Happy hour in DUMBO drink deals from ReBar, Superfine, Gran Electrica, more…

Intentionally conspicuous Williamsburg, really?

• Saturday Armory Arts Week—Brooklyn Night
Full listing for all Brooklyn Night events is on the website.

Williamsburg After Hours. 23 galleries will intentionally make themselves conspicuous with light, music and video installations that will be visible in doorways, sidewalks and adjacent buildings, along with performance art in the streets. 7pm-10pm.

Brooklyn Metal Works spoon-making workshop class caption here

Brooklyn Metal Works holds spoon-making workshops in their studios. On Saturday, they are a part of Brooklyn Creates.

Brooklyn Creates is one part of this day devoted to Design and Glass. Begin with a visit to the Museum of Art & Design, one of Brooklyn Artisan’s favorite spots, for a screening of Toledo Workshop Revisited. Follow with an opening reception at Heller Gallery of glass artist Amber Cowan’s Reconstructions. End the day back in Brooklyn with Brooklyn Creates, an evening showcase of farm-to-table food and homemade brews, served in hand-crafted glass and metal tableware. Sponsored by Landhaus, Bitter & Esters, Brooklyn Glass and Brooklyn Metal Works.

Joy Makon curates Brooklyn Artisan’s Craft & Design coverage and creates the weekly Best of Brooklyn lists. Send items for listings to brooklynartisan@joymakondesign.com

Filed Under: Craft/Design, farms/gardens, Food/Drink, Galleries, Joy's Best of Brooklyn Weekend Listings, museums, Outer Brooklyn, Uncategorized, urban planning, Winery, brewery, distiller Tagged With: A.I.R. Gallery, Al Gore, Armory Arts Week, Bitter & Esters, Brooklyn Arts Council, Brooklyn Botanic Garden, Brooklyn Creates, Brooklyn Glass, Brooklyn Metal Works, CSA, DUMBO, First Thursday Gallery Walk, Fort Greene, Gran Electrica, Heller Gallery, Hot Breat Kitchen, iCi, Landhaus, Lot2, Making Brooklyn Bloom, Museum of Art & Design, Navdanya, Old Stone House, One Girl Cookies, outer Brooklyn, Park Slope, Powerhouse Arena, ReBar, Slow Food NYC, Snail of Approval, Superfine, Ted & Honey, The Armory Show, Toledo Workshop Revisted, Uncouth Vermouth, Vandana Shiva, Waterfront Wines & Spirits, Williamsburg After Hours, Windflower Farm, Wyckoff House Museum

Joy’s Best of Brooklyn for the beginning of March

February 28, 2013 By Joy Makon Leave a Comment

Biodynamic wine…and cheese…and beer, always beer • food shopping renewals • talks about dinners and sports books • the original New Orleans Jazz Band

Themed merch at Brooklyn Museum's store. (Photograph by Brooklyn Artisan Photo Pool.)

Themed merch display at Brooklyn Museum’s store. (Photograph by Brooklyn Artisan Photo Pool.)

Supermarket News

Friday, March 1 Fairway Red Hook re-opening! “We love this neighborhood,” says Fairway’s website. The feeling is quite mutual…and we can all celebrate starting at 8am as this foundation of the Red Hook community opens for business after four months of renovations and restoration after Sandy. Of course Marty is going to show up, along with performances by Brooklyn Dodger Symphony Band and an appearance by Brooklyn-based Miss America, Mallory Hytes Hagan. Fairway has partnered with Restore Red Hook to continue supporting those hit by Sandy—the small businesses, residents, employees—and will match donations up to $20,000. PLUS: Red Hook Lobster Pound and Red Hook Winery will reopen on Friday too.

We Were Heard Windsor Terrace Green Beans. Back in June 2012, Key Food, the only viable, non-bodega supermarket in Windsor Terrace, suddenly closed, leaving residents without a full-service place to shop for food. Worse, the landlord then leased the space to pharmacy-giant Walgreens creating a dearth of local food shopping choices, along with potentially jeopardizing business at two well-liked local pharmacies. Both the landlord and Walgreens representatives refused to discuss the neighborhood’s desire to include a grocery store in any of the plans.

Summer, 2012 protest. (Photograph, DNAinfo/Leslie Albrecht)

This story is being tagged co-working, grassroots, citizen advocacy, sustainable markets, neighborhood-supported small business.

While the Windsor Terrace Key Food was bona fide awful to many, it was still important to this community of 12,000—enough, so that neighbors banded together to form Green Beans Not Walgreens, a grassroots resistance organization with the message that any Walgreens would be boycotted unless a sustainable fresh food market was worked into the plans. Citizen advocates, community leaders and local elected officials were initially rebuffed by corporate Walgreens, but pressure intensified to get the message heard. On February 21, the community received more positive news from Walgreen officials and Key Food corporate representatives that a hybrid space would be developed to include a “state-of-the-art” Key Food as part of the Prospect Avenue space. Next up: many residents have the means to shop at more upscale food businesses (Fairway, Union Market, Park Slope Food Coop, Fresh Direct, Trader Joe’s, an impending Whole Foods, even Costco) so Key Food will need to earn its reputation to be taken seriously. In this neighborhood that values shopping locally, especially the Prospect Park West shopping strip, there is still a lot of concern that small-town friendly Ballard Pharmacy and Oak Park Pharmacy will be priced out of business by the Walgreens pharmacy. The fight continues on.

What a difference it makes to the neighborhood when a shop owner cares about their place!

Elsewhere…

< Friday, March 1 Open House/Cocktail Party at Windsor Place Antiques & Ephemera. Owner Rebecca Rubel is a Brooklyn Flea regular and has had an Etsy store since 2009. Her first brick-and-mortar shop is located on a corner site that was for decades an eyesore of a legal office, but now showcases her love of maps, especially large school maps, globes, and all other sorts of well-loved stuff, displayed in eye-catching, clever groupings. Windsor Terrace. 6pm-8pm.

Rolling Stone calls Brooklyn Bowl “…one of the most incredible places on Earth.”

Friday, March 1 Preservation Hall Jazz Band performs at Brooklyn Bowl. Don’t miss the one-and-only from New Orleans. The Preservation Hall Jazz Band, dating to 1961, has a mission to nurture and perpetuate the art form of New Orleans Jazz. PHJB Creative director Ben Jaffe is the son of the original founders, Allan and Sandra Jaffe, and has spearheaded programs such as the New Orleans Musicians Hurricane Relief Fund. Sound familiar? At Brooklyn Bowl’s performance space, in the former Hecla Iron Works (circa 1882), you’ll hear great music, enjoy food from Blue Ribbon, and can even get in a round of bowling at one of the 16 LEED-certified lanes. Advanced tickets for PHJB are sold out, but limited admission for $20 will be available at the box office at 6pm for the 8pm show. Williamsburg.

Saturday, March 2 Dinner, A Love Story, a cookbook tasting event at powerHouse in Park Slope. Melissa Vaughan (The New Brooklyn Cookbook) moderates this sampling of dishes from Jenny Rosenstrach’s Dinner, A Love Story. Jenny notes that she’s kept a diary of every single thing she’s eaten for dinner since 1998; Dinner A Love Story is her website devoted to helping parents figure out how to get family dinner on the table. Park Slope. 4pm-5pm.

Pouring at Littlefield on Saturday.

Saturday, March 2 Urban Brew Fest and Craft Beer Festival at Littlefield. More than 50 craft and specialty brewers will be pouring at Littlefield’s sustainably-renovated warehouse. Food and music will keep you on your toes. Advanced ticket purchase recommended. Gowanus. 12pm-9pm.
Suggested reading: New York’s Ale Awakening: How a Cocktail City Learned to Love Beer

Saturday, March 2 Intro to Cheese Making at 3rd Ward. This class will demystify the steps of cheese making from milk to cream to curd and will teach you how to make creme fraiche, cultured butter, mascarpone and cream cheese. You’ll also take home a cheese-draining basket, and recipes using the freshly-made products and other creamery ideas. Williamsburg. 1:30pm-4:30pm.

Sunday, March 3 Community Bookstore and PS 321 host Writers Series #2: Influential contemporary books about sports. A discussion by sports journalists (and PS 321 parents): Steve Busfield, sports editor of Guardian US; Howie Rumberg, sportswriter at The Associated Press; Ralph Russo, national college football writer at The Associated Press. Moderated by Ezra Goldstein, co-owner of Community Bookstore (and originator of the unofficial Brooklyn Artisan mascot cat chalkboard). This event is geared toward adults, although children are welcome. At Community Bookstore, Park Slope. 2pm.

(Photograph from Jenny & François Selections.)

Domaine Binner Winery, Alsace. (Photographs from Jenny & François Selections.)

Natural Winemakers’ Week,
February 28-March 6

Organic, natural and biodynamic winemakers from France, Italy and Oregon will be in NYC for a week of wine dinners, classes and tastings. Here’s what’s featured in Brooklyn:
• Saturday, March 2 Natural Wine 101 at Brooklyn Wine Exchange. Louis/Dressner Selections will introduce some of their favorite producers of small, family-owned wineries. Cobble Hill. 4pm.
• Tuesday, March 5 Ides Bar at Wythe Hotel will throw a party featuring all the winemakers, 20 wines by the glass, a DJ, and a great view of Outer Brooklyn’s skyline. If you need an excuse to visit this cool hotel, this could be it. Williamsburg. 8pm-12am.

Loup Blanc Winery, Bize-Minervois.

• Wednesday, March 6 stop by Fermented Grapes for a free wine tasting with winemaker Loup Blanc. Prospect Heights.
• Wednesday, March 6 winemaker dinner at The Farm on Adderley. Four course dinner paired with wines from Les Chemins de Bassac from Languedoc, France, and Pogiosecco from Tuscany, Italy. Reservations essential—the wine dinners hosted in the back room at The Farm are rumored to be delicious and a lot of fun. Ditmas Park. 8pm.

Joy Makon curates Brooklyn Artisan’s Craft & Design coverage and creates the weekly Best of Brooklyn lists. Send items for listings to brooklynartisan@joymakondesign.com

Filed Under: Community, Coworking, Craft/Design, Food/Drink, Guilds/Fairs, Joy's Best of Brooklyn Weekend Listings, Look, museums, Uncategorized, urban planning, Winery, brewery, distiller Tagged With: 3rd Ward, biodynamic, Brooklyn Bowl, Brooklyn Flea, Brooklyn Wine Exchange, Cobble Hill, Community Bookstore, Dinner A Love Story, Ditmas Park, Etsy, Fairway, Fermented Grapes, Gowanus, Green Beans Not Walgreens, Key Food, Littlefield, Natural Winemakers' Week, Park Slope, PowerHouse Books, Preservation Hall Jazz Band, Prospect Heights, Red Hook, Red Hook Lobster Pound, Red Hook Winery, The Farm on Adderley, Urban Brew Fest, Walgreens, Williamsburg, Windsor Place Antiques, Windsor Terrace, Windsor Terrace Green Beans, Wythe Hotel

The Town’s Biggest Cigar Booster Since Fiorello LaGuardia?

February 26, 2013 By Phil Scott Leave a Comment

Cigar entrepreneur David Diamante, creator of the Brooklyn Cigar Lounge a few blocks from the Barclays Center, is a fifth generation Ft. Greene resident. (Photo-illustration for Brooklyn Artisan by Mollie Ann Smith)

Cigar entrepreneur David Diamante, creator of the Brooklyn Cigar Lounge just a few blocks (some say “crawling distance”) from the Barclays Center, is a fifth generation Ft. Greene resident. (Photo-illustration for Brooklyn Artisan by Mollie Ann Smith)

Cigar in hand: Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia in his famously messy office.

Cigars and the City: Three-term NYC Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia in his cluttered office. A Republican, the former congressman (6 terms) was mayor from 1934-1945, and during a newspaper strike, famously went on the radio to read the Sunday comics. Only five feet tall, and sometimes called “The Little Flower,” he had a personality larger than life. He defeated the Tammany Hall political machine, united the transit system, built parks and public housing, reorganized the police and – an advocate of employment on the basis of merit – overcame the patronage system.

ON A RECENT FRIDAY NIGHT IN FORT GREENE, I sat in a leather lounge chair with David Diamante in his comfy Brooklyn Cigar Lounge and got a few pointers on rolling cigars. Diamante’s traveled to Cuba, Nicaragua, Honduras, and the Dominican Republic to master the fine art of rolling. “It’s one of those things that you need to know the nuts and bolts to talk about it from an educated perspective,” he explains. And here’s what I learned:

1. Shred the tobacco into a uniform size. Spread it on a clean, flat surface, lightly mist it with filtered water.

2. After removing the center vein of the binder leaf, lay that on the same clean, flat surface, and sprinkle the shredded tobacco on it.

3. Wrap the binder leaf around the shredded tobacco and check it for consistent density. With thumb and index finger, squeeze it at one end and work your way to the other.

4. Spread a light coat of a binder such as bermacol, tragacanth, guar gum or egg white along one edge of the binder leaf, and ever so gently press against the rest of the cigar.

5. Trim off the excess leaf.

6. Roll the wrapper leaf around the binder leaf and seal it with bermacol, Tragacanth, Guar Gum or egg white, just like the binder leaf.

7. Overlap the ends of the wrapper leaf.

Using the Cigar Former

Place the cigar inside a former of the same size, which retains the cigar’s shape while its tobacco dries. (The former is made by nailing wooden strips onto a board. The former is covered with a top and clamped down.) Wait for about 30 minutes, unclamp the top of the former, turn the cigars over, reclamp the top for another 30 minutes. Then place the former inside an oven just hot enough to warm the former, and bake for 30 to 45 minutes. When the cigar is dry, trim the ends. Store the finished cigar inside a humidor for a few weeks.

Diamante's Brooklyn Cigar Lounge on Oxford Street in Ft. Greene

You’ll have no trouble spotting Diamante’s Brooklyn Cigar Lounge on Oxford Street.

Diamante, who imports his own special blends for the lounge, is not giving away trade secrets here. Rolling takes hours of practice, and seriously, where are you going to find good leaf tobacco in Brooklyn? It’s really better to just head over to Brooklyn Cigar Lounge and talk about the process with David — he’s the tall, skinny, well-dressed guy with dreadlocks down to his back pockets—while toking on one of his selection. As for the lounge, it’s in a restored brownstone at 108 Oxford Street, Brooklyn, 11217. (Call 646 MADURO, for Brooklynites who prefer dialing letters to numbers, or 646 462-3876, for out-of-boroughers.)

Executive Editor Phil Scott has previously written for Brooklyn Artisan about canning, shaving, glider-flying, and other manly pursuits.

Filed Under: Community, Handmade, Uncategorized, Winery, brewery, distiller

In Kandahar, No Pantyhose with Combat Boots

February 24, 2013 By Phil Scott Leave a Comment

HALF OF THE AMERICAN SOLDIERS IN AFGHANISTAN will be coming home this year, the President says. But the other 34,000 will still be there next year. Knowing that folks at home support them matters. After my two trips to Afghanistan, some Brooklyn Artisan readers have contacted me in the apparent belief that I’m some sort of expert on what US troops need while they’re still over there. Well, personally, I forgot my dental floss, and my shampoo and deodorant were wrestled to the ground, beaten, and confiscated at the airport. As for the people in uniform, I quizzed a couple of recently-returned Brooklyn warriors about the soldiers’ needs, and here are their answers.

While some infantry troops wear ankle high nylons as an extra, inner layer of protection against blisters, The Rumor Doctor reports, “no servicemember will admit to wearing pantyhose.”

Good things to send:
Movies (DVDs! VHS is obsolete, and BetaMax tapes are only found in museums)
Gamebooks
New magazines—especially sports magazines
Individual tissue packets
Disposable razors
Body wash
Lotion (that’s some seriously dry climate over there)
Oh, and female soldiers like body sprays. Maybe some of the males like it too. Since no one’s shooting at me, I’m not going to judge.

Now for some of the weirder stuff they’ve received:
Pantyhose
Gardening gloves
A Chubb pack of socks
And an Unrated American Pie sent in a church care package. (Sheesh! Keep it clean, churchgoers!)

So maybe keep these items off your list, along with pornography and booze. Afghans just aren’t into that stuff, and even if we don’t agree with them we’re supposed to respect their culture.

Here’s the address to send it to:

Public Affairs Officer
451 AEW/PA
APO AE 09347

To quote M*A*S*H, That is all.

Executive Editor Phil Scott is the author of seven books and numerous magazine pieces.

Filed Under: Community, Uncategorized

Joy’s Best of Brooklyn for February 19—25

February 20, 2013 By Joy Makon Leave a Comment

The American Revolution through gardening, get close to stinky cheese, monumental artwork at Brooklyn Museum and it’s NYC Beer Week in Kings County.

The Old Stone House, portrayed in this historic rendering, is the perfect backdrop for a talk by
Andrea Wulf, author of The Founding Gardeners. See first item, below.

Thursday The Founding Gardeners, a talk and reception with design historian Andrea Wulf. Celebrate President’s Day with a fundraiser talk and wine reception for The Old Stone House. Our founding fathers (Washington, Jefferson, Adams, Bartram, Madison) were as passionate about gardening, agriculture and botany, as in their belief in liberty for the nation they were creating. Author Andrea Wulf will reveal their unique ideologies as the gardeners, plantsmen and farmers of the American Revolution. The Old Stone House, with its colonial heritage and habitat gardens, is the ideal setting and beneficiary for this evening. Advanced ticket purchase is recommended. Park Slope. 7pm-9pm.

“It’s a pungent job but
someone has to do it,” says
Stinky Bklyn. (Photograph
by Morgan Ione Yeager.)

Thursday Affinage: the Sophisticated Art of Aging Cheese, a workshop with Christopher Killoran, shown left, of Stinky Bklyn, in conjunction with The Horticultural Society of NY (“The Hort”). Affinage is the process of washing, innoculating and injecting young cheeses with the molds, bacterias, cultures and enzymes that will allow the cheese to reach maturity and become delicious. This evening’s event will discuss the whole process, all while learning how to use, serve and enjoy cheese. The Hort is dedicated to urban gardeners, with the aim to grow a green community that values horticulture and the benefits gained to the environment, neighborhoods and lives. Advanced registration advised. Outer Brooklyn. 6:30pm.

El Anatsui, Conspirators, 1997. Composed of individual strips of wood, this piece can be
arranged differently each time it is installed, reflecting the artist’s desire for his work
to remain dynamic. At Brooklyn Museum, see below. (Photograph by Andrew McAllister,
courtesy of the Akron Art Museum.)

Thursday Curator Tour, Gravity and Grace: Monumental Works by El Anatsui, Brooklyn Museum. Curator Kevin Dumouchelle will lead a free tour of this fascinating exhibit of wall and floor sculptures and installations. Ghanaian artist Anatsui converts found materials, often bottle caps, into colorful, textured hangings and site-specific sculptures. Prospect Heights. 6pm.

Friday Opening Night Bash, New York City Beer Week. Rare and exotic beers from over 30 breweries will be poured at Galapagos Art Space. Sponsored by New York City Brewers Guild. DUMBO. 7pm-10pm. Through March 3, NYC Beer Week will bring together 12 NYC craft breweries, nationally and internationally renowned breweries, over 250 NYC beer destinations, celebrity chefs, and restaurants for the “beer spectacle” of the year. All Beer Week events in BKLYN and Outer BKLYN are listed on the site. Here’s a few other events that caught our attention for this weekend:

Beer Week tap takeover at Banter.
(Photograph by Robert Buchan.)

• Friday Banter, Williamsburg. New York tap takeover, with 24 craft beers on tap featuring rarities from New York’s finest brewers.

• Saturday Fermented NY Craft Beer Crawl of Williamsburg, tour by Urban Oyster Tours.

• Sunday The Owl Farm, Park Slope. Celebrating wheat beers: Berlinerweisses, Wheatwines, Weizenbocks, Goses and more.

A Montague Street view from The
Brooklyn Historical Society archives.

Saturday Big Onion Walking Tour of Historic Brooklyn Heights. Sponsored along with Brooklyn Historical Society, this two-hour tour will explore NYC’s first Landmark District. The walk starts at Borough Hall by Cadman Plaza, and ends with a behind-the-scenes tour of the Brooklyn Historical Society building. Along the way are sites associated with Gypsy Rose Lee, WEB DuBois, and others. Brooklyn Heights. 1pm.

Saturday 2 Year Anniversary Bash at 61 Local, a public house featuring locally crafted food, drink and the people who make it. Celebrate with special soda shandies from Brooklyn Soda Works, a raffle for a knife crafted by Joel Bukiewicz, Cut Brooklyn, with all proceeds of the evening to benefit BK Farmyards. At 8pm there will be a documentary screening that highlights the collaboration with these producers. Cobble Hill. Begins at 5pm.

Coney Island new: the shake was messy but great at newly-opened Tom's back in October 2012, pre-Sandy, but there's all that darn whipped cream! Read what my colleague Bruce Campbell had to say about Tom's Prospect Heights Egg Cream. (photograph, Brooklyn Artisan photo pool)

Coney Island new: the shake was messy but great at newly-opened Tom’s back in pre-Sandy October, but there’s all that darn whipped cream! Read what my colleague Bruce Campbell had to say about Tom’s Prospect Heights Egg Cream. (Photograph, Brooklyn Artisan photo pool.)

Saturday and Sunday Ice Skating in BKLYN: If you’re missing the Kate Wollman Rink in Prospect Park, closed due to construction, try an afternoon of ice skating en plein air at Coney Island at the Abe Stark Rink. Until March 24, the rink is open weekends from 12:30pm-3:30pm. Skate rental is available. Hydrate and refuel at Tom’s, a branch of the venerable Prospect Heights eatery.

Sunday Oscar Party at Pine Box Rock Shop, a bartender/musician-owned vegan bar and performance space. Cast your ballot and enjoy champagne specials and free popcorn during the awards show. Pine Box promises awesome prizes to those whose ballots match the actual winners. Bushwick. 7pm.

Monday Sandy Benefit Concert with jazz guitarist, singer, raconteur John Pizzarelli. Tonight’s fundraiser at powerHouse Arena will feature music and talk from one of the connoisseurs of The Great American Songbook. Pizzarelli will sign copies of his new memoir, World on A String. As the son of jazz-legend Bucky Pizzarelli, as the opening act for Frank Sinatra’s last tour, to performing with Paul McCartney in 2012—Pizzarelli has a lot of material to work with. DUMBO. 7pm-9pm.

Joy Makon curates Brooklyn Artisan’s Craft & Design coverage and creates the weekly Best of Brooklyn lists. Send items for listings to brooklynartisan@joymakondesign.com

Filed Under: Craft/Design, Food/Drink, Galleries, Joy's Best of Brooklyn Weekend Listings, museums, Outer Brooklyn, Uncategorized, urban planning, Winery, brewery, distiller Tagged With: 61 Local, Abe Stark Rink, Affinage, Andrea Wulf, Banter, Big Onion Walking Tour, BK Farmyards, Brooklyn Heights, Brooklyn Historical Society, Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn Soda Works, Bushwick, Cobble Hill, Coney Island, Cut Brooklyn, DUMBO, El Anatsui, Galapagos Art Space, Joel Bukiewicz, Joh Pizzarelli, New York City Beer Week, New York City Brewers Guild, Park Slope, Pine Box Rock Shop, Powerhouse Arena, Stinky Bklyn, The Founding Gardeners, The Hort, The Old Stone House, The Owl Farm, Tom's, Urban Oyster Tours, Williamsburg

Joy’s Best of Brooklyn for February 15, 16, 17

February 14, 2013 By Joy Makon Leave a Comment

Just call it fun and make something! Like Lego Gadgets. At the Makery Pop Up, students explore STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) competencies using traditional design tools in addition to advanced digital fabrication tools. See Saturday for details.

Just call it fun and make something—like these Lego Gadgets!
At the Makery Pop Up (see Saturday, below), all ages have a chance to make cool things using
STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) competencies that make use of
traditional design tools and advanced digital fabrication methods.

On this Maritime Sunday, witness the struggles of the Thomas D. Witte tug as it manages a barge into place on the lamentable Newtown Creek. That’s the City’s “Newtown Creek Dock”, tenanted by the mill of the titanic SimsMetal operation.http://newtownpentacle.com/

Could this be the most polluted body of water in the United States?

About that border between Brooklyn and Queens…

Friday Obscura Society: “Up the Creek” a talk with historian Mitch Waxman. Is Newtown Creek, running along the border between Brooklyn and Queens, the most polluted body of water in the United States? Mitch Waxman will lead you through an evening of discussion featuring his research and photographs of this 3.8 mile-long waterway that was named to the Superfund list by the Federal EPA. The NYTimes recently named Mitch as “Your Guide to a Tour of Decay” in part for his passion of documenting the obscure and forgotten area that was once one of the nation’s great manufacturing centers. Part of the Atlas Obscura Speakers series at Observatory, Gowanus. 7pm-9pm.

The Makery’s instructors are part of HTINK.*

Great parent/child activity

Saturday The Makery Pop Up on Bergen Street. Call it a portable digital playground, a 21st century shop class, or Dad’s garage workshop (if dad was an MIT grad). The Makery aims to be a venue where all ages can become Makers using cool, new technologies. Today’s event will have Makers building a Drawing Robot using simple circuits, soldering, 3D design and printing. Through April 30 this pop up space will have weekend and some weeknight sessions offering topics such as DIY Cell Phone Projector and Intro to Soldering, all led by instructors with engineering backgrounds. *Instructors and The Makery team are part of HTINK (pronouced tink) an educational services cooperative focused on spreading technical learning and creative problem solving skills to as many people as possible. BOCOCA.

Stream this entire event live

Saturday TEDxManhattan “Changing the Way We Eat.” This year’s conference has a theme that rings loud and clear to us: to explore and bolster sustainable ways of eating and producing food. An interesting mix of speakers include Gary Hirshberg, chairman, Stonyfield Farm, Anna Lappé, founding principal, Small Planet Institute and Small Planet Fund, Bill Yosses, Executive Pastry Chef, The White House, along with film clips and music performances. The disappointing news is that tickets sold out awhile ago, but the entire event is available for livestreaming from 10:30am-6:00pm.

Base Design’s branding for NYCxDesign.

Citywide design event just announced

NYCxDESIGN, a 12-day citywide event to showcase and promote design of all disciplines, chaired by City Council speaker Christine C. Quinn. “We have more designers in New York City than any other U.S. city, but we do a terrible job promoting them in their totality,” she told the NYTimes. The idea behind NYCxDESIGN, planned by Fashion Week founder Fern Mallis, is to make design visible to people who don’t normally think about it. Many types of programs are planned, including exhibitions, installations, trade shows, talks, launches and open studios. All will be culled from design disciplines of graphic, product, architecture, fashion, digital, urban, furniture, plus design thinkers and educators. The BKLYN Designs 2013 exhibition of contemporary furnishings and home accessories at St. Ann’s Warehouse, DUMBO will be an official event of NYCxDESIGN. Check the website to see how you can participate as well as attend events. May 10 thorough May 21.

Portlandia is just Brooklyn spelled differently.

They like their artisanal stuff as much as we do.

Joy Makon curates Brooklyn Artisan’s Craft & Design coverage and creates the weekly Best of Brooklyn lists. Send items for listings to brooklynartisan@joymakondesign.com

Filed Under: Brain Candy, Community, Craft/Design, farms/gardens, Food/Drink, Guilds/Fairs, Joy's Best of Brooklyn Weekend Listings, Laugh, Outer Brooklyn, Think, Uncategorized, urban planning Tagged With: Anna Lappé, Bill Yosses, BKLYN Designs, Bococa, Christine C. Quinn, DUMBO, Fern Mallis, Gary Hirshberg, Gowanus, HTINK, Mitch Waxman, NYCxDESIGN, Observatory, pop up, Portlandia, TEDxManhattan, The Makery

My Tasty – Though Hasty – Valentine Comes with a Love Poem (and a Dash of Chagrin)

February 13, 2013 By Brooklyn Artisan Leave a Comment

SOME YEARS I JUST CAN’T BE THE VALENTINE GIVER I’D LIKE TO BE. Flu, deadlines, house guests, or no excuses, it just happens. So this year, on the way home from the Q train, I’m skidding into Natural Land on Flatbush Avenue to pick up some chocolate I’ve been eyeing from time to time. The flavors sound good and there’s a little notice on the outside of each package: “love poem inside,” it says, and sports an embossed heart-shaped seal as well as a cute little ersatz postmark and flavor-naming stamp. Definitely an effort has been made here, though not as classy as Mast Brothers’ paper wrapping. Still, I think how the oversized, artisanal-style Chocolove bar will look on Sweet Lover’s pillow tonight, Valentine’s Eve. Um mmm, good. Very intentional looking, getting a slight jump on The Day.

Mae West’s husky voice comes to my mind’s ear: “Too much of a good thing is…wonderful.” Full of devotion and other emotion, I buy three. I wonder if each flavor has its own love poem or are they all the same.

Only as I am setting out the chocolate bars on Sweetie Pie’s pillow right under the reading light do I discover the shocking truth! These chocolates were not made in Brooklyn. Boulder, Colorado–whoa, that’s Wa-a-ay Outer Brooklyn. How can a founding team blogger of Brooklyn Artisan have made such a mistake? It may not even be fair-trade cocoa!

If the love poetry is to be read aloud, best to peel open rather than tearing it.

If the love poem is to be shared aloud, best peel rather than rip it open.

Desperately, I turn over each bar: It is the same story. ”Belgian chocolate made from Javanese and African beans,” the Hazelnuts in Milk Chocolate bar confesses. Dark Chocolate bar murmurs, “African cocoa beans.” Coffee Crunch in Dark Chocolate hisses, “Dark semisweet chocolate with roasted coffee bean bits”– no hint of country of origin from this one, no naming of the transport (sailboat or otherwise), no high-minded bearded brothers.

My Sugar Love discovers me thus, with a lapful of rogue chocolate. He is happy! He tears open Coffee Crunch in Dark Chocolate and the outside wrapper falls aside. He offers me a row of squares. I find it is delicious, and he agrees. Crunching this guilty pleasure, I rescue the torn wrapper. It is a little hard to read “Sonet VI” [sic] by Robert Louis Stevenson, but we manage.

“O strange chance more sorrowful than sweet,” the poet wrote, but my minor misadventure has turned out just the opposite: There are worse things than crunchy chocolate crumbs in the bed.

(Photographs by Brooklyn Artisan Photo Pool)

Filed Under: Food/Drink, Laugh, Uncategorized Tagged With: Belgian Chocolate, Fair Trade, Fair Trade cocoa beans, last-minute gift, love poem, Mast Brothers Chocolate, Valentine's Day, Way Outer Brooklyn

Chalk-o-late Time! Meet the Beers Family!

February 13, 2013 By Anne Mollegen Smith Leave a Comment

A timely reminder might save some embarrassment.

The general invitation is good, very friendly. (Photographs by Brooklyn ARtisan Photo Pool)

The general invitation is good, very friendly. (Photographs: Brooklyn Artisan Photo Pool)

EXTRA! EXTRA! READ ALL ABOUDDIT!! There’s a newsboy aspect to the chalkboard easels calling out info and reminders as we make our way home from the workday, and a smile-worthy sign strikes an especially welcoming note.

Filed Under: Chalkboard, Community, Food/Drink, Look

Sweets for Your Sweetie

February 11, 2013 By Basia Hellwig Leave a Comment

HOW DO I LOVE THEE? LET ME COUNT THE CHOCOLATE-Y WAYS.…

Brooklyn bakers and chocolate makers are busy dreaming up all sorts of delights for Valentine’s Day. Here’s just a sampling.

Nunu-chocolates-salt-caramels

Nunu Chocolates will package its salt caramels (above) in a heart-shaped box (6 pieces/$14, 12/$24). They are hand-dipped in dark chocolate with a dusting of fleur de sel on top—I personally find them irresistible any time of year. Or how about giving all your beloveds a heart-shaped dark chocolate lollipop for just $2 a pop?
529 Atlantic Ave., Boerum Hill
917-776-7102

Mast Brothers Chocolate will have Valentine’s truffles and bon bons in its case.

Mast-Bros-Counter

250-MastBrothersValentinesCake And they’re baking an over-the-top Valentine’s Day treat: a chocolate caramel layered cake with King’s County Distillery bourbon, buttercream filling and shaved chocolate on top. Call to reserve your cake; it is available for store pick-up only.
111 North 3rd Street, Williamsburg
718-388-2644

Betty Bakery has hearts galore to choose from: a floral-embossed Victorian Heart—an orange-coffee cookie dipped in white chocolate, a Linzer Heart— sandwiched with raspberry jam, of course, and an Iced Sable Heart—hand-decorated in shades of pink, red and white ($3.95). But wait, there are small heart cookies by the pound ($32) and heart cakes, as well: the Romantic Quilled Heart Cake is an iced chocolate cake with raspberry buttercream, the Giddy Heart Cake is a yellow butter cake with fudgy chocolate ganache, iced in red rolled fondant …All this is making me feel a bit giddy myself. How about a chocolate dipped strawberry ($1.95) as a palate cleanser?
448 Atlantic Avenue, Boerum Hill
718-246-2402

Robicelli’s is offering a special dozen cupcakes in Valentine’s Day flavors—Strawberry Champagne, The Eve (walnut cake with pomegranate cheesecake buttercream), The Ebinger (chocolate, chocolate, chocolate), Creme Brulée—with a personalized card, ribbon wrapping and delivery ($50).Or how about a 4-pack or 12-pack of Robicelli’s Fany Brownies—named after Fany Gerson, aka La Newyorkina, whose kitchen and expensive equipment to make her Mexican ice pops were destroyed by Sandy. Robicelli’s dark chocolate brownie base is “spiked with Mexican cinnamon, swirled with sweet sexy cajeta.” A portion of the profits will go to La Newyorkina. Order cupcakes and brownies by 2 pm Tuesday, February 12, for hand delivery.
Bay Ridge, 917-509-6048
info@robicellis.com

The Owl’s Head / Wine Bar in Bay Ridge is hosting a pop-up dessert event with Robicelli’s on Valentine’s Day. You’ll need to make reservations— call 718-680-2436—for one of two limited reserved seatings: 7 pm and 9:45 pm. An advance reservation for two people includes three shared Robicelli’s dessert courses and 4 oz drink pairings for each person for $75 (not including tax and tip). Just look at this menu…

First Course: Pear Mascarpone TheOwlsHeadWineBar
Mascarpone panna cotta, roasted pear compote, spiced pear chip
Served with: German Gilabert Zero Dosage Cava Brut Nature 2011

Second Course: The Noah
Apple galette, goat cheese mousse, roasted candied bacon, bourbon brown sugar sauce
Served with: Niepoort 2001 Colheita Port

Third Course: Car Bomb
Jameson whiskey, Bailey’s Irish Cream & Guinness stout opera cake, Guinness beer nut praline
Served with: Sixpoint 3beans über-porter

No reservations, no problem. Walk-ins are always welcome for drinks and bites. There should even be some desserts available à la carte. Lovers and lonelyhearts, go have some fun!

The Owl’s Head / Wine Bar
479 74th Street, Bay Ridge
718-680-2436

Filed Under: Encore, Food/Drink, Uncategorized Tagged With: Bay Ridge, Betty Bakery, Boerum Hill, bourbon, chocolate, chocolates, Kings County Distillery, Mast Brothers Chocolate, Nunu Chocolates, Robicelli's, salt caramels, The Owl's Head Wine Bar, Valentine's Day, Williamsburg

Joy’s Best of Brooklyn for the 2nd weekend of February

February 7, 2013 By Joy Makon Leave a Comment

Under construction: UrbanGlass’s renovation and expansion in the
1918 Strand Theater on Fulton Street is as fascinating as their exhibits.
Above, A Fuller Translation, by Aric Snee, M.F.A., Alfred University, blown glass.

Thursday Feb. 7 Opening reception for UrbanGlass M.F.A. Exhibition Competition, a juried show of recent M.F.A. graduates from glass programs across the country. Four emerging glass artists, Alli Hoag, Benjamin Johnson, Jessi A. Moore and Aric Snee, are showing work at gallery space 111 Front Street in DUMBO. Tonight’s reception is from 6pm-9pm, and the show runs through March 1. At the conclusion of this exhibition, one of the four will be selected for a solo exhibition at the UrbanGlass gallery. Founded in 1977, UrbanGlass is dedicated to aspiring and established artists wishing to create with glass as a creative medium. Their permanent home is undergoing an extensive renovation and expansion as part of a multi-million dollar investment in the 1918-built Strand Theater by the City of New York and the Borough of Brooklyn. The finished building, a LEED Silver facility, will be a cornerstone of the Brooklyn Cultural District. Meanwhile, classes, studio space and other programming is being offered in temporary space in the Gowanus area.

Deadline alerts

Art House co-founders Steven Peterman
and Shane Zucker, at the Brooklyn Art Library.
(photograph, Blue Window Creative)

The Brooklyn Art Library first came on the scene for The Sketchbook Project, a library of over 18,000 artists’ books on display in a storefront exhibition space in Williamsburg. The Sketchbook Project was created by Art House, an independent company that organizes global, collaborative art projects that anyone can participate in. Most projects include a digital component, as Art House strives to combine hands-on art making with new technology. Current project stats indicate that over 52,000 artists from 128 countries have participated in an Art House project; 5,771 sketchbooks are archived in the Digital Library, and 37 worldwide projects have been organized. Several projects are open for participation now: Five Minutes | Buildings, with a sign-up deadline of Thursday, February 7, asks participants to take five minutes to draw the tallest building in your town. Other intriguing projects you can participate in: Memoir Project (500 handwritten books), The Meal 2013 (documenting a global snack on February 22), and The Print Exchange (a print swap), along with the original Sketchbook Project.

Etsy: “We hope to show
that business does not have
to be brutal to be successful
and fulfilling.”

This event will sell out fast. Hello Etsy at Pratt: Reimagine the Marketplace, March 22-24 at Pratt Brooklyn. This is an annual conference of creativity and ideas as only the entrepreneurs of Etsy can present. The aims of this event are to explore new methods of production, new patterns of consumption, and more lasting and purposeful ways of working. Etsy’s take on building the creative economy of the future as connected, human-scaled and joyful will be discussed. Over 14 high-profile speakers include Chris Anderson, 3DRobotics and WIRED, Rachel Chong, Catchafire, Chad Dickerson, Etsy, along with workshops. Register now.

BOOKMARK THIS:
A shout out to
redesigned site downtownbrooklyn.com.
The events page is
a snap to navigate,
colorful and clear.
This month, there’s
even a chance to win
a ticket to fly a friend
to Brooklyn.

JumpStart NYC 13.0 is a three-month educational program to help unemployed or underemployed professionals explore opportunities at small entrepreneurial companies. Applications for the next session, starting on March 4 is due by February 11. The backstory: I attended the premiere session of JumpStartNYC in 2010 at SUNY’s Levin Institute. As a traditional-media print art director, I knew that my career choices were becoming limited and less interesting. JumpStart NYC provided me with incentive to explore work in alternative media with entrepreneurial companies. Starting with a five-day intensive boot camp, my sessions included lectures from Wharton and Harvard professors; next came a 10-week consultancy at a start up that provided video-collaboration business services. Regular networking events with peers, mentors and local businesses led me to Apple, where I continue to work while pursuing other media projects, such as Brooklyn Artisan. Sponsored by the NYC Economic Development Corporation and SUNY Levin Institute. Companies wishing to participate as consultancy project sponsors can get information on the Levin site. The program is free and limited to New York City residents.

Back to fun

Be an online cookbook judge: This is a new event to me but sounds like fun: The 2013 Piglet Tournament of Cookbooks. Every day for the next week or so, the colorful site Food52 is hosting an NCAA-style competition to determine the best among 16 cookbooks published in the past year. Expert judges include Kurt Andersen, Studio 260, Wylie Dufresne, wd-50, and actor and cookbook author Stanley Tucci. Books in the competition include A Girl and Her Pig: Recipes and Stories, by April Bloomfield, Humphry Slocombe Ice Cream Book, by Jake Godby, Sean Vahey and Paolo Lucchesi, Bouchon Bakery Cookbook, by Thomas Keller and Sebastien Rouxel, and Japanese Farm Food, by Nancy Singleton Hachisu. Four rounds of judging lead to a final, and you get to weigh in along the way.

Making me hungry: The Brooklyn Sandwich Society, a farm-to-table restaurant with seasonal sandwiches and an attractive website peppered with ephemera and hunger-inducing menu descriptions: The Clermont, roasted maitake mushroom, black ledge blue, lacinato kale, parsley aioli on ciabatta, The Grand, pan-fried squid, baby bok choy, cilantro, hot & sour glaze on ciabatta, and Celeriac Soup with crispy oxtail and chive oil. That’s just some of the lunch menu. House-made soda too. From a chef-and-designer team that started out as the Brooklyn Edible Social Club, but has morphed into a true brick-and-mortar place. Fort Greene.

Sweet tooth or Valentine’s idea: Help Red Hook-based Fany Gerson of My Sweet Mexico and La Newyorkina get back on her business feet—knocked out from under her by Sandy—by purchasing Fany Brownies from Robicelli’s. Robicelli’s once shared a kitchen with Fany and her paletas (Mexican-style frozen ice pops) and they have pledged to donate a chunk of profits from online sales of these brownies—swirled with Mexican cinnamon and cajeta—through the end of February. Other BKLYN-based food purveyers have signed on to help out too: Brooklyn Cured, Liddabit Sweets, Whimsy & Spice, see the site for more. Friends indeed.

Joy Makon curates Brooklyn Artisan’s Craft & Design coverage and creates the weekly Best of Brooklyn lists. Send items for listings to brooklynartisan@joymakondesign.com

Filed Under: Architecture, best practices, Brain Candy, Community, Coworking, Craft/Design, Galleries, Guilds/Fairs, Handmade, Innovation, Joy's Best of Brooklyn Weekend Listings, Method/Materials, Outer Brooklyn, The Business Side, Think, Uncategorized, urban planning Tagged With: 3DRobotics, Art House, Borough of Brooklyn, Brooklyn Art Library, Brooklyn Cultural District, Brooklyn Cured, cajeta, Catchafire, Chad Dickerson, Chris Anderson, City of New York, downtownbrooklyn.com, Etsy, Fany Gerson, Food52, Fulton Street, Gowanus, Hello Etsy, JumpStart NYC, La Newyorkina, LEED, Liddabit Sweets, Memoir Project, NYC Economic Development Corporation, Piglet Tournament of Cookbooks, Pratt, Rachel Chong, Robicelli's, Strand Theater, SUNY Levin Institute, The Brooklyn Sandwich Society, The Sketchbook Project, UrbanGlass, Whimsy & Spice, Williamsburg

A Fish Narrative — from Rhode Island Boat to BrooklynTable

February 3, 2013 By Anne Mollegen Smith Leave a Comment

The Boat: ""Captain James Haitz caught your fish on the F/V James and Matthew, an otter trawler docked out of the Port of Galilee, Rhode Island. Captain Haitz has collaborated with scientists at Cornell’s Cooperative Extension Marine Program to modifiy his trawling gear to reduce his bycatch," Mermaid's Garden's email to members explains. "In his area, the yellowtail stock was recently declared rebuilt."

Step One, The Boat: “Captain James Haitz caught your fish on the F/V James & Matthew, an otter trawler docked out of the Port of Galilee, Rhode Island,” Mermaid’s Garden advised Brooklyn members. “Captain Haitz has collaborated with scientists at Cornell’s Cooperative Extension Marine Program to modify his trawling gear to reduce his bycatch.” (Photo via Mermaid’s Garden)

POOLING OUR FISH, we call it, when Mediterraneanista heads over to Brooklyn, picks up her fish from the Mermaid’s Garden drop at the Palo Santo restaurant on Union Street, and brings it along to Brooklyn Artisan HQ in the North Slope. This week the Mermaid’s Garden Community Supported Fishery offering was yellowtail flounder.

From Bianca Piccillo, marine biologist and CSF co-founder, we’d learned about yellowtail: “Like many of our local species, the story of Limanda ferruginea was until recently a grim one. Yellowtail are managed in three geographic sectors: Cape Cod/Gulf of Maine, Georges Bank, and Southern New England/Mid- Atlantic. Starting in the 1930’s fishing pressure on yellowtail picked up (as winter flounder stocks declined).

Step Two: The Recipe: The print-out from the FB page is beautifully formatted, easy to follow.

Step Two: The Recipe: The print-out from the FB page is carefully formatted, easy to follow.

“By the 1990’s all three yellowtail stocks had collapsed,” Mermaid’s Garden’s report said. “Rebuilding plans for the three stocks of yellowtail were implemented in 2004 and 2006. The Southern New England/ Mid-Atlantic stock was recently declared rebuilt!”

So our fish are strictly legit. We wouldn’t have it any other way.

And these particular flounder have personality: “Like summer flounder, yellowtail are fast growing and mature early,” we learned. “Unlike summer flounder, yellowtail are right-eyed flounders: As they mature their left eye migrates to the right side of its body. After this migration yellowtail settle near the sea floor.”

Step Three: Salt and pepper, then into the dip and bread-and-flour mix, and right into the saute pan.

Step Three: Season it, then into the dip and bread-and-flour mix, and right into the saute pan.

Okay, next question: How to cook it? Bianca had warned us, “Yellowtail is relatively delicate, so cook it carefully lest you end up with mush.” Uh-oh. Then the good news: “Mark has added two new recipes for flounder to our repertoire – a braised recipe and a crispy pan-fried preparation.” Mark Usewicz is Mermaid’s Garden’s co-founder, and a Paris-trained chef. His recipes are in the Notes section of Mermaid’s Garden’s Facebook page.

The Final Step: Onto the table for all to enjoy!

The Final Step: Ready to serve!

Time to meet the fish. Since they are cleaned, fileted, ready to cook, we don’t have that worrisome look-you-in-the-eye moment. Our family chef quickly blesses the fish with salt and pepper. The egg-and-milk dip is ready, flour and fine bread crumbs mixed.

Small-batch production: Sautéed two by two with a little oil and butter and then transferred to a warmed tray until all are done. Arranged on the platter, garnished with parsley and lemon wedges, and –ta da! –ready to serve! A treat worth sharing.

(Photographs from Brooklyn Artisan Photo Pool.)

Filed Under: Community, Food/Drink, Uncategorized Tagged With: Bianca Piccillo, Brooklyn CSF, Community Supported Fishery, Mark Usewicz, Mermaid's Garden, mid-Atlantic flounder, rebuilt fishery stock, right-eyed flounder, sustainable fish, winter flounder, yellowtail flounder

Grounded! A Chalkward Moment at 200 Fifth

February 1, 2013 By Anne Mollegen Smith Leave a Comment

SO THE BIG BAD WOLF CAME DOWN THE AVENUE and outside 200 Fifth he smelled something really good, so he huffed and he puffed and he … blew over the chalkboard easel. After Superstorm Sandy, this hardly qualifies as a weather disaster, but on a gusty night, our favorite form of outdoor advertising may have to play indoors . (Photo by Brooklyn Artisan Photo Pool)

Filed Under: Chalkboard, Look Tagged With: 200 Fifth Brooklyn, Chalkboard sign, Park Slope restaurant, restaurant, sidewalk easel, sidewalk marketing

Joy’s Best of Brooklyn for the beginning of February

January 31, 2013 By Joy Makon 1 Comment

A mixed-bag of talks, rides, exhibits and Valentines for the shortest, but often sweetest, month.

1922 meets 2013 with an amazing view at Jane’s Carousel. See Friday, Feb. 1.

Thursday, Jan. 31 Artists’ Responses to Sandy, a panel discussion on relief efforts presented at School of Visual Arts. Five panelists will showcase work and discuss the impact the storm has had on the wider community as well as the art world: John Mattiuzzi, video artist; Jessica Rionero and Chelsea Marino, BeGracious.org; Kathy Shorr, The Summer in the City Project; Dena Muller, New York Foundation for the Arts. At SVA’s Amphitheater in Outer Brooklyn, Manhattan. 7pm-9pm.

The Carousel was originally installed in Idora Park in
Youngstown, Ohio. Restoration began in 1984, and
the magnificent Carousel opened to the public in 2011.

Friday, Feb. 1 February Celebration at Jane’s Carousel. If you need an excuse for a treat this month, go for a two-for-one ride ($2) on Jane’s Carousel. Damage from you-know-who has been repaired, and the restored merry-go-round is in full splendor and ready for play—and it’s heated too. Made by the Philadelphia Toboggan Company in 1922, this carousel has 48 exquisitely carved horses and two chariots along with original scenic panels. The carousel is on the National Register of Historic Places and is housed in a see-through minimalist pavilion designed in 2011 by Atelier Jean Nouvel. Brooklyn Bridge Park. DUMBO.

Bees in the city: maybe not as scary as this looks. (Photograph from HoneybeeLives.)

Saturday, Feb. 2 and Sunday, Feb. 3 Organic Beekeeping Workshop, led by HoneybeeLives beekeeper/bee doctor Chris Harp, and beekeeper Grai Rice. This is a hands-on one- or two-day workshop to learn about Chris and Grai’s gentle approach to organic beekeeping. Saturday: Plan a new hive this spring by learning about bee communities and instincts, as well as beekeeper responsibilities. Sunday: How to care for bees through hive design, health and disease management, seasonal concerns. Pre-registration advised. The Commons, Boerum Hill. 10am-6pm each day.

Part of Brooklyn Museum’s permanent collection, this Kachina looks ready to party.

Saturday, Feb. 2 Target First Saturday at Brooklyn Museum. If you’ve attended in the past, you know that from 5pm until 11pm, happy crowds of families, neighborhood types, and fun-seekers descend upon the museum (admission is free) to partake in programs of art and entertainment. The Dance Party, alas, has been put on hold, but there’s still plenty to explore. This month’s First Saturday is themed African Innovations and includes music, dance, hands-on activities, and a fashion showcase/performance by New York-based designers with music by Ethiopian DJ Sirak.

Saturday, Feb. 2 A Patchwork Story: Myrtle Windows Gallery. Opening this evening, A Patchwork Story is on view in eight storefronts along Myrtle Avenue in Fort Greene and Clinton Hill. Over nine artists (Melissa Godoy Nieto’s work is at left) have contributed works to this month-long, curated exhibit that draws inspiration from African American quilts as part of personal identity and cultural heritage. Part of Black Artstory Month on Myrtle, in honor of Black History Month. Reception at Sans Souci Restaurant. 6:30pm-9pm.

Sesame Letterpress will pass
along their love of letterpress
on a Vandercook at Etsy Labs.

Monday, Feb. 3 Etsy Hands-On: Letterpress Valentines, a printing workshop from font-loving Sesame Letterpress. Here’s a chance to get an introduction to letterpress printing using the Etsy Labs’s Vandercook press. After learning about the process and printing a Valentine’s Day card, students will get to personalize their work using colored pencils, ephemera, and other collage materials. The typography class at my college, Tyler School of Art, included a semester’s worth of handset type printed on a Vandercook. Pre-digital, totally bespoke—it was hard work but a lot of fun. DUMBO. 5pm-8pm.

Tuesday, Feb. 4 How to Make It: Implementing Green Practices in Your Designs. Brooklyn-based online marketplace UncommonGoods is sponsoring a panel discussion about the whys and ways to incorporate eco-friendly practices in your business. Guests can present their designs and ideas for feedback by emailing in advance—or tweet #howtomakeitUG. Following the talk, there will be a networking happy hour (free Brooklyn Brewery beer) to mingle and meet panelists Tiffany Threadgould, chief design junkie at TerraCycle, Rebecca Krauss, EcoBizNYC, and Yuka Yoneda, editor of inhabitat.com. At Powerhouse Arena, DUMBO. 6:30pm-9pm.

Joy Makon curates Brooklyn Artisan’s Craft & Design coverage and creates the weekly Best of Brooklyn lists. Send items for listings to brooklynartisan@joymakondesign.com

Filed Under: Architecture, best practices, Community, Craft/Design, Galleries, Guilds/Fairs, Handmade, Innovation, Joy's Best of Brooklyn Weekend Listings, Manufacturing, Method/Materials, museums, Outer Brooklyn, The Business Side, Uncategorized, urban planning Tagged With: Black Artstory Month on Myrtle, BoerumHill, Brooklyn Bridge Park, Brooklyn Museum, Clinton Hill, DUMBO, EcoBizNYC, Etsy, Etsy Labs, Fort Greene, HoneybeeLives, inhabitat.com, Jane Walentas, Jane's Carousel, Myrtle Windows Gallery, New York Foundation for the Arts, Powerhouse Arena, School of Visual Arts, Sesame Letterpress, Target First Saturday, TerraCycle, The Commons, Uncommon Goods, Vandercook Press

Desktop 3D Replicators? Wow,This Is the 21st Century

January 27, 2013 By Phil Scott Leave a Comment

“STEP INTO THE 3D PHOTOBOOTH AND IMMORTALIZE YOURSELF!”, the MakerBot store on Mulberry Street in Outer Brooklyn/Manhattan says on its website. That sounds like “Beam me up, Scotty” come true, with a dash of The Immortals. The reality is a little bit different, but still pretty cool. This is not a clone machine, but a copier. A 3D copier.

Retailing for $2200 and up, The Replicator could make lots of models or household objects for you.

If you want to make a photocopy of something as large as your house or as tiny as a penny, just use a Xerox copier. Take a picture of your house, or just toss the penny on the copier’s glass, and hit Copy. Or Start. That’s the way it’s been done since, well, before I was born. If you want a 3D copy, that presents a problem—or it did until recently. Brooklyn’s Madagascar Institute—a place that teaches mostly shop classes like welding and operating power tools, and also some crafty stuff like sewing—actually offers a class on 3D copying, using, in Star Trekian parlance, a Replicator.

3D printing is harder to master than your average 2D Xerox—at least according to people who’ve never tried to operate a worn office copier—which is why the Institute holds three-hour-long classes taught by Colin Butgereit. Butgereit, who’s been a member of Madagascar Institute for more than a year now, also works for MakerBot Industries, which manufactures the MakerBot Replicator.

“I provide people with the knowledge to generate the files so that the printer can essentially make or build the object,” he says. “It’s a three-hour class, and you can do a fair amount of printing in three hours. The bigger it is, the longer it will take, so we stick with the smaller stuff.”

He usually has four students a class, which works out to one printer per person.

Let’s talk quality. Say I want a copy of my right hand. The printer’s output will be “pretty close to an exact replica,” Butgereit says. “You’re still going to see that it’s for the most part printed; you’re going to see lines, you might get some polygons or different shapes that you would never see on a hand because it’s been computer generated. It also depends on the software—with high-end stuff it could almost look exactly like it.”

Okay, but what about scars? I have a great one on my right index finger dating back to my sophomore year in college, when I was helping a guy work on his ancient, oil-soaked car engine. The wrench broke, I shoved my hand into the dirt-caked starter mount, and after a trip to the ER I ended up with an inch-long scar full of stitches and black grease. Oh, yeah, I stuck my thumb in a table saw. And also, my, um, wrinkles? (I’m, uh, older, so they should be self-explanatory.) “Only if it’s a sort of geographic,” he says. “If it stood out, either from convex or concave form, that’s where you might see it. So far as color it will never show up.” So no black grease, but you’ll see stitches and veins.

For the home hobbyist or designer, this Solidoodle makes up to 6x6x6″ objects and sells for around $500.

What about size? The penny, no problem. But the house? He has an answer to that one.

“Fly all the way around your house until you’ve taken enough photos so you could see every part of your house,” he explains. “When you have that, download the Autodesk application [Autodesk manufactures CAD software] on your computer or iPad, and process it and email it to Autodesk. They will essentially send you back another email of the image compiled from the data.” Load it into the Replicator and voila. As for the house’s square footage, “Technically it could be to size,” he says, “but I’m guessing there’s no 3D printer to handle a house. You’ll have to scale it down.”

If you’re interested in the 3D printing class at Madagascar Institute, go to eventbrite.com. The class runs $65.

Executive Editor Phil Scott writes about science, travel and aviation.

>For a glimpse of the future, where you don’t worry about losing your keys, you just print up a new set before you leave the house, or don’t keep a toolbox, you just print what gadget you need when you need it, and instead of putting it away, you just toss the used one into the materials recycler.

Amazing 3D Printer – YouTube.

Filed Under: Innovation, Manufacturing, Uncategorized

Help for Businesses Still Struggling to Rebuild After Sandy

January 24, 2013 By Basia Hellwig Leave a Comment

New NYC grants program, and a deadline for SBA loan applications

The NYC Department of Small Business Services has announced a new $1 million grant program for small businesses hit by Hurricane Sandy. Funded by Barclays, Citi and UBS, the program will award grants of up to $5,000 for businesses to make physical repairs or replace damaged equipment. “Small Business Assistance Grants will now be available to help businesses that may not qualify for the [city’s emergency] loan [fund],” said Rob Walsh, Commissioner of the NYC Department of Small Business Services. To apply for a grant, call 311 or go to www.nyc.gov/nycbusiness.

Meanwhile, this Monday, January 28, is the deadline for NY businesses to apply for a U.S. Small Business Administration disaster loan. (That’s also the filing deadline for FEMA disaster assistance for individuals.)

The SBA’s Office of Disaster Assistance offers businesses low-interest physical disaster loans up to $2 million to cover repair or replacement of uninsured or under-insured property, equipment, inventory and fixtures and economic injury loans to meet expenses like rent that the business would normally have have been able to cover. Less well known is that the SBA also offers assistance to individuals: Renters and homeowners may borrow up to $40,000 to repair or replace clothing, furniture, cars, appliances, etc. damaged or destroyed in the disaster. Homeowners may apply for up to $200,000 to repair or replace their primary residence to its pre-disaster condition. You can apply for the SBA loans online at sba.gov/disaster, or by calling 800-659-2955. Or e-mail disastercustomerservice@sba.gov for assistance.

Even if you’re missing some information that’s needed on the application form, be sure to send in the application by the deadline, recommends attorney Yisroel Schulman, founder of nonprofit New York Legal Assistance Group, who answered questions about SBA and FEMA applications on The Brian Lehrer Show this week. If the application is rejected for missing info you can always appeal, but the initial application must be in by the deadline.

Filed Under: The Business Side, Uncategorized Tagged With: business, emergency loan fund, fema disaster assistance, New York Legal Assistance Group, NYC Department of Small Business Services, sba loan applications, SBA Office of Disaster Assistance, small business assistance, Small Business Assistance Grants, The Brian Lehrer Show

Joy’s Best of Brooklyn for January 25, 26, 27

January 24, 2013 By Joy Makon Leave a Comment

Paulette Tavormina: Natura Morta. Lemons and Pomegranates, after J.V.H., 2010. Robert Mann Gallery

Paulette Tavormina Natura Morta. Lemons and Pomegranates, after J.V.H., 2010.
From her solo exhibition at Robert Mann Gallery.

Too beautiful to pass by: Paulette Tavormina Natura Morta, a solo exhibition of photographs at Robert Mann Gallery. In the manner of Irving Penn and Edward Weston, Tavormina’s work depicts intensely personal images that recall old-master still-life paintings depicting edible objects. Her bio notes that she is an avid collector of butterflies and insects, shells, dried flowers and ceramics, and has worked as a food stylist in Hollywood. Outer Brooklyn—Chelsea, Manhattan. through March 9.

The Reuben is one of over ten typical sandwiches offered daily at Court Street Grocers.

Friday dinners and daily Reubens.

Friday: The next in a series of Friday Night Dinner at Court Street Grocers. According to Serious Eats, this larder-cum-sandwich place is run by “three dudes [who] just want to sell all the seriously good stuff they can find across the country.” And present a monthly BYOB dinner in their side dining room. Friday’s menu of five courses features ingredients such as octopus with caesar vinaigrette, crispy chicken skin and maytag blue cheese, bone marrow and bbq sunchokes. Court Street Grocers’s Red Hook annex was severely damaged by Sandy and owners Eric Finkelstein and Matt Ross are depending on crowdsourced fund-raising through Smallknot to help restore. Carroll Gardens. Reserve—two seatings at 7pm and 9:30pm are sure to fill up fast.

BBG will celebrate the full moon tonight.

BBG will celebrate Saturday’s full moon with giant puppets and stilt dancers.

Saturday: Winter Cheese Party at The JakeWalk. Under the auspices of Stinky Bklyn, brush up on your knowledge of cheese pairings with wine, beer and cocktails during the cold days of January. After this week’s bitter temps, The JakeWalk’s comfy neighborhood vibe will keep things upbeat and toasty. Carroll Gardens. 1pm.

great for families Saturday and Sunday: Illuminated at Brooklyn Botanic Garden. A series of winter pop-up events done Swedish-style. Featured on Saturday: a handstand class for adults, where lack of coordination is a plus (sign up begins at 10:30am for noon class). Moonlight Lantern Walk with giant puppets and stilt dancers celebrating the full moon at the Cherry Esplanade (6pm-8pm). On Sunday, the Mitten Lounge becomes a clubhouse for 9- to 15-year-olds complete with human pyramids, crafts, an acrobatic mandala and a flashlight tour. (12pm-5pm)

Beyond research and reading: the new co-working
facility is structured for multi-media use.

Another reason to keep your library card active: More exciting than the discussions about branding and the new logo is the opening of the Information Commons space at the Central Library at Grand Army Plaza. The Shelby White and Leon Levy Information Commons, located on the first floor, consists of public meeting rooms, a training lab and an open workspace. The workspace is equipped with ten iMacs and two HP design stations for general public use; each is equipped with Adobe CS6 Creative Suite, Audacity, Pro Tools, Office, Final Cut Pro X, and more creative and production software. One of seven meeting rooms—that can be reserved online—doubles as an amateur recording studio for audio and video projects. The room offers a video DSLR camera, microphones, and an iMac editing workstation. It’s wonderful that the Library is encouraging multi-media creativity, as well as being a local workstation source in case your Mac has a kernel panic or otherwise misbehaves.

Deceptively small-looking
portions are probably spot-on.

But it’s worth it: I have to thank fellow bloggers at Brooklyn Based for turning me on to a topic that is only slightly less talked about than Michelle’s bangs: Elbow Room’s mac and cheese menu. Located at the Barclays Center, the diet-wrecking selections start with Chef Luis Ulloa’s excellent mac-and-cheese base and add creative toppings. Poutine Mac (short rib gravy, yukon french fries, fresh cheese curds), Brats and Beer (Esposito’s sausage, Bronx Brewery Ale, caramelized onion), Mushroom Mac (crimini mushroom, spinach, Vermont gruyère, crispy shallots) are tempting…even if Lobster Macaroni Salad is more commonplace now. Elbow Room is open during Barclays Center events and to the public during non-event times. To do: bank the points, slip on the Fuel Band, promise to repent and report back. Prospect Heights.

Joy Makon curates Brooklyn Artisan’s Craft & Design coverage and creates the weekly Best of Brooklyn lists. Send items for listings to brooklynartisan@joymakondesign.com

Filed Under: Coworking, Craft/Design, Food/Drink, Galleries, Joy's Best of Brooklyn Weekend Listings, museums, Outer Brooklyn, Uncategorized, Winery, brewery, distiller Tagged With: Barclays Center, Brooklyn Botanic Garden, Brooklyn Public Library, Carroll Gardens, Court Street Grocers, Elbow Room, Illuminated, Natura Morta, Paulette Tavormina, Prospect Heights, Red Hook, Robert Mann Gallery, Shelby White and Leon Levy Information Commons, Smallknot, Stinky Bklyn, The JakeWalk

Cuzin’s Duzin Mini Donuts Aiming to Raise the Dough

January 21, 2013 By Phil Scott 5 Comments

BROOKLYNITE TODD JONES CALLS HIMSELF A “DONUTOLOGIST.” You know, just as archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann studied archaeology, namely the archaeology of ancient Troy, donutologist Jones studies donuts, namely sweet, sticky, delicious mini donuts, each a deep-fried doughy circle. Not Dunkin’ Donut donuts, or Starbucks donuts, but hot, fresh mini donuts. “Glaze will come out of my skin if you cut me,” he says.

He’s not only mini-donuts, either, but popcorn, cookies, custom drinks, etc., etc., etc. While you’re munching on one of his highly addictive donuts, then a second and then a third, you’ll have time to see that he’s one of the most upbeat characters you’ll ever meet. “That’s the only way to be—upbeat,” he tells me. Not too long ago he catered his first million-dollar wedding, put together by famed wedding planner Mindy Weiss at the Hotel Hershey in Hershey, Pennsylvania. She loved his donuts so much that she tweeted her 46,000 followers, he says. From that tweet he has two more affairs to cater, and he’s approaching Puffy. And maybe Oprah. Why not?

But at times his luck has bordered on hellish. He had a 12-year stint going in Brooklyn’s Albee Square Mall until a developer sold the mall for $125 million. The developer took home $100 million and Jones was evicted immediately. He did some street festivals and catered a few weddings and bar mitzvahs until he was offered a place at Dekalb Market. He signed a contract for five years—“I knew it was temporary,” he says—and invested $30,000 in his shop. More developers arrived, and he was evicted again only a year and a half later —not long enough to recoup his investment. So he started working out of his bakery van again, and soon he was offered yet another location. But before he could move in, Superstorm Sandy hit, and the following Monday his van was stolen, along with $60,000 worth of equipment. Oh yeah: He had no insurance.

Sigh.

But now with his recent catering success, Jones is searching for another shop and he also wants to start franchises across the country. He’s started meeting with investors. “That’s what’s on the table. If I can get $250,000 I can put a Cuzin’s Duzin in every Walmart across the country,” he says. “It’s a billion-dollar industry, and we can carve out a niche.

“Once you eat a donut you’re a Cuzin for life.”

Executive Editor Phil Scott is the author of seven books and numerous magazine articles.

Filed Under: best practices, Encore, Food/Drink, histories, Uncategorized

Chalkboarding … Isn’t There an App for That?

January 21, 2013 By Anne Mollegen Smith Leave a Comment

MAYBE NOT AN APP, BUT A KNACK for freehand – and some talented people have it. Others of us only wish. Still others don’t have a street-front retail location, but would like the look for our business materials (or personal scrapbook). Of course, having a calligrapher-barrista on your staff or a daring and resourceful designer on your payroll is ideal. But at the bootstrapping stage of a new business, those may not be options. In which case, computer fonts to the rescue!

On the really-simple level, using a common hand-lettering style font and Microsoft Word, just by putting white type on a black box, you can nod to the style (see box).

But you can also do a lot better. Brooklyn Artisan rummaged online and came up with some font options to get you started. Some are free to download for personal use, but restricted for commercial purposes, so take care to read the directives for fair use on each site.

Nest of Posies, a little cloying in style if you’re an ironworker, but has specifics for people who want to be creative and do not use PhotoShop.

FontSpace has 19 free fonts that are tagged chalkboard.

French Kiss likes a crisp white-on-black look without the dust. The site blog has a good recommended font list, and a request: “Most of these are premium fonts that I purchased from MyFonts. Even for free fonts, please consider donating to the artists. Even a little can help say thank you.” We like that attitude.

Fonts Cafe espouses the dust to good effect, and offers a “Chalk Hand Lettering Pack” for free. In commercials uses, fontscafe.com wants their tag to be used. Fair enough.

This is not Brooklyn Artisan’s last word on this subject, so please join the discussion with your comments, opinions or recommendations. We did come across one usage we personally wouldn’t recommend – chalkboard seems the wrong style for wedding materials. Unless the wedding song is going to be “My Sweet Erasable You.” A final thought for the day comes courtesy of Inspired by Charm.

Filed Under: best practices, Chalkboard, Craft/Design, Handmade, Look

Chalklatier to Book Nerds: The Community Bookstore

January 20, 2013 By Anne Mollegen Smith 1 Comment

To be a Cool Cat and carry off Nerd Chic, you need a book plus, like, maybe an iPad?

To carry off Nerd Chic, you need an actual book printed on paper plus, like, you know, keeping that iPad, you know, stashed.

WHO SAYS PARK SLOPE’S NOT HIP? Look at this cool cat in hipster garb seen on Seventh Avenue, courtesy of the folks at the Community Bookstore, the friendlie-indie bookseller. Converse Chuck Taylors, narrow tie, elbow patches on the herringbone number, square-top glasses, cool attitude. The ultimate accessory? That book tucked under the arm. Because: “You Can’t Do Nerd-Chic Without a Book.” Got that?

(Photographs by Brooklyn Artisan Photo Pool)

Filed Under: best practices, Chalkboard, Community, Look Tagged With: Book freak, chalkboard, Community Bookstore, Converse Chuck Tarlors, hipster, Nerd Chic, sidewalk marketing, soft sell

What Makes a Book ‘Rare’ –– And Do You Have One?

January 19, 2013 By Anne Mollegen Smith 1 Comment

Heather O'Donnell at the Community Bookstore meeting, living-room style. Plenty of social skill goes into face-to-face book evaluations, and the rare book expert never knows what to expect. (Partially visible behind Heather is her young daughter, sitting sideways, absorbed by "The Guiness Book Of Records, 2013."

Rare-book advisor Heather O’Donnell at the Community Bookstore’s living room-style meeting. Plenty of social skill as well as professional knowledge goes into face-to-face book evaluations with the owners. (Partly visible behind Heather is her daughter, absorbed by “The Guiness Book Of Records, 2013.”) (Photograph by Brooklyn Artisan Photo Pool)

ON THURSDAY NIGHT AT THE COMMUNITY BOOKSTORE ON SEVENTH AVENUE, Heather O’Donnell set out to shine a little light on the subject of rare and collectible books for more than a dozen of her Park Slope neighbors. “Rare books are my passion,” she said, and hastened to reassure her listeners sitting with books on their laps that she also enjoyed seeing and evaluating all sorts of interesting or cherished books from personal bookshelves, no matter how modest, and hearing the stories about them. Literature is her specialty: Before founding Honey & Wax Booksellers in 2011, Heather earned a Ph.D. in English literature, taught at Princeton, and then worked for seven years for Bauman Rare Books, on Madison Avenue.

That location was open to the public, she said, and though usually she enjoyed the social contact and always cherished the occasional surprise discovery of a valuable volume, Heather allowed as how yes, as in any business, there were occasional bad days. In her business, a bad day can be opening the doors to “belligerent people with worthless books.” (Chuckles around the room.)

A pristine Gatsby jacket of the first edition, 1925, can multiply the value 50 times over.

The rarity of a book is determined by its scarcity balanced against its desirability, she said. In general, book collectors look for first printings of books of importance, in good shape and with the dust jacket intact. Ideally there would be no fading, heavy wear or tearing of the book jacket or its binding; no stains or coffee rings, please, especially not on the cover (note to self: buy more coasters); no loose or missing pages, and – god forbid! – no yellow highlighting or disfiguring scribbles on the pages. Daintily penciled notes in the margins okay? It all depends on the collector.

Heather gave the example of a first edition of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby: in pristine condition including its dust jacket, it would sell in the neighborhood of $200,000; without the jacket, not so much – in fact, probably around $4000. (A quick glance at nearby laps showed few intact jackets; Brooklyn Artisan felt a little better about the bare-naked books we’d brought.) Authentic author’s autographs may enhance value but don’t guarantee it, we learned, and inscriptions like “Happy birthday to the best boy in the whole world, Love, Grandma,” while certainly not sought after, aren’t necessarily disastrous, either. Again, it all depends.

We got some pointers on research we could do ourselves such as looking at the standard reference works by Allen and Patricia Ahearn and searching on AbeBooks, which a librarian can help with, or even using amazon.com or ebay.com just to begin to get a fix on availability and price. Looking at auction records is better yet; again, the right librarian can coach you. Once you’ve done some homework, if the signs auger well, then you may be ready for the next step: approaching a dealer.

The moment had come to show the books that had been brought. It felt just a little like an audition. There were some nice books: a first edition of The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, by Gertrude Stein, still wearing its jacket. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Community, Encore, Think, Uncategorized Tagged With: author autographs, Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas first edition, Bauman Rare Books, evaluating a book's condition, F. Scott Fitzgerald first edition, Gertrude Stein, Heather O'Donnell, Honey & Wax Bookseller, Lillie de Hegermann-Lindencrone, Park Slope bookstore, rare book reference sources, rare books, Russian avant agarde, Russian Futurist, The Community Bookstore, The Great Gatsby, value of the dust jacket, Vladimir Mayakovsky

Joy’s Best of Brooklyn, January 17 through 22

January 17, 2013 By Joy Makon Leave a Comment

Two tons of sugar, truffled polenta, MLK day of service, borscht belt memories, brainiacs and more

Two tons of sugar make up Aude Moreau's Sugar Carpet, on view at Smack Mellon, part of Brooklyn/Montréal Contemporary Art event in DUMBO.

A carpet made up of sugar—two tons of it—is on view at Smack Mellon,
part of Brooklyn/Montréal Contemporary Art event in DUMBO.

Ongoing through February 2: Brooklyn/Montréal Contemporary Art. Brooklyn and Montréal, both leading centers of contemporary art, have created events and exhibitions that highlight artistic differences and similarities between the two cities. The first half of this event was held in Montréal in late fall. The second half, happening now throughout DUMBO, has eight art venues and 40 artists participating. At Smack Mellon, Montréal artist Aude Moreau’s Sugar Carpet (detail, shown above) is a large-scale installation comprised of 2 tons of refined white sugar that has been meticulously worked to look like a Persian rug. This is the first exhibition installed at Smack Mellon since Sandy flooded their Artist Studio Program and lower-level spaces. Complete programming information and venues are listed on the event website.

Exquisite ingredients, from Michele Scicolone’s newly-released cookbook The Mediterranean Slow Cooker.

January 17 • Thursday: Know Your Books: Free consultation with rare bookseller Honey & Wax. Want to find out if your copy of Nancy Drew: The Password to Larkspur Lane is valuable? The Community Bookstore is hosting a talk about contemporary book collecting, along with an Antiques Roadshow-style opportunity to have your old or not-so-old book appraised by Heather O’Donnell, founder of Honey and Wax Booksellers. Park Slope. 7pm.

January 19 • Saturday: Eat, Shop and Learn with author Michele Scicolone at A.L.C. Italian Grocery and Alimentari (featured in Brooklyn Artisan’s 12 Tastes of Brooklyn). Sample truffled polenta made with Italian black truffle butter, from Michele’s newly-released The Mediterranean Slow Cooker. Michele’s best-selling cookbooks receive high marks from notables such as Mario Batali, Dorie Greenspan and Lidia Bastianich. Bay Ridge. 12:30pm-3:30pm.

January 21 • Monday: Martin Luther King Day of Service. Brooklyn residents can join in with others across the country to honor Dr. King’s legacy by participating in local performances and community service activities. Here’s a few suggestions:

• Long Island University. Screening of “We Shall Not Be Moved: Downstate ’63.” Speakers, discussions, performances, followed by an afternoon of service activities in the community. Downtown Brooklyn. 11am-1pm.

• Brooklyn Academy of Music. Tribute kicks off with keynote by musician and humanitarian Harry Belafonte, Jr. Performances by Fort Greene/Clinton Hill’s Brooklyn Interdenominational Choir, and R&B duo Kindred the Family Soul. Included is a live simulcast of the inauguration of President Barack Obama. Fort Greene. First-come, first-seated tickets distributed at 8am for 10:30am start.

Hurricane Sandy Relief Kitchen is still out there needing support.

• Brooklyn Botanic Garden. Usually closed on Mondays, the garden is open with free admission. 10am-4:30pm.

• Stating the obvious: lots of organizations have an ongoing need for volunteers and dollars. On our list: Hurricane Sandy Relief Kitchen, an outcome of the around-the-clock food prep efforts at Two Boots; Masbia, a Brooklyn-based network of soup kitchens; CHIPS with a desperate need for men’s winter clothing.

When the dining room was closed, Kutsher’s Coffee Shop was always open, just in case you needed a nosh. (Photograph copyright by filmmakers Caroline Laskow and Ian Rosenberg.)

If the dining room was closed, the coffee shop was usually open…just in case you needed a nosh between meals. (Photograph © by filmmakers Caroline Laskow and Ian Rosenberg.)

January 22 • Tuesday: Screening, filmmaker discussion and tasting. Revisit New York’s last standing Catskill resort, Kutsher’s, with a screening and discussion of the 2012 award-winning documentary Welcome to Kutsher’s. It was in Kutsher’s large, communal dining room that traditional Eastern European Jewish food collided with American abundance. As part of the evening, you’ll taste traditional borscht belt specialities like Herring Salad à la Jenny Grossinger and Aunt Lilly’s Vegetarian Chopped Liver. Then sample some reimagined dishes from über-popular Kutsher’s Tribeca (the owner is fourth-generation Kutsher) such as Duck Breast Pastrami and Roasted Beet Salad with Marinated Goat Cheese, Fingerlings, Greens and Artichokes. Ah, this is not the eat-til-you-burst menu choices of my Grandmother’s days. Part of the Culinary Conversations series at the Tenement Museum, Outer Brooklyn, Manhattan. 6:30pm.

January 22 • Tuesday: The paradigm-shifting Secret Science Club meets at The Bell House. Attend 2013’s first monthly meeting with a group of self-proclaimed brainiacs. Astrophysicist Jeremiah Ostriker will explore the Dark Duo of dark matter and dark energy. You’re requested to strap on your rocket pack, bring your smart self, and enjoy energizing talk, a deep, dark cocktail of the night, and brain-boggling Q&A. Park Slope. 8pm.

Joy Makon curates Brooklyn Artisan’s Craft & Design coverage and creates the weekly Best of Brooklyn lists. Send items for listings to brooklynartisan@joymakondesign.com

Filed Under: Brain Candy, Food/Drink, Galleries, Joy's Best of Brooklyn Weekend Listings, museums, Outer Brooklyn, Uncategorized Tagged With: A.L.C. Italian Grocery, Bay Ridge, Brooklyn Academy of Music, Brooklyn Botanic Garden, Brooklyn/Montreal, CHIPS, DUMBO, Honey & Wax Booksellers, Hurricane Sandy Relief Kitchen, Kutscher's Tribeca, Kutsher's, Long Island University, Martin Luther King Day of Service, Masbia, Mediterranean Slow Cooking, Michele Scicolone, Park Slope, Secret Science Club, Smack Mellon, tenement museum, The Bell House, The Community Bookstore

Brooklyn Museum Meetup: Four Bourgeois Heroes

January 17, 2013 By Anne Mollegen Smith 1 Comment

“THEY ARE VOLUNTARILY BOUND TO THE SAME SACRIFICE, but each of them plays the role suited to his individuality, his age and position,” Auguste Rodin said about the heroic citizens of Calais; four of his six bronzes of the ”Burghers of Calais” are currently on view in the Brooklyn Museum courtyard. The work was commissioned in 1875 by the Calais town council to commemorate events more than 500 years in the past (see Backstory, below), and Rodin’s winning proposal was solidly within the academic tradition of French Beaux Arts. Also, the story goes, he promised to deliver six statues for the price of one. But, as anyone on any side of the Atlantic Yards development can attest, what you think is approved is not necessarily how it turns out.

As delivered, the work was a major break with traditional Beaux-Arts monumental statuary. (Just a short walk from the Brooklyn Museum, an example of neo-classical Beaux-Arts style sits atop Grand Army Plaza’s Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Arch, complete with the pyramid-shaped arrangement of figures led by the allegorical figure of Columbia who represented the Nation.) In developing his work, Rodin drew on the account of a contemporary of the historic events in Calais, Jean Froissart, and learned the personal histories and social background of the six men who volunteered as hostages to save their city. Rodin worked from carefully chosen live models – including a descendant of one of the six heroes – and then deliberately oversized the hands and feet to make gestures and stance more expressive. These figures show the suffering, humiliation and humanity of their situation. Greatness has been thrust upon them, and it is agonizing. [Read more...]

Filed Under: museums, Uncategorized

ODD CONNECTIONS: ‘Avarice’ at the Brooklyn Museum and ….

January 13, 2013 By Anne Mollegen Smith Leave a Comment

IT’S A SHOW-STOPPING GRAND FINALE TO BROOKLYN MUSEUM’S GREAT-HALL EXHIBIT Connecting Cultures: A World in Brooklyn, and no wonder, for the piece is spectacular. To Brooklyn Artisan’s surprise, it’s even more striking in situ than Gaston Lachaise’s monumental “Standing Woman” – which we’d gone there to have another fond look at. (That, and the bronze foursome from Rodin’s “The Burghers of Calais” who’re standing around in the covered courtyard.)

What stunned us – and won us – is the disc-shaped piece almost ten feet in diameter that’s called “Avarice.” Part of the museum’s collection of contemporary art, it was made in 2008 by Fernando Mastrangelo, who was then 30. Mastrangelo is a Brooklyn-based artist (whose mom lives in Texas, one learns from his Facebook page). As the name suggests, “Avarice” combines art and politics. Its artistic basis is, of course, the circa-1500 Aztec Calendar Stone – which recorded the creation story of the Aztec world – with the face of Tonatiuh, the Sun God, at the center. The political statement is what it’s made of, a wry example of Marshall McCluhan’s dictum that “the medium is the message.” The media in this case are: White corn, white and yellow corn meal, epoxy, fiberglass, wood, and metal. (And maybe just a small shovelful from the recycling bin?)

In adjacent panels, some cobs and a Coke. Sounds like a summer snack in Mississippi.

In nearby panels, some cobs and a Coke. Staples of an American summer diet.

Toothpaste, spark plug, sliced lunch meat, see anything else?

Toothpaste, spark plugs, deli sliced meat. (Photos: Brooklyn Artisan Photo Pool.)

The museum sign also tells us, “The depiction of corn-based products draws attention to Mexico’s mass cultivation of corn to meet energy needs (via ethanol) and foreign consumer demands.” The Aztec visual reference brings up the whole sordid story of the Spanish Conquest; the devil in the details, however, is the “avarice” of North American agribusiness and consumer culture. Take a look at these close-ups and the large image at top, and you’ll find some telltale items.

Political art is nothing new for Mastrangelo; his 2010 TED Talk spoke of art as an evolving way to record history, to tell the story and capture the spirit of one’s times, including in today’s digital world. Last year he had a 3-month show in Miami at the Charest-Weinberg Gallery called Black Sculpture. The gallery write-up makes clear this is not about race. “After creating exact molds based on the work of Frank Stella and Ad Reinhardt, Mastrangelo casts his reliefs out of compacted gunpowder. The pieces teeter on the precipice of annihilation.” Yikes, talk about jimmy-crack-corn. “Yet the pieces are not simply bombastic,” the gallery says; “submerged beneath the tense potential for destruction is an elegiac calm. They give form to the Existential angst that inspired their Cold War-era predecessors….The black gunpowder, coupled with the Reinhardt’s cruciform and Stella’s teleological line work, firmly suggests an end of something.” Indeed. One hopes all future shows will be firmly No-Smoking zones.

Brooklyn Artisan came across what seemed to be a clear Brooklyn influence in Mastrangelo’s other discographic work from 2008 (click through to have a look). Though our favorite was composed of “Turquoise Sugar, Red Arbol Chili, Corn, Corn meal” and titled “Xochiquetzal,” we knew at a glance its visual vocabulary was from Brownstone Brooklyn’s ornate plaster ceiling medallions, including the hole for the chandelier.

Meanwhile, back in the Great Hall: The stated purpose of the Brooklyn Museum exhibit is to “create new ways of looking at art by making connections between cultures as well as objects…. Connecting Cultures: A World in Brooklyn was a joint effort of the Brooklyn Museum’s curators, organized by Kevin Stayton, Chief Curator. The installation was designed by Matthew Yokobosky, Chief Designer at the Brooklyn Museum” and financial support for the long-term installation came from Lisa and Dick Cashin. Brooklyn Artisan salutes them all, but as much as we enjoyed working the room, we do admire this comment shown on the museum’s own web site: “it’s a strange collection that doesn’t seem to sync with each other. reminds me more of a victorian living room than a museum exhibit.” — Posted by Tameka G.

From totally outside the museum scope, there was one more odd cultural connection we couldn’t help making. Last fall Brooklyn Artisan visited another great hall exhibit, “American Made,” put on in Vanderbilt Hall at Grand Central Station by Martha Stewart. In our photos made at the time, take a look at the sign and its detail.

Painter's tape, sparkly braid and bating brush.

Painter tape, sequin braid, brush.

From the exhibit in Grand Central's Vanderbilt Hall.

From Grand Central’s Vanderbilt Hall.

Filed Under: Galleries, Handmade, Innovation, Look, museums, Think, Uncategorized Tagged With: "Avarice" art, "Black Sculpture", "Connecting Cultures: A World in Brooklyn", Brooklyn Museum, Charest-Weinberg Gallery, corn meal art pieces, Fernando Mastrangelo, Grand Hall exhibition, gunpowder art, Martha Stewart American Made, The Great Hall

Joy’s Best of Brooklyn: Need a fix for the winter doldrums?

January 10, 2013 By Joy Makon Leave a Comment

Get out of your comfort zone with a challenging class that uses new materials, techniques and ideas. Here’s some of our favorite classes, coming up right now:

What better time than cold, grey January to cocoon with warm, soft
yarn? I’m thinking that it’s time to take a class to learn a challenging stitch
or two, handle some new wool and see what others are working on.

HANDS ON

Entrelac Knitting at Argyle Yarn Shop
This is one of several classes offered at this new Windsor Terrace yarn shop that make complicated-looking techniques easier to learn. During the two-hour class, up to six students will learn to knit a scarf using Entrelac technique. The final result resembles a basket-weave type of texture, accomplished by using only knit and purl stitches. 10% discount toward yarn and needles is offered on the day of the class. Sunday, January 20. 1pm-3:30pm.

A knitting knobby, aka spool knitter, may appeal to young children learning to knit.

Parent & Child Knitting at Brooklyn General Store
Knitting is a wonderful skill to learn and share and should be started young! My grandmother taught me how to knit when I was seven, and I went crazy knowing that I could save up a few quarters and go to Woolworth’s, buy a huge skein of Coats and Clark knitting worsted in colors that striated all over the color wheel, and knit me up a scarf in a week or so. I later moved on to knitting skirts and vests out of all kinds of acrylic fluff—this was the 60s, you know—and watch out when I learned to make fringe! Grandmother taught me Continental-style knitting, but I found the English style easier, and to this day I knit English style and it has never cramped my technique. When I came across the Parent & Child Knitting class at Brooklyn General Store, I totally approved. This 3-week class is designed to encourage creative interaction between parent and child (age 7 and up). Together you’ll learn basic knitting skills including how to cast on, knit, purl, bind off, and decipher simple instructions. Carroll Gardens/Cobble Hill. Sundays, beginning January 13, 5pm-6:30pm.

Screenprinting, once abandoned by art schools and artists as unhealthy with its use of solvents and oil-based inks, is having a resurgence. Master printer Roni Henning (pictured in green tee) tells all at her open-studio workshops in Bay Ridge.

Screenprinting with master print artisan Roni Henning
Learn to create water-based screenprints and monoprints using non-toxic techniques pioneered by printmaker Roni Henning. Screenprinting has personal, professional and commercial applications that will be explored at open-studio workshops. Using hand and digital methods, Roni will cover basics for those unfamiliar with screen printing, along with demonstrations of more complex techniques. Roni, a reknown artist and author, collaborates with artists to create fine art editions (Romare Bearden, Andy Warhol, Red Grooms, and Alice Neel are on her resume). Bay Ridge. Sessions scheduled twice a month. Contact Roni through her website to sign up.

NYC Resistor teaches students to
“Fire the Lazzzzor!” safely and creatively.

Laser Design and Rapid Prototype at NYC Resistor
Using an Epilog 35 Watt Laser, learn basic rapid prototype techniques, safety and design skills, and make a piece during this three hour class. Class fees include lab time for laser cutting, Q&A, and working with design software like Inkscape, Illustrator or Corel Draw. Scrap materials for experimenting with are provided, and additional materials such as laserable acrylic can be purchased to use. This hands-on class will go step-by-step from initial idea to pressing the “go” button on the laser. NYC Resistor is a hacker collective that meets regularly to share knowledge, hack on projects and build community. Founding member George Shammas’s bio states that he breaks things to fix them. Good to know. Boerum Hill. Sunday, January 20, 2pm-5pm.

Pro Picture Frames on the Table Saw at Makeville
Artisanal shop class? Makeville Studio, a hands-on lab for craft, building, art and invention is offering a chance to safely master table saw techniques and learn to make professional quality hardwood picture frames. Learn to make accurate and repeatable miter cuts and keys, set up and use a dado set, apply quick and easy finishes, cut mat boards and mount the finished frame. Gowanus. Three sessions on Mondays, starting January 14, 7pm-10pm.

NEED TO KNOW

Intellectual Property for the Fine Arts at 3rd Ward
Sooner or later, every artisan, business owner, author and maker confronts the need to control ownership of what they have created. The financial implications can be huge, and most of us are ill-prepared to deal with protecting our rights when it comes to our creativity. An evening spent learning about Intellectual Property at 3rd Ward will be a few hours well spent. Entertainment and intellectual property lawyer Kelly Kocinski Trager will discuss when and how to use copyrights, trademarks and patents; how to protect yourself and your creations; and Q&A on pertinent facts. Williamsburg. Thursday, January 17. 7pm-10pm.

Intro to Google Analytics at Gowanus Print Lab
If only someone would tell us about the stuff we need to know so that our blog gets more exposure. 21-year-old Rutgers Graduate Ian Jennings is presenting this three-hour lecture, and sounds ideal. His course will discuss: What’s the difference between a visit and a pageview? • Who’s visiting your site? • Who’s coming back? • What kind of device are they using? • How can I get more traffic from search engines? • What about Facebook, Twitter, and all those other social networks? • How do I sell more stuff? • What other tools exist? Thank you Gowanus Print Lab for recognizing that some of us need clarification in this area. Gowanus. Wednesday, January 23, 7pm-10pm.

$5 Fridays at Brooklyn Central
Brooklyn Central, a new art and photography education center in DUMBO, offers 90-minute classes for $5 on Fridays. It’s part of BKC’s philosophy to keep things simple with motivated instructors and short sessions that will help you learn something new, build on your creativity, and expand your goals. Seems like a painless way to pick up some photo basics like “Dealing with Low Light Situations,” “Color,” “Capturing Motion,” “The Lowdown on Lenses,” and “Photoshop Basics.” DUMBO. Fridays, check website for times and dates.

BLDG 92′s Ted & Honey café.

CAUSE YOU’RE HUNGRY TO LEARN

The Pearl Harbor Sandwich: Cuisine at the Brooklyn Navy Yard
Brooklyn Artisan is often found hanging around the Brooklyn Navy Yard because it’s such a fascinating mix of old and new, with history to discover and history in the making. This talk and tasting, in conjunction with Brooklyn Historical Society, will explore the Yard’s past and present using food as the central theme. Discover the modern grocery store that is soon going to replace Yard mansions, and get access to one of the largest rooftop gardens in the U.S. Where do the Yard’s artists go for snacks today? (Hint: it may be BLDG 92′s Ted & Honey café.) Led by historic gastronomist Sarah Lohman, who is Artist in Residence at BLDG 92. Vinegar Hill. Thursday, February 28, 7pm.

Current soda flavors from Brooklyn Soda Works include spiced plum, hibiscus + cinnamon + ginger, apple + ginger.

Learn about current flavors produced at Brooklyn Soda Works like apple & ginger.

Create Your Own Handmade Soda at Brooklyn Soda Works
Small batch soda masters Caroline Mak and Antonio Ramos, founders of Brooklyn Soda Works, will be demonstrating their special science-based techniques—Ramos is a chemist—to create home-brewed soda. Tour their test kitchen and get a hands-on demo in pairing interesting flavor combinations, and then hand craft your own soda. Book this class through SideTour, an online marketplace of classes and events. Bushwick/Bed Stuy location. Thursday, January 24. 7pm-9pm.

LEARNING COLLECTIVES & MEETUPS

3rd Ward • Brooklyn Brainery • Brooklyn Skillshare • Fixers Collective NYC • Church of Craft at the Etsy Labs • Brooklyn Tech Meetup
Worldwide Jellyweek: A Jelly is a casual working event that takes place in a home, a café, a coworking space or an office to allow people to collaborate on a project for a day. Worldwide #Jellyweek 2013, January 14-20, will offer several opportunities in Brooklyn to collaborate: • Coworking Jelly Day, Friday, January 18 at Brooklyn Brainery • Jellyweek 2012 days at Bitmap.

Please mention Brooklyn Artisan if you decide to sign up for a class.

Joy Makon curates Brooklyn Artisan’s Craft & Design coverage and creates the weekly Best of Brooklyn lists.
Send items for listings to brooklynartisan@joymakondesign.com

Filed Under: best practices, Brain Candy, Collectives, Community, Coworking, Craft/Design, Food/Drink, Guilds/Fairs, Joy's Best of Brooklyn Weekend Listings, taxes, regulations, The Business Side, Think, Uncategorized, urban planning, Winery, brewery, distiller Tagged With: 3rd Ward, Adobe Illustrator, argyle Yarn Shop, Bitmap, BLDG 92, Boerum Hill, Brooklyn Brainery, Brooklyn Central, Brooklyn General Store, Brooklyn Historical Society, Brooklyn Navy Yard, Brooklyn Skillshare, Brooklyn Soda Works, Carroll Gardens, Church of Craft, class, Cobble Hill, Corel Draw, entrelac, Epilog 35 Watt Laser, Etsy, Fixers Collective, Google Analytics, Gowanus, Gowanus Print Lab, Inkscape, Intellectual Property, Jelly, Jellyweek, knitting, Laser Design, Makeville, NYC Resistor, Parent Child Knitting, Rapid Prototype, Roni Henning, Sarah Lohman, screenprinting, SideTour, silkscreen, Ted & Honey Cafe, Windsor Terrace, Worldwide Jellyweek

Straight Chalk Express: Spreading the News

January 9, 2013 By Anne Mollegen Smith Leave a Comment

Ample Hills sidewalk sign NEWSFLASH! Expanded openings to seven days at Fleishers on Fifth Avenue called for a chalkboard bulletin. Last autumn, Ample Hills Creamery in Prospect Heights put out this board on Vanderbilt Avenue. The style – homage to Charles Schulz’s “Peanuts” – reminded all that Ample Hills is child-friendly.

(Photographs by Brooklyn Artisan Photo Pool)

Filed Under: best practices, Chalkboard, Handmade, Look

Documentary Asks a Big Question: Who’s Really Entitled to Brooklyn?

January 8, 2013 By Phil Scott Leave a Comment

I HAD A PREPAID TICKET TO SEE THE NEW DOCUMENTARY MY BROOKLYN at Dumbo’s comfortable reRun Theater, with old red-brick walls and bench car seats from the 1960s. But they’d overbooked it—must be a great date movie, I thought – and the apologetic guy at the door put my name in the computer and gave me a coupon for free food from the restaurant/bar, reBar. I’m always into free food.

The documentary runs only through this Thursday, so the next night I returned and found my empty seat. I ordered a cheeseburger and fries fresh from reBar, just a few feet down the hall. Before the food could arrive the crowd, mostly hipsters, were taking over folding chairs set up in front and along the aisles. Despite the crowd size and innocuous title, My Brooklyn is not a date movie, nor is it a happy documentary; its subtitle is Unmasking the Takeover of America’s Hippest City. Telling the story of Downtown’s Fulton Street, filmmakers Kelly Anderson and Allison Dean convey the borough’s changes over the past few decades, from a mostly white community to a dilapidated minority community, to a restored community, to what developers are now doing their damndest to turn into bland city of ugly glass towers, chain restaurants, big-box stores, a too-big-to-fail bank on every corner. Like today’s Manhattan.

“They take culture away from the city and turn it into Disney World,” director Anderson says in the film. She interviews small business owners along Fulton Mall – the same businesses referred to as “job creators” during the last election.

Their tales aren’t so creative: Landlords have jacked up rents from around $15,000 a month to as much as $45,000; businesses have 10-year leases which in the fine print say they can be evicted with just 30 days’ notice. And many have been: the same landlords are selling the land to large developers. In footage shot during New York City Council meetings, the developers say that they’re building offices to create jobs, to prevent jobs from going to New Jersey. Instead they resell the same land for a huge profit to other companies, which construct 20-story co-ops that sell for around $400,000 each, and hotels whose rooms go for between $400 and $1,000 a night. And the jobs? A few office jobs, but mostly short-term construction work and low-wage hotel-staff and box-store “associate” positions.

While the City Council never does a follow-up, the developers do receive subsidies for bringing in jobs, and co-op buyers also receive tax subsidies. “For them it’s subsidies,” says one small business owner, Todd Jones. “For us it’s called welfare.”

“Success isn’t measured by how many jobs are created, it’s in the use of land,” Anderson explains during the question and answer session following the documentary. “It’s not keeping Mom and Pop in Brooklyn; [the profit] goes out of town.”

Jones was another guest during the Q&A. He runs Cuzin’s Duzin (“Hot Fresh Mini Donuts” reads his business card), which was evicted from Fulton Mall. Despite his hardships, “Entrepreneurship is a choice you make,” he says. “You have to be relentless.” And so he is. He moved to another location until that was closed down. Now he caters, embracing new technology like social media (Check out his Facebook page).

“Box stores are a magnet,” Jones says. “They attract business. Mom and Pop—that model is done. And not everybody eats donuts.”

True. “Let them eat cake,” Mayor Bloomberg might say – as long as it has no trans-fat.

Executive Editor Phil Scott frequently writes about travel and aviation.

Filed Under: Community, Think, Uncategorized, urban planning Tagged With: "My Brooklyn", Allison Lirish Dean, Atlantic Mall, Brooklyn documentary, Develop Don't Destroy, eminent domain, Fulton Mall, job creators, Kelly Anderson, urban planning

Still Stalking the Chalk: Time to Brine Those Cukes

January 7, 2013 By Anne Mollegen Smith Leave a Comment

Okay, so what would no round-up story on artisanal Brooklyn food business seem complete without?

YOU GOT IT IN ONE: Pickles, of course. Brooklyn Brine has sponsored three pickle-eating contests annually in October. Usually we think of strawberries to go with our champagne, or if it’s to be something from the briny deep, then we think of caviar with our bubbly. Nonetheless, Brooklyn Artisan admits to finding the adorable happy-looking, dancing-tooting-and-toasting, puckered-up, party-hatted pickles waving their champagne flutes a lot more inviting to identify with than the soon-to-be-sick-as-a dog in the most recent annual-pickle-packing’s poster (click for a look). Just sayin’.

(Photograph from Brooklyn Artisan Photo Pool)

Filed Under: best practices, Chalkboard, Food/Drink, Handmade, Look

Plenty More Fish for the Borough, Tra-la!

January 6, 2013 By Anne Mollegen Smith 1 Comment

Detail of plate from a Villeroy & Boch 7-piece fish set on eBay (# 230907702410); best hurry, there's only one set.

Trout detail, Villeroy & Boch 7-pc. fish set, eBay #230907702410; best hurry, only one!

BROOKLYN’S COMMUNITY SUPPORTED FISHERY Mermaid’s Garden has just announced two new pickup points starting later this month. Adding Ditmas Park’s Sycamore Bar and Flower Shop and Williamsburg’s Urban Rustic will greatly extend Mermaid’s Garden’s coverage for more than 200 fish lovers and adventurous eaters across Brooklyn.

There are also openings for some new members in the established spots in Red Hook, Cobble Hill, Park Slope, Clinton Hill/Bed Stuy, and Bushwick (see mermaidsgardennyc.com for locations). As always, the fish offered are sustainable species responsibly fished by individuals you will often get to know by name, thanks to the weekly email from Mermaid’s Garden.

Co-founders Bianca Piccillo, a Harvard-trained marine biologist, and Mark Usewicz, a Paris-trained chef, will become your mentors in protecting sealife one delicious dinner at a time. Bianca will gently educate you about the different varieties of fish they offer, frequently introducing you to the people and naming the boats that supply them, and on Mermaid’s Garden’s Facebook page, Mark shares recipes he has developed and some guidelines for better preparation. For instance, this one – posted last November – has proved itself in one of Brooklyn Artisan’s very own test kitchens.

Bay Scallop Crudo

Simple is the best recipe for bay scallops. This crudo recipe is a quick recipe that really lets the scallops shine.

12 Bay scallops, shucked
1 Tbsp. Lemon, juice of
1 Tbsp. Extra Virgin Olive Oil
1 drop Hot Sauce, (preferably scotch bonnet or habanero based)
Salt and Pepper
A few leaves of cilantro

1. In a nonreactive bowl mix the scallops, lemon, hot sauce and oil. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Sprinkle with the cilantro before serving.

But if that Italian-style scallop sushi is not your thing, you’ll find alternatives. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Community, Food/Drink, histories, Uncategorized Tagged With: bay scallops, bay scallops crudo, Bianca Piccillo, Brooklyn CSF, Community Supported Fishery, CSF, fish dinner, how to cook fish, Mark Usewicz, Mermaid's Garden, scallops recipe

A Zen Palace of Materials and Makers in Outer Brooklyn

January 6, 2013 By Joy Makon Leave a Comment

Museum of Arts and Design‘s mission is to honor the relationship between materials and maker, with processes ranging from the artisanal to the digital. Exhibitions, such as the current
Playing with Fire: 50 Years of Contemporary Glass, blur distinctions between art, design
and craft. Shown above, Tastes Like Applebees, 2007, Matt Eskuche. Flameworked glass,
twine, steel, clothespins. (Photograph by David Behl.) On exhibit through April 7.

A friend lives in this cool Brooklyn loft. She decorates in a wonderfully minimalist style and I bet she can’t pass Roche Bobois without salespeople waving hello. In contrast, I’m on a first-name basis at the Stickley store. I’m jealous of Ms. Minimalist’s space as it always has a restorative zen-like appeal to me. So when I can’t visit my friend and need to reset my senses from all the dark wood and overstuffed/overpropped places I hang in, I head to The Museum of Arts and Design at Columbus Circle. The clean lines of the building’s architecture, the open and quiet exhibit spaces, and beautifully curated and installed exhibits recharge me creatively and spiritually.

The Art of Scent 1889-2012 is on display through February 24.

I was wowed by the design of the current exhibition, The Art of Scent 1889-2012. As shown in the photograph above, this open space is minimal, futuristic, even daunting when you first approach the exhibit. My initial reaction was that I didn’t know what to make of it until I followed others and placed my head into one of twelve carved wall spaces. Fragrance softly wafts up to your nose, and written descriptions of the scents light up next to the space. The museum states that it purposely created a space devoid of all visual indicators, such as logos and marketing materials, so that visitors would concentrate on smell only. That would explain the almost-totally white room one encounters. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Architecture, Brain Candy, Craft/Design, Galleries, Joy's Best of Brooklyn Weekend Listings, Method/Materials, museums, Outer Brooklyn, Uncategorized Tagged With: exhibit, Museum of Arts and Design, outer Brooklyn

Still Chalk-Talking: Ahoy, More New Year Notes On Board

January 6, 2013 By Anne Mollegen Smith 3 Comments

BIG IS BOLD, BUT A CHALKBOARD DOESN’T HAVE TO BE EITHER; it certainly needn’t cover most of the wall or even the sidewalk easel’s surface to convey an eye-catching message: Look (left) at the charming sign peeking from behind the poinsettia leaves at ZuZu’s Petals window. The frame around the slate-like surface dresses it up nicely, and the Happy New Year’s Day message is friendly.

While Brooklyn Artisan is still hovering over New Year’s signs, check out the Couleur Café‘s New-Year’s-with-a-wink sign (above). A nice example of soft sell!

The invocation outside the store Sterling Place on Seventh Avenue (right) gets our vote for double-take cleverness: “Let’s Celebrate Another Revolution Together,” it says, and with Emma Goldman‘s famous words in mind, we were about to start dancing in the street. But then we realized the board was showing the Big Blue Marble Earth in orbit around the Sun as a visual clue: No politics here, it’s about the passing of another year!

(Photographs from Brooklyn Artisan Photo Pool)

Coming Up Next: What a Brooklyn artisanal business round-up would hardly seem complete without at least one example of….

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Filed Under: Chalkboard, Handmade, Look, Uncategorized Tagged With: blackboards, Brooklyn restaurants, Chalkboards, New Year's signs, sidewalk easel

Chalk Talk: Coffeehouses, Fuel of the Enlightenment

January 5, 2013 By Anne Mollegen Smith 1 Comment

THE AGE OF REASON WAS FUELED BY CAFFEINATED CHATTER in the cheap and cheerful English coffeehouses of the late 17th and 18th centuries, says historian Brian Cowan of McGill University. Unlike the brews in the alehouses, coffee sharpened thinking and revved up the exchange of ideas that led to what’s called the Enlightenment. Keep that in mind while considering these two chalkboard easels (click on the image for a larger view). The one at left was seen by Brooklyn Artisan across the East River in NoLita, outside Gimme Coffee on Mott Street; at right, along Brooklyn’s Fifth Avenue. (The Intelligentsia insignia looks like a salute to some Army Air Corps flyer who managed to make it home on a wing and a latte.)

(Photographs by Brooklyn Artisan Photo Pool)

Filed Under: Chalkboard, Craft/Design, Food/Drink, Look, Uncategorized Tagged With: advertising, chalk art, Chalkboards, marketing, restaurant signs, street easels

Chalk It Up: A Union Hall That Invites You In

January 4, 2013 By Anne Mollegen Smith 2 Comments

You might think that Union Hall is where labor union members turn out for job calls. But not here. This Union Hall is on Union Street, as in "Union vs. Confederacy," and as the billiards suggest, it's a place you're invited to hang out. (Brooklyn Artisan photo pool)

You might think that Union Hall is where labor turns out
for job calls or votes. But not here. This Union Hall is on Union Street,
as in “Union vs. Confederacy,” and as the colliding bocce suggest,
it’s a tavern that invites you to hang out. (Photograph by Brooklyn Artisan Photo Pool)

CHALKBOARDS ARE A TIME-HONORED PRACTICE IN THE FOOD BIZ. Think of bistro menus propped on bentwood chairs in Paris, think of kosher deli listings on overhead blackboards while everyone’s shouting out orders, think of chalkboard easels outside restaurants along the streets and avenues of Brooklyn. Chalkboards can be as quick ‘n’ easy or as glamorous as the establishment requires. (Starbucks, for instance.)

After all, unlike print on paper, all you need to change an entrée (or adjust the prix fixe) is a moist bar cloth, and presto! The slate is as erasable as an iPad. The original tabula rasa. A little inspiration, a little colored craie (French talc stick), and the board becomes an invitation to express yourself or your business’s image. To quote your favorite philosopher or reference your favorite comics. To DIY or yield to your betters. In general the medium is fluid rather than stiff, friendly rather than formal; compare the above with the same Union Hall‘s logo at right.

From time to time over the next few weeks, Brooklyn Artisan will be sharing what we’ve seen through our lenses, with comments or not – mostly just letting the chalkistas speak for themselves.

Filed Under: Chalkboard, Community, Food/Drink, Look, Uncategorized Tagged With: artisanal signage, blackboard, bocce balls, Brooklyn, chalk art, chalkboard, Union Hall

Moore’s Law: How the Future Came To Be Stuffed in a Stocking

January 4, 2013 By Brooklyn Artisan 1 Comment

By David Fay Smith COMING UP ON 30 YEARS AGO, I WROTE A BOOK called A Computer Dictionary for Kids and Other Beginners (Ballantine, 1984), to explain bits and bytes to children and their parents. This Christmas, my wise wife gave me a copy of iPads for Seniors. And so it goes.

At Costco recently, I bought flash drives for Christmas stocking stuffers: $10 each for SanDisk 16 GB flash drives – solid state gizmos with retractable USB connections that will bayonet into practically any fairly modern PC or Mac and provide a convenient means of backing up or transporting files from one computer to another. These are about 1 ½ inches long and weigh a third of an ounce.

Just to be clear, 16 GB is 16 billion bytes (actually 16, 384,000,000, but who’s counting?) A byte is equivalent to a single character or letter, so 16 GB amounts to some 2 billion 8-letter words or about 40 typical 50,000 word novels. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Innovation, Think, Uncategorized Tagged With: Apple II, flash memory, Gordon E. Moore, Innovation, Moore's Law, San Disk flash drive

Business Lessons from a Master

May 4, 2013 By Anne Mollegen Smith Leave a Comment

Where Park Place meets Flatbush, looking out through the front window.

WHATEVER WE MAY THINK OF STARBUCKS COFFEE, THEIR PRICES OR UBIQUITY, we can all take a lesson from the new Starbucks location on Park Place at Flatbush/Seventh Avenue, where the oversized and under-busy 5 Guys burger place recently failed. The premises reportedly rents for $20,000 a month. Can even Starbucks bring in enough to do business there profitably? Time will tell, of course, but certainly the managers are trying to make a go of it.

Let’s infer some items for our checklist: Yes, Starbucks put out the welcome sign, literally, in chalkboard vernacular.

Yes, the Seventh Avenue Q/B subway stop is right there, and Starbucks has put in the pedestrian equivalent of a drive-by window: the long bar-height shallow counter right in front for commuters and other muffineers. There is enough open floor space for a long line at 8:40am, even allowing for a four-wheeler or two en route to Eladia’s Kids, near the 2/3 station.

Yes, the setup is neighborhood-savvy. Although the ramp at the entrance is wheelchair-friendly, the greater traffic is sure to come from the stroller-moms and -dads. Traffic control is smart: there’s stroller parking for the stay-awhile or coffee-date set.

The community bulletin board is right by the entrance, with a small mural in the style of the Starbucks-on-Seventh location (we hear the artist there is one of the partners).

There are more chalkboards in the back, toddler height, near the low table and small chairs, that signal little guys are welcome and allowed to roam free (relatively). There’s a play shelf with crayons and other amusements.

The half-dozen deep leather chairs welcome long-term loungers: those who want to read the Times thoroughly, say, or polish off the review copy of a new book. Easy-to-pull-up stools in a skateboard aesthetic allow kibitzers to interrupt them, but if the kibitizers really want to engage long enough to make their point, there are a few leather-cushioned stools around as well.

And blogger heaven: wi-fi and a huge, two-sided laptop-friendly work table. While the hard metal chairs might discourage you from settling in to finish your thesis here, they are a good sit for long enough to post a blog entry or handle email away from the kids.

We didn’t forget to check for the critical amenity! Yes, it’s here, the changing station in the bathroom. At this juncture of Park Slope/Prospect Heights, the diaper table really says, “Welcome, families.” Starbucks shows it knows.

Filed Under: best practices, Chalkboard, Food/Drink, The Business Side, Uncategorized

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“What a strange thing! to be alive beneath cherry blossoms,” Kobayashi Issa.

Saturday

Sunday

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Earth Day is officially on Monday, April 22, but in Brooklyn, the festivities begin this Saturday:

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A short list of weekend openings and events

S A T U R D A Y

S U N D A Y

W E D N E S D A Y, April 10

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Cherry blossoms soon

Three stores on the to-visit list

Two sites of note

Here’s Hoping…

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This weekend starts early on Thursday and it’s also the last day for Dine-In Brooklyn.

Three reasons to go out on Thursday, March 21

Three things to do involving seams, screams and Bob Ross

Three purveyors of note for Passover and beyond

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CSA Signups • Maker Opportunities Big and Small • Art and Literary Openings

Art and Literary Happenings

CSA signups happening now

For Makers and DIYers

A post-Sandy update

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Start-up selling savvy, restaurant license bootcamp, legal advice for trademarking

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Events sell out fast…sign up, buy tickets, reserve…don’t miss out.

Local and Beyond: food, gardens, environment

Armory Arts Week in Brooklyn

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Biodynamic wine…and cheese…and beer, always beer • food shopping renewals • talks about dinners and sports books • the original New Orleans Jazz Band

Supermarket News

Elsewhere…

Natural Winemakers’ Week, February 28-March 6

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Using the Cigar Former

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The American Revolution through gardening, get close to stinky cheese, monumental artwork at Brooklyn Museum and it’s NYC Beer Week in Kings County.

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About that border between Brooklyn and Queens…

Great parent/child activity

Stream this entire event live

Citywide design event just announced

Portlandia is just Brooklyn spelled differently.

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Deadline alerts

Back to fun

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A mixed-bag of talks, rides, exhibits and Valentines for the shortest, but often sweetest, month.

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New NYC grants program, and a deadline for SBA loan applications

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Earth Day is officially on Monday, April 22, but in Brooklyn,
the festivities begin this Saturday:

Natural Winemakers’ Week,
February 28-March 6