Uncategorized – Brooklyn Artisan

The Red Terroir

December 9, 2012 by Bruce Campbell 1 Comment

Day Four • 12 Sips of Brooklyn

The Brooklyn Oenology tasting room.

HERE IN CONCRETE-LANDSCAPED NEW YORK, we tend to think of wine as a product of elsewhere; foreign lands with exotic cultures and languages, like California or France. But in the past four years, two wineries have sprung up in Brooklyn alone: Red Hook Winery (established 2008) and Brooklyn Winery (2010), committed to actual production within the borough limits. Another approach is that taken by Brooklyn Oenology, which focuses on regional grapes and produces its wines outside the city. But it has set up a tasting room in Williamsburg to help promote its production.

Wine has a long history of being made in one place and consumed in another—remember all those ancient amphorae dredged up from the bottom of the Mediterranean? But local production has its merits. It is one of those tropes of the wine culture that to be in the know, one has to taste those wines that “never get shipped outside the little town in [insert name of region here] where they are made,” with the implication that the locals snare the best for themselves, leaving the rest of us to sip the leavings from the barrels. As well, in our increasingly environmentally aware culture, many question whether it is a good idea to be shipping quite so many goods, including wine bottles, thousands of miles, burning fossil fuels and polluting the planet.

When the French use the term terroir to refer to the effect of a geographical region on its agricultural products, they sometimes elevate that to a mythical level. But they are on to something. The number of steps in getting a wine from a little vineyard in Europe to our dinner table can appear daunting. Very different from the winemaker leaning over and drawing off a bottle for you from the barrel.

Cheese pairing at Brooklyn Oenology

A good place to begin to sample the local terroir is the Brooklyn Oenology tasting room. They have a nice selection of wines they are making from New York State grapes. They have three reds currently, with two 2006 vintages (unlike the other Brooklyn wineries, which haven’t been around long enough to actually have wines more than a couple of years old).

2006 Merlot: 93% Merlot with 5% Cabernet Sauvignon and 2% Petit Verdot (all grapes from Long Island’s North Fork).
2008 Motley Cru: 40% Petit Verdot, 37% Cabernet Sauvignon,18% Syrah, and 5% Merlot (all North Fork grapes, as well).
2006 Social Club Red: a blend of 62% Merlot, 26% Cabernet Franc, 8% Cabernet Sauvignon, 3% Malbec, 2% Petit Verdot, 1% Syrah. I would categorize this last as outside the terroir as 2/3 of the grapes are from the Finger Lakes region and hence had to cross bridges to get here.

The staff at the tasting room are helpful and friendly, there is a variety of regionally sourced cheeses and charcuterie on the menu, and the facility hosts a number of events including movie nights and a happy hour on weeknights before 7 pm that offers two glasses of wine for the price of one.

We’ve talked about Brooklyn Winery elsewhere, and they have a nice selection of reds, including the 2010 North Fork Blend (81% Merlot and 19% Cabernet Franc), which we’ll be saving for our Christmas table. The winery encourages you to bring your own growler so you can enjoy that “out-of-barrel” experience directly.

These Red Hook Winery bottles at the Brooklyn Wine Exchange survived Sandy. Collector’s items?

The Red Hook winery was badly damaged during Sandy and is currently offering “survival packs” of their wine in an effort to rebuild. Their wines are also available at the Brooklyn Wine Exchange on Court Street.

And some time soon, perhaps some wine connoisseur will lean over his dinner table to whisper of a wine bottle he snagged “that, you know, never even gets across the BQE.”

Postscript: Noticed on an old Brooklyn Historical Society blog post that December 7 th was the anniversary of the repeal of Prohibition. That reminded me that although we now welcome the new winemakers to Brooklyn, we are probably far from the high point of Brooklyn winemaking. Many immigrant families, particularly from Italy, were used to making wines. During Prohibition, thousands of personal winemaking operations went on in the borough, taking advantage of a loophole that allowed manufacture for personal or religious consumption. The grape consumption in the borough must have been truly spectacular through the 1920s and early 1930s.

Brooklyn Oenology
209 Wythe Avenue, Williamsburg
718-599-1259

Brooklyn Winery
213 North 8th Street, Williamsburg
347-763-1506

Red Hook Winery
175 – 204 Van Dyke Street, Red Hook
347-689-2432

Brooklyn Wine Exchange
138 Court Street, Cobble Hill
718-855-9463

Photographs by Basia Hellwig. Date stamp typographic design by Joy Makon Design. The font is Cochin, by Georges Peignot, Linotype, 1912.

Filed Under: 12 Days of Brooklyn, Food/Drink, Uncategorized, Winery, brewery, distiller Tagged With: 12 Days of Brooklyn, 12 Sips and Tastes, 12 Sips of Brooklyn, 2006 Merlot, 2006 Social Club Red, 2008 Motley Cru, 2010 North Fork Blend, Brooklyn Oenology, Brooklyn Wine Exchange, Brooklyn Winery, Prohibition, Red Hook Winery, red wine, terroir, wine, wine tasting

The New Artisan Butchers

December 9, 2012 by Basia Hellwig 4 Comments

Day Four • 12 Tastes of Brooklyn

Window at Fleisher’s Grass-fed and Organic Meats

IT’S BEEN A LONG TIME SINCE EVERY NEIGHBORHOOD in the city had its own butcher—someone who took a whole animal carcass (or even slaughtered the animal) and then dressed and cut it into sellable meat. By the early 1960s, meat was being packed and boxed in the Midwest, for handy delivery to supermarkets in plastic wrap. (See Robin Shulman’s Eat the City for more about the fascinating history of meat production in New York City.) Some butchers have hung on in the borough, of course—places like Staubitz Market in Carroll Gardens since 1917, and Paisanos Meat Market in Park Slope, established in 1960.

The meat counter at The Meat Hook, where you can see butchers dressing the meat just behind.

But in the last five years or so, new artisan butchers have been popping up all over it seems—Fleisher’s, originally in Kingston, NY, now in Park Slope, too; Marlow & Daughters, The Meat Hook. For these butchers, the artisan label is well earned: This is handcrafted meat, using time-honored skills that take a lot of practice to do well. They get grass-fed and pastured whole animals from small, local farms (even a New York City farm, in the case of pigs from Queens County Farm Museum) and are careful not to waste any part, from nose to tail. They are all active in training and apprenticing new butchers—and educating the public, whether in an extensive professional program or individual classes. Tom Mylan, of The Meat Hook (and before that, of Marlow & Daughters), apparently spent a year sleeping at the home of Jessica and Joshua Applestone, owners of Fleisher’s, in Kingston, as he apprenticed with Josh. At The Meat Hook, we met a young woman butcher apprentice who told us her grandfather had been a butcher.

One of two meat counters at Fleisher’s, in Park Slope

Handcrafted meat will cost 15 percent more a pound, but the customer gets something for that: meat from a sustainable source, advice on cuts that work best for different dishes—or how to cook more inexpensive cuts, and the exact cut you need, trimmed the way you want it.

If you know you’ll need a particular cut of meat for a particular day, do call ahead. Holiday orders, especially, will need to be made at least a week ahead, to be safe.

Fleisher’s Grass-fed and Organic Meats
192 Fifth Avenue, Park Slope
718-398-6666
Holiday order deadline: “as soon as possible, since things may go”
Special items: standing rib roast, rack of lamb, goose, duck, plus “all your other holiday favorites”

Marlow & Daughters
95 Broadway, Williamsburg
718-388-5700
Holiday order deadline: at least a week ahead; they may be able to do something with less notice, but no guarantee
Special items: local NY goose, pheasant, turkey (must be preordered); dry aged beef; house-made foie gras terrines

The Meat Hook
100 Frost Street, Williamsburg
718-349-5033
Holiday order deadline: Sunday, December 16
Special items: rib roast, rack of lamb, goose, guinea hen, capon, Muscovy duck, broad-breasted white turkeys, whole rabbit

Paisanos Meat Market
162 Smith Street, Cobble Hill
718-855-2641

Staubitz Market
222 Court Street, Carroll Gardens
718-624-0014

Photographs by Basia Hellwig. Date stamp typographic design by Joy Makon Design. The font is Cochin, by Georges Peignot, Linotype, 1912.

Filed Under: 12 Days of Brooklyn, Food/Drink, Uncategorized Tagged With: 12 Days of Brooklyn, 12 Sips and Tastes, 12 Tastes of Brooklyn, artisanal butchers, Brooklyn butchers, butcher apprenticeship, butchering classes, duck, Eat the City, Fleisher's Grass-fed and Organic Meats, goose, holiday meals, Jessica Applestone, Joshua Applestone, Marlow & Daughters, Paisanos Meat Market, Queens County Farm Museum, Robin Shulman, Staubitz Meat Market, sustainable meat, The Meat Hook, Tom Mylan, turkey

Sufganiyot: Jelly Donuts for Hanukkah

December 8, 2012 by Basia Hellwig Leave a Comment

Day Three • 12 Tastes of Brooklyn

Sufganiyot in the window of Ostrovitsky Bakery in Midwood.

POTATO LATKES FRIED IN HOT OIL may be the iconic dish to eat at Hanukkah, but we hold a special place in our heart for sufganiyot, the deep-fried jelly-filled donut that Israelis go crazy about during this holiday. In The Book of Jewish Food, author and food scholar Claudia Roden tells us that the “Austro-Hungarian peasant carnival doughnut, which became a “royal” delicacy at the French court of Marie Antoinette has been adopted in Israel to celebrate Hanukkah because it is fried in oil”—oil to commemorate the miracle of a small flask of oil keeping the flame in the Temple alight for eight days. Like many famous dishes, though, its origins are the subject of Talmudic debate.

But never mind about that. How do I get my hands on some? The answer you’ll hear from Brooklyn connoisseurs will more likely than not be Ostrovitsky Bakery in Midwood. “We make thousands of them at Hanukkah,” the bakery owner tells me when I pay a visit, “thousands. We’ve been doing it every Hanukkah for 18 years.” To get a jump on the lines that will later form out the door, I bring home a supply to do a little early taste-testing with my friends. Our verdict: Maybe you could almost feed a family with one of them…but Hanukkah only comes once a year. Sweet, scrumptious.

Sufganiyot, in The Mile End Cookbook: Redefining Jewish Comfort Food from Hash to Hamantaschen. (Photo by Quentin Bacon)

Mile End Delicatessen in Boerum Hill has developed quite a fan club, too, for its sufganiyot, but sadly there will be none this year, co-owner Rae Bernamoff tells us. Sad for us, maybe; she certainly has bigger problems: Mile End’s central commissary kitchen, where it does all its baking (and curing and smoking and pickling) was flooded during Sandy. It’s in a Civil War era building on Pier 41 in Red Hook and “as with most of the waterfront,” she said, “the high tide surge pushed about four feet of water into our space. We’re still rebuilding.”

As a consolation, and to show solidarity, head to the deli itself for what sounds like a gut-busting $16 “surf and turf” latke special: two open-faced latkes—potato, celery root and parsnip pancakes—one topped with chopped liver, pickled eggs and gribenes (chicken or goose skin cracklings), the other with creamy whitefish salad with trout roe.

And if your heart is really set on some Mile End sufganiyot, then you’ll have to make them yourself. You’ll find the recipe in the very appetizing The Mile End Cookbook, by Noah and Rae Bernamoff. Latkes, too, and a lot more dishes “redefining Jewish comfort food.”

One more stop: Brooklyn Larder in Park Slope also has tasty jelly donuts (along with a full Hanukkah catering menu) but shhh, don’t tell anyone, they’re baked not fried.

Ostrovitsky Bakery
1124 Avenue J, Midwood
718-951-7924
The bakery is Shomer Shabbos: closes before sundown on Friday, reopens on Sunday.

Mile End Delicatessen
97A Hoyt St, Boerum Hill
718-852-7510

Brooklyn Larder
228 Flatbush Avenue, Park Slope
718-783-1250

Photograph (top) by Basia Hellwig. Date stamp typographic design by Joy Makon Design. The font is Bauhaus, by Ed Benguiat and Victor Caruso, ITC, 1975.

Filed Under: 12 Days of Brooklyn, Food/Drink, Uncategorized Tagged With: 12 Days of Brooklyn, 12 Sips and Tastes, 12 Tastes of Brooklyn, artisanal food, Boerum Hill, Brooklyn Larder, Hanukkah, jelly donut, Midwood, Mile End Delicatessen, Noah Bernamoff, Ostrovitsky Bakery, Park Slope, Rae Bernamoff, Red Hook, sufganiyot, The Mile End Cookbook

Lighting the Night to Celebrate Hanukkah

December 8, 2012 by Anne Mollegen Smith Leave a Comment

Day Three • 12 Views of Brooklyn

Photograph by Joy Makon; see Who’s Who.

DATING FROM THE SECOND CENTURY BCE, the beautiful tradition of lighting candles in the eight arms of a special candelabrum calls for using the candle from the ninth position, the shamash (usually at the center), to light each of the others day by day . It is part of the eight-day celebration of Hanukkah, which begins today. It commemorates the rededication of Jerusalem’s Holy Temple after a victory reclaiming the city from domination by the Maccabees. The spreading of light against the darkest time of year lifts spirits everywhere, and the intimacy of joining together to share a circle of light makes a powerful bond. This image was captured in Windsor Terrace in 2009, when all of Brooklyn was hushed and blanketed by a thick snowfall.

Filed Under: 12 Days of Brooklyn, Look, Uncategorized Tagged With: 12 Days of Brooklyn, Brooklyn Hannukah, Menorah in the snow, Menorrah in the snow, Windsor Terrace

A Christmas Visit to the Rieslings of Williamsburg

December 7, 2012 by Bruce Campbell 1 Comment

Day Two • 12 Sips of Brooklyn

dec7

ON OUR FIRST VISIT TO BROOKLYN WINERY, the Brooklyn Artisan taste/sip squad donned hard hats and clambered around a raw construction site. In the two years since then, the winery has developed into a first class facility with a terrific wine bar integrated with the winemaking facilities. The B-A squaddies stopped by again recently to check out a flight of wines and some charcuterie. We didn’t have time for the winery tour (with 10 tasting/sipping stops that day, food journalism can be brutal, I tell you), but we are definitely going back. Brooklyn Winery takes wine very seriously and with classes and tours, they are committed to educating and informing as well as entertaining.

The main room is outfitted with long wooden farmhouse tables in beer garden style, with the upstairs rooms more lounge-like. Very comfortable settings for various sizes of groups, but we opted for the zinc bar, with its copper wine dispenser and proximity to Lex Kiefhaber, the knowledgeable manager. Lex helped us select our flight—the 2011 Stainless Steel Riesling for a white, the 2011 Rosé of Merlot, and the 2010 North Fork Blend red, all made with New York State grapes and all terrific young wines.

Lex then enthusiastically insisted on our comparing a glass of the 2011 Barrel Aged Riesling toe-to-toe with the same grape fermented in stainless steel. The Barrel Aged, with grapes from the Finger Lakes region, is fermented and aged in old oak barrels which Lex explained allows the tart malic acid to convert to smoother lactic acid (a process logically called malolactic fermentation), providing a richer mouthfeel. The Stainless Steel has a more crisp fruit taste characteristic of a modern Riesling. Two distinctly different variations on a common theme, and either is definitely a pick for a Christmas white.

Brooklyn Winery
213 North 8th Street, Williamsburg
347-763-1506

Photographs by Bruce Campbell. Date stamp typographic design by Joy Makon Design. The font is Mrs Eaves, by Zuzana Licko, Emigre, 1996.

Filed Under: 12 Days of Brooklyn, Food/Drink, Uncategorized, Winery, brewery, distiller Tagged With: 12 Days of Brooklyn, 12 Sips and Tastes, 12 Sips of Brooklyn, Barrel Aged Riesling, Brooklyn Winery, North Fork Blend, Rosé of Merlot, Stainless Steel Riesling, Williamsburg, wine, wine bar, winery

Fresh Fish, Smoked Fish—Any Way You Like It

December 7, 2012 by Basia Hellwig 3 Comments

Day Two • 12 Tastes of Brooklyn

Wouldn’t this make a perfect tile in the subway station at Sheepshead Bay, home to Brooklyn’s
own 50-boat fishing fleet? But no, the mosaic is by an unknown Roman artist, 3rd to
5th century A.D. Found in Tunisia, it now resides in Brooklyn Museum. (Photo courtesy Brooklyn Museum)

THE FEAST OF THE SEVEN FISHES is an Italian Christmas Eve celebration with as many interpretations as there are families and regions of Italy—and Brooklyn. If you want to create your own feast, you have a treat in store: Mermaid’s Garden, Brooklyn’s first CSF, or Community Supported Fishery, is opening its holiday store to the public. (CSF members—including some Brooklyn Artisan folks—sign up for a weekly drop of delicious sustainable fish and seafood, much of it caught in local waters.) The holiday store will have live Montauk lobsters, Montauk Pearl and wild Maine Belon oysters, fish fillets, clams, squid and more. How about Siberian sturgeon caviar?! The online store is open from Saturday, December 8 to Monday, December 17. Pickup will be at four Brooklyn spots on Saturday, December 22.

For full details about the fish (and fishermen), how to buy, and addresses for pickup, go to the Mermaid’s Garden website. And on the Mermaid’s Garden Facebook page, you’ll find wonderful recipes from co-owner and chef Mark Usewitz.

If you’d rather someone else do the cooking, Chef Saul Bolton will be serving a Feast of the Seven Fishes on Dec. 24 at his Michelin-starred Saul Restaurant in Cobble Hill, as he has for the last eight years—and for the first time this year, he tells us, at his new Italian restaurant, Red Gravy, in Brooklyn Heights. Call 718-935-9842 for more information on menus and for reservations.

Mackerel and squid at a Bensonhurst fish market, where you could also find sardines and eel,
popular choices for the Feast of the Seven Fishes.

Don’t forget, too, that Brooklyn is known as the smoked fish capital of America. Acme Smoked Fish has been at the center of that world since the early 1900s when Harry Brownstein, an emigrant from Russia, took a job as a “wagon jobber,” picking up hot fish from smokehouses with his horse-drawn wagon and hand-delivering them to small grocery and appetizing stores. Eventually he got his own smokehouse, which four generations later has grown into a Brooklyn institution that smokes, cures, slices, packs and ships 7 million pounds of fish a year.

Acme Smoked Fish and Blue Hill Bay smoked seafood are both available at wholesale prices at the company’s Fish Friday.

The fish, which except for the sturgeon is certified kosher, is sold all around the city (Zabar’s, Costco)—and well beyond. But for a real feel for where it comes from—and great bargains—get yourself out to the Greenpoint plant on a Friday morning between 8 and 1, the only time sales are open directly to the public. A room just off the plant floor is filled with racks of smoked whitefish, boxes of brook trout, smoked salmon laid out on the table—all perfect for holiday entertaining.

Mermaid’s Garden
info@mermaidsgardennyc.com

Saul Restaurant
140 Smith Street, Cobble Hill
718-935-9842

Acme Smoked Fish Corporation
25-56 Gem Street, Greenpoint
718-383-8585

Photographs by Basia Hellwig. Date stamp typographic design by Joy Makon Design. The font is Mrs Eaves, by Zuzana Licko, Emigre, 1996.

Filed Under: 12 Days of Brooklyn, Food/Drink, Uncategorized Tagged With: 12 Days of Brooklyn, 12 Sips and Tastes, 12 Tastes of Brooklyn, Acme Smoked Fish Corporation, brooklyn artisan, Brooklyn Museum, Cobble Hill, Feast of the Seven Fishes, fish, Fish mosaic, Greenpoint, Mermaid's Garden, oysters, Red Gravy, Saul Bolton, Saul Restaurant

Danish Seamen’s Gløgg

December 6, 2012 by Bruce Campbell Leave a Comment

Day One • 12 Sips of Brooklyn

THE DANISH SEAMEN’S CHURCH (Den Danske Sømandskirke), housed in a lovely brownstone with a ship’s bell in the front yard on Willow Street in Brooklyn Heights, is a religious, social and cultural center for New York’s Danes. Brooklyn Artisan’s culinary team made its way there for the smørrebrød during the church’s Traditional Christmas Fair at the end of November. In the yard behind the church, in an immense pot, we discovered Gløgg, the mulled wine that fuels Danish Christmas. It’s wonderfully warming and tastes great with spiced cookies and æbleskiver, the Danish version of the doughnut hole.

Julie Sløk, the Church’s Sømandspræst (pastor—literally “sailor priest”) has shared the recipe—although I would have thought it a closely guarded state secret. Gløgg, according to Julie, “will take about a week to make—like any good recipe it is simple but needs time. So you have to begin a week before. This is the recipe for 10 to 15 persons depending on how much you like it. Voilà and god jul!”

Ingredients
5 sticks cinnamon
2-inch piece of fresh ginger, cut in thin slices
20 whole cloves
25 cardamom pods
2 tsp dried coriander
30 peppercorns
2 cups water

1 1/2 lbs raisins
2 1/2 cups rum
1 bottle port

3 bottles red wine (no need to spend a fortune on it but it should be on the fuller side)
1 lemon
1 orange
1/2 to 1 lb of almond splinters
2 cups of brandy or cognac
Sugar to taste

One week before the party
Create an extract by combining the cinnamon, ginger, cloves, cardamom pods, coriander, peppercorns and water.

Bring to a boil, then let it cool down and sit covered for 4 to 5 days.

Mix the rum and port together in another container, add the raisins and soak for 5 days. (Note: Don’t use aluminum containers for storing these parts.)

Day of the party
Strain the extract through a sieve and put it in a large pot along with the peel of one orange and the peel of one lemon. Simmer for 2 minutes.

Pour in the three bottles of red wine and heat it without boiling.

Add the cognac, the raisins with liquid and the almonds. Add sugar to taste (not too sweet but not too sour). Serve hot with spice cookies.

Danish Seamen’s Church
102 Willow Street, Brooklyn Heights
718-875-0042

Photograph by Basia Hellwig. Date stamp typographic design by Joy Makon Design. The font is Avant Garde, by Herb Lubalin and Tom Carnese, ITC, 1970.

Filed Under: 12 Days of Brooklyn, Food/Drink, Uncategorized, Winery, brewery, distiller Tagged With: 12 Days of Brooklyn, 12 Sips and Tastes, 12 Sips of Brooklyn, Brooklyn Heights, Christmas, Danish Seamen's Church, Denmark, gløgg, Julie Sløk, mulled wine, wine

Not Just Any Festive Ham

December 6, 2012 by Basia Hellwig 1 Comment

Day One • 12 Tastes of Brooklyn

Brooklyn Cured’s Mangalitsa ham sits around in brown sugar and bourbon for a week before
being smoked. (Photo courtesy Brooklyn Cured)

CHRISTMAS STOCKINGS BY THE FIRE, SECRET GIFT GIVING IN THE NIGHT, candy canes, giving to those in greatest need—these are all customs that can be traced to dear St Nick. So what better day than St. Nicholas Day to begin planning Christmas dinner? We have our eye on a traditional ham for our table this year. We knew we could find an excellent hickory-smoked one ($3.69/lb for a 10- or 20-lb ham) at Eagle Provisions, a Polish market in Sunset Park that’s been around since 1935 and is now run by the Zawisny family.

But this year our heads have been turned by Brooklyn Cured’s Smoked Mangalitsa Ham. You may know Brooklyn Cured’s sausages and paté from various markets, restaurants and small grocers around town. Founder Scott Bridi grew up in an Italian-American family in Bensonhurst. He ran the charcuterie program at Gramercy Tavern for two years before going on to Marlow and Daughters butcher shop and then starting his own company. His boneless smoked ham starts out as a Mangalitsa pig, a rare woolly Hungarian breed that almost disappeared and is much prized by chefs. The ones Bridi uses are raised on Mosefund Farm in Branchville, NJ. “They have an unparalleled richness and red-meat qualities that are beyond crave-worthy!” he says. Bridi cures the ham for a full week in brown sugar and bourbon. Then it’s gently smoked with applewood, while being coated with a maple-bourbon glaze. (To reheat, take ham out of refrigerator for half an hour, then put in a 275º oven for 30 to 40 minutes.)

Hungry yet? The Mangalitsa hams are $14/lb; sizes range from 3 to 7 pounds. To order, stop by the markets Brooklyn Cured is at, or e-mail scott@brooklyncured.com. (Be sure to include your name, contact information, size of ham, and the market where you’d like to pick up).

The order deadline for Christmas is Dec. 16. Pickup is on Sundays at the Park Slope Community Market on 5th Ave and 4th Street from 10 am to 4 pm and New Amsterdam Market from 11 am to 4 pm. Give as much notice as you can; a week is preferable, although it is possible if you order on a Wednesday, there will be a ham ready for Sunday pick up.

Eagle Provisions, a great source for ham and kielbasa, may be even better known for its selection of beers—2,000+ including many Brooklyn, New York and international craft ales.

There even may be a few mighty Mangalitsas available on a first-come, first-serve basis on Dec. 23 at Park Slope and New Amsterdam Markets, but really, would you want to risk it?

Brooklyn Cured
917-282-2221
scott@brooklyncured.com

Eagle Provisions
628 5th Avenue, Sunset Park
718-499-0026

Photograph (right) by Basia Hellwig. Date stamp typographic design by Joy Makon Design. The font is Avant Garde, by Herb Lubalin and Tom Carnese, ITC, 1970.

Filed Under: 12 Days of Brooklyn, farms/gardens, Food/Drink, Uncategorized Tagged With: 12 Days of Brooklyn, 12 Sips and Tastes, 12 Tastes of Brooklyn, Bensonhurst, Brooklyn Cured, Christmas, Eagle Provisions, Mangalitsa, Scott Bridi, Sunset Park

Who’s Who in Creating 12 DAYS OF BROOKLYN

December 6, 2012 by Brooklyn Artisan 9 Comments

Brooklyn Artisan’s 12 Days of Brooklyn is our gift of the season when you visit our site.

12 Views of Brooklyn were gathered from artists and photographers who have looked at Brooklyn through creative and loving eyes and curated by Anne Mollegen Smith. 12 Tastes of Brooklyn were sampled and curated by Basia Hellwig. 12 Sips of Brooklyn were sampled and curated by Bruce A. Campbell.

Typographic designs of the date stamps for all 12 days are by Joy Makon Design.

DEC. 6 Date stamp font: Avant Garde, by Herb Lubalin and Tom Carnese, ITC, 1970.

The arch at Grand Army Plaza decorated for the holidays, photograph by Joseph Caserto. A resident of Brooklyn since the late 1980s, Caserto is an award-winning publication designer and earned a BFA with honors from Pratt Institute. See more of his work at etsy.com/shop/josephcaserto

EDITOR’S UPDATE: Joseph Caserto has kindly offered Brooklyn-Artisan visitors a 30% discount on boxed card sets that include this brilliant image of Grand Army Plaza on a winter night. Go to http://www.etsy.com/shop/josephcaserto and use the coupon code COUNTDOWN12.

DEC. 7 Date stamp font: Mrs Eaves, by Zuzana Licko, Emigre, 1996

Brooklyn Botanic Garden, photograph by Jake Miller. Miller is a writer as well as a photographer and was a Brooklyn resident in the 1990s, when he shot a series called Brooklyn Light. His articles and photographs have appeared in many national magazines. He now lives in the Boston area.

DEC. 8 Date stamp font: Bauhaus, by Ed Benguiat and Victor Caruso, ITC, 1975

Menorah in the Snow, photograph by Joy Makon, taken in 2009 in Windsor Terrace. A resident of small-town Brooklyn since 1983, Joy is a magazine art director+designer and an indefatigable lover of all things new and cool. She curates Craft & Design for Brooklyn Artisan and writes and produces the weekly Best of Brooklyn listings.

Dec. 9 Date Stamp font: Cochin, Georges Peignot, Linotype, 1912

Sledding Home, 2009, is an oil-on-canvas painting by Ella Yang, who is a member of the artist-run collective and gallery, 440 Gallery, in Park Slope. The gallery is run collectively by more than a dozen artists with very different styles and outlooks, but a common commitment. It is located in Park Slope on Sixth Avenue between Ninth and Tenth streets.

Dec. 10 Date stamp font: Chalet Tokyo, by René Albert Chalet (a clothing designer), House Industries, 1970

At right, these 4 panels appear to the right of the children’s panel in the 8th Street mural. Just down the street is a Beansprouts childcare center, and around the corner, a church.

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Dec. 11 Date stamp font: Goudy Oldstyle, by Frederick W. Goudy, Linotype, 1915

When you visit the site of the Mill Basin house, you can sign the guestbook and review the extensive press clippings. At right, Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz, holding the proclamation, with the Teitelbaum family.

Dec. 12 Date stamp font: Gill Sans Ultra Bold, by Eric Gill, Monotype, 1928

September Rain, Seventh Avenue, 2006, etching by Eric March (edition of 25). Eric March’s first solo show was A Brooklyn Year at the Park Slope Gallery in 2006. His second show at the gallery was Moments in Time: Queens to Coney Island, in 2009. He teaches painting and illustration in the New York City area. The Park Slope Gallery shows by appointment.

Editor’s Note: Making and printing etchings are special skills: Etching is generally done to a metal plate by coating the surface, then scratching through the coating with a special stylus; an acid is then used to eat away the scratched lines which later hold the ink for the image to be printed. A particular piece is usually identified by the position in the series and the number that are in the edition – 1/25 meaning the first of 25, and so on. A lower number is not necessarily an indicator of quality, since much effort goes into making all the pulls equally good; rather, it is a way of tracking or inventorying the images to discourage theft, loss and forgery, and signals relative scarcity. The artist’s signature – usually written in pencil – shows that he approved the quality of that particular piece. A gallery or publisher sometimes underwrites a limited edition as a form of investment, and value may even rise as inventory shrinks.

Dec. 13 Date stamp font: Shelley Allegro, by Matthew Carter, Linotype, 1972

Porches in the Snow, 2009, by Joy Makon. See her bio above, for Dec. 8. For most of her publications career, Joy has worked as a designer, but as readers of her Joy’s Best of Brooklyn column for Brooklyn Artisan know, she also writes well. Early sign of crossover skills: She was editor of her high school newspaper, and went from there to art school.

Dec. 14 Date stamp font: Rockwell, by Morris Fuller Benton and Frank Pierpont, Monotype, 1934

Canal Cloud Reflections, 2010, another oil painting by Ella Yang (see Dec.9, above).”This was a very still morning, the water in the Gowanus Canal was high and there were plenty of clouds to make great reflections,” she recalls. “I love the contrast between the dilapidated, jumbled items on the left bank and the apparent organization of the buildings on the right bank. That’s the former Williamsburg Bank building on the right – a nice Brooklyn landmark that’s been turned into luxury condos!” Ella is a member of the art collective, 440 Gallery. (Next time you’re on the 440 Gallery site, browse the work of other gallery artists. You can also find other views of the Gowanus, this time abstracts, by 440’s Karen Gibbons.)

Dec. 15 Date stamp font: American Typewriter, by Joel Kaden and Tony Stan, ITC, 1974

The Brooklyn Roasting Co. maintains a phog – a photographic blog – on its site and invites contributions from outside the company. The result is a delightful mélange of coffee growing photographs, of the company’s staff and friends, of DUMBO and elsewhere in Brooklyn. This couldn’t-be-anywhere-but-DUMBO image emerged from that phog. Notice how the image is a study in verticals, from the construction fence through the tall alley and bridge struts to the towers of Outer Brooklyn across the river.

Dec. 17: Date stamp font: Industria, by Neville Brody, Linotype, 1989

Christmas Trees on Sale: Brooklyn-based design professional Joseph Caserto, whose Grand Army Plaza photo launched our series, also contributed this image of a Christmas tree vendor. Joe tweets – @josephcaserto – about his @udemy courses for students to learn InDesign, Adobe PhotoShop, Adobe Digital Publishing Suite, sometimes at a discount. He also sells his work at etsy.com/shop/josephcaserto, with occasional discounts.

In 1851, the same year Henry Gritten (mentioned in Dec.14: 12 Views of Brooklyn) painted Gowanus Bay, a Catskill Mountains farmer named Mark Carr launched the commercial Christmas tree business in New York City with two ox-drawn sleds loaded with forest-cut trees. He sold them all, and harvesting forest trees became a business, a kind of winter crop. In 1901, a from-scratch Christmas-tree farming operation was established in New Jersey, and seven years later their Norway Spruces went on the market for $1.00 apiece. By 2000, the number of American families using artificial trees was significantly larger than those with natural ones.

Dec. 17 Date stamp font: Mason, by Jonathan Barnbrook, Emigre, 1992

Forget those people trying to sell the Brooklyn Bridge to hayseeds, how does one go about finding a large photograph of it suitable for framing? The selection is mind-boggling. You can check museum shops. You can inquire of Brooklyn photographers whose work you like. You can search by subject on many sites such as etsy.com and fineartamerica.com. There’s instagram and pinterest and the Flickr albums of your friends; ask around. Cross the river and check out the Union Square vendors. You can of course go out yourself, camera or iPhone in hand, by night and by day. You can order prints by size and by medium – would you like a print on canvas? Or in acrylic? Or acrylic on glass? Oh, you’ve settled on having the canvas wrapped around the sides of the mounting? You can get that done at the drug store right on the corner of Flatbush and Seventh Avenue. Step number one in a personal Views of Brooklyn gallery.

The portrait of Emily Warren Roebling in the Brooklyn Museum is by the French painter Charles Émile Auguste Carolus Duran. Emily’s older brother, Civil War General Gouveneur Kemble Warren –and the one who supported her interest in becoming educated though a girl – is remembered by his statue at the gateway to Prospect Park. Although the Warren family came from Cold Spring, NY, not Brooklyn, the brother and sister made their mark on this community.