Words cannot express how much I love The Charted Cheese Wheel from Popchart Labs. This illustrated collection of 66 cheeses is broken down by animal and texture. In addition to just being wonderful to look at, it's a great idea-generator for future wine and cheese parties. I'm getting mad cravings for Pont-l'Évêque and Pecorino Sardo just glancing at the chart.
The brilliant designers over at Popchart Labs never stop coming up with infographic prints I want to buy. Thinking this Cocktail Chart of Film & Literature would also look nice in the office or living room.
Last week, in need of a mid-afternoon jolt, I wandered over to Union Market to get a cup of coffee. But when walking by the frozen dessert section, I spotted something way better: Vietnamese coffee ice cream.
Phin and Phebes is a small-batch ice cream company that originated in Brooklyn. Jess Eddy and Crista Freeman started the company a little over three years ago, testing new ice cream flavors in their home kitchen. Now the ice cream is made upstate, using milk sourced from a dairy cooperative of family-run farms in Lewis and Jefferson Counties. Oh, and the hand-drawn packaging is pretty great too. What's not to love?
Summer is long gone, but I'm still finding myself craving iced coffee in the morning. I blame the radiator. Like many NY apartment dwellers, I have no control over the heat, so once the heat comes on for the season, the entire apartment becomes a furnace unless you leave the windows wide open.
This is where the iced coffee comes in.
Usually, to get my iced coffee fix, I just make enough coffee in the French press for two or three days, then refrigerate what I don't use. But recently I started using Grady's Cold Brew, which I had heard about for a while but never tried. And wow, this stuff is strong. I'm hooked.
Last Sunday my friend Veronica organized a tour at Industry City Distillery on the western edge of Sunset Park. The area reminded me of both Red Hook and Gowanus, with big warehouse spaces turned into production/artists spaces, and right on the water. Definitely a place I wouldn’t mind spending a Sunday afternoon, especially when vodka-tasting is involved.
Industry City Distillery is unusual in that they use beet sugar to make vodka, which unlike grain and starch, produces no solid waste. Their product launched in April and is already getting a lot of notice in the NY area. (Check out the map of where to buy their vodka, in addition to online.) We toured their facility, which held their fermentation and distillation equipment and the metal shop where they built all their production equipment by hand. They even have a letterpress machine (!) for printing all their labels.
It’s hard to have enough tote bags, especially if you do as much grocery and food styling prop shopping as I do. I’ve been on the hunt for a cute tote bag designed for chefs and food writers, especially since picnic season is starting up. There are some of my favorites. Now to choose one…
Josh Bernstein is a Brooklyn-based writer, specializing in all things beer-related, and the author of Brewed Awakening: Behind the Beers and Brewers Leading the World’s Craft Brewing Revolution. He also leads monthly homebrew tours around Brooklyn and Manhattan. I first heard about them through my friends Barb and Max, who have been on a couple tours through Williamsburg and Park Slope and raved about them. So last Saturday, quite the gorgeous spring day, we went on Josh’s latest tour, this one through Carroll Gardens and Prospect Heights.
Most of the beers we tried were on the lighter side, fitting for spring. I took a handful of photos, but mainly spent the day chatting with the other very friendly people on the tour, sampling the beer, and being bad about jotting down tasting notes of what we were drinking. Which I’m guessing is the point of the tour anyway, to just enjoy being on it.
