Grow Your Own Food in New York: the Red Hook Farm across from Ikea

 

Locavores' Heaven across the Ikea

Last week, I finally took the Ikea ferry to Red Hook.  After being thoroughly annoyed by the huge crowds and long lines, I took the Ikea bus back to the Borough Hall stop.  

 

One thing that stuck out immediately was the Red Hook Added Value Community Farm that’s right across the street from Ikea.  When you walk out to take the bus, it’s right in front of you.

The Red Hook Community Farm has a farmer’s market on the weekends, and I hope that if you’re out at Ikea, you’ll stop by and support them and pick up some great local veggies. They employ local youth to grow the vegetables, teaching them basic farming techniques and giving them a sense of connectedness to the earth and to what they eat.  It’s the only local farm that uses underprivileged youth.

The farmer’s market is open on Saturdays(9-3) at The Red Hook Farm, Columbia and Beard Street and Thursdays (11-3) at 6 Wolcott (Intersection of Wolcott and Dwight.

Eat Cheap! Eat Local!

All Hail Restaurant Week!!!

My favorite week of the year is here.  You have to understand, I’m the kind of person who would rather run over sharp glass than buy a $100+ pair of jeans, but I’ve put down several times that for dinner.  Too many times. However, in the spirit of frugality that has whipped across Manhattan, I try to pull back.  (I also have a secret love for Grey’s Papaya and low brow food but I live in the UES where cheap good food is limited).  So restaurant week, here I come!

As soon as the announcement went out, I whipped open my laptop and was scouring the pages of Open Table like they were baseball stats.  The pickings are not as good as last year, I have to say.  Nobu is no where to be seen.  Many great spots are only offering lunch.  Hey, I thought restauranteurs were suffering too!  

I’ve decided to be a good person and stick with Donatella and Burke (for the food)  and Centovini (not for the food, just for a good place to munch before running amok). Limit. my. excessive. appetite.

There’s still some pickins to be had so check it out: NYC Restaurant Week

Composting in a tiny apartment

 

I would like to compost, I really would.  Even though I’ve tried to limit food waste as much as possible, it just seems that there’s always potato peels, squeezed oranges and the occasional bad tomato that I can’t use.  And I’m much less finicky than most people–I just cut the mold off cheese and fruit if it’s still edible.

Composting in NYC without a backyard is hard. If you compost properly, I know you don’t get a smell, but I’m not that talented.  My compost heap always smelt like a wet horse dung omelette.  I don’t have a place to garden anymore so I’ll have to give the compost away to the park or to a local garden. 

I saw this beautiful compost pail on the Guardian  and I think it’s the same one as this one on Amazon for $59.99.   It’s a bit pricey, but it might be a really nice  thing to do.  Think about how much you waste–as careful as I am, I throw out one plastic shopping bag full of organic garbage.  Remember, you’re also supposed to put in uncooked food (potato peels, not cooked potatoes) and  you won’t get pests.   

I wish they’d subsidize these things for whole apt buildings.  With the density of the human footprint in Manhattan, this could be great.

Pay $3mil+ to dodge bullets in NYC

NYMag has an interesting article on Ms. Suggs, who they finger as one of the reasons why Harlem has become completely unaffordable.

Like much of their recent work, this article lacks thorough logical analysis, but it’s a interesting character piece (those they seem to do fairly well).

Read on to see why a house in Harlem, bullet holes and all, is beyond your reach.

http://nymag.com/realestate/features/48328/

Invisible Middle Class in NYC

I ::heart:: NYC

I am not a pathological blogger, but I felt the need to write because I feel like there’s a group of us in this city of a million voices who no one ever talks about.  We read daily about the travails (sometimes comic) of the bright eyed young uns who apparently survive on beer and fruit from sidewalk stands.   We also consume the stories of the uber rich and uber famous who come to this city to die (models, film actors, you know who they are) or to raise real estate prices.  The middle class is a huge swath–I’m defining it in this town as two people, making $80,000 to $200,000 together.  You don’t pay $7,000 for an apartment in the village, but you aren’t exactly starving either.   I know these numbers are totally crazy for the rest of the country, but this is the city where no reasonable apartment without a collection of rats and assorted detritus goes for less than $1 million.  Craaa-a-a-zy.  

But the middle class is pretty quiet in this town, probably because they’re too busy working themselves to death. 

It’s also the case of envy silencing dissent.  You know what I mean–no one complains about how tight things are in this town, because they feel like it’s a moral failing.  Surrounded by our wonderful (but idiot) friends who seem to have stumbled into their mega million hedge fund job (this is gambling, right?), the middle class in this city wants to be invisible because the only time one’s existence should be noted is when you’re a stratospheric star.  The middle class feels dirty in this town, like they don’t belong. Like they can see the inevitable painful migration to Jersey out of the corner of their eye.

Doncha worry, folks! This is a forum for those who wanna get by in NYC, especially in the Upper East (the part of New York that everyone south of 59th street wishes would fall into the river).  Help is on the way.