(718) 260–2500 Brooklyn Paper’s essential guide to the Borough of Kings
April 5–11, 2019
Fresh makers!
Smorgasburg returns for the season with two dozen new vendors
19
DINING
CITI FIELD
DINING
MAY 18 & 19, 2019
theworldfare.nyc
TV
Hep new show
BOOKS
100+ Global CuIsines
International
Beer Garden
Music, Dance,
Art & More
By Kevin Duggan
Brooklyn Paper
Time to get your grub on!
Brooklyn’s most popular food market
will emerge from its winter cocoon
this weekend, bringing outdoor dishes of
probiotic popsicles, pizza cupcakes, and Afghan
comfort food to hungry Kings Countians
each weekend from April 6 through
October.
The ninth season of Smorgasburg will
feature two dozen exciting new vendors
slinging their grub at Williamsburg’s East
River State Park on Saturdays, and to Breeze
Hill in Prospect Park on Sundays.
In addition to its two Brooklyn park locations,
Smorgasburg will team up with Vice
to offer a “night market” at Williamsburg
venue Villain on alternate Friday nights,
starting on April 12, and some of its vendors
will join the Brooklyn Bridge Park summer
film series “Movies With a View” on Thursdays
during July and August. Smorgasburg
also has far-flung outposts in California,
Brazil, Japan, and even Manhattan.
This reporter ate his way through the 24
new vendors coming to the Brooklyn locations
this season, at a press preview event
on Thursday. The new lineup is promising
and a little overwhelming, but be sure
to grab a bite from at least one of the following
stalls:
Poppin’ off!
The Better Pop’s kombucha popsicles put
a healthy spin on the icy childhood treat.
The pops, which are made by freezing the
fermented Japanese tea and adding fruity
flavors, such as pina colada, cherry sumac,
and chili pineapple, have a patented hexagonal
shape that helps to avoid brain freeze
and makes them easier to share.
The refreshing desserts are a treat and
their probiotic properties are good for your
digestion, according to their creator.
“They’re not super sweet and they’re just
really good for you,” said Ruby Schechter.
$5 each. Saturdays only.
Takes the cake
Pizza cupcakes are the savory snack you
didn’t know you desperately needed in your
life. Creator Andrea Meggiato and his wife
Michelle were inspired by a visit to his native
Venice, Italy where small pizzas, or “pizzettas,”
are a common staple in local bakeries.
The couple have transformed the pizzetta,
giving it a soft texture like a doughnut, but
with the tangy cheese and marinara sauce
of a classic Italian pie. As Andrea puts it: “It
makes pizza portable.”
Two for $7, four for $12. Saturdays only.
Comfort food
Nansense offers an array of homey delights,
such as its chicken or potato kormas,
traditional mashawa soup, or mantu,
an Afghan take on steamed beef and onion
dumplings, served on a bed of garlic
yogurt and topped with a split-pea korma
and dry mint. Its creator, who won the
“Rookie of the Year” award at last year’s
Vendys, said his dishes go beyond the classic
kebabs often found at Afghan eateries
in the five boroughs and show New
Yorkers what many Afghans eat at home,
and how the hearty flavors give you the
strength for the day.
“It makes you feel like you can take on
the world,” said Mo Rahmati.
Dishes $6–$12.
On a roll!
10Below Ice Cream will bring its “handrolled”
twist on the ice cream float to the
outdoor markets. Treat maker Richard Tam
has a spectacular live preparation, which
involves spreading liquid cream on an icy
pan, scraping it into curls, arranging them
in a bowl, and thrusting an upturned glass
Coke bottle into the contents. The sugary
delight lets you lift the bottle to release more
soda into the sweet, creamy mix.
Ice cream float $9.
Flour power
Bushwick husband-and-wife bakers Josh
and Jess Pickens have raised the bar for artisanal
baking. As Millers and Makers, the
pair offer 100-percent whole grain products
made from flour they mill themselves.
Josh said that milling the flour fresh conveys
the earthy taste of each grain, much
like grinding your own coffee gives a superior
brew.
“Coffee used to be pre-ground and now it
has to be freshly ground for every espresso
and you taste that flavor,” he said.
They also have sweet treats, including
sweet potato cinnamon rolls and sublimely
soft rye chocolate chip cookies.
Cookie $4, cinnamon roll $6. Saturdays
only.
Reading picks
Word’s picks:
“City of Ghosts,”
by Victoria Schwab
Victoria Schwab has
yet again astonished
me with her writing. It
is amazing to see how effortlessly
she goes from
writing young-adult to
adult to — in this case
— a middle grade novel.
“City of Ghosts” is a super
quick and very enjoyable
read, full of history and ghost stories,
with likable characters and fantastic and
gripping storytelling.
— Eve Guerrero, Word 126 Franklin St. at
Milton Street in Greenpoint, (718) 383–0096,
www.wordbookstores.com .
Community
Bookstore’s
pick: “The Word
For Woman Is
Wilderness,” by Abi
Andrews
In this remarkable
debut novel, Andrews
winds her characters
through landscapes of
wilderness, from Greenland
to Alaska. Entangling
fiction, history, and
the poetic reverence of the best nature writing,
it is an urgent call — both a vital feminist
critique of the myth of the wildernessdwelling
wise-man hermit, from Thoreau
to John Muir to Ted Kaczynski; and a reclamation
of that project for a new pluralistic
generation of seekers.
— Samuel Partal, Community Bookstore 43
Seventh Ave. between Carroll Street and Garfield
Place in Park Slope, (718) 783–3075, www.
commu nityb ookst ore.net .
Greenlight
Bookstore’s pick:
“American Spy,” by
Lauren Wilkinson
Wilkinson’s debut
novel is a mixture of
historical fiction, family
drama, race politics,
and spy thriller. She does
not sacrifice one genre
for another, and they all
unfold with equal importance.
Written as a letter
to the narrator’s children, the novel is told
in a wonderfully intricate and intimate style. I
hope this book gets optioned into a film. Ruth
Negga for the lead!
— Dante Bostic, Greenlight Bookstore 686
Fulton St. between S. Elliott Place and S. Portland
Avenue in Fort Greene, (718) 246–0200,
www.greenlightbookstore.com .
Smorgasburg at East River State
Park (90 Kent Ave. at N. Seventh Street
in Williamsburg, www.smorgasburg.
com). Saturdays, 11 a.m.–6 p.m. April 6
through October.
Smorgasburg at Breeze Hill in Prospect
Park enter at Lincoln Road and
Ocean Avenue in Prospect Lefferts Gardens,
www.smorgasburg.com. Sundays,
11 a.m.–6 p.m. April 7 through October.
Smorgasburg X Vice Night Market at
Villain 307 Kent Ave. between S. Second
and S. Third streets in Williamsburg,
www.smorgxvice.squarespace.
com. April 12 and 26, and May 10 and
31. 6 p.m.–midnight.
By Natallie Rocha
Brooklyn Paper
He’s New York’s finest disc
jockey.
A police officer with Park
Slope’s 78th Precinct will spin some
tasty tunes at the neighborhood’s biggest
annual food festival. Visitors to
“A Taste of Fifth,” at Grand Prospect
Hall on April 10, will sample dishes
from more than 50 local eateries while
Lieutenant Acu Rhodes, also known
as DJ Ace, puts together a music mix
to make them bust a move.
Rhodes, a 22-year veteran of the
force, spends most of his evenings
leading the platoon assigned to Barclays
Center. But on his nights off, he
scratches old-school records at local
shindigs. As DJ Ace, he often wears
an official police department t-shirt
or jacket, making his sets into a kind
of community outreach.
“People think police officers are
robots and we’re not human,” Rhodes
said. “But when they see I actually
like music and I can do what I
do, it humanizes the idea of being a
police officer.”
The Bedford-Stuyvesant native has
been a fan of mixing music his whole
life, but he only went public with his
talents about five years ago, he said,
when others at the 78th precinct urged
him to enter a “cops versus kids” disk
jockey battle, and he has played regularly
since then. This will be his third
year spinning at the Taste of Fifth,
where he mixes together tracks old
and new, he said, playing whatever
will get the crowd moving.
In addition to music from DJ Ace,
the night will offer unlimited cocktails,
beer, and wine, and samples
from Fifth Avenue restaurants and
shops, including new spots Pizza
Secret, Lizzie Kings, and Amy Poehler
owned shop Zula Wines, serving
alongside veteran establishments Bogota
Latin Bistro, Nunu Chocolates,
Bricolage, and many others.
Rhodes said that his work at Barclays,
both as an officer and as an occasional
record scratcher, is especially
rewarding because it brings him in
touch with people from across New
York City.
“The Barclays Center brings the entire
city together for different events,”
he said. “I get a chance to meet and
talk to actual celebrities and celebrity
DJs, and they actually recognize
me and know who I am.”
A dish jockey
Offi cer spins at Fifth’s food fest
Party with the prez: Lieutenant
Rhodes (left), also known as DJ
Ace, poses with Borough President
Adams at last year’s “Taste
of Fifth” food festival.
Park Slope Fith Avenue BID
“A Taste of Fifth” at Grand Prospect
Hall 263 Prospect Ave. between
Fifth and Sixth avenues in
Park Slope, (718) 551–5545, www.
parkslopefifthavenuebid.com .
April 10; 6:30–9:30 p.m. $70 ($60
in advance).
Photos by Kevin Duggan
They’re broadcasting liver news!
The latest episode of a monthly medical television
show hopes to inform Brooklynites about
the viral liver infection hepatitis C. The show
Medcast Plus, part one of which is online now ,
and which will air its next full show on Brooklyn
Free Speech Channel on April 6, interviews
a different doctor in each 30-minute episode.
The show tackles
common medical
misconceptions
and distills
its information
into accessible
advice for the
public, according
to its host.
“It’s medical
information
given in normal
English,” said Helen Vays. “It helps people
not feel intimidated to ask simple questions
when they go see the doctors in person — it’s a
simple conversation.”
The guest in the upcoming episode is Dr.
Alexander Brun, a Downtown gastroenterologist
who specializes in the liver.
On the show, which taped on March 18,
he tackled some the medical myths about
hepatitis C.
Many people infected with hepatitis C many
not even realize that they have it, said Brun,
because they may not exhibit any symptoms,
or they might not know what the symptoms are.
On the show, produced by Brooklynite Greg
Romenski, Brun and Vays discuss the typical
signs of hepatitis — including joint pain, fever,
and vomiting, among several other possible
symptoms — along with how the disease
spreads, and treatment options. Brun will also
give tips on how to avoid hepatitis C and how
to help affected individuals.
The show’s host said that she is eager to spread
information on the dreaded disease.
“I’m looking forward to sharing the mysteries
behind hep C,” said Vays. “I love hosting this
show because it helps me and the public have
tangible tips and medical information.”
“Medcast Plus” airs on Brooklyn Free Speech
Channel 3 (Channel 79 on Spectrum, 9415 on
Dish, 348 on Direct TV, www.bricartsmedia.org/
tv-shows-videos/brooklyn-free-speech-tv). April
6 at 8:30 am and 2 pm. Free.
— Maya Harrison
Greg Romenski
Hungry?: (Clockwise from top left) 10Below
Ice Cream serve up Thai-style rolled ice cream.
La Tropikitchen will offer this vegetarian pineapple
tamale. Former pro football player Derrell
Smith (right), returns to Smorgasburg with
meatball sub spot Amazeballs. Nansense offers
an array of Afghan comfort foods. Millers
and Makers serves chocolate-chip cookies.
/
/www.commu
/www.commu
/www.greenlightbookstore.com
/www.smorgasburg
/www.smorgasburg.com
/www.smorgxvice.squarespace
/www.parkslopefifthavenuebid.com
/www.parkslopefifthavenuebid.com
/www.wordbookstores.com
/www.wordbookstores.com
/ore.net
/www.greenlightbookstore.com
/www.smorgasburg
/www.smorgasburg.com
/www.smorgxvice.squarespace
/parkslopefifthavenuebid.com
/