By Kevin Duggan 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 farflung
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 last week. The new lineup is promising
and a little overwhelming, but be
sure to grab a bite from these 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
“hand-rolled” 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.
COURIER L 60 IFE, APRIL 5-11, 2019 24-7
Flour power
Bushwick husband-and-wife bakers
Josh and Jess Pickens have raised the
bar for artisanal baking. They 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.
Torched treats
Fluffies offers incredibly thick soufflé
pancakes inspired by Japanese and
Southeast Asian desserts. The texture is
like biting into a cloud, and they come
in a stack of two, topped with whip
cream or served creme brûlée-style —
torched to order.
Fluffies $8–$10.
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. Free.
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. Free.
Smorgasburg X Vice Night Market at
Villain 307 Kent Ave. between S. Second
and S. Third streets in Williamsburg,
smorgxvice.squarespace.com. April 12
and 26, and May 10 and 31. 6 p.m.–
midnight. Free–$25.
Butoh by the beach: The Butoh Rockettes will join more
than 20 other live performance groups at the Ritual Cabaret
Festival on April 5–7 in Coney Island. Dylan Roth
TBy Colin Mixson hey’re creating
opening ceremonies
for the Coney
Island season.
An annual three-day
bonanza of all original
live performances will
return to the People’s
Playground on April 5,
inviting locals to experience
a broad array of
strange and stellar acts by
the seashore, according
to the event’s producer.
“We want the audience
to step into and engage
in a one-of-a-kind, offbeat
ceremony,” said
Gabriele Schafer.
The Coney Island
Ritual Cabaret Festival
will open on Friday night
with a ceremony on the
sand, featuring a champagne
toast and music
courtesy of the Funkrust
Brass Band. Ticket
holders will then join
a procession that leads
them into Coney Island
USA’s Sideshows by the
Seashore stage. What
follows will be a wide
variety of acts, including
burlesque, puppeteers,
sideshow performers,
musicians, magicians,
and exhibitions featuring
the obscure Japanese
dance form butoh.
The cabaret convention
began as the Coney
Island Butoh and Theater
Festival in 2016, celebrating
the strange and intentionally
ill-defined form
of movement that developed
in post-war Japan,
where the only constant
anybody can agree on
is change, according to
Schafer. She noted that,
in the spirit of butoh,
the event has evolved to
include a vast spectrum
of performance genres.
“Everybody agrees
that butoh is about transformation,
and this year’s
theme is specifically
transformation,” said
Schafer. “We’ve reached
out to all different types
of artists and genres, and
asking them ‘Is it possible
to invent a new genre?’ ”
Festival performers
may or may not reinvent
the wheel this weekend,
but they have each been
asked to bring an original,
15-minute-long act to
the event, ensuring viewers
an all-original treat of
seven shows each night,
Schafer said.
“We’re asking the
performers to deconstruct
what they normally
do, and to think ‘sacred
entertainment,’ ” said the
producer. “We don’t want
to see your normal act.”
Get your performance
art fix at Sideshows by
the Seashore 1208 Surf
Ave. at W. 12th Street
in Coney Island, coneyisland
usa.myshopify.
com. April 5 at 7:15 p.m.,
April 6 at 8 p.m., and
April 7 at 4 p.m. $15 ($35
all weekend).
Play ball: Former pro football player Derrell Smith (right), with Suleky Roman, returns to
Smorgasburg with Amazeballs, which offers classic meatball subs served with special sauces inspired
by his Nana. There is also a convincingly meaty tofu version for non-carnivores. Kevin Duggan
Healthy treat: Kombucha popsicles by the
Better Pop offer the probiotic benefits of the
fermented tea with fruity flavors, such as
this cherry sumac which has mild tart sweetness
to it. Kevin Duggan
The rites
of spring
FRESH MAKERS!
Smorgasburg returns with 24 new vendors
Annual ‘ritual cabaret’
fest returns to seashore
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