It’s going to be a scorcher this weekend! So grab your nalgene water bottle, your sunblock, and your market tote, and head straight out to these market events:
- Kidding Around: The Brooklyn Indie Market and The {NewNew} are teaming up for “Kidding Around,” another Sustainable Living event this Saturday. Bring your kids or come out and pick up some wonderful handmade clothing and toys for them, as well as some pretty baubles for yourself! Saturday, July 17, 11AM – 7PM under the red and white striped tent on Smith and Union Street, Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn
- Ft. Greene Artisan Market and Greenmarket: Spend Saturday in Ft. Greene Park, designed by Olmsted and Vaux and one of New York City’s fairly unsung green glories. Start off by strolling through the delightful Ft. Greene Artisan Market, featuring talented local artisans and designers, and then onto the Greenmarket right up the sidewalk. Pick up some cheese, bread, and a couple of perfect peaches, and head into the park for a picnic. (NB: Once you’re finished napping in the shade of a black walnut tree, the beloved Brooklyn Flea is a short walk from the park.)
- Summer Camp Craft Session with Etsy and The {NewNew} on Governor’s Island: Who says kids have all the fun? Join in on Governor’s Island this weekend for Summer Camp Craft Session and learn some crafty techniques from the experts of Etsy and The {NewNew} Artisan Group. After you’ve made something endearing for your mom at camp, swing by The {NewNew}’s pop-up shop on the island for something really great for yourself. With over 200 amazing and diverse artisan members, The {NewNew} is everywhere we want to be this summer! Craft Camp – Saturday, July 17, 2 – 5PM, Parade Grounds on Governor’s Island
- Go see the “New Lenses” Art Exhibit at the Fulton Stall Market: The weekly Fulton Stall Market at the Seaport commissioned six talented artists to create works specifically for the market. The works are hung each weekend behind the market vendors, making this already picturesque produce, food and craft market even more so. Saturday and Sunday, 11AM – 6PM on South Street between Fulton and Beekman
- Cold Summer Soups at Grand Army Plaza Greenmarket and the Park Slope Flea Market: The Grand Army Plaza Greenmarket holds delicious food demonstrations, as do many of the the greenmarkets around town. This weekend is no exception when Ronna from Park Slope’s Purple Kale will teach how to make delicious cold summer soups. Free samples for all! After you’ve filled your tote with produce, it’s a short walk over to the Park Slope Flea Market for some additional treasures to bring home. Food Demo – Saturday, 10am – noon. Flea Market – Saturdays and Sundays on 7th Avenue between 1st & 2nd Street at PS 321 in Brooklyn.
Here are some words of advice about market shopping in this week’s Time Out New York! Have a great weekend and don’t forget to put sunblock on your ears!
This Just In:
Lollibomb Beauty is a line of beauty products and a best girly girlfriend all rolled up into one great brand! Founder, owner, and maker of all things Lollibomb Luca Cusolito is committed to creating vegan, cruelty-free, and paraben-free products that you can dab, brush, spray, and slather on to make yourself feel, smell, and look beautiful.
Want to give a birthday treat to that special someone? Try the Birthday Cake Vegan Whipped Body Frosting. Maybe you’d like something a bit more earthy? Try the New Age Girl scent, an “amber, sandalwood, and patchouli mix with subtle hints of caramel and chocolate.” Something clean? The popular White Tea & Yuzu spray smells gorgeous. Lollibomb’s Snarky Soaps are great as gifts or to add zing to your own shower. Use “Wash the Hipster Off” soap as needed.
I first saw Lollibomb’s playful products at the Bust Craftaculars in New York, and Luca is a mainstay of the New Jersey artisan scene. One of the major benefits of buying directly from the maker is the opportunity to ask for custom items, and Luca is happy to whip up some custom soaps and product mixes that make wonderful gifts for your best girlfriends.
Find Lollibomb’s products at www.smellpretty.com or meet Luca in person this weekend at the Handmade Faire: Summer of Love this weekend in Medford, NJ.
The history of great ocean liners is fascinating to me, not to mention the connection some of them have to New York City. Pier 54 was supposed to be the landing dock for the Titanic, and instead the surviving passengers arrived in New York City aboard the Carpathia in 1912. The glorious SS Normandie, of the Compagnie Générale Transatlantique (CGT), met her untimely demise at Pier 88 after she caught fire in 1942. There is a very knowledgeable ship memorabilia collector and vendor on Saturdays at the Antiques Garage. Even the smallest items, like a cocktail pick from First Class on the Normandie (pictured) is brimming with history and meaning. You can also find menus, brochures, and other mementos from many historic ocean liners on these tables. You can ask anyone where to find this vendor, or cruise along the first floor’s eastern-most wall (closer to 6th Ave.) until you find the right port of call.
The Brooklyn Indie Market and The {NewNew} Etsy Artisans Group have teamed up this summer to bring us several special events focusing on sustainable living. The first one was “Handmade Hearth and Home” in June, featuring gorgeous handmade home decor items.
This weekend’s event is Kidding Around, focusing on handmade items for children. The participating artisans create a collection of handmade treasures that you just won’t find in a store. Here is a sampling of the kinds of wonderful things you will find this Saturday, from colorful soft toys and organic crib bedding, to all kinds of fun clothing and things to decorate your kid’s room:
Felt It – Eco-Felt Hand-Applique Items. The photo above is Felt It’s Matryoshka Doll tee and handmade soft felt balls.
Rosirouge - Handmade Children’s Clothes and Blankets
Over All Baby – Handmade Overalls for Infants and Toddlers
WoollyBoo – Handmade Organic Crib Bedding, Crib Sets, and Sleep Sacks
Purty Bird – Art and Decor Featuring Mostly Flowers and Several Monsters
Playground Rockstar – Great T-Shirts for Kids
They are also holding a book swap for children’s books! So bring the one’s you and your kids have already memorized, and take home some new ones.
Kidding Around – Saturday, July 17, 11AM – 7PM at the Brooklyn Indie Market on Smith and Union Streets in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn
Ronnybrook Farm Dairy brings delicious, fresh, organic dairy products to the markets of New York City. This family-owned farm was established in 1941 in the Hudson Valley, and today they are one of the premium organic dairy farms in the country. Ronnybrook uses no pesticides or hormones, and their dairy cows eat only organic feed and graze on pesticide-free pastures. So you can rest assured that the flavor of their products truly reflects their pure nutritional benefits.
I love their traditional glass milk bottles, most of which I do return for deposit, although I do keep some for fresh flowers on my table. In the interest of full disclosure, I am a chocoholic. So I can’t walk by the Ronnybrook Milk Bar in the Chelsea Market without yearning for a scoop of chocolate silk. Their chocolate milk does the trick as well, as is evident in this photo of some icy cold bottles at the Fulton Stall Market. When I’m cooking at home, nothing makes a homemade chocolate pudding like Ronnybrook’s full cream milk. I buy their butter and yogurts at the Greenmarkets, and their products are available at many fine food purveyors, including Murray’s Cheese.
Ronnybrook Farm is proof-positive that happy cows produce happy milk.
Looking for prints of ducks or quail to decorate your Hamptons library? Or Victorian images of palm trees to enhance the walls of your tiny apartment in the city? You need only go up to the second floor of the Antiques Garage to find multiple tables strewn with hundreds of old prints and books from Hobbit Rare Books and Prints. The subject matter is practically infinite, from birds and animals, to plants and palm trees, to architecture and history. Proprietor Arby Rolband is extremely knowledgeable about his collection, and he can help you find exactly what you seek. On occasion, he will bring a collection of rare artworks to the Garage, complete with history and provenance. He is also a font of stories about this particular market and the cast of characters that have wander through over the years.
Come and explore this wonderful antiques and flea market today — it is the perfect way to spend a rainy afternoon. I will be signing books here today from 12 -3 at West 25th Street between Broadway and 6th Ave.
GrowNYC invited me to come to their Greenmarkets this summer for Markets of New York City book signings. I was thrilled to go to Washington Heights today for our first event.
This market is held on Thursdays at 175th Street and Broadway, and it is one of my favorite markets in the city. Why do I like it so much? In addition to the smell of cilantro, which brings back childhood memories of markets in Mexico, and a great selection of produce – and it’s a straight shot on the A train – the real draw for me is the kids. In the summertime, the neighborhood kids come out, mostly with their moms. They come in all ages and sizes, and they’re just fun to see. A whole bunch of them stopped by to say hello today, and they drew some great pictures for me of their favorite things at the market, mostly watermelons, peaches, and grapes. There were not a lot of veggies on the kids’ lists of favorites; some things are universal.
It is my personal aim with the guidebook and the blog is to entice New Yorkers to visit markets outside of their own neighborhoods and to invite visitors to pick a market and see a neighborhood they might not normally think to visit. Washington Heights has the wonderful Greenmarket that caters to the Caribbean culture and flavors of the neighborhood, with piles of cilantro, berdolaga, peppers and more. There are some excellent restaurants right across the street from the market. The food is delicious: juicy roasted chicken, sweet and fried plantains, fried yuca, rice and beans, and much more. We have leftovers for two days whenever we eat at any of these places.
My “Summer at the Markets” book tour started today, and I’ll be a different markets almost every weekend into September. This Saturday I’ll be at the Antiques Garage, and Sunday at the Fulton Stall Market! Check the Book Signings Around Town page for regular updates!
It’s 98°F outside today, and I am dreaming about ice cream! I had my first taste of Blue Marble Ice Cream at the Brooklyn Flea, and I knew I had to include them as on of the wonderful and innovative food vendors in Markets of New York City. Blue Marble has really hit a sweet spot in New York City’s palate with their small batch artisanal ice cream made on a farm in the Hudson Valley from organic, grass-fed dairy and certified organic sugar. This attention to the fundamental goodness in their ingredients and ice cream making is what makes Blue Marble’s ice cream taste so delicious, even when it’s not blistering hot outside.
I am particularly intrigued by the efforts of the two founders of Blue Marble to make a difference in the world with their non-profit venture, “Blue Marble Dreams.” They recently opened up the very first ice cream parlor, “Inzozi Nziza,” or “Sweet Dreams,” in Butare, South Rwanda! This project provides professional skills training and employment for local women in a country that still suffers from the aftermath of a particularly brutal civil war. I spent some time working with local communities in Africa myself, and I have to say that this project is so important and significant for the women involved because it gives them real economic opportunities, not to mention the opportunity to scoop out a bit of happiness for a community that really needs it. (See the whole story on CNN.)
Blue Marble has two ice cream shops in Boerum Hill and Prospect Heights, and one in Butare, Rwanda. You can find them at both Brooklyn Flea locations every weekend. This summer, they are also one of the fabulous Brooklyn Flea food vendors at Summer Stage in Central Park.
This Sunday is Summerware: Ceramics in Brooklyn! This inaugural event “brings together the New York community of clay artist, potters and progressive ceramic designers.” Some of my favorite ceramics artists will be there, including Michiko Shimada, who creates fine, lovely, and unusual pieces in her Brooklyn studio. I first saw her distinct designs at a Homemade Brooklyn pop-up shop, and then again at the Renegade Craft Fair in McCarran Park. This Sunday, you can find her at the Makers Market at the Old American Can Factory.
Michiko’s tiny stump card holder is a sweet conversation piece, and this Humpty Dumpty is the perfect adornment for every bookshelf. Her Vita collection of vases is more abstract, representing both the curves of the body and its internal forms. Michiko will be on hand to talk with you about her work this Sunday. For a preview, visit her lovely Etsy shop.
Summerware: Ceramics in Brooklyn at the Makers Market at the Old American Can Factory, Sunday July 11, 11AM – 5PM
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