Matt and I went to the Fairway in Red Hook yesterday for the first time. Dear lord, this is what a supermarket is supposed to be. It’s a gourmand’s wet dream. They have practically everything you want or need (well, except for the $18 pepper, I checked). Regular and organic and health foods in one building. It’s like a less pretentious, somewhat more middle class version of Whole Foods.

I only have four complaints. The first is that it’s designed as a maze: You are forced to walk through the entire store (like Stew Leonard’s, minus the animatronics), so it makes it really hard just to pop in and just buy some milk and bread. Secondly, you need a car to go there. The third is that the produce wasn’t as fresh as you’d think. Fourth, is that even despite the three previous qualms, Fairway is too awesome. Too awesome means that I will want to go there all the time to buy stuff that I don’t really need. Pretty soon I’ll end up like Jeffrey Steingarten or Hedonism-Bot (as seen above, being smothered in chocolate). I’ll be smacking my lips loudly and wheezing while I eat.

Anyway, here’s a brief list of awesomeness I found:

• Freshly made pumpkin gnocchi
• Two mega-lobster-saurus’ at $12/lb
• Organic hypo-allergenic free-range cruelty-free sustainable flax-based biodegradable condoms (okay, this one I made up)
• Foie gras
• Jiffy Pop
• Rick’s Picks
• About twenty different kinds of loose olives for $6/lb
• Eight or ten different Fairway brand olive oils that you could test out with baguette slices
• An entire skinned goat sitting in the butcher’s case - with the head still on
• And the thing-de-resistance:

Goose fat! For $9 a jar!

So I say fuck Whole Foods coming to Brooklyn. Fairway doesn’t need gimmicks like conveyer belt sushi and a “shower” in the cheese department.

Dine In Brooklyn (aka Brooklyn Restaurant Week) is going on right now and until the 30th of March. Three (or sometimes two) course prix fixe for lunch and/or dinner for $21.12.

The hot-spots seem to be: Bay Ridge, Carroll Gardens, Fort Greene and, of course, Park Slope (including Blue Ribbon).

Neighborhoods with only one participating restaurant: Canarsie, Bushwish, Columbia Waterfront (which is really just WeCaGa for you n00bz), Coney Island, Crown Heights, Ditmas Park, Flatbush, Greenpoint, Mill Basin and Windsor Terrace.

Matt and I are moving to Carroll Gardens in a couple of weeks and I was excited about the prospect of joining, despite the mixed reviews, the food co-op in Park Slope. I’ve been reading about CSA (community supported agriculture) on various food blogs and looked up to see if there was one in my future neighborhood and what it entailed. I thought that you actually had to go work in garden a la a John Steinbeck novel. And I pretty much stink at gardening. I can’t even get herb gardens in my kitchen going.

What I found: For $475* you get 24 weeks of fresh, locally grown organic vegetables. Or if you want, you can get a half share for $245. They also offer farm fresh, free-range, antibiotic and hormone free eggs, organic flowers and local farm (but not organic) fruit.

You just pay, show up to the designated location (i.e. Saturdays from 10am-12pm) and pick up your junk. You also have to volunteer for two pick-ups during the season. Which, for me, may be fun if I get to meet local gourmands I can invite over for dinner and then take advantage of them by having them Pokey-sit. Or, at the very least, get good stories about hippies acting all weird and preachy. Or challenge pale, weak yuppie men to fisticuffs for my own amusement.

Locations in the five boroughs and Long Island: http://www.justfood.org/csa/locations/

*Yes, it seems expensive, but it works out to be less than $20 a week - which is on par to how much I spend on vegetables anyway. And less than half of what I buy now is organic. Can you believe Whole Foods wants $4 for a bunch of celery?! The Park Slope csa is only $340. Upper West Side is $600 and also offer meat and raw milk.

Matt and I attended Split Thy Skull VIII at Mug’s Ale House in Williamburg this past Saturday. From 11am until close on Saturday and Sunday, they offered samplings of high alcohol beers (the lowest being 7% abv and the highest being 13.25%) for $3.50, 5 oz servings in little snifter glasses. We had attended their Belgium 2 Brooklyn beer fest in December, which I found more enjoyable because they had sour beers and I could drink a gallon of that stuff. At three pm, the bar was already three people deep. The good thing about it was that it was 90% beer nerds and beer nerds are very patient and there was not cutting or cursing or shoving that you get from regular booze hounds. There Matt’s coworker, Andy, met up with us.

We then sauntered over to Barcade, which is a green bar (solar powered). They have a nice selection of craft beers, a full bar and olde tyme video games. I suggested going there because I’ve been wanting to try the Dogfish Head vodka. Dogfish Head is an extreme American craft brewery that does crazy, delicious stuff like brew beers with a 20% abv or copy the recipe of the elixir found in King Midas’ tomb. And, apparently, they also distill their own liquor. Unfortunately, Barcade was out of it their vodka, so I decided to try their Jin, which was very herbally (pineapple mint, rosemary). It made an odd martini, but not unpleasant. And this is coming from someone who doesn’t drink gin. Now I’d like to ask a question for any bartender that may be reading: I’ve bartended before, but I find it odd how more often then not, when I order martini on the rocks the bartender mixes it in a shaker. Is this because of James Bond?

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Friday night some Chew Food contributors attended happy hour at The Brooklyn Brewery in Williamsburg. Matt is a huge beer nerd, so he was excited because it was the unveiling of Brooklyn Brewery’s new Brooklyn Local 1 (a bottle conditioned Belgian inspired beer).

At the Brewery, you buy beer tokens for $3 each or 7 for $20. The Brooklyn Local 1 was available with take-home glass (as pictured) for three tokens. Continue reading…