Thirty feet below street level, Benton Brown and Susan Boyle of Crown Finish Caves age their deliciously moldy wares in the lagering tunnels of a former brewery beneath the Monti Building in Crown Heights, where 26,000 pounds of cheese ripens to perfection in one of the facility’s 15-foot-high brick tunnels. This weekend Crown Finish is opening up one of the unused former brewery tunnels, seldom seen by the public, to host a cheese-and-wine tasting event to benefit the expansion efforts of Maple Street School, Prospect-Lefferts Gardens’ cooperative preschool (h/t DNAInfo).
food
Architecture, Design, Features, holidays
What could be better than real estate you can eat? Though these (mostly) edible homes are way too pretty to take a bite of, there’s just something about the idea of frosting on the roof…
Ahead, check out some of the sweet, scaled-down edifices we’ve scouted across the web and NYC, including a gingerbread version of the Hogwarts School, Frank Lloyd Wright’s iconic Fallingwater, and the Guggenheim, which, as they say, takes the cake!
City Living, maps
Though we often chalk American cuisine down to hamburgers and apple pie, in reality folks across the country indulge in foods far more diverse. Foursquare and Mapbox have created a new map that reveals what foods Americans are statistically eating more of in every state. To make the map, they used an algorithm that analyzed Foursquare’s data set of menus, tips, and ratings—which represent stats from some 55 million users and two million businesses worldwide over the span of six years—and zoomed in on the food and drink items that appeared to be “disproportionately popular” across the states. In addition to getting what was uniquely popular to each state, they were also able to use the algorithm to determine just how much more—represented as a percentage—individuals seek out that favored food or drink item as compared to the national average. So, what do New York inhabitants crave the most? Hint: It’s not pizza.
Brooklyn, Features, History
The story behind cheese-aging facility Crown Finish Caves in Crown Heights tells of an enormous amount of risk and dedication to making something on a small scale; to doing one thing well. It also once again stirs the hive of buzz around today’s Brooklyn. Article after article raises the idea that Brooklyn’s moment as the new hot spot for excellence in food, culture and authentic, hand-crafted goods, is in some quarters regarded as trite and trendy hype with little substance to it.
For some, the underground cheese caves are just one more example: Cheese caves. How Brooklyn. Thirty feet below street level, in the lagering tunnels of a former brewery beneath the Monti Building in Crown Heights, Benton Brown and Susan Boyle spent several years renovating and creating “Brooklyn’s premier cheese-aging facility” complete with state-of-the-art humidity control and cooling systems. The couple created the 70-foot space with advice from the world’s top cheese experts; Crown Finish Caves opened in 2014. On an article in Cheese Notes, a commenter raves: “If I were a mouse, I would move to Crown Heights.”
Daily Link Fix
- You never step foot in a fast food joint (right? RIGHT?!), but for those times when it’s an emergency and you need that greasy, fried goodness I Quant NY reported on the cleanest fast food chain in the city, so you can at least eat some grub that wasn’t dropped on the floor first.
- Continuing on our food journey, The Village Voice rounded up the 10 iconic New York foods and where to find them.
- Why aren’t the souvenirs from NYC as great as this cartoon tourist map tablecloth Scouting NY‘s aunt got in the 50s?! Check out the old Madison Square Garden building (closed in ’68).
- Ever wanted to see a brand, spankin’ new subway car before it becomes a hub of germs, dirt and mysterious stains? Business Insider gets an exclusive look at how and where they’re built. We wonder if it has that new (subway) car smell…
Images: Tourist tablecloth map by Nick Carr for Scouting NYC (L); Inside a new subway car by Christian Storm for Business Insider (R)
City Living, People
Having just returned to New York City from another extended stay in Italy, I’m often asked about how I ate during my trip. I’m happy to accommodate such requests since I’m what Italians call a “Buona Forchetta” or “Good Fork” — someone who loves and knows food. Talking about food is one of my favorite things to do; it’s up there with eating food. And my passionate and detailed conversations about the food I’ve recently eaten often segues into curious inquiries about my somewhat surprising physique.
Daily Link Fix
- Iron Man Suits Make A Debut In South Korean Shipyards: Super strength suits are no longer just for those Marvel films. New Scientist reports that engineers in South Korea have built an exoskeleton that shipyard workers can use to lift up to 66 pounds.
- Cycle While You Work: Because standing desks are boring and treadmill desks are an eyesore. FastCo.Design highlights WeWatt’s cycling desk that helps you stay fit, improves work ethic, and charges your smartphone!
- Yummy Cake…From A Spray Can: Solving the real problems of life, two Harvard students have created a sprayable, microwaveable cake batter for easy baking without the mess. One of the students revealed to the Washington Post that ultimately they want an “organic and kosher certified” product. We’re not exactly sure if you can get that from “food” in a can.
- No Longer Able To Keep Up With The Joneses: The hard truth is that poverty exists and is growing in the suburbs. Slate reports that high poverty started to become more concentrated in suburban neighborhoods since the early 2000s.
Images: Left – Cycling Desk from WeWatt’s Facebook page; right – Spray Cake courtesy of John McCallum and Brooke Nowakowski for the Washington Post
City Living, Downtown Brooklyn, People
One of the saddest things I heard in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 was told to me by the wife of an acquaintance. She said, with a smug sense of pride, that her family — in an act of patriotic protest to the recent attacks on America — would be ending their long-standing Thanksgiving tradition of serving assorted meat and vegetable pies from Damascus Bakery on Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn. It was a heartbreaking statement of staggering stupidity, offensive on so many levels, not the least of which was personal.
I lived next door to Damascus Bakery in my first Brooklyn apartment. This was before Barney’s, Urban Outfitters and Trader Joe’s arrived. It was when that section of Atlantic Avenue was overwhelmingly Arabic, and I frequented the eateries as often as I could, feasting on delicacies from the Middle East, learning some geography and culture and a little Arabic along the way. And, of course, I met many wonderful people, including the family who owned and operated Damascus Bakery.
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