Brooklyn Brokavore

As I’ve mentioned before, one of our motivations for finally starting this blog (after talking about doing it for months), was to join Adrianne’s Yo la Tengo Late Summer Blog Challenge.  The challenge is quite simple: you blog every day for the month of September. You get one mulligan for your first missed post, and if you miss another one after that, you are listed as “out” on her page and, presumably, destined to live out the rest of your days in shame.

We would have made it all the way through September without missing a single post, were it not for beguiling sirens of Craft Beer Week luring us away from our blog duties last night.  I would apologize, but, after all, we are only human.  When you offer us excellent beers at highly discounted prices, do we not hit that shit up?  (Answer: we do).

One of my favorite things since moving to the city has been NYC Craft Beer Week, which I’ve enjoyed since it kicked off in 2008. Some background for the uninitiated: The first year was a little rocky, with neighborhood bar crawls that you could buy a passport to which would be valid for one night. My sister, her boyfriend, and I did the one in downtown Brooklyn - which actually included bars deep in Carrol Gardens, a bit of a hike from our point of origin, but we had fun. Last year, they changed the logistics so that there was one passport everyone could buy for the week, which you could use at participating bars all across the city (typically for a $2 pint, or two $1 8 oz pours, of something good and local). The passport also included maps broken down by neighborhoods so that you could plot out a bunch of different bars in one night. I don’t have our passports anymore, but I think all told we hit clear over two dozen bars with our passports, which more than made up for the price, as my sister had a Craft Beer Week connection who got us the passports at a discount.

This year we have been lamentably lax. Craft Beer Week kicked off last Friday, and while we’ve been around the city we haven’t even bought passports yet. This is partly because we’re living a bit more frugally now, and partly that my sister once again has a discount but wasn’t getting the passports until the middle of the week. They’ve also once again tinkered with the format, so that the once pricey passports ($35 last year) sell for $10, but beers cost $3 instead of $2. So we’re not as worried to lose out on the smaller discount, and hopefully we’ll be making up for lost ground this weekend. But tomorrow night we’re finally kicking it off, and we’ll finally be able to taste this monstrosity (described here):

Brewed by Shmaltz Brewing, Captain Lawrence Brewing, and Ithaca Beer Co., Geektoberfest will feature a specific beer from each brewery to be blended and barrel-aged in whiskey barrels. All of the beers are originally brewed in the state of New York, and Geektoberfest will only be available on draft during NY Craft Beer Week. The beer represents each brewery and the folks at NY Craft Beer Week’s exuberant appreciation of the mecca they call home, New York.

I can’t wait!

A propos of yesterday’s unhinged screed about meat-eating, today via Practical Ethics I see Jeff McMahan has a piece at The Stone about the ethics of carnivores - only McMahan isn’t just talking about humans. In his imaginative piece, he explores the idea that the suffering caused by one animal preying on another isn’t something that we have reason to prevent, if we can do so without creating other negative consequences that outweigh the relative good. Although it comes up quite a bit, McMahan isn’t so interested in the question whether we ought not to cause animals harm by eating them ourselves, rather taking for granted that we should aim to avoid that suffering.

McMahan acknowledges both that the position he takes is heretical, and anyway that genetically engineering vegetarian tigers is implausible. He does note that this would have a practical upshot if, as is the case, we are reducing the number of species and may have some choice in which ones we choose to preserve (i.e., herbivores v. carnivores). But by and large we already see this playing out, again and again, in favor of herbivores, and then we’re left with the situation (which McMahan, again, does point out) of herbivores without natural predators dying of starvation (deer in the Northeast United States where I’m writing, but repeated again with regional variations around the world). This leads me to wonder whether there’s more to be said for the “against Nature” objection McMahan considers and rejects. In its simplistic form it assumes the way things are in Nature so valuable as to leave the suffering of animals not worth our consideration. I think McMahan’s right to press this point, and it raises some questions he doesn’t even get the chance to explore. For example, people of the ethical vegetarian camp are often inclined to talk about the unnatural conditions of the feedlot and slaughterhouse, but are natural conditions to be favored? What if we found that animals who are prey spend their lives in nature stressed out from the frequent threat of being caught and killed?

Ultimately, I’m also skeptical that there’s something inherently wrong with eating another animal. It’s not that I’m firmly opposed to the idea that there is. I’m just not ready to set my flag in any camp right now. But I’m happy to see someone like McMahan boldly venturing out into the ethical landscape, and forcing us to consider difficult questions.

X-posted at tonguebutnodoor

Since Caroline wrote on biking yesterday, I thought I would share some of my many thoughts on the topic. A week ago, Caroline directed me to our neighborhood bike store’s stolen bike registry, which they began after suffering a massive theft of 18 customer bikes from their basement.

I confess that I feel a bit bad reacting so strongly to property crime, but reading over the stories of the people on the stolen bike registry makes me feel a potent mix of anger, fear, and panic. The last two justifiable, I think, since many of these thefts take place not that far from where Caroline and I live, and using not obviously worse methods of protection. (I’m not going to detail how we secure our bikes out of the clearly paranoid delusion that bike thieves might be trolling the internet looking for possible scores.) My anger I’m slightly less comfortable with, and I’ve been rationalizing to myself in a number of ways. For starters, it’s definitely true for me (as it is to a number of the victims in that thread) that I bike most places I go because, while I do enjoy it immensely, I couldn’t afford the expense of regular transit fares. So suddenly having to replace my primary means of transportation would be crippling. And that’s the thing about these stories: many of the bikes being lifted are commuter bikes, not high-end (although some not cheap), but clearly not leisure rides. I know this one of the naïve ways in which I experience the world, but I’m constantly shocked that someone would’t consider the simple act of taking a bike from the perspective of the person it affects.

In any event, so as not to have this post be purely about fear, panic, and anger, I’ll also share this helpful review of bike locks based on their ability to withstand typical attempts at theft. I think my particular selection of lock has contributed somewhat to my ability to hold onto my bike, in spite of leaving it in many a public place (albeit with my front wheel removed and chained to the frame in the paranoid manner in which I now live).

Not surprising: I’m riding my bike down my block in the afternoon, taking a right on Lincoln.  A group of my neighbors on Franklin Avenue are hanging out on the corner, one of them, an old-ish man leaning on his bike.  As I round the corner, he starts to balance himself on his bike, lifting off from the curb.  I brake and let him go ahead of me.  He slows down to ride at my level, asking me, “do you run with that bike?” 

I nod, whatever. 

Surprising: He persists: “I’m talking to YOU, little girl, YOU! on that zippy new bike of yours.  Wanna run?”  I am confused; what does he want? 

“You’re just going to let an old man beat you when you’ve got that fast bike?” 

I finally get it.  I am being challenged to a street bike race.  A bike race with this old man on his old bike. I look ahead, realize that traffic is clear from us to the light at the end of the block, and nod.

I start riding faster, but he’s ahead of me, taunting me.  “C’mon!  This is the best you can do, little girl?  You’re gonna let an old man beat you like this?”

The challenge is effective, and I start pedaling harder.  He’s still ahead of me, but I’m catching up.  All the while, he keeps trash talking me, making fun of me, my slowness, my fancy bike.

Pedaling at full strength, bright red in the face, I finally pull even, then ahead.

“All right.  Ya got me,” he conceded as he braked to turn around and head back to his corner back on Franklin Avenue.

I guess he had just been waiting at that corner?  Waiting for someone to challenge to a race, I guess. 

Now, I should set the record straight, I fancy myself a responsible bike rider, not the type of person to engage in impromptu bike races.  But even now, as I question whether that actually happened, that intense minute where I actually really exerted myself, and why on earth I agreed to race this man, I know the story that came out of it was worth the risk.

A frequent point of discussion in our apartment is the energy cost of different ways of doing things and what the effort is usually worth. In case you can’t guess, this normally plays out with me having some opinion on to be most efficient, and Caroline pressing me to actually think through whether my way of doing things will have any effect.

So imagine my delight when I read this post on Practical Ethics about numeracy versus feel-good in home energy savings. The post focuses on a study of perceptions of energy savings, also covered by a NYTimes blog last month. The study reveals that most people tend to overvalue small efforts to conserve energy just by doing something less, like turning off the lights when not in use (they suggest this as analogous to money, in that people save just by spending less). But perhaps the more upsetting thing is that people who view themselves as engaging in more energy-saving measures had less accurate perceptions about the actual impact of their actions. (Although the Times post also says that the gap narrows amongst those self-identify as environmentalists. Not having read the study closely I don’t know for sure how these two groups correlate.)

This study is of particular interest to me because I’m a paradigm “little savings” person trying to foster all the different environmentally conscious behaviors I can. And of course the take-away lesson is that these aren’t where the big savings are to be had. However, in our current position, it’s not clear what more we could be doing. Biking and walking more are identified as less effective steps when compared to getting a more fuel-efficient car, but since neither Caroline nor I owns a car it doesn’t really apply. I assume the rationale there is that even if you start walking on short trips, you’ll still be using your car for longer drives and that’s where you burn a lot of gas. Another example is line-drying clothes, which is overshadowed by changing the settings on the washer or getting more efficient appliances. As far as appliances, we’re pretty much at the mercy of our local laundromats, although the one downstairs just got a fleet of brand new machines that I assume are a step up in terms of energy use compared to the relics that used to populate the store.

Obviously, no one is arguing that you should wantonly leave the lights on 24/7 because it doesn’t matter. But the point made by Practical Ethics, which I take to heart, is that the “feel-good” action should not be made a substitute for real solutions. It’s all too easy to pat yourself on the back for remembering to unplug your cell phone charger while ignoring all the other ways you could make more dramatic cuts in your energy consumption. And if there’s one thing I’m willing to do it’s do the research and find out what is actually effective. (To their credit, ConEd runs a “Power of Green” campaign with subway ads with energy savings facts, and the website is even more comprehensive.) Learning how best to be energy efficient should be a priority in saving energy, and I’m glad I have Caroline pushing me to keep it that way.

This evening I watched a tornado* pass by my window in Brooklyn.  Within an hour, a tornado severely damaged my hometown of Athens, Ohio, including my high school.

As Kate said at dinner, “I think it’s pretty clear that god is out to get you.”

*still haven’t confirmed it was an actual tornado, regardless: someone died and there are lots of trees everywhere.  EDIT:  the National Weather Service confirmed there were 2 tornadoes, one of which blazed straight through Brooklyn.

Three years after moving to this city, I changed my voter registration from Ohio to New York.  I had stayed registered in Ohio while in law school so I could vote for Obama in a state where I knew it was going to be close, and also so I could serve as a polling place legal observer for the campaign in a state where there had been many alleged shenanigans in the 2004 Presidential election.

Today was my first time voting in New York, in the Democratic Primary where, as it turns out, there were only 3 contested races: Attorney General, US Senate, and district leader, an unpaid non-governmental representative from my Assembly district to the State Democratic Party.  Not exactly the most compelling election, especially as Gillibrand has the Senate nomination locked up, but I still felt pressured to pick the right candidate, perhaps still feeling the sting from voting for Edwards for the Democratic ticket back in 2004.

Back in Ohio, I never had to spend much time thinking about who to vote for.  Because I had volunteered for campaigns since high school and my mom is active in a number of community organizations (not to mention that I’m from a small town/rural area), I usually knew all the candidates.  Some, like Ted Strickland (now Governor, used to be our Congressman) had eaten dinner at my parents’ house, while I knew others from campaigns or around town.  For those I didn’t know, I often knew their kids from school, and judged them based on whether or not their kids were assholes.  I knew all the candidates, knew their history, and had opinions on them.  As a result, voting was quite simple.

Here, however, I had to actually research who to vote for, particularly in the Attorney General race, as I knew very little about the 5 or so candidates running.  Trying to differentiate the candidates a bit, I made my first visit to a candidate’s web site and discovered, well, that visiting a candidate’s web site is a waste of time.  I read newspaper endorsements, but realized that I don’t really trust the media anyway to present the full story.  Looking at NARAL ratings was no help as all the AG candidates earned perfect abortion scores, and really, they’re all quite similar on the issues: ethics reform in Albany, opposition to harsh drug sentences, etc.  Doing some reviews of news coverage I learned that Richard Brodsky is a big opponent of congestion pricing but has the endorsement of Pete Seeger (Pete Seeger!), Kathleen Rice didn’t vote until her 30s, Eric Dinallo was endorsed by the Daily News (enough of a reason not to vote for someone) but is a fellow NYU Law graduate,  and that Sean Coffey is some trial lawyer guy.  It was all confusing and I really didn’t know who the right person was to vote for, but ultimately went with Scheiderman, reasoning that he seemed unobjectionable and likely to win.

That there would be a controversy in the district leader race was a surprise, especially since this one involved a sex tape and accusations of menacing, threatening behavior on the part of the candidate without the sex tape, against the candidate with the sex tape.  Though I was initially in favor of the one with the sex tape, after reading over the whole article, I decided that both women sounded nuts, and instead opted to write-in a vote for Ramona, our cat.  At the last minute, though, I decided that my cute write-in would be that much extra work for whichever guy who has to sit there and type in all the write-in names, so ultimately opted to leave that one blank.

In conclusion, democracy: it’s hard!

Ah fall.  The time when Things Must Taste Like Pumpkin.  Pumpkin pie, pumpkin soup, and, most importantly, pumpkin beer.

In order to get a head up on the upcoming Fall and choose our official Fall 2010 Pumpkin Beer, we decided to do a bit of a taste test, coming home from the Coop with six pumpkin brews, splitting one 12-ounce bottle each for healthy 6-ounce pours. Because, it’s not just spending the evening splitting a sixer with your live-in partner when you’re doing it for science!

We kept notes while tasting, which we’ll share with you now. For your benefit, here are the results:

1.  Will Stevens Pumpkin Ale, ? ABV ($1.46)

Wolaver’s/Otter Creek Brewing Company Vermont

Caroline:  First impression:  cloyingly sweet.  Second impression: OK I get the crispness but I’m still not feeling the pumpkiness.  I almost taste coffee.  But mostly, I can close my eyes and feel like I’m drinking frat party beer.  Also, Anthony just said “mouthfeel.”

 Grade: C+

 Anthony: Light and crisp, pumpkin taste is present, but almost as a bitter pumpkin-y aftertaste.
It tastes a bit like they tried to bring out a cinnamon flavor for the pumpkin pie effect, but couldn’t pull it off.
Mouthfeel is nothing special; a bit watery. On further tasting, I still don’t get anything like the sweetness Caroline complained of at first. It actually tastes like a reasonably smooth-drinking ale, not very heavy, with a subtle pumpkin taste, and then with a jarring bitterness from nowhere. My guess here is that either the pumpkin or one of the spices produced that taste when added to the brew. 

Grade: B-

2. Buffalo Bill’s Pumpkin Ale, 5.2% ABV ($1.41)

Buffalo Bill’s Brewery, California

Caroline: “oooh!  I like this one. Pumpkiny AND delicious!”  The “mouthfeel” (heh) is pleasantly thick and creamy on my tongue.  (also, heh).  Not too bitter or too sweet.  Also it’s a pretty color.  But I don’t think I could drink more than a half a bottle of this.  it is intense.

Grade: B+

Anthony: I’ve gotta say, this does have an impressive first taste that truly smacks of baked pumpkin flesh. smells vaguely of pie.
It baffles me what the people of Seattle would really know about pumpkin, but this is definitely a solid effort. The Wolaver’s I found increasingly bitter with more sips, to the point where I was overwhelmed. Also, on further tasting a subtle bubblegum taste (actually quite nice!).
This beer had an impressive first taste, but after 1/4 pint I feel like the pumpkin punch wore off. This is the beer I would say came of tasting like an underwhelming ale.

Grade: B

3.  Post Road Pumpkin, 5.0% ABV ($1.41)

Brooklyn Brewery, Utica, NY

Caroline:  It’s got a more subtle pumpkin taste, perhaps also an almondy character?  More sophisticated than the ones we’ve had so far, which seemed to be going more for the overpowering sweet pumpkiny flavor.  This is more like pumpkin….after hours.  So far this is the one I could drink for the longest.  I would even go for a second round with this one! 

Grade: A-

Anthony: Hmmm this smells different! Definitely a different pumpkin aroma than Buffalo Bill’s. This beer had a nice bold first sip that I liked quite a bit. Though I did get a hint of that bitterness like the Wolaver’s. Definitely a nutty flavor, moreso than the distinctly squashy flavor of the last one.
Again I’d have to say that the bitterness grows more noticeable with time (is this just the tragic flaw of pumpkin beer?). But unlike the Wolaver’s this beer still remains not just drinkable, but enjoyable.

Grade: B+

4.  Imperial Pumpkin Ale, 8.0% ABV ($2.62)

Weyerbacher Brewing Company, Pennsylvania

Caroline: smells like “ “autumn harvest” scented potpourri.  it’s like they put apple cider seasonings in a beer!  Noticing that same bubblegum flavor Ant picked up in the Buffalo Bill’s.  But not so much of the pumpkin taste. I’m not sure if I love this, it’s almost like it’s trying too hard. 

Grade: B

Anthony: Dang, but that has a spice kick like nobody’s business. Rich and full flavor. If anything, a bit light on the pumpkin and big on the spices, but pretty tasty. Reminiscent of what i remember the harpoon Winter Warmer tasting like, although I imagine side by side this would come out stronger in flavor than the harpoon. I notice that the bottle lists the spices used (unlike most of the pumpkin ales, which go for the generic “with pumpkin and spices”) and includes not the typical cinnamon/nutmeg/clove trifecta of pumpkin pie spice but also cardamom. Cardamom is one of my favorite spices but i’m not getting any real hint of it in this beer.

Ramona:  mnnnnnnnnnnnk (that would be out cat Ramona, as she hopped up on the laptop to share her thoughts on the beer).
Grade: mnnnnnnnnnnnk (A-)

5.  Arcadia Jaw-Jacker, 6.0% ($1.59)

Arcadia Brewing Company, Michigan

Caroline: Stupid name.  More pumpkin-y than Weyerbacher or Wolaver’s.  Also, it has a cinammony aftertaste!

Grade: B

Anthony: Darker color than any of the beers so far (even the Weyerbacher), just as a first impression. Definitely less spice-punch than Weyerbacher, but it’s also a challenge to detect the flavor after having my tastebuds assaulted. I’m actually liking it fairly well. NOTE: not actually a pumpkin beer, although for just a ‘pumpkin spice’ beer it does a decent job of faking it. Probably a step above Wolaver’s.

Grade: B?

6. Fisherman’s Pumpkin Stout, 6.75% ABV ($1.66)

Cape Ann Brewing Company, Massachusetts

Caroline:  I don’t usually care for stouts that much but I do like this one! I taste a very subtle hint of pumpkin but appreciate that this one manages pumpkiny without the cloying sweetness.

In other news, I am really fucking sick of drinking pumpkin beer.  How many more months of this?

Grade: Really fucking sick of pumpkin beer.

Anthony: Nice, smooth toasted malt taste. Kinda masks any pumpkin or spices that might be lurking underneath. Definitely a refreshing break from the weyerbacher and the arcadia, both of which had a much thicker feel. The stout is lighter (as per usual) but not terribly pumpkin-y.

Grade: B+

Conclusions: Caroline and I differ in our tastes, but there are some takeaway lessons for most anyone interested in pumpkin beer. For one thing, avoid Wolaver’s weak attempt. If you’re looking for a nice pumpkin taste in a beer you could have 2-3 of, Post Road is not a bad bet. For my money, the best out there are the serious ales like Weyerbacher’s Imperial that combine a big pumpkin taste with a considerable alcohol punch (not reviewed here is Southern Tier’s Pumpking, which they also sell at our Coop, ad is widely held to be one of the best pumpkin beers out there). And I’m also partial to the subtler taste of Fisherman’s Stout, but that might not be to everyone’s taste. It all depends what you’re in the market for.

You know what makes you look really cool?  Riding the subway into Manhattan during morning rush hour carrying a tent, a sleeping bag,* and a six pack of beer.**  This is all so we can jet out of town on MegaBus direct from our respective workplaces and head down to DC for a weekend of camping and tubing with some good friends in the Shenandoah River Valley. 

I made up all kinds of witty things to say if asked why I was carrying camping supplies, but nobody asked.

—-

*Thanks, Meg and Gary, for the loans!

**The planners of the camping trip promised Miller Light, Bud Light, and Coors Light, so we decided we had to bring our own supply of Sly Fox IPA.  Your work friends are going to love us, Emily! 

But seriously, if you’re going to get the crappiest beer possible, why get three different varieties?

This summer, after Caroline and I had moved into our apartment, painted, decorated, and generally made it ours, we decided to open it to the world. However, we had more in mind than just the handful of our friends who could be convinced to ride out to our neck of Brooklyn to share some beers outside our back window. Even before we were settled in, we created an account on CouchSurfing and began anticipating the day we’d start hosting. Finally, after a little over a month, we took the plunge.

For those not in the know, CouchSurfing is a social networking website that doubles as a kind of social experiment. The idea is to create a community of travelers, any of whom can ask for a place to crash for a night or two while abroad. The only thing you have to offer in return is to register with the site, thus inviting requests from other couchsurfers when they happen to pass through your hometown. (Unlike, say, AirBnB, a similar site on which people post rooms to rent in their apartments on the cheap. The Frugal Traveler compared the two in his write-up of a stay in an AirBnB room in Williamsburg.)

Obviously, being in New York we have found ourselves mostly on the receiving end of travelers, but we knew that going in. Being broke, this summer was going to be one mostly homebound, so we figured we might as well bring the traveling to us. Having someone come stay in your spare bedroom may not be as exciting as flying to new places, but so much of the fun of traveling is in the people you meet along the way. And even in our short time hosting, we’ve met our share. The tally to date is: 2 Germans, 2 Finns, 2 Americans, 1 Hun, 1 Austrian, 1 Dane, and 1 Frenchman (and we have 3 more coming this week!). In that time, we’ve gotten gifts of beer, wine, one beautiful handmade ceramic cup, and shared numerous meals and walks around our neighborhood as we introduced our guests to New York the way we live it.

I don’t speak for Caroline here, but my favorite part of going to other places is seeing how people live: staying in apartment rentals, going to the grocery store, wandering areas outside of the tourist strip. So for me a travel option where you actually go and live with someone sounds wonderful to me. Combine that with the fact that you don’t pay for lodging and it can’t be beat. There are some obvious potential downsides: our most recent guests we agreed to host because they sent us a desperate message after one of their hosts in the City fell through and they had to spend a night napping in a McDonald’s. But that two hapless travelers could come to NYC and scramble to find lodging suggests that, whatever its faults, the experiment has something to it.

It seemed like a perfect way to spend a stunningly beautiful Labor Day weekend Sunday: along with some friends, Ant and I were going to ride our bikes out to the Governors Island ferry to attend Parked, a gourmet food truck event hosted by BKLYN Yard, the same people who used to have those cool DJ events over by the Gowanus Canal.  They promised access to beloved NYC food trucks from the Red Hook Lobster Pound to Rickshaw Dumplings.  Cheap food in a free, beautiful island park with some good friends, what could be better?

It was a horrible idea.  We should have known this was a fool’s errand when the line for the (free) Governors Island ferry leaving from the Brooklyn Bridge Park spread 1/4 of a mile beyond the terminal.  In the past I have never had to wait longer than 15 minutes to get on a ferry; today it took 45.  Trying to maintain upbeat, I remarked, “well, we don’t know that they’re all trying to go to the food trucks.” 

After all, there were other arts events on the island today, and Governors Island is a popular destination even when there isn’t anything going on: there’s free bike rentals, miles of trails, and plenty of scenic vistas of the harbor, Manhattan, Brooklyn, Staten Island, Jersey, and the Statue of Liberty.  I’ve been there myself plenty of times for picnics and shows.  Thus, as I walked my bike off the ferry landing on the island and walked towards the events, I still thought it possible that Parked wouldn’t be too overcrowded.

But, no.  Approaching the event, we quickly realized that we had made a huge mistake: the place was absolutely fucking packed, with hundreds of people lined up at each of the food carts.  At first I thought that maybe the long lines were for the more popular vans, but soon realized that the entire field was filled to capacity with hungry, annoyed people waiting in lines.  Walking up to the front of the lines, it became clear that many of the vendors had run out of food (and this was only an hour into the event).  Exasperatingly, many of the trucks only had one or two people working them.

Realizing that finding food at Parked was impossible, we headed down, begrudgingly, to the Water Taxi Beach to eat some not-nearly-as-cool standard park concessions fare.  Unfortunately we were joined by hordes of hungry fellow Parked refugees, resulting in a 45-minute wait for french fries.  At least they had decent beer on tap and we got to enjoy an amazing view (photo via Erik):

So, it could have been worse, all in all. 

As happens all too often in New York, when there’s something cool and cheap to do, everyone else wants to do it too.  At well-organized free events like the Brooklyn Bridge Park Movies With a View series or Celebrate Brooklyn, the crowds are handled in a way that everyone can have an enjoyable time despite the presence of tens of thousands of fellow New Yorkers.  However, more poorly thought-out events by smaller groups like BKLYN Yard can easily turn into a grumpy mob shitshow, especially when you have a large group stuck on an island with no food.

Ultimately, the downside of free in NYC is that sometimes events like this happen.  Regardless, I’ll take the disappointment of the occasional bust like today along with the amazing free events I’ve had an awesome time at this summer: Dan Deacon at the Red Hook Park, Cut Copy at the Jelly Pool Party, Metric and Sharon Jones at Celebrate Brooklyn, and Annie Hall, the Big Lebowski, Rear Window, and Some Like it Hot at the Brooklyn Bridge Park.

Caroline shared her thoughts on why this blog but I wanted to share my own perspective on why this particular blog.

While we’re somewhat late to the locavore party, but we thought we could add our somewhat unique spin to it by focusing on the endeavor to green your lifestyle 1) in a city and 2) on a budget. There’s more to this than the fact that we’re both poor at the moment and enjoy tasty food. As Caroline frequently points out to me (and will no doubt soon be ranting about in the annals of this blog), she comes from a part of the country where ‘local food’ culture means her mom getting eggs from her neighbors, or enjoying the bounty of their small plot of farmland in rural Appalachia. From that perspective, food politics in New York (and I assume other urban areas on the Eastern seaboard) is depressingly elitist, where ‘local’ can often seem like just a competition between gourmet farm-to-table restaurants while there are food deserts not far away.

I often find myself defending New York in this respect when Caroline and I discuss this, but only because I agree with her on this and I’m the type who always wants to pick apart any position I find plausible. At the end of the day, everyone should choose fresh, local food, but that’s only viable if fresh, local food is cheaply available to everyone. While I don’t think either of us intends to make every post a political manifesto, that idea is central to why we’re writing.

But hey, it also doesn’t hurt that we’re broke.

I used to have a blog but then I graduated law school, thus making a blog entitled “Ways I’ve Avoided Studying for Finals” obsolete.  Plus I kind of wanted to make a more subject-specific blog, one with less of a “here’s some neat crap I found online” theme.  Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

I digress!  Basically I’ve pretty much been a total pinko-commie animal-loving weirdo since my teenage years in rural Appalachian Ohio, but living in New York for the last three years has really expanded my horizons with regards to the possibilities for a greener urban lifestyle.  Plus I moved in with this hippie, who shares a lot of my views, if not always the same ideas as to implementation (a topic I’m sure we’ll explore more later).  Oh yeah, and he’s blogging here too. 

Topics we’ll probably cover:

• urban environmentalism
• food politics on the cheap
• sustainable transportation
• our rooftop garden
• our pet worms

Why now? 

Two reasons: first, because of the Yo La Tengo Late-Summer Blog Challenge.  What, you haven’t heard of it?  Second, the Brooklyn Skillshare is happening in just a month.  I’m one of the organizers, plus Anthony and I are teaching indoor worm composting.  Meg asked for a blog link in the course description for the class schedule on the website, and so here it is.