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Last Saturday, James and I made our way to the basement of the Church of Messiah to check out the Greenpoint Food Market. We began to get the distinct impression that we were latecomers to this hidden gem the minute we saw the crowds rubbing their bellies as they came outside.
I wasn’t sure what to expect beforehand, but I was mightily impressed by what we found at this monthly artisanal food market. There were samples galore, and I filled my market bag with some pretty amazing things. The first vendors we met were Pumpkin & Honey Bunny, who together sell artisanal sodas and syrups and hand-printed greeting cards. More about them in an upcoming post, but suffice it to say that the large icy cream soda was a great thing to carry around as we jumped from cupcakes to kimmchi to chocolate and on to pickles as we ambled down the aisles. There was great music playing by The People’s Champs.
The branding and presentation was impressive pretty much across the board, as was the level of innovation. There seems to be a surge of artisanal pickles these days, and one that caught our eye was Sour Puss Pickles, whose delicious pickled beets and relishes were intense and savory. The Wasabi Sunseed organic vegan nut paté from Cobra Paté was probably the most unusual item we tried, and it was delicious. Their milder varieties include Walnut Maple Lavender paté, Carrot Cashew Ginger, and Sundried Tomato Almond. And then there was Bacon Marmalade. It’s pretty much brunch in a jar, deliciously sweet and savory.
There was an abundance of sweet things as well. Fresh from the cover of Edible Brooklyn magazine’s winter issue was Amelia Coulter and her Sugarbuilt cookies. Not only were they works of art to look at, but her lavender flavored samples for the Greenpoint Food Market were fresh and buttery. If you need to tweak your Nutella habit, try Bean & Apple’s chocolate and salt caramel spreads. Try each one or combine them – they’ll make you weak in the knees. On our way home, we bit into a perfectly moist chocolate cake pop from La Tia Faby.
I can’t even tell you how many amazing things we tried, not to mention the ones we missed because we couldn’t get through the crowd to get to the tables. But that just means we’ll have to go back next month!
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