The New Wave 23

Green: the new sexy

By Lisa Dowda

Living in Brooklyn in 1855, Walt Whitman self-published Leaves of Grass. Creating a verdant and ebullient fantasy to survive in, this was how he coped with the harsh realities of his own societal constraint. Not well-received, he was fired because of his now-read thoughts, but he continued revising until the day he died, always nipping and tucking at a world he saw as real, honoring nature and our individual role in it. Some near century later, this literary landmark was introduced into the lives of those who turned out to be our parents. It only took a near century.

This time next year, a new president will be inaugurated. This time next year, we can finally breathe a sigh of relief before the next administration gives us something to have mixed emotions about. This time next year, your nearest grocery store, energy provider and neighbor will probably have sworn off all fossil fuels just to keep up with the Jones’. This time next year, Sunset Park will be the new Park Slope, and Park Slope will be comfortably leaning back in a lazy boy, happy not under the red glare of gentrification anymore. This feels like a year of real change coming, don’t you think? It’s time. It’s in the air. (What’s not in the air these days, har har.) I’m just saying: Earth Day in 1970. Geraldine Ferraro in 1984.

It’s only taken 40 years, one Powerpoint presentation, the cosmic nervous breakdown of Katrina, and another short, highlighted-haired woman on a stump to manifest our society’s preoccupation with the need for change. We may be dumb as a box of rocks about saving the planet, but Slopers are figuring it out at a break-neck pace. Green is the color of money, but green is the color of Park Slope’s new year. Green IS the New Sexy. Put it on before we fall back into the winter of our discontent.

Finally—a Food Label I Can Understand!

Wheat, sugar, flour, beef, eggs, milk — all words rarely delivered in commodified food. All words that conjure a post-war, aproned mom smiling over her shoulder while she’s preparing the family’s evening meal. Holding your hand and showing you the 21st century’s way to simple goodness at home is Get Fresh, the newest trend in prepared food. “Purchasing meals made with local ingredients promotes healthy people and a healthy community,” sings their press kit, and founders Carroll Lee and Kelley Roy are committed to, if not consummately obsessive about, bringing back good ol’ fashioned unprocessed, locally grown and cultivated food back to your table and your growing bodies. In this new year of all things green, we’re all in need of educating ourselves about how to be more socially responsible, and Lee and Roy are offering nutrition workshops in how mutually beneficial it is to buy, cook, serve and distribute locally. “There’s a need for trust,” says Lee when I ask her about this word “organic” that’s appearing on everything at Pathmark lately. And when your blackberries have more passport stamps than you do, then maybe these gals have found a way to savvily market the simplest of ideas: cooking at home, from home. Yes, they prepare it for you when you’re beat, yes, this means you’re not off the hook for cooking on your own, but when they D and F train sluggishly steal from your only time at home, stop by Get Fresh, pick up a lasagna and forget you ever thought delivery pizza was God’s gift to moms. Get Fresh is greening your hood at 370 5th Avenue. 718.360.8469. Their gorgeous and hugely informative website is at www.getfreshnyc.com, or try ‘em out with a trial order sent to info@getfreshnyc.com. They’ll deliver, even. But seriously, go by and see for yourself - it’s like your own personal, walk-in refrigerator.

If Your Walls Could Talk, They Might Cough

A little lead-based paint, some fumes and bleached wood and you too can have a new home? Yickgh— especially now, in our more verdant, more enlightened times. “Building green is changing so much right now. It’s a moving target. How green do you want to be?” This is what Sam McAfee of SumnerGreen is asking his clients. The brainchild born while witnessing his wife and her business partner build their new business—the afore-mentioned Get Fresh—he just couldn’t stand by and not pour his earth love into its construction plans. His services seek out trees that are Forest Stewardship Council approved for proper forestry management. He’ll research the plastics, steel, plywood and drywall, pulling from local resources (like retired warehouses in Upstate New York) and put them into your kitchen floors and cabinets. You won’t have to sport a surgeon’s mask after the final coat of paint because he uses the stuff that you don’t have to go into cancer denial to use. With a month under his belt and five years of traditional general contracting, he wants to educate curious Slopers who are ruminating about renovation. “I’m happy to talk to anyone — even if I don’t get the job,” he quickly offers, such is his conviction that there is a better way to develop real estate without depleting its local (or foreign, for that matter) land. Modern families have traditionally put into the hands of others the place that they spend most of their time and money cultivating. Sam brings the control back to you with his simple natural reverence of the very fiber, floors, paints and walls of your home. The love, ethic and hard work that you put into your career, your family and yourself — you can now put into your home. So shoot an inquiry to Sam McAfee sam.mcafee@gmail.com. He may have the cure to your common housecold. For a house that Sam built: SumnerGreen, a construction consulting for future living, www.SumnerGreen.com.

PIE!!!!!

Maybe it was the spicy meat and the smooth potatoes. Or maybe I was starving. Or maybe it was the delicately crusty pasty top. Or maybe it was the kind-eyed guy named Tony behind the counter that wanted to talk to me ONLY about pie. But grand, guttural and gratified was this hungry writer’s response to a handheld Shepherd’s Pie on one wintry day in the heart of Windsor Terrace at DUB Pies. This undoubtedly is the easiest breakfast on the way to the subway, lunch in between returning emails, and dinner to pull from the freezer in a snap. This simple pastry that’s been a fave of the Aussies and New Zealanders for moons and moons has been thrilling the Red Hook masses at its initial café. In a world where there are as many pizza pie places as pigeons, Brooklyn NEEDS to look at their Down Under Bakery for an alternative to that other knee-jerk craving. And it’s crazy that they offer hot and cold meat and fruit pies, and coffee and quiet jazz musicians sitting on their speakers in the corner. It’s a tiny space as they’re just getting going, but, HELL, I may never ever go to the Starbucks again. Five bucks and I’m happy happy. Curry Vegetable, Steak and Mushroom, Spinach and Cheese, omigod. This is the easiest conversion that your friends will ever support you in. Step away from the pizza and wrap your paws around a DUB pie. “Myohmy,” said Gilmore Girls’ Lorelai. And other forced rhymables of euphoria. DUB Pies strokes your senses at 211 Prospect Park West at the corner of 16th. They deliver and cater, of course, so take a gander at www.dubpies.com.

Where Cozy Means Cozy

In Manhattan, cozy is code for your bathroom doubling as a kitchen. At Mediterra, it means the heart and soul that owner/chef Hilda Hampar has poured into her sprawling Mediterranean menu. Representing Turkey, Greece, France and Italy, this intimate and warm restaurant offers a Sea Bass Livornese, Red Lentil Soup and a Mousaka casserole with eggplant and lamb in a béchamel sauce. But to not miss is the Tel Kadaif for dessert, which is a lip-smacking shredded dough, sandwiched with cinnamon and walnuts, covered with honey syrup. It’s BYOW for now but not for long. There are also weekend brunches inspired by the chefs of Bon Appetit and the Barefoot Contessa. Call for dinner, 718.360.4622. Kid-friendly and custom-designed, Mediterra corners 5th Ave. at 6th. Ask for Hilda — she wants to make sure you’re happy.

Who Says You Can’t Teach an Old Dog New Tricks?

Back in 1888, somewhere in Philly, an unknown inventor came up with Mum, the first commercially distributed deodorant. Meanwhile, somewhere in Park Slope that same year, the Neergaard Pharmacy was opening its doors, creating a revenue stream for such personal hygiene. Still thriving, still growing, still an undaunted storefront, this pharmacy is keeping in step with Stroller Alley by opening up its second floor with Neergaard Toys. Open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, Neergaard Toys is a quaint, clean and fresh addition to an already sprawling and chocked-full-of-customer-service pharmacy. Carrying the same games and toys you’ll find at any franchised toy store, Neergaard also provides fresh, new spins on some old ideas. Take the hand puppets from Melissa and Doug — I held a longer-than-normal conversation with the cheerleader puppet who gave me that ole Sesame Street feeling again. In any event, it’s easy to take this store for granted, if you’re new or old to Park Slope, but Rite-Aid doesn’t have people positioned in every aisle to help you find exactly what you need. Find your shampoo, a new baby lotion or the same ole Johnson and Johnson, and then sneak upstairs to see what’s new at Neergaard. It’s like your Grandmother’s attic — full of things to play with and poke around at. Neergaard Toys sits atop Neergaard Pharmacy and Surgicals at 454 5th Avenue, 718.768.0800, www.neergaardpharmacies.com. There’s also another pharmacy location at 7th, but toys on 5th!

When You Need More Iron in Your Diet

Creak open the door of Applewares and leave behind that ole corporate, warehouse-y feeling. The owners of Applewood have launched this homey kitchen supply store to put you at the intersection between the stainless steel coffee maker of a Manhattan condo-kitchen and the sturdy stock pot sleeping on a Vermont farm stove. Carrying Le Creuset, Kitchen Aid, Krups, you’ll not find the usual suspects of Rachael, Emeril or Foremen here. And thankfully so. On a rainy afternoon, a few of us customers milled around asking Jeffrey “what’s this do?” Or “I’m looking for an egg poacher,” enjoying the quiet community of a small town general store in our Diesel shoes and jeans. Furthermore, what the chain home goods store don’t have are your grandmother’s iron skillets, which are making a comeback and can be cheaper than a bag of Starbucks coffee and last longer than its buzz. Applewares, for when you could care less about the 20% coupon at Linens-N-Things. 548 10th Street, off of 7th Avenue, 718.576.2484.

Pay the Babysitter Double Time so You Can Get a Nightlife

Slopers are getting a bad reputation for being primarily conscientious, Generation X-come-Y stroller pushers and snot wipers. There’re also some folks out there drink every night in the bars. And so finally an outbreak of new nightspots that straddles the tastes of both 30- and 20-somethings. Jazz jams, go-go dancers and drinking — who says Sloping is all about renovation and old school preschool? Get your lost identity on and remind yourself how you used to drink your posse under the table.

Puppet’s Jazz Bar | Full disclosure: at the time of this writing, it’s not open. I talked to their smiling and eager contractor and tooled around the website, which I realize that anybody can do. But there is a dearth of live music in da hood, yo! Now I love me some SouthPaw, I do, but I need a little easy head-bobbin’ and brandy-sippin’ every now and again. So, I was sad when Puppet’s closed before I got to see what Brooklyn has to offer in the way of local jazz musicians. And now I’m excited about this re-opening. I’m told they’ll swing their doors open by the new year. Fingers crossed. Stay in touch at puppetsjazz.com. TBKI — To Be Kickin’ It at 481 5th Avenue.

Barrette | Boy howdy! Red leather booths, fringy lamps, strong drinks and go-go dancers? What is this — the East Village? Central Park in the 70s? Have we lost all sense of the Moral Majority? Good lord and god almighty, Barrette is open and serving up drinks and nosh and the lush feel of a 1920s speakeasy without all the silly passwords. Thank god. I was getting a little worried about my own neighborhood. This is not to say Barrette is providing us with the blue light of a new sorta district, but it is offering a sane antidote to Manhattan cosmo-peddled hedonism, if only in some style and, I’ll say it again, go-go dancers. Lovin’ the Prospects at 601 Vanderbilt Avenue @ Bergen.

Pacific Standard | Buttermilk for the 20s, The Gate for the 30s+. Pacific Standard — oh, give it a chance — they don’t have a clientele yet, and they don’t seem that concerned about what your work address is or what your labels are. You’re still cool enough to hang. And if you ever were curious about those sandle-wearing Northern Californians (not so different from sandle-wearing Slopers — Slopers / Slackers — Uma / Oprah), this is the place to find a new group of drinking buddies. At 4th Avenue and Bergen.

When you gotta get your smooth on & your guy gone.

If green is the color of next year, so follows the envy and lust you can incur at the 5-way whammy of chick boutiques, mostly on 7th. Sounding like a group of orgiastic writers and artists gathering at Cabaret Voltaire in the early 20th century, Lily, Lola, Otto, Teddy and the Fashion Café have whatever you need to get your smooth on.

Heading South on 7th …

The Fashion Cafe | Soft music, a dreamy atmosphere, Stella the Dog in a stretchy green sweater sleeping peacefully in an armchair and co-owner Delyse Hanson sewing suede at the deep end of the store, the Fashion Café gives you the feeling that these clothes are your neighbors’ dreams manifest. Homegrown but chic and stylin’, new and vintage but not resale. Buying something here insures no one else in the office will be wearing it. Seeking all editorial chiefs and ad agency graphic designers. Located at 461 7th Avenue, 718.788.8280. www.thefashioncafellc.com.

Lily | Sweaters are the color of Lily’s weather. Calling all musicians, groupies, technical directors, web mistresses and unrighteous publicists. This is your store. Tees, jeans, ka-ute dresses, stockings, wallets, jewelry and even space to move around in. Free People, Hobo and more. For Manhattan commuters and those who telecommute in their holey sweats. Located at 435 Seventh Avenue, 718.832.1805. www.lilybrooklyn.com.

Lola | With Alicia Keys booming over their PA, they already stand out. But sexy and sophisticated halter dresses, Essence and Bitch editor-type pants and tops, Lola is where you can be sexy without beating anyone over the head with. The gawk you get from Lola’s wear is the look as you pass, the wry grunt of ‘guurrrrl’ and that man or woman is happy to have witnessed your swagger. Located at 383 7th Avenue between 11th and 12th. 718.499.0753.

And OTTO has moved to a new home (formerly where Applewares just opened). They’re at 354 7th Avenue. Mid- to upper-scale European wear, interview or career-transition wear, cocktail hour and 20th-30th high school reunion wear. www.ottobrooklyn.com, 718.788.6627.

And over there on 5th Ave…

The owners of Lucia, an old favorite in the Slope specializing in women’s shoes and fashion (272 5th Ave) have also opened a 2nd Teddy at 89 5th Avenue (the 1st one is much-loved over the canal in Cobble Hill). Not to be confused with Teddy’s in Propect Heights or Teddy’s Bar and Grill in W-burg, this Teddy is a boutique with casual and dressy clothes for da ladies with jewelry, shoes & other cute stuff to put in pockets and purses—maybe one of their cute clutches. You could check ‘em out at www.shopteddy.com, but it’s better to go by and feel all those great fabrics (and the great prices) in person. Between Prospect Place and Park Place. 718.623.0500. 718.623.0501.

Also New to the Neighbiorhood...

Peppino’s: No matter what I said about DUB Pies, a new pizza place is freaking hard to resist. 5th Avenue between 10th and 11th streets.

Piramide: A much anticipated South Slope Mexican restaurant with all day food hours, a kitchen closing at 11pm, but a wine and beer bar with tapas offerings until closing. 499 5th Avenue, 718.499.0002, www.mexpiramide.com.

Sariwa: Fresh alternative for take-out and delivery with a Philippine menu that promises a Spanish and Chinese mesh of taste. Windsor Terrace at 212 Prospect Park West with the entrance on 16th. 718.965.1231. www.sariwafoods.com.

Canteen Delicatessen and Café: Some call it a deli. Some, a café. Some elevate it to a bistro. You go by and tell us what you call it. 57 4th Avenue at Bergen. 718.789.2133.

Flight 001: A Mile High Club Kit? Oh yeh, this store has figured out who you are (or who you want to be) when you travel. This is not your typical Rand McNally or Samsonite-heavy mall address. Here, you’ll find paper shampoo that turns to lather with a handful of water, and normal, friendly folks that have the final word on the newest FAA regulations for 3.5 oz. containers. Looking for staff too. A national chain at 58 5th Avenue, 718.789.1001. www.flight001.com. But this ain’t Macy’s — don’t expect a lot of luggage and Coach bags. It’s got all the other fun stuff.

Asha Veza: Upscale gorgeous dresses and suits with tasteful decorative corsets highlighting the deep commitment of founder Shanti Crawford to put the power of design back into the hands of formerly exploited women. Rich, lush colors and feminine, delicate designs for your next Powerpoint presentation. 69 5th Avenue. 718.783.2742. www.asheveza.com. Read the wall to your left when you walk in, then shop.

Earthly Additions: A blend of bags big enough for the weekend in the Hamptons or work-out clothes, and chunky wooden animals for your living room or office. 169 5th Ave., 718.622.1060. www.earthlyadditions.com.

Café Tapeo: Owners of Black Sheep Pub on Bergen present delicious tapas and great ambiance. Open for dinner, cash only. Bring your lovey here and settle in for some conversation. 52 5th Ave 718.638.1066. www.cafetapeo.com

Marine’s Coffee Shop: steamy windows, omelettes and the most affordable and savory rotisserie chicken that’s ever fallen off the bone. Not too Park Slope’d up yet, have your friendly design meeting here over breakfast. 50 5th Avenue 718.230.1703. … where “Ok, Mama” isn’t coming from underneath a Maclaren’s stroller canopy.

On the Move & growing:

Prints Charming, the much-loved engraving and frame store, has moved from just off 7th Ave to just off 5th Ave. 310 Fourth Street 718.230.8118. Aaaaand Park Slope has been good to Kiku, the take-out sushi place on 5th at 7th. They’ve grown into a full-sized, dine-in restaurant on 7th Avenue.

And look for details in the next issue on 2 more mouth-watering additions to the neighborhood:

Smith Street favorite Zaytoons comes to 594 Vanderbilt Avenue, serving middle eastern eats 718.230.3200. www.zaytoonsrestaurant.com. Wine and dine at the romantic Canaille Bistro Francais : 78 5th Avenue 718.789.8899.

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Growing businesses, second openings, dark places with drinks, pals and good music to forget all the other grown-up stuff — Park Slope is facing the new year’s potential recession with its own passive resistance of local merchantry. Take that, Alan Greenspan!

Anyway, Happy New Year, Folks! Wishing you much in the way of low-fat blessings and evergreen joy. And seriously, keep in touch. Drop us an email whenever you see something new happening. As always, thanks for shopping local.

If you have a new business opening in the Park Slope, South Slope or Prospect Heights area, contact Lisa at lisad31@juno.com or the PSR at office@psreader.com.