It’s been a while since I’ve shared a frugal food find here, and there’s a reason. Even The Brokavore doesn’t live by day-old bread alone, and a pesky need for shelter recently led me to become a first-time homeowner. Which means I’ve been spending a lot of time battling basement leaks and sucking on plaster dust instead of searching out dollar tacos.
Buy a home and like it or not, before long you’re going to find yourself darkening the automatic doors at Lowe’s or Home Depot. With one of each within a mile of my South Slope home, I’ve made many a grudging trip to both. And given my natural gift for parsimony (though gift is maybe not the word Mrs. Brokavore would use), having two competing big-box behemoths within easy reach led me to wonder: which is cheaper? Read the rest of this entry »
Au revoir, non cheri.
OK, let me get this straight. Certain Brooklyn foodies’ heart rates are climbing because tomorrow morning they’ll be able to wake up in the borough chosen by Yahweh as the spiritual home of the bagel, hot-foot it to Boerum Hill and buy one freshly imported across international lines, from a country where Tim Horton is a culinary icon? And for this they’re going to lay down a schmear-melting $2.50US a pop? Read the rest of this entry »
On the weekend of the Brooklyn Book Festival, a collection of foodie and literary types (and some, like myself, who are a little of both) gathered in my Park Slope living room to determine which was the best of a selection of extra virgin olive oils that can be found for $10 or less in Brooklyn supermarkets.
As the author of a memoir of good food and bad boyfriends entitled I Loved, I Lost, I Made Spaghetti, I am an Italian cook, proud of my palate, if not my taste in men. I’ve hosted such competitions before and can tell you, because I’ve tried all of them, where in Brooklyn the best mozzarella (Lioni Latticini), and the best Italian sausage (M&S Prime Meats) can be found. I am also somewhat frugal—something to do with my father and Italy after the war—and believe that the brand of olive oil I regularly buy on sale at my local Key Food is perfectly fine. When Faye Penn, Brokelyn’s editor, suggested we do this competition, I jumped at the chance—happy for the opportunity to make sure I was throwing the few dollars I invest in olive oil in the right direction. Read the rest of this entry »
