Food on Screen: All in This Tea

Les Blank is known for making lighthearted films about food, such as Garlic Is As Good As Ten Mothers and Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe. This film, All In This Tea, simply follows an American tea importer as he criss-crosses China in search of the best tea to buy and sell to his clients. He runs into some trouble for wanting to deal directly with the farmers (rather than going through a syndicate) but still comes home with tons of tea, meanwhile trying to get the farmers to go organic.



The film is loosely structured around different kinds of tea (Oolong, Pu-ehr, etc.). It's interesting for someone who has any interest in tea, it's history, and the complex culture that developed around it in China. On Netflix instant!

Dining Out: Cinamoon

Some weeks back I visited Greenpoint, a neighborhood in northern Brooklyn known for having a large Polish population. Immediately out of the subway I saw a large and elegant vodka window display, and further down the block was Cinamoon, where I had lunch with a friend. The food was delightful and pretty exotic for a Texan.

Pierogies: some potato and cheese, some mushroom and potato

Borscht, and a "cutlet," which seemed like a kind of spring roll whose wrapper was made out of a crêpe, and then the whole thing rolled in crumbs and fried.

Brooklyn Home Cooking

So the truism is that New Yorkers don't cook, and I have to admit that having a small kitchen, having to carry my groceries, and being without my own cooking equipment (and sometimes having very little time) has made me more likely to rely on convenience foods, or what I like to think of as the college student diet (tuna-eggs-rice-beans-yogurt, in various combinations).

After I joined the Park Slope Food Coop last fall, though, I started cooking more, or at least eating better at home. Here's a salad I made for Thanksgiving - salad greens and goat cheese that anywhere else I'd consider a luxury are affordable at the coop.

And as with most things, the generalization "people don't cook in NY" must be a bit of an exaggeration for a diverse city of almost 8.5 million people.

Actually, one of my favorite food scenes in a movie takes place in a Brooklyn neighborhood not far from where I live now. Do you remember the egg frying scene in Moonstruck?

Why is it so fun to cut a hole in a piece of bread and crack an egg into it?

Co-op Fight!

Ha ha, no, just kidding. I love both my coops. But I thought it would be fun to do a comparison of them. They're not in any way in competition with each other since they are in different cities.

Park Slope Food Coop

Location: Brooklyn, New York
Year Founded: 1973
Number of Members: I believe I remember hearing that there are 16,000 active members.
Slogan: "Good food at low prices for working members through cooperation since 1973."
Payments accepted: cash and debit only
Do you have to work?: Yes
Open to non-members?: No
Prices: Low (they estimate 20-40% less than you'd pay elsewhere)
Special items: Cheap sushi, cheap and plentiful cheeses, lots of local produce, beer
Bulk: Most of it is pre-packaged by member workers on the "food processing" squad. No bulk liquids.
Bags: No bags offered at checkout; members bring their own or re-use boxes that have been used as packaging for the store's goods
Floor space: Highly competitive
Vibe: Intense, serious, political

Wheatsville Coop

Location: Austin, Texas

Year Founded: 1976
Number of Members: unknown
Slogan: N/A
Payments accepted: all
Do you have to work?: No, but apparently when it was first founded working was a requirement
Open to non-members?: Yes
Prices: Similar to a gourmet grocery store
Special items: Beer and wine, deli counter
Bulk: DIY, including bulk oils, syrups, soaps and shampoos
Bags: BYO, use a cardboard box, or get a paper or plastic bag at checkout
Floor space: Plentiful
Vibe: Concerned but laid-back

From Austin With Love

While in Austin over the holidays, I took advantage of the bountiful options for Tex-Mex which is one thing that money can't buy in NYC. Took my camera along to a couple of the places I hadn't been to before, or hadn't been to recently...

Large breakfast burrito with egg, bean and nopalito
from La Cocina de Consuelo

Sign in front of La Cocina

You know you're nostalgic for Tex-Mex when you
take a picture of chips and salsa

Guacamole at Curra's

Mole enchiladas at Curra's

Fish Tacos at Curra's: thumbs up

Flan (with Kahlua!)

Katz's

Ok, so I went to Katz's way back when I first got to NYC. I went because it's famous, because it was near where I was living, and because I was really hungry.

I was confused by the ordering system (take a number, and then MAYHEM!) and got in the wrong line for latkes, so ended up with a corned beef sandwich which I happily ate, and the hunger subsided. It was good but probably not what she was having.

Quaint water dispenser

Patrons

Aforementioned corned beef, pickles, and matzo ball soup