At Williamsburg's Frej, chefs Fredrik Berselius and Richard Kuo serve up $45 five-course meals composed of locally foraged and farmed foods in New Nordic style.

Ever since Rene Redzepi’s Copenhagen restaurant Noma was anointed ‘Best Restaurant in the World,’ New York diners have been frothing at the mouth for a taste of the New Nordic. And so, an inexorable buzz has been building for Frej, the Williamsburg restaurant that bends the New Nordic aesthetic through the prism of locally-foraged and farmed foods.

At Frej, open only on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday nights, chefs Fredrik Berselius and Richard Kuo’s cooking, with its emphasis on wild ingredients and its kinda crazy price point (a mere $45 for the five course tasting menu), is quickly developing a cult following. The restaurant is currently fully booked well into June.

New York Times restaurant critic Pete Wells previewed the restaurant this week, and gave it his stamp of approval:

“I suspect that Richard Kuo and Fredrik Berselius, the two young chefs behind this Brigadoon of a restaurant, aren’t in it for the money…Frej can’t be faulted on its timing: New Yorkers are so eager for a taste of the new Nordic cuisine at places like Noma that they would probably line up for Swedish fish…But the best reason for waiting two months or more to eat at Frej is not located in Denmark. It is found inside this makeshift kitchen in Williamsburg where, at the beginning of each week, an entire meal of uncommon ingredients sensitively assembled can be had for less than the price of some Manhattan entrees.”

Here’s the May menu at Frej:

Maine shrimp
cucumber, kohlrabi, oyster

Scallop
cabbage, ramp, seaweed

Pike
potato, sprat, wild herbs

Beef cooked in hay
parsnip, onion, garlic mustard

Camomille parfait
carrot, sea buckthorn, wood sorrel

Reserve a spot quick – by the time you finish reading this they may be booked into August.

The spring harvest has begun at Brooklyn Grange. You can get some of the city's freshest produce yourself beginning this week, as the Grange kicks off their 2012 market season in Long Island City today and in Williamsburg on Sunday, at Smorgasburg.

The seedlings have sprouted high in the sky at Brooklyn Grange’s Long Island City rooftop farm, and the first spring harvest is underway. Fans of the freshest produce you can possibly get in New York City have a reason to celebrate – the Grange is kicking off their 2012 market season today, with the debut of their weekly Long Island City market in the lobby of the farm building at 37-18 Northern Boulevard (at 38th Street). They’ll be bringing just-picked greens, radishes, eggs, and the season’s first strawberries back to the Williamsburg waterfront with their return to Smorgasburg this Saturday.

Beginning on June 17th, the Grange will be setting up a stand at the new McGolricj Park farmers market in Greenpoint on Sundays.

Construction of the farm’s new one-acre rooftop location at the Brooklyn Navy Yard is underway. Planting is scheduled to begin next week, with thousands of tomato, pepper, kale, and herb plants waiting at the Long Island City for their new beds to be ready. The new location should be open to the public in June.

Up for a field trip? Here’s the trailer from Up On The Farm, a short film focusing on the Grange’s 2011 season by Diane Nerwen -

To celebrate their first anniversary, Bed Stuy's Do Or Dine will serve their interpretation of Momofuku's opening menu.

Eater reports that, to celebrate the first anniversary of their opening, Bed-Stuy’s Do or Dine will serve up their interpretation of the great Momofuku’s opening menu, at the original prices, on June 3rd.

Do or Dine’s reputation for incorporating creative, often awesomely wacky, visual puns into their plates tempts the imagination here. Could we see a version of Momofuku Ramen, originally served with Berkshire pork, poached egg and kamaboko, constructed in reverse, with noodles and pork, molded into the shape of a pig, embedded in an ostrich egg, floating in broth? As anyone who’s eaten there knows, anything is possible at Do or Dine.

Here’s the Momofuku’s opening menu. Let your imagination run wild -

According to PBS: “By illuminating the vocabulary of sustainable agriculture, and with it the conversation about America’s rapidly evolving food culture, the Lexicon of Sustainability helps people to pay closer attention to how they eat, what they buy, and where their responsibility begins for creating a healthier, safer food system in America…And it all begins with learning a few words.”

Here are the first few installments, looking at eggs, the meaning of ‘local,’ and the rise of foraging.

Watch Forage on PBS. See more from The Lexicon of Sustainability.

The past year hasn’t been easy for many regional farmers. Everything from hurricanes to overnight frosts on the heels of hot spells have made it a little harder than usual to predict what the ground will yield from week to week. Fortunately, there are a few hardy vegetables that can survive and even thrive despite nasty fits of weather. As it turns out, spring kale is one of the tougher greens in the field, ready to take whatever sucker punch mother nature might throw.

At Fishkill Farms, of Hopewell Junction, NY, warm weather has allowed them to harvest kale from last fall, right through winter, into spring.

After spotting a bounty of spring kale at Fishkill Farms’ stand at the Carroll Gardens Greenmarket, I stopped to talk with farmer Josh Morgenthau about the hardy green. Fishkill Farms is located in Hopewell Junction, about sixty miles north of New York City, on the east side of the Hudson River. Josh has been farming for about six years, but his family has been working the farm for almost a century. The farm is two hundred and seventy acres in size, of which about one hundred are used to grow produce.

Josh one left the farm to study painting, and returned to paint its bucolic landscapes. Once back, he fell into farming, and fell in love with it. He still paints when time permits in winter, but the farm work comes first.

Josh Morgenthau of Fishkill Farms. Fishkill has been in the Morgenthau family for close to a century.

While many associate kale with fall, Josh clarified that it’s both a fall and spring vegetable. This year, due to the mild weather, Fishkill Farms was actually able to harvest the popular green throughout the winter.  According to Josh, kale is remarkably tolerant of the cold, surviving in conditions that would kill almost any other leafy green, and it often tastes sweeter after a mild frost.

I asked Josh how they actually harvest kale. Like many greens, he said, it’s harvested by periodically picking off the out leaves of the plant, leaving the bud in the center untouched to the plant can continue to grow.

Fishkill Farms' spring kale.

Kale has been a favorite of detoxers and health fiends for its robust levels of antioxidants and fiber. Recently, it’s become a star on menus citywide, as chefs have fallen for its earthy, nutty flavor, and its availability as a fresh local green at a time of year when most vegetables are travelling thousands of miles before landing in their kitchens.

Kale is quite versatile – it can be eaten raw, steamed, baked, juiced, or fried to a crisp – an approach that’s been particularly hot among chefs this past year. Josh prefers his kale simply sautéed. His method? Heat up a pan with olive oil and garlic, add kale, season with salt and red pepper flakes to taste, and sautee for about five minutes. My favorite way? Kale chips: Wash the kale, roughly chop, toss with extra virgin olive oil, salt, and minced garlic, and bake at 375 degrees for 15-20 minutes.

In search of a little more kale adventure, we went to chef Nate Smith of Williamsburg’s Allswell, who shared his recipe for Allswell’s kale and cardoon toast.

Kale and Cardoon Toast, from Chef Nate Smith of Allswell

• Bring pot of salted water to a boil and blanch four large stalks of cardoons two to three times to remove their bitterness.
• Peel away fibrous strings and dice.
• Blanch one large bunch of kale, let cool, and roughly chop.
• Thinly slice a clove of garlic, and put it into a cold sauté pan with two tablespoons of olive oil, then gently toast.
• When the garlic is golden brown, add kale and one teaspoon marjoram, and sauté for about 30 seconds.
• Combine cardoons, kale, a quarter cup mayonnaise, and a half cup gruyere cheese in a large bowl.
• Season with fresh grated nutmeg, salt, black pepper and chili to taste.
• Spoon mixture onto four slices of good toasted bread.

Alex Villani of Blue Moon Fish, working the waters of Long Island Sound. Alex has been selling his catch directly to New Yorkers at the city's Greenmarkets for over twenty years. The Greenmarkets offer one of the bafflingly few opportunities in NYC, and the nation, to buy fish directly from the people who catch it.

It’s not easy finding fresh fish in New York. Or anywhere in the United States for that matter. Just about all fish is marketed as ‘fresh,’ but in reality, the vast majority of seafood consumed here winds its way through the labrynthine maze of the commodity markets – from sea to net to a boat’s frozen hold, and back to dock where it’s sold, first to a wholesaler who brings it hundreds of miles to the Fulton Fish Market, where it’s sold again to distributors who truck it back to their local markets to in turn sell it, once again, to retailers or chefs…all before the fillet finds its way to your plate.

But as evidenced by the long lines at the Blue Moon Fish stand at the Grand Army Plaza Greenmarket every weekend, the people want fresh fish. The city’s Greenmarkets offer one of the city’s maddeningly few opportunities to buy fish directly from the people who actually catch it.

Alex Villani of Blue Moon Fish has been fishing the inshore and offshore waters around Long Island for over forty years, and selling his catch directly to urban pescaphiles for two decades at several city Greenmarkets. We sat down with Alex at Grand Army Plaza to learn more about life on the open seas.

So Alex, how did you end up as a commercial fisherman?

I grew up in Chelsea, on the west side of Manhattan, which is kind of weird. I’m probably the only commercial fisherman from Chelsea. When I was eighteen, in 1970, my parents moved out on me. They moved to Long Island and I stayed behind in the apartment in the city. I had a pretty good time. It was 1970 and I was eighteen years old, living alone in the city.

But then my mom passed away and my dad was having a hard time, so I moved out to the island. I kept the apartment in the city for a while, but I wasn’t doing anything there other than screwing up and having fun. So out on Long Island, I started clamming.

When I was about twelve or thirteen, I had a friend who had a clam boat on Great South Bay, the bay between Fire Island and the main part of Long Island. I worked on the boat with him for a few weeks and I always remembered it being a pretty nice job. I liked being outside. So when I moved out to Long Island to be with my father I bought a three hundred dollar boat and a four hundred dollar engine and started clamming. I didn’t really know what I was doing. I just went out by myself and said, “This is pretty cool.” I just went out and did it. And it was fine.

What was the three hundred dollar boat like?

Alex's first boat, a clammer purchased for $300 and outfitted with a $400 engine, in 1973.

It was twenty six feet – a really old boat. Now, I wouldn’t even go out in it, now that I know something. I didn’t know anything then. I was a dumb nineteen year old. Nothing bothered me then. I think I made twenty bucks the first day and I was like, “This is great!”

Eventually I started meeting people and learning more and more and that’s how it evolved. I did that for five years, and then eventually I wanted more of the open water, so I moved out to the ocean and went offshore fishing and lobstering. I’d go out for days and days and did the whole thing.

Why did you want to move to offshore fishing? What was the appeal?

The bay started to feel confining, the clam stocks were going down a little bit, and I had always wanted to go out on the ocean. I had dreams about going to Alaska, which I’m glad I didn’t do because things worked out fine for me here. I just wanted the open water. I wanted to work on the open water.

I met some people. Probably in a bar. There was a big bar scene with fishermen then. There was this real old character, Jim Catterson. His son, who was also named Jim, and I were friends and became fishing partners. Jim senior built clam boats, so I wound up hanging out with him a lot, drinking gin out of the bottle, and building some boats. That boat building knowledge has helped me along the way too.

I met more people through that and after a while I just said I wanted to get off the bay to go to the ocean. I went to Hampton Bays, to the fishing fleet near Shinnecock Inlet to interview for an offshore lobstering job. They didn’t even ask me any questions. They just looked at me to see if I was big enough. That was it. There weren’t any requirements other than strength.

I got the job, on a boat called The Patriot. It was really hard work. Just the preparation alone – we had about twelve hundred pots, which isn’t really a lot, but at the beginning of the season we had to dip each pot in these big vats of this horrible hot tar. Then you’d have to load up the boat. We’d take four or five hundred pots out at a time. We’d drop them all at the beginning of the season and leave them out until the end. You’d soak them for four or five days, then go back out, pull them, take out the lobster, clean the pots, fix them, bait them, drop them again and do it all over a few days later.

What was a typical trip like during the season?

We’d always leave the dock at eight o’clock at night. Before that you’d load up all the bait and all this stuff. You had tons of bait you had to bring out with you. It was an eight hour ride out to the edge of the shelf where the lobster were – about a hundred miles. There would be three guys on deck. One person would be on watch at all times and after your watch you’d try to sleep a couple hours. You’d get there at four in the morning and start working.

You’d pull the pots up, empty them, clean them, bait them and drop them again. It wasn’t easy, but it wasn’t complicated. We’d work from four in the morning until eleven or twelve at night, sleep for a few hours, get up, do it again, and then we’d be finished and we’d come back in.

You’d be pretty exhausted. There’s no time for anything. You’d still be working with a sandwich in your hand – that kind of deal.

No stringing up a hammock on a lazy summer afternoon?

Ha ha. No. It was pretty incredible though. We caught a lot of lobster back then. Big lobster trips. It was pretty nice out there too. In the summer you’d be surrounded by whales and dolphins. We’d go swimming occasionally. That was pretty nice. In six hundred feet of water. That was pretty cool except for the sharks. Ha ha.

So are you in the Gulf Stream out there?

We’d be past the Gulf Stream in the summer. In the summer the Gulf Stream would swing closer to shore. The water in the Gulf Stream would be eighty five or eighty six degrees. We had problems keeping the lobsters alive at times. We had big tanks on the boat to hold them, but if the water was too warm, sometimes you’d lose hundreds of them.

What’s up with Long Island lobster? It seems like in the Northeast all you ever hear about is Maine lobster. Are they still fishing for lobster on Long Island?

They’re still fishing for lobster offshore. Inshore lobstering in Long Island Sound used to be great, but the stocks got pretty depleted about ten years ago.

What happened?

There were major amounts of lobster coming in. Really big, big trips. Then they started spraying for the West Nile virus. They started spraying a lot of insecticide to kill the mosquitos. There was a lot of rain after the spraying, so there was a lot of runoff and we think it killed off the lobster population in the Sound. The stocks just disappeared. Just like that. They were spraying a ton of this insecticide. There was a lot of runoff into the Sound. Lobsters are considered a sort of insect, and it killed them. It just killed them.

Most of the lobstermen filed suit over it, against the company that manufactured the stuff. They ended up settling and giving the fishermen money but denied responsibility – that kind of deal.

At that point I was fishing already. I had a couple hundred pots but I was mostly fishing with nets – dragging.

So when did you move from lobstering to fishing and strike out on your own?

The same guy that I started out with lobstering – we used to lobster from Easter to Thanksgiving, and then in the winter we used to go fishing offshore, with nets, dragging. That was how the year went. I worked with him for about five years. I learned a lot from the guy. He was a really great teacher. He was crazy, but a great teacher. He always got me home, so that was a good thing.

After that I became a captain. I got licensed and went to work on various other offshore boats as a captain. You’d have a crew and run the boat. You’d work on percentages – you’d get a share of the catch.

Eventually I bought a small forty two foot boat of my own. There was a boom in skimmer clams in Long Island Sound in the mid-eighties, so I did that for about two years. I ran big boats and I had my own boat and eventually I said, “Enough of running other people’s boats.” I bought the boat I have now in the early nineties. It’s a thirty six foot fiberglass trawler and that’s the way I fish now.

So how do you actually catch fish? And where? Peconic Bay? The Sound?

Well now I’m docked in Mattituck, on the North Fork. I live right by the dock.

You’re not allowed to work Peconic Bay. It’s closed. I work in Long Island Sound – Eastern Long Island Sound for the most part. I do move around, but now, in summer it’s good in Long Island Sound. So that’s where I fish.

I’m all set up for net fishing. I have a hauler, for fish pots also. I use those to catch blackfish and some sea bass. They’re like lobster pots, only modified a little bit to catch fish instead of lobsters. Same size, just a different funnel design. That’s all.

I did not know you caught sea bass in pots. Is that always how it’s done?

Mostly. I catch some in the nets too. Probably about a third in the nets, two thirds in the pots. With the nets, it’s a bycatch. I’m not really targeting them with the nets but you do catch some, which is pretty nice.

What’s a typical fishing day like for you now?

A normal day is starting at two, three in the morning. Go down to the boat, start a run out to where I’m fishing that day. It could be anywhere from a half mile to fifteen miles out. Sometimes I’ll have someone with me but most of the time I’m by myself.

I’ll set the net and it’s always dark. My best towing is at night or in the early morning. Depending on the time of year, I could tow for an hour, I could tow for fifteen minutes, or I could tow for two hours. It just depends on how good the fish are. You can’t tow too long or you’ll end up with too much and you won’t be able to get it all in the boat.

How do you tell what sort of load you’ve got on the net?

I’ll slow down. The boat will slow down and I’ll know something’s wrong. And you have a good sense of what’s going on after a while anyway. I should by now! I’d better! Ha ha.

How big is the net? And how is it set up?

The net stretched out is fifty five feet wide by twelve or fourteen feet high.

I have split winches. Two winches, one on either side of the boat, for each end of the net. There’s a lot of wire – wire supporting the top of the net, and wire connecting each end of the net to the winches on each side of the boat. There’s a chain that runs along the bottom of the net to weigh it down and keep it on the bottom while you tow. After that there’s something called cookie gear, made of old recycled tires about three inches high that roll along the bottom. After that we’ve got something called doors. They’re these things shaped like a door, with vents in them to let some water through, and those keep the net open – they spread the net.

Then after that I have the wire which keeps the net attached to the boat. Usually there’s about two hundred to five hundred feet of wire out to the net. It’s a four to one ratio of wire to the distance to the bottom. In a hundred feet of water I’ll have at least four to five hundred feet of wire out. I’ve worked from twenty feet of water to a hundred and thirty feet of water with this boat.

Dragging really doesn’t disturb the bottom that much. Everyone things we do such damage, but the new nets don’t do much damage at all.

How targeted is the catch? How seasonal?

It’s seasonal, but I’ll also know what’s in deeper water, what’s in shallower water at that time of year. If the bluefish are closer to shore in late summer I’ll go in there to get some bluefish. In deeper water I’ll fish for fluke or monkfish or something like that.

So it’s moving around, having some knowledge about what’s running, and talking to other fishermen about what they’re catching. Although I only talk to two or three guys. Everyone else is lying. Ha ha ha. Fishermen don’t talk too much. Most guys have two or three people they’re straight with. Other than that there’s not much talking. Friends give each other tips. There’s enough fish. It’s not like one person can catch them all.

In terms of what you catch, and how much you catch, are there ups and downs? How much luck is involved?

There are ups and downs. This has been a really good month so far. The last three or four weeks have been really great. Some of it had to do with the warmer water temperature this year. The fish came in a couple of weeks earlier than normal. Fish migrate because of the water temperature. There’s not much luck involved.

Once in a while I’ll catch something that surprises me. This spring we had sea trout – weakfish – for about two or three weeks. I probably caught more in a couple of days this year than I caught all last year. I said, “Where did they come from!?” So that was a surprise. That’s probably luck.

Is there a big variety of fish in the net when you haul it?

Yeah, as a rule. But if I’m going for fluke it’s mostly going to be fluke. You’ll get some ling in there sometimes, some skate. We sell a lot of skate here. You’ll catch shark occasionally. We had a shark this week.

Sometimes you’ll catch something weird. We catch sturgeon still. That’s a weird looking fish. I like looking at them. They’re real prehistoric. They come out of the rivers to migrate. Sturgeon fishing has been closed for about ten years, so you can’t keep ‘em. But I don’t think the government has any idea how many sturgeon there are because we still catch them all the time. They’re hardy. They all go back alive, that’s for sure. I feel more for myself than I do for them when they end up in the net. They’re all muscle, and they’re big. Sometimes they’re like four, five hundred pounds, and you have to wrestle them off the boat.

And sometimes we’ll get big skates or rays that weigh like three hundred pounds. They’re harder to get off the boat then they are to get on!

So what happens when you haul the net?

I drop the net on deck. I go down on my knees, separate everything. I have to measure most things. There are size limits for everything. The fish I keep go into a box with ice, right away. Within a half hour everything’s iced, in the boxes, and then they all go into an insulated hold.

Storms?

I’ve been caught in lots of storms. In the small boat now the winds are less of a problem than on the big boats, but it’s still a little scary sometimes when the waves are coming over the bow.

I’ve been struck by lightning out there. That was interesting.

So what’s that like?

It was LOUD. I was working on a big steel boat. The lightning actually went right through the boat into the water. It grounded itself, so we were fine, but all the antennas blew off and it was unbelievably loud. That was something, but you know, we found our way back. Ha ha ha. So it was alright.

Why is it so hard to find fish caught locally? Or to buy fish caught directly from local fisherman. It seems like outside of the Greenmarkets, it’s almost impossible to find, but there’s a lot being caught here…

The Blue Moon Fish stand at the Grand Army Plaza Greenmarket. Photo (c) Valery Rizzo.

So that’s another thing. To legally sell at the Greenmarkets, to legally sell the fish I catch myself to anybody other than a wholesaler, I actually have to sell my fish to myself before I sell it to you. So I’m incorporated both as a fisherman and I’m separately licensed by the federal government as a fish dealer. You can’t sell it right off the boat to anybody anymore. You have to do all this paperwork.

Why? Sounds a little crazy.

It’s to keep track of the stocks. They don’t want somebody going out and catching a thousand pounds of something if they’re only allowed to catch a hundred.

So it’s a check to make sure everyone’s following the rules?

Yeah. I mean, I’m always getting checked out there when I’m fishing, by the DEC and people like that. They’ll come up and board you and check your catch and your paperwork all the time.

Every fisherman has to do a lot of paperwork now, to report exactly what they’re catching, where, when, how, how much…It’s part of the business now. One of the reasons I started fishing was because there was no paperwork. It was a free for all. I loved it, but things have changed.

I’m part of a research program now, so I have even more paperwork. I have to fax in reports to all these agencies every time I come in. I have to call New York State, Gloucester…It’s part of a program that they call ‘fisherman-based research.’ Government research vessels will fish alongside a fisherman and we’ll compare what we’re catching. We always catch a lot more than they do for some reason. Ha ha ha. Which is why we complain about the limits. They set the limits based on the number of fish they catch, but for some reason we always catch way more than they do. Ha ha ha. We want them to raise the limits a little bit based on what we catch, not what they catch.

What is the perception among Long Island fishermen of all the federal regulations? Does it work? Is it good?

It works. There are definitely a lot more fish now. When I first started there were a lot of fish, then the foreign fleets came in with huge boats and they were taking way more fish than we ever had before, and the stocks went way down. After they got the foreign fleets out the government kind of funded Americans to take over where they left off, with the huge boats but no real regulations. So we did even more damage to the stocks. They’ve been rebuilding from that. Now everything’s regulated and there’s a lot more fish. It’s helped a lot.

But I think they’re being overly cautious. The stocks are back but they’re not opening it up enough, quickly enough. Of course, they’ve been sued a lot by environmental groups, and I think that kind of complicated things. But it should be opened up more.

Another thing that’s tough for small boat operators like me is that a lot of the catch is going to the big offshore boats. It’s kind of complicated how it works. Say the whole coast is allowed to catch fifteen million pounds of fluke in a year. They divvy that up among the coastal states. I think New York is allowed seven percent of the total catch. I don’t know why it’s so low. And then it gets further divvied up between recreational and commercial fishermen. There’s usually a daily or weekly limit on the amount of each specific fish you can catch. The big boats have an advantage because they can go out in any kind of weather at any time of year. They have bigger crews, more storage capacity, so they can stay out longer and catch more of the total allocation. So it’s kind of unfair in that way.

But really? Things are good. There are a lot of fish out there.

How did you end up selling at the Greenmarkets? And why? What’s the benefit for you of doing it that way?

Obviously you’re going to make a little bit more money, but it’s a lot more work too. I like it because I get to interact with people. I like being by myself most of the time on the water, and one day a week dealing with a massive amount of people at the market. People are great in the city. They’re regular people and we joke around and have a good time all of us, it seems. It’s fun. On market days my mouth gets tired from talking so much and so I just go back to fishing by myself for a few days. Ha ha ha.

But it is more work. I could just wholesale the stuff and ship it from the dock. That would be easy. I guess I’m conditioned to do it this way though and I like it. That’s why I’ve been doing it for twenty four years.

You can find Blue Moon Fish at the Grand Army Plaza Greenmarket on Saturdays in Brooklyn, and in Manhattan at the Tribeca Greenmarket on Saturdays and Union Square Greenmarket on Wednesdays.

Get mom what she really wants for Mothers Day: Beer. We've got some special Mothers Day beer picks from Bierkraft, Eastern District, and Breuckelen Bier Merchants.

Mothers Day is here. Rather than trying navigate the pre-holiday mosh pit in the Hallmark aisle of the Local Duane Reade or elbow our way through the mobs grabbing for preservative-gassed, cellophane-wrapped flowers at the bodega, we thought we’d look for something really special for the moms in our lives this year: Beer.

Truth be told, what mom probably really wants more than anything else on the big day is for everyone to clear out of the damn house and leave her alone to enjoy a nice cold, deliberately selected Mothers Day beer, in the presence of the one thing moms need most – a little peace, quiet, and solitude.

To guide us on our quest for the perfect Mothers Day brews, we took it straight to a few of the borough’s experts. Here are their picks.

Matt Barclay, cellar manager at Park Slope’s Bierkraft

Jolly Pumpkin IO Saison Baudelaire – One of my spring time favorites. It starts its life as a Belgian style farmhouse ale, brewed with rose hips, rose petals and hibiscus. After primary fermentation it hangs out in oak barrels and picks up some sourness and funk. Deliciously tart and refreshing, this beer needs to be drank outside on a beautiful lazy May Sunday. Depending on what type of mom your mom is, you might get bonus points for the fact that beer is pink.

21st Amendment Hell or High Watermelon – It’s not easy being a mom. Nothing takes the edge off like this beer. The watermelon is going to raise some red flags, but this isn’t a sticky syrupy mess. Real watermelon juice and rind bring an incredible aroma of luscious fruit to a bone dry and easy drinking American wheat ale. Do yourself a favor and buy it by the six pack, she’s gonna need ‘em.

Birrificio del Ducato Beersel Mattina – Another sour ale. This is a special version of the brewer’s breakfast saison. The base beer, a low alcohol farmhouse ale brewed with coriander, ginger, green pepper and chamomile, gets blended with lambic from Drie Fontenein. The perfect brunch beer, it pairs well with just about everything. Incredibly smooth and sessionable, enough that mom doesn’t have to share.

Beth Lewand and Chris Gray, owner of Greenpoint’s Eastern District

For a bright, crisp beer that tastes of spring, treat mom to a Brooklyn Sorachi Ace. It features the distinctive Japanese Sorachi Ace hop, which adds a lemony aroma and somewhat cedar-like, woodsy flavor. The champagne-like carbonation gives it a celebratory feel.

Like the Sorachi Ace, Goose Island’s Lolita is a Belgian style ale, but this slightly sour version is fermented with fresh raspberries in oaken Cabernet Sauvignon barrels. Some fruit beers are overly sweet and syrupy, but the sweet and sour balance in Lolita tastes natural and sophisticated.

If mom prefers a German-style wheat beer (Hefeweizen), it doesn’t get much better than Schneider Weisse. Fizzy and ultra-refreshing, with hints of banana and clove, it seems to taste especially great when drunk outdoors.

For a more American-style brew, give a bottle of Zoe from Maine Beer Company. It’s a delicious hoppy amber ale, not quite an IPA but with some extra zing, balanced by caramelly malt.

And now for something completely different: a hoppy dark ale called Fourteen, brewed in honor of the Ithaca Beer Company‘s 14th anniversary. It smells of citrusy, piney hops, but tastes more like roasted malt, with hints of chocolate and coffee. A great choice for a mom who likes adventure.

And from the crew at Greenpoint’s Breuckelen Bier Merchants

Off the top of our head, selected from what’s currently in our store, and for obvious reasons, we suggest:

• Keegans Mother’s Milk
• Fort Collins Kidd Lager
• Ithaca Flower Power
• Oskar Blues Mama’s Little Yella Pils

Happy Mothers Day to all the moms out there. We can only hope we’ll frustrate you a little bit less after you’ve enjoyed one of these specially-selected craft brews. Cheers! Because, you’re the best.

The Robicellis, of cupcake fame, have debuted a limited line of seasonal ice cream sandwiches. We spoke with Allison Robicelli, pictured in their shared commercial kitchen space in Sunset Park, about the project.

The spring blossoms have already dazzled, and dropped their petals into the breeze, leaving behind a bright sea of green, hovering above our heads. Memorial Day is around the corner, signaling the turn into the home stretch sprint to summer. Before we know it, our beaches and parks will be covered with millions of  living blobs of human flesh sprawled out on colorful towels, soaking in the hot, nourishing light of our sun, all simultaneously thinking one deafening primal summer thought: “Ice cream.”

Cupcake wizards Allison and Matt Robicelli, not the types to ignore an opportunity to both delight the masses and indulge their own culinary whims and obsessions in one fell swoop, are doing their part to save summer by rolling out a limited-batch line of seasonal ice cream sandwiches at their Dekalb Market shop.

We spoke with Allison about the project. (If you prefer cartoons to interviews, take a look at Allison’s illustrated rendition of the tale: ‘Let’s Bake the Whole Thing Off: Episode Three – Ice Cream Oopsies!‘)

So – you’ve officially debuted Robicellis ice cream sandwiches. Has this been in the works for a while?

Oh, forever. Ice cream sandwiches are my favorite food ever. If there are ice cream sandwiches in the house, I can’t eat just one. I have to eat them all. It’s a problem.

When I was a kid, they sold Flying Saucers from Carvel in the cafeteria at my school, PS 185.  They were a dollar. If I got a good grade or something I was allowed to buy one, but other than that my mom wouldn’t give me money for them. So I’d constantly look for change, on the sidewalk, in the street. I’d save all the change I found and when I had a dollar, which was usually every few weeks, I’d buy an ice cream sandwich. So ice cream sandwiches taste like victory to me.

We started talking seriously about doing our own ice cream sandwiches last year. It was mostly for selfish reasons. I just wanted to make ice cream sandwiches so I could eat them. Most of the things we develop are for selfish reasons. We’ll come up with something and think, “Oh God, I’d like to eat that.” So we make it. It’s an entirely, entirely selfish pursuit. It’s all about things I want to eat. So, no raisins.

There are a lot of really good ice cream sandwiches out there right now. It’s a good time to be eating ice cream sandwiches. I just wanted to put our spin on it.

Actually, there’s another reason we’re doing ice cream sandwiches. I’m really good friends with Gabby Carbone from The Bent Spoon in Princeton, New Jersey. I think they make the best ice cream in the world. Seriously. We were like, “We have to do something with this ice cream.” It’s so good that we drive down there at least once a month for ice cream.

We were trying to come up with a way to get her ice cream into New York City. We were on a mission. I was going to drive down there twice a month, load up a cooler and drive back. But it became a logistical nightmare. She was going to try to deliver to us, but we couldn’t figure it out. I was going to buy coolers and go down there to pick it up, but it’s over an hour’s drive, and when we were trying to make it work, we were in the middle of a really hot summer – there was no way I was going to go down there and have a thousand dollars worth of ice cream melt in my car while I was sitting in traffic.

We couldn’t figure it out, but by that point I was really invested in the idea. We weren’t going to make our own ice cream, so we started talking to the Laboratorio de Gelato guys. They don’t do ice cream, they do gelato, but they’re definitely like the Bent Spoon of gelato. They’re amazing. We love them.

They opened on the Lower East Side about ten years ago. I remember being a chef and being really aggravated because we didn’t have an ice cream machine. There was no room and no budget for an ice cream machine. And I remember sitting down with Jon from Lab and going through this list of flavors he was making, and it was insane. There were like forty flavors, and they were all flavors you would never have imagined. And on top of that, he said he’d make you whatever you want. It was ridiculous. And inspiring.

If they have so much to work with and it’s all so good, will you stick to the catalog or do you think you’ll take them up on their offer and develop some custom flavors?

We’re going to start with their catalog, but the catalog is ridiculous. It’s not a limiting factor for us not to be making our own ice cream. It’s better. We can riff on the amazing flavors they do with their gelato by pairing it with the cookie part of the sandwich and various toppings that we’ll do. You look at the Lab catalog and ideas just start shooting out of your head. Matt and I are at our best when we’re coming up with ideas. I think we already have about fifteen pages of ideas for ice cream sandwiches. We’ll probably do ten varieites this year. It’s endless.

I love collaborating. It’s fun working with friends and it’s fun working with outstanding product. It’s liberating and inspiring. And when Lab says, “I can make you anything you want,” it’s like talking to Santa. If I want jelly bean anchovy ice cream, I can have it. The possibilities are endless.

So what are some of the sandwich varieties you’ve come up with?

Some of them are going to be interpretations of our cupcakes. We’re doing an ice cream sandwich version of our Dark Chocolate Dolce cupcake. It’s a dulce de leche gelato with sea salt and dark chocolate ganache between two brownie cookies.

We went with the Dulce de Leche first because it seemed easy, but it wasn’t as easy as we thought it would be. The dulce gelato is super-sweet, and the brownie cookie is sweet. Everything was sweet. So to balance out the sweetness and make it more interesting we use a dark chocolate ganache and sea salt, so when you take a bite it’s sweet, but that salt comes in and wakes up your whole palate, then you get the bitterness of the dark chocolate and the bitter cocoa we use in the brownie, so there’s a range of flavors that hits you, wakes you up and gets you involved in the experience.

Everyone who ate them last weekend at Dekalb Market was just standing there eating them with their eyes closed. It wasn’t one of those ice cream experiences where you’re walking around not even really being conscious that you’re eating ice cream…you’re definitely aware that you’re eating one of them.

We’ve also done the Maltz, which has cupcake and brownie versions too. The Maltz is all about bacon, bourbon, and chocolate. In the ice cream sandwich it’s chocolate bourbon gelato between two brownies baked with bacon.

We did the Irish Car Bomb as an ice cream sandwich too. Lab has a Guinness gelato flavor. It’s amazing. Really malty. It actually tastes like beer. It’s not sweet. It just tastes like Guinness. It was bitter and luxurious…

I don’t drink. I haven’t had a drink in ages and one of the things that I really miss is Guinness stout. I tasted that gelato and I was like, “Oh my God this is everything that’s good about Guinness and I can enjoy it without having to take my top off!”

For the ice cream sandwich we made brownies with Bailey’s Irish Crème, spread them with a whiskey ganache and put a big scoop of the Guinness gelato in the middle. It was amazing. I don’t know how well the Car Bomb really works in terms of balance of flavors, but when you eat those flavors together, they really work.

And we’re looking forward to using a lot of stuff from the markets this summer. I love blackberries. I can eat them all the time. We’re going to do a blackberry cabernet reduction on top of a ricotta gelato inside a brownie cookie.

You know, it’s been really interesting for us to work with frozen stuff. When you eat something cold it tends to taste much sweeter than if you eat it at room temperature, because the taste buds on your tongue are numbed by the cold in a way that lets the sweetness through but that kind of blocks perception of other flavors. Like our brownies – if you eat them at room temperature, they’re not very sweet at all. That’s what makes them stand out. But if you eat them frozen, they taste super-sweet because you don’t taste the bitterness of the dark chocolate. So it’s been fun for us to figure out how to balance that.

With the blackberry one, when we thought about the way the cold amplifies the sweetness, we decided to pretty much eliminate the sugar from the blackberry cabernet compote completely, and to even add a little acidity to it to really boost the blackberries’ natural flavor. The ricotta gelato is smooth and creamy, you get your sweetness from the brownie, and we adjusted the blackberry cabernet compote to amplify the tartness and acidity of the blackberry, to balance it. So it won’t be just sweet. When you take a bite you taste a lot of different things. If you want balanced flavors in something cold or frozen, you really have to reduce the amount of sugar and increase the amount of everything else.

We don’t want our stuff to be just sweet. We want it to be interesting and surprising.

Sounds like you’re having fun working with something new. Do you ever get tired of cupcakes?

Definitely. People ask me all the time, “What’s your favorite cupcake?” I tell them, “I hate cupcakes!” I have personally made close to two hundred thousand cupcakes, and I can’t enjoy them anymore.

As a chef you’re constantly breaking everything you’re making down in your head and analyzing – being hyper-critical of your work. I can’t help automatically dissecting them in my mind every time I eat them, and that’s not fun. What makes cupcakes so good to eat is that reckless abandon of shoving them in your mouth and just eating them and letting the flavors hit you. I can’t do it anymore wit cupcakes.

So for me, it’s great to actually get to really enjoy eating something we’re making again.

Where are can the ice cream sandwich lovers of Brooklyn get these things?

We’ve had them the past few weekends at our shop at Dekalb Market, and by Memorial Day we plan to have them available every day there. Flavors will rotate, depending on whatever whim we happen to be indulging or what’s in season at the markets at any given time.

So this is all going to be a wild, freewheeling experimental ice cream sandwich ride?

We are making everything up as we go along. I can’t emphasize that enough. When I see something shiny I like to chase it. That’s how we work.

You can find Robicellis ice cream sandwiches at their shop at Dekalb Market, at 138 Willoughby Street at Flatbush Ave in Downtown Brooklyn.

Saturday, May 12 from 9am to 6pm at Brooklyn Technical High School, 29 Fort Greene Pl between Dekalb and Lafayette Aves (Fort Greene)

The Total Red Hook Immersion
For the second installment of this year’s neighborhood block parties, Brooklyn Based heads to Red Hook. Pick up one of 500 immersion cards at Jalopy Tavern and Brooklyn Ice House, and you’ll be rewarded with a free Brooklyn Brewery beer at each, plus the same deal at Rocky Sullivan’s and soon-to-reopen Botanica. You can also find food, drink, and shopping deals all over the ‘hood, including complimentary Local One during brunch at The Good Fork, Home/Made and Fort Defiance, discounted lobster rolls from the Red Hook Lobster Pound, and $3 tarts from Steve’s Authentic Key Lime Pies. Read more about the details and locations here and RSVP on Facebook.

Saturday, May 12 from 12pm to 6pm

Brooklyn Dirt Non-Dirt Talk
Head to Sycamore for the latest installment of Brooklyn Dirt, a series that focuses on urban farming. Organized by Cantaloupe Alone, this month’s “non-dirt” talk will discuss dirtless growing alternatives for would-be farmers without tillable land. You’ll hear from urban greenscaper Bob Hyland (check out his blog, Inside Urban Green) and farmer and educator Gwen Hill, who’ll discuss modern-user friendly growing solutions and hydroponics. Read more about the talk here.

Tuesday, May 15 from 7:30 to 9:30pm at Sycamore, 1118 Cortelyou Rd between Stratford and Westminster Rds (Ditmas Park)

Finger on the Pulse’s 5th Annual BBQ Blowout
Summer is just around the corner, so start celebrating (if you haven’t already) at this weeknight barbecue bash. Williamsburg’s Finger on the Pulse hosts the event, bringing in meat experts from neighborhood heavyweights St. Anselm and Fette Sau. Admission includes a plate of food, plus a beverage from Brooklyn Brewery. Check out the flyer.
Wednesday, May 16 from 7 to 10pm at Good Co., 10 Hope St between Roebling and Havemeyer Sts (Williamsburg). $10.

New York City Brewers Guild Founders Bash
Help welcome this brand-new organization, dedicated to the production (and appreciation) of locally brewed beer. The inaugural event features hard-to-find and special beers from guild breweries, including Sixpoint, Kelso, and Brooklyn Brewery. Admission includes a commemorative tasting glass, unlimited samples, snacks from Eataly and 508 Gastrobrewery, and for an additional $50, you can sign up for NYCBG membership, which grants you access to exclusive events, brewery tours and more. Get tickets here.

Tuesday, May 22 from 7 to 10pm at Brooklyn Brewery, 79 N 11th St between Berry St and Wythe Ave (Williamsburg). $75.