If you haven’t already been there, head down to the Tobacco Warehouse in Brooklyn Bridge Park for the Brooklyn Local. A fundraiser for City Harvest, it’s a festival celebrating local foods: chocolate, pickles, mustards, cookies, beef, seafood, and pies and more pies.
“Everything is so delicious and I want to try it all because it’s going to such a good cause!” said Marcia Ely of Park Slope.
Vendors include: One Girl Cookies, Ditch Plains Drop In (with tiny lobster rolls), City ‘Lasses, Sour Puss Pickles, the Pie Corps, Four & Twenty Blackbirds as well as local stalwarts Damascus Bakery, Sahadi’s, Steve’s Authentic Key Lime Pies and Jacques Torres Chocolates. A full list of participating purveyors is here.
“We use my great-grandmother’s recipe,” said Bob McClure of McClure’s Pickles, which is in Detroit as well as Brooklyn (his brother runs the Detroit branch.) “I wanted to come today because I’m part of a growing food community, and I’ve known the organizers since we began the business five years ago. I can get our products out to people who’ve never tried them. And I meet new vendors here.”
Many vendors are regularly at the Brooklyn Flea, the New Amsterdam Market, or the Brooklyn Foodshed Market. But not all those locations are walkable from downtown Brooklyn, so it’s a good chance to try some new vendors. I especially liked the apple cider syrup I got from Morris Kitchen, and McClure’s garlic dill pickles. In addition to the food stands, there are cookbook signings, a children’s room and, for $60, a tasting tent. The Brooklyn Local will go on until 4:00 pm today.