Packed shelves layered with instant noodle packets, chili sauce cans, homemade shrimp salad sealed in plastic-wrapped leaves, dehydrated tea leaves, fish sauce and countless other brightly wrapped condiments, seasonings and snack foods cover 96 square feet.  

At the back of the Jackson Heights mall that houses the popular Tibetan restaurant Lhasa Fast Food sits New York City’s only known source of Myanmar dried goods. 

Baking a loaf of bread can be as simple as mixing together three ingredients—flour, water and yeast. Turning that loaf into a business, however, can prove a lot more complicated. Yet that’s what Kim Joseph was inspired to do two and a half years ago. She had just returned to New York City from a stint teaching English in Japan, and after years of eating a rice-based diet was fairly sure a gluten intolerance would make it impossible for her to enjoy bread again. A gift from a friend—a loaf of home-baked sourdough—changed that. 

Michael Psilakis does not like leftovers. One day of reheating Sunday’s roast chicken in the oven is fine, but the last thing the Michelin-starred chef and owner of Astoria’s MP Taverna wants to do is “eat the same roast chicken, the same way, every day for a week.” Variation, both of dishes and of flavors within a single dish, is not something on which he likes to compromise. 

This month, we're proud to present the Bread & Grains issue—dedicated to all manner of doughs, dosas and baked desserts made in Queens. To coincide with the print issue (you'll be able to pick up a print copy very soon!), every weekday throughout the month of February, we're featuring a different bakery in the borough.

Malaysian Curry Paste
Mama Lam’s 

When “Mama Lam” arrived in New York from Malaysia in the 1980s, she craved the flavors of home and developed her own bases for sauces and stews. Her three daughters bottled her recipes, which, we think, would make great stocking stuffers.

Did you know that New York City has the highest number of women entrepreneurs in our neighborhoods? According to New York City Small Business Services, women across the five boroughs employ over 190,000 people and generate approximately $50 billion in sales. This month, we’re proud to present our annual Women’s issue—dedicated to all the innovative women chefs, food entrepreneurs, restaurateurs, bakers, mixologists and more who help feed the borough everyday.

Sous vide cooking, once accessible only to the most advanced professional kitchens because of the once costly, specialized equipment required, has made its way to the realm of home cooks far and wide thanks to the relatively recent availability of more affordable sous vide machines tailored for their use. With this technique now available to a much larger audience, many are expanding their cooking skill sets beyond the fundamentals of roasting, sautéing and braising into the world of low, steady-temperature cooking. 

My family is full of self-proclaimed bad Jews (the bad implying negligence, not naughtiness), though we still feel the pull to engage in the occasional holiday circus. A few Aprils ago my stepmother tasked me with making matzah for our family Passover Seder, and after securing my services mentioned I had to get the job done in 18 minutes flat. She offered little explanation as to why, but I embraced the restriction like parameters of a new game, getting the dough mixed, rolled and into the oven in just under the time limit.

Stand on any busy corner in Queens for long enough and you can see an intricate web of cyclists forming. Citi Bikers on their way to dinner dates, bike commuters chugging along in their work clothes, recreational cyclists kitted up in slick gear, while teens play tightrope one wheel up between the double yellow lines. But the most prevalent group of these cyclists are helping keep the borough’s food economy booming. 

15-year-old Forest Hills native Josh Reisner on why he fell in love with cooking, what it means to be a teen chef and how he navigates the cultural nuances of his favorite food: Ramen.

It’s the middle of summer vacation, but Josh Reisner doesn’t have a single free day.

Nick Hoefly never planned to become a professional beekeeper. But in 2015, when he came across a crowdfunding campaign for a flow hive (a simpler, yet slower process for extracting honey from hives that allows for minimal bee contact), he thought it might be fun. His wife, Ashley, didn’t share his enthusiasm at first. She has since come around. “The first time I tasted our honey, I fell in love,” she says.

Did you know that New York City has the highest number of women entrepreneurs in our neighborhoods? According to New York City Small Business Services, women across the five boroughs employ over 190,000 people and generate approximately $50 billion in sales. This month, we’re proud to present our annual Women’s issue—dedicated to all the innovative women chefs, food entrepreneurs, restaurateurs, bakers, mixologists and more who help feed the borough everyday.

Did you know that New York City has the highest number of women entrepreneurs in our neighborhoods? According to New York City Small Business Services, women across the five boroughs employ over 190,000 people and generate approximately $50 billion in sales. This month, we’re proud to present our annual Women’s issue—dedicated to all the innovative women chefs, food entrepreneurs, restaurateurs, bakers, mixologists and more who help feed the borough everyday.

Did you know that New York City has the highest number of women entrepreneurs in our neighborhoods? According to New York City Small Business Services, women across the five boroughs employ over 190,000 people and generate approximately $50 billion in sales. This month, we’re proud to present our annual Women’s issue—dedicated to all the innovative women chefs, food entrepreneurs, restaurateurs, bakers, mixologists and more who help feed the borough everyday.

Gone is the iconic rainbow of sprightly red, orange, green and blue cartons of milk from bodega refrigerators across New York, where Elmhurst Dairy vended its Queens-based milk for nearly 100 years. October 2016 marked the first time since the island of Manhattan was called New Amsterdam that New York City didn’t have its own local milk producer. Elmhurst Dairy shut down its no-longer-profitable Jamaica based business and fated New Yorkers to a potential lifetime of milk sourced beyond the boundaries of the boroughs.

Until recently, I’d always relegated the salad to the status of a sad, feminine, throwaway thing to make or order, lacking substance, heft. And yet, if done well, it can be a transformative experience to eat a salad. The skill to create a spectacular one requires the deftness of a ballerina in pointe shoes. Julia Sherman’s project-turned-book, Salad for President, sought to transform the salad from a side piece to a main chick, center plate.

Molcajete
Incasa

Up your guac game with a molcajete from Incasa, the Astoria design shop where you can also find glassware imported from Oaxaca and locally made textiles. In keeping with tradition, this molcajete is made from volcanic stone. Use it to make Mexican salsas or to grind toasted chiles into a multipurpose paste.

Walk the stretch of Kew Gardens surrounding Forest Park and you’ll be met with nondescript storefronts, chains like Dunkin’ Donuts and Rite Aid and highway onramps. Unlike its Forest Hills neighborhood, whose streets are lined with hip restaurants and coffee shops, Kew Gardens is still waiting for its moment to shine.

Did you know that New York City has the highest number of women entrepreneurs in our neighborhoods? According to New York City Small Business Services, women across the five boroughs employ over 190,000 people and generate approximately $50 billion in sales. This month, we’re proud to present our annual Women’s issue—dedicated to all the innovative women chefs, food entrepreneurs, restaurateurs, bakers, mixologists and more who help feed the borough everyday.

When Lidia Bastianich immigrated to Queens, she wasn’t yet the world-famous, Emmy-award-winning television host, best-selling cookbook author, restaurateur and chef she is today—the one whose familiar warm, smiling, bespectacled face now graces retail Italian food products, like jars of pasta sauce and boxes of farfalle and fusilli. 

On a hot Thursday evening at the Museum of Food and Drink in Brooklyn, Dr. Jessica B. Harris perches on a stool, looks out at her fans and protégés and tells stories from her past.

Before kegs and stainless steel tanks, wooden barrels were the only vessels in which to brew, store and ship beer. The main difference? At the time, brewers strove to eliminate any flavorings that could be extracted into the liquid it held. The return to wood-barrel use—it’s important to note that lambic-beer makers never stopped since starting in the mid-1800s—welcomes this kind of external influence, however. It aligns directly with two of craft beer’s central tenets: experimentation and flavor.

Did you know that New York City has the highest number of women entrepreneurs in our neighborhoods? According to New York City Small Business Services, women across the five boroughs employ over 190,000 people and generate approximately $50 billion in sales. This month, we’re proud to present our annual Women’s issue—dedicated to all the innovative women chefs, food entrepreneurs, restaurateurs, bakers, mixologists and more who help feed the borough everyday.