"new york new york it's a hell of a town. the bronx is up and i'm brooklyn down."

...so said the beastie boys, twenty years ago in their song "hello brooklyn," a short track off of paul's boutique. then in '07, jay-z & lil wayne sampled the song & came out with "hello brooklyn 2.0," part of jay-z's 2007 concept album american gangster, an album inspired by but not actually part of the film american gangster. yesterday, i came across "hello brooklyn 3.0," a remix of the song by someone who's recomposing jay-z songs. i actually prefer it to the first two incarnations. here, i present to you "hello brooklyn 4.0." it ain't a remix of a damn thing.

i've been living in brooklyn for seven plus years now in a couple of different hoods--midwood, kensington & greenwood heights (so fancy sounding!). there's no doubt that brooklyn's hoods each have distinct feels to them, are dominated by specific racial groups & economic levels, have types of businesses & people that make them stand out from the rest. there are the hip hoods--park slope, williamsburg, cobble hill. there are the up-and-coming/gentrifying hoods--bushwick, prospect heights, red hook. there are the hoods i wouldn't walk through at most hours of the day--canarsie, east new york, brownsville.

as i've mentioned before, my neighborhood has a large spanish-speaking population, but twenty and thirty-somethings are moving into the neighborhood in increasing numbers. it's all a part of the gentrification of brooklyn, as us white folk deploy operation snowflake throughout the borough.  still, there are a solid number of spanish-owned & spanish-owned businesses in the hood.

it makes me think of an npr story i heard this past week on talk of the nation, where a maggie anderson, a black woman in oak park (a suburb bordering the west side of chicago) is performing "the empowerment experiment."  as part of it, for the last five months, her & her family have only shopped at black-owned businesses, as a way to point out that there aren't enough black-owned businesses, especially in hoods with large black populations.  it's her hope that in doing so, she'll make folks aware that black-owned businesses empower black communities.  here in new york, it's a little bit better in some neighborhoods, but i can't think of one black-owned business within a ten-block radius of my apartment...mostly spanish and asian-owned businesses. i guess that's because we're west of flatbush ave.

#95 - hello brooklyn 4.0.
snack: chidos chile y limon chicharrones
drink: olde brooklyn greenpoint grape soda



since i was snack shopping in my neighborhood, i picked up a bag of chidos chile y limon chicharrones, a producto mexicano. i'm sorry to report that the best thing about these "chips" is the packaging. those mexican mice on the front of the bag are pretty much the most colorful, excitedly happy cartoon mice i've ever seen. that mouse down in the bottom left corner, with his festive hat & twirly moustache, makes jerry look like droopy for christos' sake.

they're fried flour chips, which is interesting texture & crunchwise, but the flavor is sort of pungent. i tried to muscle through it, but the citrus smell & taste that the lime flavor gives off is reminiscent of a household cleaner. as for the chile flavor, it's no more than a few red colored, slightly noticeable specks scattered about. the worst part about them is that some pieces have, through the frying process, developed a plastic-like strip on the top. if you're like me & prefer to be able to just wolf down one after another of your snacks without having to look down & reject those not fit for consumption, the chicharrones will be rather disappointing.

for my drink, i'm having an olde brooklyn greenpoint grape soda that i picked up at the grocery store the other day. they don't actually come from brooklyn. they're named after brooklyn neighborhoods but made in whitestone, ny, which is the northernmost neighborhood in queens, even further north than shea stadium & laguardia. that's like connecticut, for cryin' out loud.

there's the bay ridge birch beer, the red hook raspberry, the brighton beach black cherry...as for the greenpoint grape, it's named for the neighborhood just north of williamsburg that has a population dominated by both polish folks & hipsters. i guess they drink grape soda there sometimes. my bro lives there, but he's diabetic & has to stick to diet sodas, so he doesn't drink much grape soda. i'm pretty sure there's not much of a market for the diet variety overall.

as to the taste, i drank the entire bottle without noticing, but i have to emphasize the "not noticing" part. the flavor was average.  the carbonation was average.  as a grape soda, it's acceptable, but as it is, i don't really go crazy for grape soda. that's more of an east of flatbush ave sort of thing.  supposedly, they love grape soda over in those parts...that & the olde brooklyn flatbush orange soda.