les foodtrepreneurs #1: kumquat cupcakery.

people of the internet! let me introduce to you ms. natthelibrarian, the first in an exciting lineup of new writers who have heeded my call for eat!drink!snack! global domination. doff your cap or curtsey or some shit. it's the least you can do. also! let me introduce her new column, "les foodtrepreneurs," a column designed to provide you, the reader, with insight into different radical NYC food businesses & the folks behind them. anyway, i'm pretty psyched. you should be too.

i admit it. i like my snacks tiny. why tiny? then i can eat more of them!

i also like my snacks to be local and, if it's really my lucky day, to be independently produced by awesome people.

this brings me to kumquat cupcakery. two perfect bites. amazing flavor combinations. they're all baked in brooklyn in a kitchen on flatbush avenue by some very awesome ladies.

Click to read more ...

#192 - tv will rot your brain.

did you know that ten out of ten doctors say that network television programming will rot your brain? it's true! if you watch one too many episodes of so you think you can dance, desperate housewives, bob's burgers & we fixed your house unfortunate individual all in the same week, the organic matter that is your brain will LITERALLY begin to decompose & ooze out of our your cranial orifices like chicken juice escaping from the bottom of a non-HEFTY garbage bag, rendering you a nasty individual. your friends will begin asking questions, leading with "what the hell's leaking out of your ear?" & all you'll be able to do is mumble incoherently because of your rapid, tv-induced brain decomposition.

that's why i take cablenol...

Click to read more ...

#179 - tracks & snacks 2010.

alright loyal eat!drink!snack! readers, it's time to slam the barn door shut on 2010! normally, i'd reminisce about the past twelve months & be all "blah blah blah blog good blah blah blah blog bad," but i'm just not in the mood this year. instead, i'm just going to get right down to business. it's no secret that i'm both a music monger & a snack monger and as such, around these here parts we have a one year old year-end tradition of looking back at the ten tracks & snacks that totally rocked my world over the past year, so let's just concentrate on that for now.

2010 was definitely a great year for new music. for the past twelve months, it seemed like every single week i came across another new album or song or band that got me excited about music again, so that was coolio. per usual, the stuff that got me most excited fell under the category of "indie rock" with a smidgen of hip hop mixed in. what can i say? i like what i like & like to stick with what i like.

so yeah, this year was jam packed with fun time music, so much that the task of narrowing my favorites down into a top ten list was much more difficult than usual. in the end, i had to leave off a bunch of stuff i liked, including freddie gibbs' "the coldest," yeasayer's "ambling alp," the national's "bloodbuzz ohio," sleigh bells' "tell 'em" & frightened rabbit's "nothing like you," all of which got a TON of play on my stereo & ipod. sorry to them. this ain't tee ball. here at eat!drink!snack!, not everybody gets a trophy. let's check out who actually does get a trophy this year!

Click to read more ...

#173 - mr shawn goes to washington (pt deux).

hey there, neglected food blog. how're things going? oh yeah. i suppose that since i decided to shun you for the past month, things have probably been fairly crickets & tumbleweed for you lately. sorry bout that. things have been pretty fun for me though. thanks for asking! mid-month, to kick off my annual bday week celebration, i decided to revisit my 2008 d.c. birthday celebration with a trip down to the capitol to hang with my good friend tadley, best known round these parts for his uber-classy guest column on spotted dick. as has become the standard these days for my vacations, my time there ended up being one that was jam packed with food & drink.

Click to read more ...

only in ny #3: snack shop

  

snack: snickers cupcake
drink: manhattan special espresso coffee soda

in the BOCOCA (boerum hill, cobble hill, carroll gardens) area of brooklyn, smith st gets all the hype. they've got the requisite hip neighborhood quota of restaurants, bars, shops & boutiques. they've got a comic book store, a cheese shop & a brooklyn industries and american apparel. all told it equals H-I-P. in my time in brooklyn, i've spent a lot of time on smith st. i've had many a drink in its hip bars & food in its hip restaurants. there was a time when i used to go to faan at least once a month. in some forgotten restaurant on smith, i had dinner one night with this dude who was a friend of a friend, only to realize after that it was likely a date. i even got dumped in one of the handful of interchangeable sushi joints. good times on smith st.

...but in my book, smith st is so 2004. in 2010, court st is the way to go. it's filled with restaurants & shops, but it's never got the same sort of attention that smith st has. still, the more i've lived in brooklyn & the more i age & the more i become a hermit, the more i find myself on court st. that's mainly because while smith is home to lots of places to go out to eat & drink, court st is home to american beer distribution (where i often buy beer to drink in the comfort of my home) & cobblestone foods (where i often buy cheese to eat in the comfort of my home). if lines & cramped spaces didn't freak me out, i'm sure i'd frequent the fairly new trader joes on court. there's a movie theater on court st, but i read somewhere that it's MAD SCARY. scary or not, smith st doesn't even have a movie theater. so yeah, court st's more my style these days.

Click to read more ...