food

Pineapple on Pizza or Not?

August 14, 2018 by a.rodriguez19 Leave a Comment

The Hawaiian pizza, which is topped with pieces of pineapple, has been the topic of internet debates for many pizza lovers: should pizza have pineapples as toppings.

Some argue that putting pineapples on pizza doesn’t make a traditional Italian pizza. But who’s to say trying something new is the worst thing ever? In this generation, we are introduced to new things everyday, such as the taco pizza from Tony Boloney’s Pizzeria and the bacon wrapped donut from the Nickel Diner. What’s so wrong about a sweet and salty delight?

The Hawaiian pizza creates a perfect balance for those who want both. Hawaiian pizza is one of my favorites, here’s more reasons why pineapple should be on pizza.

For those who try to find a healthy balance in what they eat, pineapple is a tremendous source of Vitamin C, potassium and fiber. These vitamins and minerals benefit your overall healthy. So why hate on a pizza that can give the best of both worlds?

“Pineapple on pizza is good, you guys don’t like that?” Justin Bieber said while a guest on the Jay Leno Show in 2011. If the Biebs like it, so should you!

If you’ve ever experienced the joy of a sweet and salty snack, you’ll love this match made in heaven. Pineapples are sweet, tangy and juicy. What’s not to love?

The idea of combining fruit and meat is in no sense new. It’s also delicious. Have you ever had ham and pineapple at Thanksgiving or Christmas? It’s just like the Canadian Pizza. Pieces of smoked ham and pineapples could make anyone start mouth-watering.

On the contrary, some people argue that the sweetness of pineapple is a bad fit for the general taste of the pizza, but that’s the thing. The taste in unusual. Which is a good way of changing something you are used too.

When hearing about Pineapple pizza for the first time, I was quick to drag out the “Ewww” without even tasting it. But boy was I wrong!

Now its pineapple on pizza all day every day.

A Fresh Look at Food

August 6, 2015 by Nicole Yapijakis

The aroma of fresh harvested produce surrounds those who pass through. Curious locals peer at the peculiar variations of produce. As they become immersed in the Union Square Greenmarket, time ceases to exist; at least compared to the fast paced New York life. However, customers are doing more than just buying groceries.

The market offers ethical, healthy and organic products that the standard supermarket wouldn’t offer. John Hayton, a cheese maker and vendor at Cherry Grove Farm, says,”Our cows are grass-fed and at our farm there is a small herd of cows that we make our cheese from. This makes the flavor more natural.”

“I come three times a week because I live in the area and it is convenient. I enjoy supporting local farmers instead of buying from large supermarkets,” says Erin Stair, a regular at the market. Many customers, like Stair, help promote small businesses and the local economy.

Buying local is better for the environment because it cuts down on the processing, packaging and shipping of food produced by large corporations. By supporting the market, customers helps cut the amount of waste sent to landfills, which also decreases greenhouse gas emissions.

Although the market is the center of consumption, it is also a big contributor to recycling what most urbanites would waste.

It offers a convenient compost collection, where locals can bring produce scraps, breads and grains, beverage waste and other compostable things. Once the compost is collected at the market, it is transported to a compost site. There it is made into fertile soil for local farming and gardening projects. This collection doesn’t only cut down city waste, but decreases the amounts of greenhouse gases released into the air.

There is also an inviting textile recycling collection, where locals can drop off unwanted clothes and textiles that would otherwise be thrown away. Instead of wasting, the collection service finds ways to reuse these items. The usables clothes are redistributed to markets with a high demand for second hand clothing and the scraps are used as cleaning rags or recycled into car door panels and insulation

Volunteers from City Harvest come at the end of the market on Saturdays to collect thousands of pounds of leftover food. You can see them in green t-shirts, talking to vendors, bagging produce or pushing around packed bins of food. All this is loaded onto the City Harvest truck parked on the corner of Union Sq West and 15th Street. All of the food is distributed to food pantries, shelters, soup kitchens and other food programs around the city free of charge.

People from all over New York come together four days a week to be a part of an interactive, community minded experience. What most visitors don’t realize is that this market is a model for a sustainable and environmentally conscious community.

Ring! Ring! Bike Coming Through

August 6, 2015 by VIVIAN SHAN

It is no secret that the number of active bikers in Manhattan has increased since Mayor Bloo
mberg’s implementation of CitiBikes in 2013, but what is it really like to ride between the chaos of New York City traffic?

Shawn Jones, a 24 year old bike courier, can give one a good idea of what it’s like to travel on two wheels amid New York City’s yellow cabs and black ubers.

The merging of two popular food delivery companies- Seamless and GrubHub- in 2013 has given many individuals easy access to online and mobile ordering. While ordering food may feel as easy as the click of a button, delivering food is a much more complex process when bikes do the job faster than cars.

After almost two years of delivering food to various destinations in Manhattan, Jones has become used to the reckless drivers that he shares the road with. During this time, Jones has stayed out of accidents by riding between cars rather than in bike lanes, which drivers normally don’t pay attention to.

On average, Jones does 15 to 20 deliveries a day, each of which takes around 20 minutes. He finds himself biking around the city for both business and pleasure, because he thinks “it’s nice to stare at all the cars sitting in traffic and think, ‘haha.’” Like many other people who deliver food or parcels on bikes, Jones enjoys not being restricted by traffic while still being able to move through the streets efficiently.

Daryl Williams, a security guard for Credit Suisse Bank on 24th and Madison, says that there are constantly people passing by on bikes, whether they are biking to work, or biking for pleasure. In the years that he’s watched bikers ride through one New York City streets, he hasn’t seen any major accidents occur.

Nonetheless, many bike couriers have said that they’d like to improve the safety of bike-riding in a city as busy as Manhattan. “I think maybe drivers ed should include how to maintain the safety of not only pedestrians but also bikers,” says Jones.

Jones has noticed that with an increase in bikers in NYC, some drivers are being more attentive to bike lanes, while others less so. Citi Bike users have revealed that prior to the implementation of this new bike system, they were skeptical of biking in the big streets where cars are constantly moving around them, but felt safer after knowing that there would be more bike users joining them.

“I feel like Joseph Gordon Levitt in that movie Premium Rush– every moment I’m riding my bike I’m thinking of which way to turn and how to get to my destination in the shortest amount of time,” says Shawn Jones.

As the Crumbs Empire Crumbles

August 5, 2014 by LAUREN PUGLISI

Yes, Crumbs really closed all 19 locations in New York City. But while some cupcake lovers mourn the fall of the empire, others search for cupcake stores to fill the vacuum.

Some attribute the massive size of Crumbs’ cupcakes to their failure. Hilary Stout of the New York Times writes, “There was little dainty about Crumbs. Its signature product was a softball-size cupcake with a calorie count that sometimes topped 1,000.” For many, the cupcakes were too big to eat in one sitting, contradicting what many believe a cupcake should be: a small indulgence.

This would explain the success of Baked by Melissa, a store dedicated to selling bite-sized cupcakes which has many locations throughout Manhattan. Although its bestselling cupcake is the classic red velvet, it sells a variety of interesting flavors including chocolate chip pancake and peanut butter and jelly. And the benefit of the cupcakes’ small size is people can try many different flavors.

However, the cupcakes can be considered expensive for their size. Each cupcake is $1 and it is about the width of a quarter. In my opinion, the cupcakes are overrated. Their size seems to be their only claim to fame, as their flavor is just mediocre. I consider them too small to really taste the complexity of the flavor; they just taste sweet.

Less well known is Sugar Sweet Sunshine, a small cupcake shop located on the Lower East Side. According to the store’s owners, Peg Williams and Deb Weiner, the store was created to “make people happy every time they walk through the doors.” And they do. Sugar Sweet Sunshine scored four out of five stars from over 1,000 reviews on Yelp. One reviewer wrote “ooooo, it tastes like MAGIC! This was, by far, one of the best cupcakes I’d had in NYC…made me wonder even more why anyone likes Crumbs.”

I agree. The cake is moist and the texture is just right. The icing and cake are not overly sweet and very flavorful.

Its Ooey Gooey cupcake, chocolate cake with chocolate almond buttercream, has just the right amount of almond flavor and its Holla Back Girl, banana cake with cream cheese icing, has visible banana chunks with a real fresh banana taste. I would highly recommend all of its cupcakes as it has many simple but delicious flavors. It also has amazing puddings and pies!

Sugar Sweet Sunshine is not overdone or overrated like Crumbs and Baked by Melissa. Instead, it is humble, intimate, and warm. Although the space is small, it is cleverly designed with thrift store finds, hand-me-down furniture, polaroid pictures, and holiday cards. It looks like a grandmother’s living room! And, as soon as you walk in, you can smell the aroma of fresh baked goods.

Butter Lane is another cupcake store which is often overlooked. Butter Lane is small like Sugar Sweet Sunshine so you could almost walk by without noticing it if it wasn’t for the smell. Much of Butter Lane’s space is used by its cooking class, which is often in session, so you can smell the delightful store from a block away.

Butter Lane is unique because you can mix and match your cake and frosting. Although cake flavors are limited to chocolate, vanilla, and banana, there are about ten different frosting flavors, not including seasonal flavors. My favorites are the chocolate salted caramel frosting on any cake, which is the perfect mixture of salty and sweet, and the cream cheese frosting on the banana cake. You can taste the time and care it puts into its cupcakes.

I would highly recommend both Sugar Sweet Sunshine and Butter Lane. I believe they are superior to Crumbs, although I doubt Butter Lane and Sugar Sweet Sunshine’s owners have the desire to create empires. But that is fine with me. When cupcake stores become chains they seem to lose their charm.

“The Chipotle of Middle Eastern Food”

August 5, 2014 by r.chowdhury1

For many years, fans have been demanding a place to sit and eat their halal food. The Halal Guys have finally listened.

The Halal Guys on “53^rd and 6^th”, have become a popular name in New York City. There are five carts in the city. After twenty-three years they are beginning to expand throughout United States and worldwide. Just recently they opened their first restaurant on 14^th street and 2^nd avenue. The Halal Guys plan to open an additional restaurant on the Columbia University campus.

The restaurant excites many customers. Cab drivers and customers from different states can now eat there. They no longer have to wait on huge lines in the sweltering summer heat or blistering winter cold. Now customers have access to air conditioning, space, and tables.

“The line is short and the guys are friendly. Now that they opened up a place, I don’t have to wait in the sun,” said a local costumer.

The restaurant will have the typical gyro and platters that are sold at the cart. It will add a juice and smoothie bar, hummus, tabbouleh, baba ghanoush, Mediterranean salads, and yogurts. Also the falafels will now be made fresh, instead of being reheated at the carts. The Halal Guys are trying to reach out to the vegetarian customers.

Location played a big role in deciding whether or not to expand. There is a lot going on in East Village. “Number 1 is that it’s right by the NYU Dorms,” the manager said.

There is a cart open right in front of the restaurant. The Halal Guys will have both the cart and restaurant open. The major difference will be is that the restaurant will have a huge variety of food.

Although this restaurant is beneficial to many costumers, some costumers are still not happy. The prices at the East Village outlet are somewhat higher than at the cart. They will offer two sizes, a regular for $6 and $7 for large. The restaurant will also add tax to the meal. The average platter at the Halal Guys cart is $6.

In 1990 Abdelbaset Elsayed, and Mohamed Abouelenein ran a hot dog cart. Both founders noticed there was a high demand for a full-filling halal meal for Muslim cab drivers. “Always looking for a halal meal,” according to the manager of Halal Guys. This inspired them to add more items on their menu at the time.

They get a wide range of customers. “You just look at the lines [at Halal Guys], and it’s people from all walks of life. That right there is a franchise. It’s absolutely the right time now,” according to the Daily News paper.

The Halal Guy’s next goal is to open a larger place at Amsterdam Avenue and 95^th street, then they hope to expand all throughout the business world. Abouelenein and Elsayed are working with the Fransmart franchise company to open restaurants in L.A., San Francisco, Chicago, Washington, D.C., and Houston. In addition, they hope to expand in Canada, the Middle East, and Europe. Fransmart is the same franchise company that expanded Five Guys.

“It’s going to be the Chipotle of Middle Eastern food,” Dan Rowe, Fransmart’s chief executive, said according to New York Times.

The Halal Guys Brand has become strong. It attracts many tourists and have imitators of the brand. There is something special about their meat and white sauce that attracts many people.

“When you’re working at your pushcart, you keep working and you don’t follow what’s happening about your name. And then (I discovered) all this demand. The name ‘Halal Guys’ had spread all over the world — and I didn’t even know it,” Abouelenein says according to the daily newspaper.