This holiday season, here’s how to give the gift of food and simultaneously support a small New York City-based food business. It’s finally happening: 2020 is almost over. But first we have the holidays before us and, if you’re shopping for gifts, one simple fact to remember: There has never, ever been a better time to support a small business—restaurants and food shops included. Gift cards to your…
This article contains affiliate links. There are lots of choices these days for where and how you get your food. But it seems going to the grocery store is increasingly falling out of favor: Even before the pandemic took over our lives, studies showed that millions more Americans—roughly one-third of U.S. households—were shopping online for groceries. We have personally retained regular in-store grocery shopping along with a Sunday…
Sometimes a walk in the woods or an afternoon hunting for sea critters on a beach is just exactly what you need. Here are some of our favorite nature escapes within 30 to 60 minutes of central Queens, NYC. Last update: Jan. 4, 2021. Starting last May, a few months into the pandemic, our family began to venture out of our Jackson Heights apartment to various parks in…
Summer 2020 has been, among other things, the summer of local travel for many of us. We’ve explored parts of New York City, New Jersey, Long Island, Westchester, and Connecticut that we’ve never seen before, and rather than jet off to Europe for a big summer vacation, we booked an Airbnb in Greenwood Lake, New York—just 50 miles northwest, an hour and 10 minutes away, from Queens. We…
We’ve all heard about the struggles of restaurants, in New York City and elsewhere, but what about the ones we know and love in our own neighborhoods? It’s a question that’s weighed on me, as the few I’ve been in touch with personally in Jackson Heights have expressed many struggles over the course of the pandemic. A lot of the businesses here in our part of Queens…
Eds. note: This article currently covers 80 Black-owned eateries in Queens, NYC. It is by no means comprehensive. Please consult the spreadsheet referenced below for a more exhaustive list while we continue to add to this! Earlier this week, when thinking about what we can do specifically on this platform (beyond social media) to support racial equality and Black Lives Matter, we thought about local restaurants and were…
While we live for weekend takeout/delivery, most of the week I am cooking three meals a day for our family of four, like everyone else. We try to buy all the right groceries to get us through a week or more with no return visits to the store—and without wasting a thing. At the same time we want to cook a wide variety of foods that the whole…
Eds. note: This article currently covers 90 restaurants in Jackson Heights and Elmhurst and a handful in Flushing. Update in progress: Jan. 2021. Many of our friends and neighbors in Jackson Heights have asked us where to get delivery lately, so I started compiling the ones I know about here. If you’re like us, preparing three meals a day gets pretty old by Friday, so that’s the night…
Updated for Earth Day’s 50th anniversary, here are some favorite tips, recipes, products, and ideas for how to eat and cook more sustainably, including consuming less meat and cutting back on plastic—even in pandemic times. 2020 marked the 50th anniversary of Earth Day in the U.S. Every year in April we try to organize a street cleanup with our kids and their friends in our Queens neighborhood, which…
In light of these historic times, we want to document some bits of life in Queens during the pandemic. The mundane experience of grocery shopping has changed for billions of people. How has it changed or you? Are you braving the elements or getting groceries delivered for the first time? Let us know in the comments. Everything about it feels wrong. I’m standing on the sidewalk on 37th…
