Formerly out of work and unemployed, youngsters create a new market for artisan foods
Photo by Fastily
How many times do we have promising ideas and not act on them for fear of failure? How often do we stay in unsatisfactory situations because we’re afraid that we might lose what we have if we try for something better? Unemployed college graduates with no experience and nothing to lose have been finding Rings for themselves by starting businesses in their own kitchens.
“This is my investment in the future right now,” said Fabiana Lee, 26, an interior designer who lost her job in 2009. She has been selling at the Greenpoint market since its inception in October. After experimenting with cookies (too much competition), she has pared her offerings down to two: gorgeously browned empanadas and irresistibly twee “cake pops,” golf-ball-size rounds of cake perched on lollipop sticks. At the moment, they are her main source of income.
Young, college-educated, Internet-savvy, unemployed and hoping to find a place in the food world outside the traditional route, she is typical of the city’s dozens of new food entrepreneurs. As the next generation of cooks comes of age, it seems that many might bypass restaurant kitchens altogether.
Faced with a difficult job market, a few have found an alternate route to success by taking risks and doing what they love. This shows an incredible sense of ingenuity and optimism that would benefit anybody in the business world, not just newcomers. I’m impressed by the confidence and willingness to try new things; in my language, to dig for new Rings.
Aspiring cooks (and the adventurous eaters who love them) come face to face at markets like this one, which are opening and expanding at a brisk pace. The Brooklyn Flea, the Hester Street Fair and the soon-to-reopen New Amsterdam Market have become tasting destinations, where handmade food is as much of a fetish as vintage Ray-Bans or bargello pillowcases. The all-food Greenpoint market, which is open to home cooks of all stripes, is one-stop shopping: Mexican-Indian tacos, artisanal soda pop, roof-grown produce, exotic chili peppers, long-brined pickles, Taiwanese street food and retro-Southern snacks under one roof.
“I feel like I’m at a science fair and I get to eat all the experiments,” said Erin Massey, a Chicago native who lives in Brooklyn, looking around the crowded church basement. “It’s like going to a music festival with all the different bands, only here it’s different kinds of kombucha.”
Everyone has this creative ability to some degree. Too often it’s just buried under the rubble of fear and doubt. Wouldn’t it be great if we could dig past all that rubble and tap into this talent again? You can. But you have to pick up the shovel and start digging!