Bodega in a Box Helps You Cook Really Locally

For a couple years now, a Chicago-based group called the Neighbors Project has been encouraging gentrifiers in cities across America to “connect with their diverse neighbors to improve the neighborhood for everyone.” The goal is to neutralize the “polarization” caused by widespread urban gentrification, and also offer advice for people who have had it with the corner bodega’s refusal to carry the New York Times and stock more produce beyond the usual “bananas that look like they're in pain.”

But if your neighborhood corner store is still a long way from soy milk and microbrews, for just $25 you can turn your bodega’s sub-par lemons into ironic lemonade by buying a “Bodega Party in a Box” from Neighbors Project. The empty box comes with a cookbook compiled by “corner store cooking experts,” a reusable shopping bag, invitations and party decorations. Once the box arrives you’ll just need to stock up on products from the corner store, call your friends and get cooking. Slumming it never tasted so good! [NYC the Blog]

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By John Del Signore in Food on July 28, 2008 3:52 PM

Comments [rss]

paolo mastrangelo

Kit Hodge, CEO of the Neighbors Project, responds via email

infotron1000

Kit, I can't blame you for reaching out to this market, but I think anyone who doesn't have their head up their ass will agree that this product actually encourages the polarization you say it aims to neutralize by validating sheltered, pathetic and inevitably wealthy out-of-towners who have difficulty going to their local corner store.

I looked at your organization's site and it looks to me like an attempt to make yuppies/hipsters (more accurately: bland, uncultured philistines from American suburbs with nothing to offer to this city other than money and bad taste) more vocal and therefore more annoying to their neighbors (most likely: people who grew up in New York, had to actually work hard at some point in their lives, etc.). My point of view is that out-of-towners who are boring enough to look to some website to spice up whatever NYC neighborhood they happen to be spending their young adulthood in should NOT be encouraged to lead neighborhood events. Fuck that.

Personally, I think people who are intimidated by what's in their neighborhood should reconsider who they are and what they are doing in NYC... Kit, I hope you make a lot of money.

Kit Hodge

Thanks for the post. Just to clarify, we created the Bodega Party in a Box not just because it sure is nice to be able to get good bananas as you're headed home from the subway, but because we also found through our Food & Liquor project in Chicago that when newer residents in a neighborhood choose not to shop at their bodega, residents of all incomes suffer, particularly in areas in food deserts. People with no other options but to shop at their bodega should not be the only ones who work on improving fresh food access, but that's generally how it is right now, and we want to change that. Sadly, a lot of folks who aren't as clued in to the wonders of bodegas (yet?!) are reluctant to go in and give it a shot (and figure it out) for a variety of reasons; so we're offering a fun way to put this all together - for the benefit of everyone in the neighborhood.

Kit Hodge

CEO, Neighbors Project

sharilyn

holy mackerel! are there really people who need to spend $25 on a book to tell them how to spend $5 on pasta and a can of tomato sauce at the corner store? i guess noone ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the american consumer.