The Times on Brooklyn Food, Frank Bruni on Buttermilk Channel

Today’s Times Dining sec­tion has some great cov­er­age of Brook­lyn food. First, there is a great arti­cle on food pro­duc­ers through­out the borough:

These Brook­lynites, most in their 20s and 30s, are hand-​making pick­les, cheeses and choco­lates the way others form bands and artists’ col­lec­tives. They have a sense of com­mu­nity and an appre­ci­a­tion for tra­di­tional meth­ods and fla­vors. They also share an aes­thetic that’s equal parts 19th and 21st cen­tury, with a taste for bold graph­ics, sal­vaged wood and, for the men, scruffy beards.

Make sure to check out the inter­ac­tive map, too.

Also, Frank Bruni reviews one of my favorite new restau­rants near our home in Brook­lyn, But­ter­milk Chan­nel, along with an audio slideshow:

But­ter­milk Chan­nel [is] a restau­rant of real stan­dards, note­wor­thy ambi­tion and uncom­mon slav­ish­ness to trends. It’s laud­able and pre­dictable in equal mea­sures. And it was packed every time I went…

The look of the restau­rant, whose corner loca­tion affords it pretty win­dows on two sides, is on the pol­ished side of homey. There’s nicely buffed wood, a spi­dery brass light­ing fix­ture and a hon­eyed glow from it and hand­some sconces along the walls.

There’s also ample space between tables: the owner, Doug Crow­ell, isn’t trying just to jam in as many people as pos­si­ble. But he does ask you to trade some com­fort and con­ve­nience for the refresh­ingly low prices.

These few blocks on Court Street are start­ing to fill with inter­est­ing and tasty culi­nary oper­a­tions: But­ter­milk Chan­nel, Frankie’s Spuntino, and the newly opened and not-yet-visited soon to open Prime Meats.

UPDATE: The Times posted a Q & A between read­ers and sub­jects of the Brook­lynite food pro­duc­ers piece.