I found out about Build it Green! NYC through an Apartment Therapy email last week, and Daniel and I put it on our list of places to go immediately.
Build it Green! is a nonprofit that sells salvaged, surplus, and donated building materials. It’s all about reusing the tons of stuff that is already circulating this city and getting that stuff into the hands of people who want to make something new out of it. Proceeds go to environmental education in the city. Pretty darn cool.
The whole place is full of doors, fireplaces, windows, appliances, flooring, toilets, hardware, and anything else you can think of that might be saved from a building deconstruction. Everything is priced ridiculously low, so all you have to do is trek out to Queens and then have some way of getting whatever you find home.
Daniel and I made the trip with our friend Jayme. We were looking for salvaged wood to build a shelf for our (yet to be planted) herb garden, but we didn’t find exactly the piece we’re looking for. I did, however, fall in love with this:
Check that out. An old school projector screen, in perfect condition, for 2o bucks. Now all we need is a projector and we’ve got our very own movies in the park. I love it.
Since we were in Astoria, we decided to follow up Build it Green! with some Greek food. We hit up a place called Athens Cafe. The food was delicious, mostly because we were really, really hungry.
The three of us split dips and pita, which included hummus, roasted red pepper dip, tzatziki, and an unidentifiable fourth dip that none of us liked. We asked the waitress at the end of the meal and were informed that it was mashed potatoes with fish eggs. To me, it was just really, really salty.
We also split a roasted vegetable and goat cheese sandwich with very herby and salty fries. Also good, also probably because were overly hungry. (This is in retrospect; at the time, this was pretty much the best meal I’d ever had.)
More weekend eats? Okay.
Saturday night, we made pizza with another couple.
Mozzarella with tomatoes, mushrooms, and half caramelized onions and roasted garlic.
Parsley pesto with mozzarella, olives, sun-dried tomatoes, and roasted red pepper.
On Sunday morning, we woke up late and made French toast.
Good weekend in food. Oh, and I had gelato twice. And I’m on my way to get some more now. That’s what happens when you live dangerously close to Screme and have friends in the hood who are as obsessed with it as you are…
that projector screen is great. what a fun idea! bring popcorn and kombucha and you’ve got yourself a movie night ;)
yummm pizza. and i meant to find that queens blog for you (which i’ve forgotten the name of completely) but it looks like you found a good place, despite the sketch sauce :)
YAY GELATO CREW!! :)