“I don’t know anything else, no office job or anything like that, just fish. So, I fell into the fish.”
Meet Aftabudin Rayman and Peter Wojick, the fish smokers behind the hot-smoked fish division at ACME Smoked Fish in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. ACME Smoked Fish is the largest smoked fish house in the country, processing 6-8 million pounds of assorted fish for stores and seafood counters every year. According to Rayman, the head fish smoker, “to be successful at this job, you can’t look at it as just a job, an ordinary job”. To him, a successful fish smoker’s priority should be the fish, always the fish, that internal drive to achieve moist, smoky meat with a perfect golden hue everytime – not doing the job “to get an increase in pay”. And running a hot-smoked fish operation isn’t an easy task: working 10-12 hour days on your feet, constantly breathing in smoke, wheeling heavy racks of hanging fish over slippery floors. It’s physically demanding, which is why devotion like Rayman’s is hard to come by.
So come watch their story and discover the fascinating and delicate process of hot-smoking fish. It truly is a craft, a craft that takes passion, a certain “thoughtlessness” to it, and tens of years to master. Enjoy!
And for a real Brooklyn experience, stop by on Fish Fridays at ACME where they open up the smokehouse outlet to the local Greenpoint community for 5 hours to shop for freshly smoked seafood. You’ll get to meet the employees and mingle with loyal ACME customers who’ve been eating their product for decades. Here’s the address:
Mike’s Hot Honey. Take note everyone. This new artisan condiment made locally is only a few months old, but it will be in your pantry for a lifetime. Trust me. It’s sold and featured on the Hell Boy pie at Paulie Gee’s Pizza on Greenpoint Avenue. Watch the founder, Mike Kurtz’s, compellingly funny story from food. curated. about his obsession with creating his secret spicy pepper infused honey. So good. Get a bottle now!
Why drink the artificial stuff when you can make your own all natural soda at home? I want to introduce you local food artisan featured this week on food. curated.: Anton Nocito, the founder of P&H Soda Co., a hand made soda syrup company based in Greenpoint (and first introduced to us at The Greenpoint Food Market)! Anton is on a personal mission to wean soda lovers away from mass produced colas, and to get them to start thinking about making better-for-you sodas at home – sodas made of natural, organic ingredients.
So take a moment to hear what he as to say about bringing back old soda fountain traditions while getting a peek into his production process. I don’t know about you, but I want a hibiscus soda STAT!
To get a bottle of P&H‘s inspired and complex-but-not-too-complex soda flavors, hop on by to Eastern District on 1053 Manhattan Avenue where he brews and bottles his creations. Thanks for watching and supporting our local food artisans.
Inside the dark, wooden, stained-glass lit bar many hipsters call “The Heavy Metal Bar” on the edge of McGolrick Park in Greenpoint lies a small, narrow kitchen where Anna Wolf crafts small batch artisan beer mustard. You would never know or never guess the smells that take over this pub in the early morning hours. But, in fact, the bar takes on a new life as the home to My Friend’s Mustard from 5-11am, a whole grain, spicy, and full-of-texture mustard inspired by good food and locally brewed Brooklyn beer from Sixpoint.
Come watch an inside peek into the production process, meet Anna Wolf, the founder and owner of My Friend’s Mustard, and see for yourself the birth of a small food business inside the Palace Cafe.
To buy a jar for your condiment collection, you can visit the semi-new local beer & cheese shop: Eastern District. 1053 Manhattan Avenue (Eagle/Freeman)
