A new arepa spot is now open in Brooklyn after getting its start as a moveable feast with family techniques. The Maiz Project, which began as a pop-up operation, now has a brick-and-mortar outpost at Time Out Market New York.

“We cook everything like our grandmothers did in Venezuela,” says chef Richard Ortega via email. That means that, for Ortega and his team, ingredients are of paramount importance. 

“Our specialty is arepas,” says the chef and owner, who was raised in the Venezuelan countryside. “We prepare them using techniques that are practically forgotten in Venezuela. We bring corn from different farms in Mexico, using different types of corn depending on the season (red, yellow, blue), we grind and make fresh masa every morning.” 

Those arepa varieties at the Dumbo food hall include steak with white cheese and chimichurri, chicken with avocado and muenster, shrimp with avocado and garlic butter and chorizo with Irish cheddar and salsa verde. Tequeños and ceviche are also on the permanent menu, and Ortega has plans for weekend specials featuring preparations with porchetta or vitello tonnato among his Brooklyn ambitions.

“We want to be able to make NYC fall in love with our arepas,” Ortega says, and “show them the true traditional way of how our grandmothers did it before industrialization with the arrival of pre-cooked flour.”

The Maiz Project is located at 55 Water Street in Brooklyn. 

* This article was originally published here

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris will meet with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s family on Monday’s 60th anniversary of the March on Washington, where King delivered his famous “I Have a Dream” speech at the Lincoln Memorial.

All of King’s children have been invited, White House officials have said.

The Democratic president was taking a page out of history by opening the Oval Office to King’s family. On Aug. 28, 1963, the day of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, President John F. Kennedy welcomed King and other key march organizers to the Oval Office for a meeting.

The White House did not include the meeting on Biden’s public schedule for Monday.

Biden also was hosting a reception Monday evening to mark the 60th anniversary of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, a nonpartisan, nonprofit legal organization that was established at Kennedy’s request to help advocate for racial justice.

In an opinion piece for the Washington Post, Biden said the administration is working to advance King’s dream of a society in which a person’s character outweighs their skin color.

Through major legislation and executive orders, “we’re advancing equity in everything we do making unprecedented investments in all of America, including for Black Americans,” he wrote.

Biden said his policies have led to a drop in Black unemployment, more small businesses being started by Black entrepreneurs and more Black families covered by health insurance.

He’s given some $7 billion to the network of historically Black colleges and universities and has emphasized appointing Black people to his Cabinet and White House staff, throughout the federal judiciary and to independent agencies like the Federal Reserve.

“For generations, Black Americans haven’t always been fully included in our democracy or our economy, but by pure courage and heart, they have never given up pursuing the American Dream,” Biden wrote.

He also referenced Saturday’s racist attack at a Jacksonville, Florida, store in which three Black people were fatally shot by a white man wearing a mask and firing a weapon emblazoned with a swastika. The shooter, who had also posted racist writings, killed himself.

“We must refuse to live in a country where Black families going to the store or Black students going to school live in fear of being gunned down because of the color of their skin,” Biden wrote. “On this day of remembrance, let us keep showing that racial equity isn’t just an aspiration. Let us reject the cramped view that America is a zero-sum game that holds that for one to succeed, another must fail. Let us remember America is big enough for everyone to do well and reach their God-given potential.”

The 1963 March on Washington is still considered one of the greatest and most consequential racial justice demonstrations in U.S. history.

The nonviolent protest attracted as many as 250,000 people to the Lincoln Memorial and provided momentum for Congress to pass landmark civil rights and voting rights legislation in the years that followed. King was assassinated in April 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee.

On Saturday, thousands converged on the National Mall for a 60th anniversary commemoration, with speakers and others saying a country still riven by racial inequality has yet to fulfill King’s dream of a colorblind society in which his four children “will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”

The event was convened by the King family’s Drum Major Institute and the Rev. Al Sharpton’s National Action Network.

The post Biden and Harris will meet with King’s family on 60th anniversary of the March on Washington appeared first on New York Amsterdam News.

* This article was originally published here

Family-run Cuban restaurant, Rincón Criollo, at Junction Blvd is shutting down operations after being open for nearly half a century.

The esteemed restaurant was first founded in the 50s when the Acosta Brothers opened a restaurant just north of Havana. Celebrities such as Beny More and Tony y Olga had frequented the restaurant before the brothers moved Rinón Criollo to 40-09 Junction Blvd in Queens in 1976.

Bringing traditional Cuban cuisine to the borough, Rincón Criollo quickly became a beloved neighborhood spot to get dishes like Rope Vieja, Picadillo, and Lechon Asado.

Current owners, Esther and Rudy Acosta, told The City that the restaurant’s closure is primarily a result of the pandemic. The restaurant was forced to do takeout, and the business “never fully recovered.”

Additionally, the threat of increasing rent pushed Esther and Rudy Acosta towards opening a new location on Long Island in Garden City. The new location is expected to open by mid-September, shared The City.

“We kept on going a little further, a little further,” Acosta said. “And we saw this beautiful location with parking, two floors, and we were able to buy it for a reasonable price, no more leasing.”

According to Rincón Criollo’s Instagram, the restaurant hosted its final brunch on Sunday. Apparently the restaurant’s last day will be Thursday, August 31st.

The post Famous Queens Cuban Restaurant, Rincón Criollo, To Close After Nearly A Half-Century appeared first on Secret NYC.

* This article was originally published here