Oser Communications Group

1 1 August 2018 SNACKING NEWS Brooklyn Whatever is Brooklyn All Over BY LORRIE BAUMANN Brooklyn is famous for being an attitude as well as a borough of New York City, and a taste of the food produced by Brook- lyn Whatever will teach you something about what that means. Brooklyn What- ever is a family company founded by Rachel Shamah and her son Abe, who make Shpickles, Shmolives, Shnuts, Sh- preads and sauces. "I'm born and bred in Brooklyn," says Rachel Shamah. "Sud- denly I'm famous." "Our first product was our Shmolives," she adds. "I'm a yogi – I practice yoga almost every day.... I was in class one day, and it just came to me. 'Sh' is a play on 'Shamah,' and it's a play on how Brooklyners talk. It just came to me in a quiet moment." Her company name, Brooklyn What- ever, came to her in a lawyer's office while her incorporation papers were being pre- pared. "They said we could call it any- thing," she tells the story. "Well, Brooklyn – we're in Brooklyn. Brooklyn – whatever," she answered. The name stuck. "Nobody ever, ever forgets the name," she says. "It turned out well for us." Her line of Shpickles, which does not in- clude pickled cucumbers or any use of dill at all, is based on the Mediterranean tradi- tion in which she grew up. "I know how to pickle – that's what we do," she says. "They're all sugar free. They're made with non-GMO vinegar. There are only four or five in- gredients in each item. They're the pickle, the water, the garlic, the spices and vinegar. That's all. End of conversation. And love." "That's why they're so attractive to peo- ple," she adds. "They taste clean. They don't have that sugary aftertaste to them. Not necessary." The line includes pickled Broccoli, Okra, String Beans, Carrots, Jalapeño, Brussels Sprouts, Sweet Tiny Beets and Cauliflower & Beets. All except the Sweet Tiny Beets, which do include some sugar, are certi- fied vegan, and Brussels Sprouts is the best seller. Shamah plans to bring out Pick- led Garlic soon, and Pickled Watermelon Rind may be on the horizon, since Shamah's been hearing requests for that from her customers. "We'll pickle anything except cucum- bers. We will never pickle a cu- cumber," she says. "Every- body else does it. I don't need to do it.... We're defi- nitely better, but we have nothing to do with cucum- bers." Shmolives is a mix of black oil-cured, Gaetta, Cerignola Green, Cerig- nola Red, Cerignola Black, Kalamata, Castelvetrano Green, French Green Provincial and Green Cracked olives in balsamic vinegar, garlic, olive oil, herbs, spices and sea salt. There again, Shamah includes love on the ingredi- ents list. Shnuts, seasoned mixed roasted nuts, are doing well in minibars across the coun- try and come in four varieties: Sweet & Sa- vory, Creole, Ghost Pepper and Curry. Shpreads include Hot Pepper Jam, Cherry Jalapeño Jam, Apple Butter and Jalapeño Jam as well as Peppery Peach, Rockin Raspberry and Blazing Blueberry Shpreads. A Family at Work The company started three years ago when Rachel was getting bored with retirement from her social services career as an edu- cational advocate for disabled children, and her son Abe, now 30, was looking for his career niche. "I just thought, how hard could it be to be in business?" she says. "Little did I know that it's really difficult. But I wanted to build something for my son. There was nothing I could leave him in the social service world." Today, she and her son are partners in the business, which is very much a woman- owned business, and Eddie, her husband, pitches in as well. Rachel takes care of the back-end business and does some of the selling. Abe handles the warehousing and shipping, and Rachel says that building the business together has enhanced their mother-son relationship, "with respect.... When products go in; products go out – he's the guy." Eddie does sales. "We're married coming up on 40 years in December. Now we work together. We're learning how to do that," Rachel says. "We've become a very, very good team. He's a seasoned, seasoned salesman – been doing it his whole life. Won- derful guy." "It's a fun little company we have going on here. I never thought I'd have so much fun," she adds. "It's really hard work, but to watch some- body take one of our products and put it in their mouth and watch their eyes light up – there's nothing like it." For more information, visit www .brooklynwhatever.com. n Maine Crisp Company Wins sofi in Cracker Category BY LORRIE BAUMANN The Maine Crisp Company's Cranberry Almond Crisps earned a bronze sofi Award this year in their creator's first entry into the cracker category for the Specialty Food Association's annual competition honor- ing innovative specialty foods. The Cran- berry Almond Crisps are a creation of Karen Getz, The Maine Crisp Company co-Owner and Founder, who started the company a couple of years ago in her home kitchen in Waterville, Maine, a small community in the center of the state that's also the home of Colby College. Just last year, Getz moved her com- pany into a commercial kitchen and de- signed new packaging. Her Maine Crisps are now in about 75 stores across New England and in New York, and she has two employees helping her make her crisps every day. Getz's intention from the beginning has been to make products that showcase local ingredients from Maine. "It was the ingre- dients first," she said."I want to make something with blueberries and buck- wheat." She'd become particularly interested in the idea of creating a gluten-free product after tasting other gluten-free crackers on the market and thinking to herself that there had to be a better alternative with the right texture and flavors that were appeal- ing but subtle enough to pair easily with other ingredients. Getz, whose background includes a stint as a cheesemaker working with raw cow milk cheeses – she's won two awards from the American Cheese Society – was par- ticularly interested in creating a cracker that would pair well with a variety of cheeses, and with her Cranberry Almond Crisps, she feels like she's done just that, with flavors that complement dairy and a texture that stands up under the cheese without dominating the consumer's bite. The Cranberry Almond Crisps won the sofi Award in the cracker category rather than the category for gluten-free products – demonstrating that they're good enough to hold their own in comparison with other crackers made with wheat and containing gluten, Getz said. The Cranberry Almond Crisps, like her other two varieties, Blueberry Walnut Crisps and Cinnamon Maple Crisps – are made with buckwheat grown in Maine. Naturally gluten free, buckwheat isn't a true grain, even though it's used as a grain in cooking and baking. It's actually a seed related to rhubarb that's high in protein and fiber. The Blueberry Walnut Crisps are made with wild blueberries from Maine, and the Cinnamon Maple Crisps are made with real maple syrup. A 4-ounce box of the Maine Crisp Com- pany's Cranberry Almond Crisps retails for $7.99. For more information, call 207.213.9296 or visit www.themaine crispcompany.com. n

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