Hannah Wallace

Vintage MFK Fisher

Inextricably bound up with M.F.K. Fisher’s lifelong passion for food was the pleasure she took from sipping and serving a simple house wine, a crisp aperitif or a prickly, delicious glass of Champagne. In “M.F.K. Fisher: Musings on Wine and other Libations” (Sterling Epicure; $19), Fisher’s biographer, Anne Zimmerman, gathers all of the eminent food writer’s essays on drink under one beautifully designed cover. Some of these gems have been plucked from well-known collections, like “The Art of Eating” and “Long Ago in France,” but many others — the entertaining “a Vintage Spat,” for example, and the rousing “Wine is Life” — have been out of print for decades. For Fisher fans, coming across these is like reading an as-yet-unopened letter from a dear old friend.

Continue reading my review of "Mustings on Wine and other Libations" on the New York Times' the Moment blog.

A Home Ec Class for the 21st Century

Home economics, which was a fixture in secondary schools throughout the 1950s and 1960s, has all but vanished today, but there is a steady rallying cry from pediatricians, nutrition educators, and food justice activists to bring it back. Helen Zoe Veit, an assistant professor of history at Michigan State, recently wrote an impassioned Op-Ed in the New York Times in which she championed home ec and asked, “What if the government put the tools of obesity prevention in the hands of children themselves, by teaching them how to cook?” In a May 2010 article in the Journal of the American Medical Association, Alice Lichtenstein, DSc and David S. Ludwig, MD argued that any long-term solution to the pediatric obesity epidemic will need to include a re-introduction of home economics in public high schools—"a version of hunting and gathering for the 21st century." 

A new class called FoodFight, which I wrote about in the New York Times yesterday, aims to be just that. Founded by two former public school teachers, FoodFight has a lofty goal: to change the way teenagers think about food. The class, which is currently being taught at 15 public high schools in Manhattan, Brooklyn, and the Bronx, combines media literacy, food politics, nutrition education, and cooking. 

Students taking a FoodFight class learn how to deconstruct advertisements, critically inspect food labels, and shop for and prepare nutritious meals like vegetable stir-fry with brown rice. But that’s not all: they read about the political and economic forces that have shaped the food system, making fast food artificially cheap. They enact a mock senate hearing about the soda tax, watch documentaries like Food, Inc., and Super Size Me, and some even get to go on field trips to urban farms, food co-ops, and a 400-acre farm upstate. The students in Ms. Sarah Katz's class at the Essex Academy have started tending a rooftop vegetable garden.

 

All the Pie in Portland

 

This year, the Portland Pie Off was practically in my own backyard—the lovely Laurelhurst Park. How could I resist? Read more about it here, at T: Travel's the Moment.

Wholesome Wave, Practically Green, and Sustainable Sushi

I've been writing about a handful of forward-looking organizations and green trends: the awesome nonprofit Wholesome Wave (which doubles the value of food stamps used at farmers' markets) for Vegetarian Times; Practically Green, a site that gets you to publicly rate your green habits (and playfully compete with your Facebook friends) for Whole Living; and sustainable sushi bars for T: Travel. (Did you know that most of the seafood that's sold in this country is either net caught, farmed in an unsustainable way, or critically endangered?) Four new sushi joints are proving that you can source locally, seasonally, and conscientiously: Bamboo Sushi, Miya's, Tataki, and Mashiko. And this is not some flash-in-the-pan food trend: I just got an e-mail about a new sustainable sushi restaurant in San Francisco and Portland's Bamboo has announced it's opening a second location (on NW 23rd) this fall.  

 

 

Foraging with Castagna Chef Matt Lightner

A few weeks ago, I got to tag along on one of chef Matt Lightner's foraging expeditions to the Oregon Coast. With us were Merrick, the CEO of branding/ad/creative agency Tangible Worldwide, and his girlfriend (both adventurous epicureans), my dear friend Kimberley Sevcik, and Jason, a sous chef from Castagna. Wildcrafter Lars Norgren was our de facto tour guide—teaching us about a parasitic vine called dodder that wraps itself prettily around salicornia (aka pickleweed) and illuminating the forest for us by pointing out wild mountain blackberries, hedgehog mushrooms and bracket fungus, and edible (and medicinal) weeds of all sorts.  Here's the story, which you can also read online in the New York Times' T: Style.

 

On a recent Sunday morning, Matt Lightner, the bespectacled 29-year-old chef of the heralded Castagna Restaurant in Portland, Ore., was hunched over a bed of salicornia at Netarts Bay on the Oregon Coast. Salicornia, also known as pickleweed, is a salty-tasting succulent that grows like a weed—” wait, it is a weed!—in marshy, brackish areas.

Lightner was leading a foraging field trip of sorts. He introduced the assembled group of foodists to Lars Norgren, a towering figure with a mop of unkempt gray hair and an encyclopedic knowledge of wild plants.

"This is a salt-marsh species of lamb's quarter," said Norgren, surveying a plot of salicornia. "You could flood the Portland market for several years with this little—what is it? An eighth of an acre?"

Norgren often accompanies Lightner on his gathering forays, steering him clear of Destroying Angel mushrooms and hemlocks and singling out oddities like an orange parasitic vine called dodder. Though he was once a full-time wildcrafter (he dislikes the term "forager," preferring "wildcrafter" or "picker" instead), these days Norgren spends most of his time buying wild edibles from local pickers and selling them to Portland restaurants such as Castagna, EVOE, Le Pigeon and Nostrana via his company, Peak Forest Fruit.

"Matt is typically ordering things that nobody else buys," Norgren told me.

Salicornia is still a marginal item, even in local-foods-obsessed Portland, where Norgren sells it at the Hollywood Farmers' Market. Lightner uses a few sprigs of the raw plant on a dish of sea urchin, caramelized beets and black-garlic puree.

"You want to get this idea that you're in the ocean," Lightner said. "The salicornia is really crisp and livens things up." 

 

Lars Norgren and Matt Lightner at Netarts Bay, the most saline body of water on the Oregon Coast

As unlikely as it sounds, foraging is hot. A recession-friendly habit—what could be cheaper than picking weeds for your supper?—it is also a logical (if extreme) extension of the local-foods movement. Slow Food chapters across the country are touting foraging walks; companies such as the botanist John Kallas's Wild Food Adventures run sold-out edible-plant workshops and clam digs; and community gleaning organizations are popping up like mushrooms from coast to coast.

But while high-end restaurants have long featured chanterelles and ground cherries on their menus, not many chefs actually take time out of the kitchen to harvest for wild ingredients themselves.

Lightner's passion for foraging grew out of the time he spent in the Basque region of Spain, apprenticing with the chef Andoni Aduriz at the Michelin-starred Mugaritz. Aduriz and his team of foragers there collect mushrooms, flowers and wild plants in the hills surrounding the restaurant. (Lightner also spent a month working at Noma in Copenhagen under Rene Redzepi, who is also known for getting his hands dirty.)

During peak foraging times, the chef is in the forest as many as three times a week. "It's not necessarily the coast," he says, alluding mysteriously to fruitful groves that are closer to Portland.

Back on the coast, he and Norgren led their retinue into a moss-covered forest on the side of the road.

"This here is a sword fern," Norgren said. It puts up very impressive fiddleheads, but it's seriously bitter. You get people who say "fiddlehead ferns," and there is no such species as fiddlehead ferns. It's a stage of every fern!

Norgren first pointed out an evergreen huckleberry bush and a chicken of the woods mushroom: "Within a couple of days of it appearing, it's inedible; it goes from being as tender as raw meat to tough as cardboard!" He then gestured to a mat of oxalis, or wood sorrel, which Lightner was already busily collecting in a flat Tupperware container.

"Wood sorrel, which has three heart-shaped leaflets (it's often mistaken for a clover), has a sour flavor, and three times the level of iron found in spinach. We use it for a lot of things at the restaurant, from desserts to savory dishes," Lightner said. "It's acidic, so it goes well with tartares and things that could use a little sour flavor.” Wood sorrel is also abundant in Portland: it grows in yards, parks, even on the side of the street. Not all Portlanders can swing a meal at Castagna, but they can pluck wood sorrel from their own backyard.

Fifty years ago, wild mushrooms were as rare on Portland menus as salicornia is now. (According to Norgren, chanterelles fetched just 15 cents a pound back then.) Though salicornia likely won't gain the same foodie status as chanterelles any time soon, Lightner's innovative use of these local weeds—elevating dishes with a crunchy texture here and a sour flavor there—is exposing Castagna diners to the riches in their own backyards.

 

Portland's Happiest Hours

One of the first things a curious eater will discover about Portland (Oregon) is the ubiquity of food-focused happy hours. Not only are house wines and daily cocktails just $5 (and local microbrews often $3)—you can usually get a full dinner for under $10 (depending on how hungry you are). I just wrote about a handful of my current favorites for the New York Times' T: Style. What are yours? 

Brooklyn High Schoolers Study Michael Pollan, Sustainable Butchering

 

 
Butcher Ben Turley presents the students with sausages at Williamsburg's Meat Hook     [Photo by Joshua Bright]

Freelancing can be rough, especially in this economy. But reporting stories like this one, which ran in the Metro section of the Times this past weekend, is what makes me love my job.

For a year or more, I'd walked past Automotive High School in Williamsburg and wondered about the raggedy but lush vegetable garden bordering its majestic front. I always had another assignment or story idea to pursue, though, so never took the time to investigate. It wasn't until this fall, when I read about a fundraiser for Jenny Kessler's food politics class at Egg, that I started to do some serious research. I called Kessler and asked if I could sit in on her class, called "Land, Food, and You." 

In it, as Kessler read an excerpt from a book about America's obesity epidemic, I was surprised to see how engaged her students were by the material. (After all, these are kids who are training to be auto mechanics. How interested could they be in learning about factory farming, food miles, and the sinister high-fructose corn syrup?) Kessler had just read aloud statistics on the staggering advertising budgets for soft drink companies and fast food chains such as McDonalds.

"How many commercials do you guys see for fruits and vegetables or for the green market?" Kessler asked her all-male, mostly African American class.

"A day? I see, like...two," said a student named Arthur.  

"I see none," called out another student.

"I've seen one for whole grain cereal," continued Arthur, knowingly. "And I seen one with the fruits that probably everyone saw, where they're playing basketball. A tomato and shit..."

"That's Fruit of the Loom, man," broke in one of his classmates, to a round of hearty laughter.

Kessler suppressed a giggle herself.  "That one's for underwear," she conceded. By now, Arthur was chortling at his own mistake. But Kessler had made her point: there's no money to be made from marketing broccoli, tomatoes, or carrots. 

But there is money to be made from sustainably-raised meat, and the kids took this in on their field trip to the Meat Hook, Brooklyn's latest "sustainable" butcher shop. (The other is Marlow & Daughters.) They also learned how to make head cheese (one of the most sustainable recipes there is, in that it uses up flesh from the head that would otherwise go to waste)—and the very brave even tasted it. 

Kushima Warner muscling the 160-pound arm chuck of a recently-slaughtered cow (with a little help from butchers Mylan and Turley).            [Photo by Joshua Bright]

As I watched them watch the butchers, I could see why Kessler's students were so riveted: they work with their hands and so do these skillful butchers. (They also clearly loved the blood & guts aspect of butchering. One kid kept asking to see the hearts. Finally, butcher Tom Mylan threw a bag of pigs' hearts down on the butcher block. "Do you see it beating?" asked Kushima Warner, playfully. "We make scrapple with it," Mylan said. "We also trim it up and marinate it and cook it just like steak. Leave it medium rare on the inside...marinate it overnight in garlic, salt, pepper, and olive oil and—oh man. They're incredible. They're also pretty inexpensive.") 

On the walk over to the Meat Hook, Kushima had expressed reservations about seeing animal carcasses up close. "It may make me not want to eat meat anymore," she told me. But by the end of the butcher outing she seemed far from squeamish—not only had she tried the Mortadella, Turley's homemade head cheese, and the raw steak, she was eager to cozy up to the arm chuck.

"In my opinion, the business they've got right now is a great business," student Edward Veloz told me on the walk back to Automotive. "They know what they're doing and it's not really healthy—because we know red meat is not actually healthy, but you can actually trust that the cow is fresh and was treated well."

 

Beyond Organic Wine

Food trends are typically followed by parallel trends in wine. Witness the recent focus on organic, biodynamic, and local wines—at restaurants and wine shops across the country. But, just as the locavore movement has begun spurning mere organic produce (consecrating “beyond organic” farmers such as Joel Salatin as movement heros), fans of terroir—let’s call them terroir-ists—are touting something called natural wines. 

For a quick primer, read my blog about natural wine bars (and restaurants with extensive natural wine selections), published in T: Magazine's The Moment blog. If you haven’t read Alice Feiring’s book The Battle for Wine and Love, you should. (For Alice Feiring’s definition of natural wines, see here. There is, so far, no certification process or label for natural wines.)

Slo Food Nation: Slovenian Tourist Farms

Farm tourism has always been popular amongst a certain type of traveler. But these days, with Michelle Obama planting an organic vegetable garden and the Slow Food movement gathering mainstream momentum, seeking out local, seasonal fare—even while on vacation—is becoming a priority for many food-obsessed travelers.

Staying on a working farm, whether it’s an agriturismo in Italy or a Bauernhofurlaub in Germany is an authentic (not to mention affordable) way of seeing a country: you meet the locals, stay in pristine undiscovered settings, and sample regional culinary specialties. It’s an experience guaranteed to satisfy the curious—and omnivorous—locavore.

Farm tourism is going strong in Slovenia, one of my favorite countries. Read my story about Slovenian kmetije from this weekend's Sunday New York Times. Here are a few photos from our trip to the Škerlj farm last summer to whet your appetite:

 

Homemade pasta with zucchini, zucchini blossoms, pancetta, and parmesan at the Škerlj farm

 

 

The pool at the Škerlj kmetija, where I spent a good deal of time reading MFK Fisher and gazing out at the Karst landscape

A typical room at the Škerlj farm

Slav Quarters: Luxury Cabins in Slovenia

It may come as a surprise, but Slovenia—the small former Yugoslav republic that is fast becoming a locus of the international slow food movement—has a handful of design hotels, and not just in Ljubljana. Read my round-up in T: Travel of three of the country's coolest rural retreats: Nebesa, Soncna Hisa, and Posestvo Pule.

Local, Inc.

Now that we've elected a new president, I can take a deep breath and update this site with my latest antics.

In the food politics issue of the New York Times Magazine (Oct. 12), nestled into the second page of Michael Pollan's eloquent letter to the next president ("Farmer In Chief") was this blurb I wrote on Sysco [click forward until you get to Local, Inc, or see below], the $37 billion food distribution company that's earning accolades from chefs (such as Dan Barber of Blue Hill) and local food activists for its initiatives with regional farmers.

The Sysco story, in 200 words or less:

LOCAL INC.:

Now that “local” has replaced “organic” as the conscientious eater's buzzword, even the gargantuan food distributor Sysco — a $37 billion company that supplies food to restaurants, hospitals and colleges across North America — has begun shifting its stance under the leadership of the chief executive, Rick Schnieders.

Responding to customers' demands for fresher, more specialized products, Schnieders has partnered with small farms, appointed a vice president of agricultural sustainability and started programs to help farmers market their products regionally. “A lot of people fear the big company, but that shouldn't be the case here,” said David Yandow, the executive vice president of sales at Fowler FreshPoint, a Connecticut produce subsidiary of Sysco. Yandow works with 140 New England farmers to supply regional businesses with the seasonal (and often specialty) produce they're requesting.

“The climate has changed for us,” he says. “There's the opportunity for everybody to do the right thing.” — HANNAH WALLACE

I also have a story (Download Momofuku.pdf) about the trio of NYC restaurants that comprise David Chang's Momofuku empire in the latest issue of Italian food magazine F+B Business.   If you haven't yet tried Chang's steamed chicken buns, you haven't lived. (I know this is sacrilegious but I do think they're better than the pork ones.)

Stay tuned for upcoming articles about coffee, holistic vets, and mercury (& why you should limit your consumption of tuna, halibut, sea bass, and other predatory fish).

that Rwandan murera tastes like....coffee!

If you live in Seattle or Portland, the idea of a coffee tasting is probably not new to you--Stumptown's Annex (which has been around since 2005) has three public cuppings a day.  But here in New York, the foodie capital of the country, cuppings have taken awhile to catch on.  But as I discovered over the past three months while reporting this story in today's Times, public cuppings are happening at all of the city's best coffee shops including Joe, Gimme! Coffee, Ninth Street Espresso, Cafe Grumpy, and even at new arrivals such as El Beit in Williamsburg, Southside in Park Slope, and Everyman Espresso.

Coffee, like wine, has a distinct terroir: each growing region and micro-climate lends unique flavor characteristics to the beans. To highlight this, many of these so-called third wave coffee shops brew and sell single-origin coffees—coffees that come from not only a specific country, but sometimes from a specific farm or even from an isolated lot on that farm that yields the highest quality beans. (Called a “micro-lot.”) In other words, not blends, which is what most Americans drink when they drink coffee.

The only way to train one’s palate to differentiate between an Ethiopian natural and an El Salvador Bourbon, for example, is to taste single origin coffees side by side—without the adulteration of milk or sugar—at a cupping. Some of the roasters and baristas I spoke to talked about their first cupping as if it were a religious experience--an "A-ha" moment that made them realize how unique individual coffees can be.

I haven't had my A-ha moment yet, but I have learned to detect certain flavors in the single origins I've slurped over the past few months. My palate still has a long way to go, though.  One thing's for sure--I've started drinking citrusy coffees like Counter Culture's Kenyan Kangocho Peaberry without milk--the first time I've willingly drunk coffee black since college.  (Something else I learned: coffee is naturally sweet.)

So if you're curious, see if your local coffee shop is hosting cuppings.  A friend tells me that the new Intelligentsia in Silverlake (L.A.) has 'em, as does Counter Culture in Durham and PT's Coffee in Kansas.  Just remember to spit--especially if it's an evening cupping. 

Neue Galleries in Berlin

The area around Checkpoint Charlie in Berlin is becoming a mini West Chelsea, with established galleries such as Konrad Fischer and Jablonka opening up outposts of their main galleries (in Düsseldorf and Cologne, respectively).  Read about it in my item for T: Style (Holiday 2007 issue).    

Damien Hirst in Dallas?

George Michael (yes, as in the I Want Your Sex George Michael) and his long-term boyfriend Kenny Goss have tweaked their gallery in Dallas into a foundation for contemporary British Art. I have to get down there to see the Hirst exhibit, which I've heard is extraordinary. Read all about it in my piece for last weekend's T: Style (the art issue).   

Euro Stash—Neu Vintage

Next time you go to Berlin, take along this Remix item I wrote for T: Style. (With many thanks to Yori, who took me to all the best places when Michael and I visited him and Norbert there in August.)

With the ever-sinking dollar, it’s hard to find a fashion bargain in Europe today. In Berlin, however, you just need to trawl the city’s consignment shops, where designer labels come with a nice price....

T: Travel, Nov. 19, 2006

A tease on the locavore restaurant scene in Portland, Oregon.

NEIGHBORHOOD REPORT: GREENPOINT

THE CITY WEEKLY DESK/ The New York Times

A Long-Dry Pool, With a Famous Past, Faces the Future

Published: December 17, 2000

McCarren Park Pool, on the border between Williamsburg and Greenpoint, has seen better days. Built in 1936, it was one of 11 giant outdoor pools constructed by the Works Progress Administration during Robert Moses' tenure as parks commissioner. Able to hold up to 6,800 swimmers, the pool had a design that was inspired in part by the Baths of Caracalla in Rome.

It's hard to imagine that the abandoned, graffiti-covered structure, closed since 1983 and still under the control of the Parks Department, was once the neighborhood hub. The 10 other pools were rehabilitated in the 80's and 90's, but the renovation of the McCarren Park Pool was stalled because of continuing community disputes.

''McCarren Pool is known all over the world,'' said Phyllis Yampolsky, who founded Independent Friends of McCarren Park in 1989 to save the pool from demolition. Her group's plan, designed by the renowned architect Robert A. M. Stern, would preserve the existing red brick structure and make additions consistent with its classical style.

But Bob Bratko, chairman of another local group with a pool plan, the McCarren Park Pool Task Force, says the building is dangerously dilapidated and should be torn down, except for its central arch.

While both plans reduce the original size of the pool, creating space for additional facilities like skating rinks, they differ in other respects.

For example, the Yampolsky plan would have a central plaza with seats, a fountain and a statue of Mae West, a Greenpoint native, while the task force would erect a building with locker rooms and space for community meetings. The Yampolsky proposal would also have an outdoor amphitheater and, in an existing wing, an indoor movie theater and exhibition space; the task force plan would have no such facilities.

Finally, the Yampolsky design envisions the pool as a public and private venture with a restaurant, health club and shops, while the task force would most likely have the Parks Department operate the site.

Both sides plan to present their plans in various community forums next month. Parks Commissioner Henry J. Stern said he would consider local sentiment, but added that his department was studying alternative uses like a roller hockey rink or a skateboard park for a site.

Al Calderin, who grew up in Williamsburg and wants to preserve the pool building, remembers paying 10 cents to get into McCarren. ''It was a great pool,'' he said. HANNAH WALLACE

Photo: McCarren Park Pool, closed since 1983, could hold up to 6,800 swimmers in its heyday. (New York City Parks Department Photo Archives)

NEIGHBORHOOD REPORT: WILLIAMSBURG

The Soprano Gang Drops By for Linguine and Cannoli
THE CITY WEEKLY DESK/ the New York Times


By HANNAH M. WALLACE (NYT) 536 words
Published: April 7, 2002

Tuesdays are usually dark at Bamonte's. So on a recent Tuesday morning, when a block of Withers Street was cordoned off and two production trailers sat in front of the 102-year-old Italian restaurant, it was clear that something was up.

Inside, cameramen and set designers added finishing touches to the dining room, two dozen extras lingered by the bar, and the actors James Gandolfini, Michael Imperioli, Steven Van Zandt, Joe Pantoliano and Dan Grimaldi were getting into character.

''They told us to try and keep it quiet,'' said Lisa Bamonte, the manager and part of the fourth generation of her family to work at the restaurant. ''But word spreads around this neighborhood pretty quickly.''

The word, in this case, was news of the taping of several scenes of the HBO series ''The Sopranos,'' and by 6 p.m., a crowd had gathered outside.

''The cast and crew were all so nice,'' said Filomena Russo, who along with members of the Bamonte family was the only person allowed in the restaurant for the taping. Ms. Russo, a close family friend who has watched the series faithfully since it first aired in 1999, had left her house in Syosset, L.I., at 6 a.m. Though she ran into Mr. Gandolfini last year while playing blackjack at Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino in Las Vegas, the other actors were new to her.

''Imperioli was such a gentleman,'' she said. ''He sat down and ate with us and even thanked us for dinner.''

Mr. Pantoliano, on the other hand, swore a lot, though he was very funny. ''He was as obnoxious in person as he is on the show,'' Ms. Russo said, adding hastily, ''I mean that in the best kind of way.''

At midday, Anthony Bamonte, the owner, cooked linguine with marinara sauce for the cast and crew -- ''They wanted to eat light,'' he said. Even so, they still had room for cannoli his daughter Laura brought over from her bakery nearby.

The crew spent 14 hours at the restaurant shooting four scenes, one of which involved a ''business meeting'' between Tony Soprano and his associates. The scenes are to be shown in the fall.

Unlike the relatively chic Nuovo Vesuvio, the fictional New Jersey restaurant where Tony Soprano and his crew often meet, Bamonte's has a classic Italian-American atmosphere. The restaurant is also near Silvercup Studios in Long Island City, Queens, where most of the show's interiors are taped.

This isn't Bamonte's first round with celebrity. Photographs on the wall are evidence that Danny DeVito, Harrison Ford and Woody Allen have all dined here. Joe DiMaggio was a regular. Bamonte's also had a star turn in the 1989 mobster film ''Cookie.'' ''People like the ambience here,'' Lisa Bamonte said.

They clearly like the food, too. Several ''Sopranos'' cast and crew members have already returned for dinner.

NEIGHBORHOOD REPORT: WILLIAMSBURG

A Brief Appearance by a SoHo Star Draws Mixed Reviews
By HANNAH M. WALLACE (NYT) 560 words
Published: November 25, 2001 THE CITY WEEKLY DESK

When Joe Amrhein, a Conceptual painter, moved to Williamsburg 13 years ago, the neighborhood was teeming with artists but there were few galleries. A handful of alternative spaces like Brand Name Damages, Minor Injury and Test-Site, came and went. Other galleries like Pierogi, which Mr. Amrhein opened in 1994, stuck around. Today, Williamsburg has about 30 galleries, many of them artist-run.

But no one expected a major Manhattan gallery to set up shop. Then, on Sept. 7, the dealer Jeffrey Deitch, who has shown such high-profile artists as Vanessa Beecroft, Damian Loeb and Cecily Brown at his SoHo gallery, Deitch Projects, opened a 4,000-square-foot space on North 11th Street.

The opening work, a multimedia installation by the online collective Fakeshop, attracted a large crowd and created a buzz in the New York art world. But before Deitch Brooklyn could make much of an impression, it abruptly closed its doors three weeks after it opened.

Mr. Deitch said he closed the gallery because of what he described as ''problems with the leaseholder'' and uncertainty after the Sept. 11 attack.

''I was planning an experimental program that I would've had to subsidize,'' he said. ''After the 11th, I said, 'Let's try this again when we're more confident about the economic environment.' ''

Jeff Gompertz, the founder of Fakeshop and the former tenant, said the original plan was for Deitch to rent most of the space. ''We had a gentleman's agreement that Deitch would eventually take over the lease,'' said Mr. Gompertz. ''It's still very open for him to do that.''

Deitch's brief star turn in Williamsburg highlights an important local divide. Some artists, proud of Williamsburg's reputation as an alternative art community, saw his arrival as the start of the neighborhood's ''Chelseafication,'' a reference to the sleek galleries that have transformed western Chelsea. Others welcomed Deitch, knowing it would attract important collectors and dealers to smaller, lesser-known spaces.

''Williamsburg galleries serve as cultural centers where artists come to exchange ideas,'' said Gregory Volk, a critic for Art in America who has lived in Williamsburg since 1987. ''The blue-chip Chelsea galleries -- and galleries like Deitch -- use a completely different model. They're focused on selling the art. If that model were to come here, it would be a disaster for Williamsburg.''

Others expressed less concern about the arrival of Manhattan galleries. Christian Viveros-Fauné, an owner of the Williamsburg gallery Roebling Hall, said he hoped Deitch returned to the neighborhood.

''The more serious galleries around, the better,'' Mr. Viveros-Fauné said. ''The neighborhood is changing, but I'd much rather Jeffrey Deitch than Warsaw,'' he added, referring to a new local nightclub.

And some artists suggested that Deitch Brooklyn did, at least briefly, bring a new audience to the neighborhood. ''It was much more the Chelsea crowd,'' said Eric Heist, a founder of Momenta Art, another Williamsburg gallery. ''People we didn't recognize.''
HANNAH M. WALLACE

Photo: Joe Amrhein's gallery, Pierogi, is one of about 30 small spaces for showing art in Williamsburg. Would larger newcomers help or hurt?