THE GREENE HILL FOOD COOP - JANUARY 2016 NEWSLETTER

Catching You Up on Co-op News

We’re starting 2016 with a bang! Elections for our Board of Directors will be held at our next General Meeting on Wednesday, January 27. Mark your calendar and read on to learn how to cast your vote!

In this new year, we need you more than ever. Yes, YOU! Join the Greene Hill Outreach Challenge and help us grow our membership bigger and stronger in 2016. Part of this effort includes making our Co-op more inclusive.

The season for bubbly never ends...or almost never...at least, not with Brooklyn Wine Books, a passport to Brooklyn’s wine-centric eateries. You can still get one if you act fast! And did you know that GHFC members get discounts from local businesses, like Alice’s Arbor?

Are we out of something? Check the back stockroom or ask a cashier — we might have it! If you don’t see it, it doesn’t mean we don’t have it... just ask! Are we missing something you buy often? Wish we sold a certain item? Email us at merchandising@greenehillfood.coop and let us know!

We get new things in the store all the time — like versatile and tasty ghee, featured in this month’s product spotlight. We’ve also got a recipe for a unique and seasonal salad made with roasted beets and Brussels sprouts.

In the Co-op Q&A, we catch up with long-time member Marissa Neroutsos and learn how much she loves to share food.

And, as always, check out our Help Wanted listings. There’s lots of fun opportunities to earn work shift credit.

  Join The Outreach Challenge!

As a 100-percent working co-op, we are only as strong as our members. Without actively increasing our membership, we cannot survive. That’s why we need to make 2016 our BEST year yet. This is where you come in: your friends and neighbors are our best referrals. If they know how much you love the Co-op, they will, too! Be a part of Greene Hill’s Outreach Challenge and make it a New Year’s resolution to talk about the Co-op with at least five people in the next seven days.

There are so many ways to share your love of the Co-op. Here are just a few ideas:

• Bring a friend or neighbor with you on your next visit to the store.
• Grab a stack of flyers from the Co-op and pass them around to your neighbors and local businesses.
• Invite friends over for dinner and wow them with a delicious meal made from ingredients bought at the Co-op (a great conversation starter).
• Share a yummy recipe or fun post from the Greene Hill Facebook page on your Facebook page.

Are you up for the challenge?? Let your friends know about our monthly New Member Orientations. The next new member orientation is February 20 at 12:00pm. Together, we’ll make 2016 our best year yet!

Making Our Co-op More InclusiveIt’s part of the Greene Hill mission for the Co-op to be an integral part of our community. We are interested in reaching out to those who are committed to being the change we want to see. We‘d like to assess how well we are fulfilling our vision as expressed in our mission statement. Our plan is to come up with some concrete actions we can take to make that happen. We will be meeting in early February (time and date will be posted on the website) within a block or two of the Co-op. For information, please contact Keith Almon at keith@greenehillfood.coop.

Get Oriented! Feeling confused or ill-informed about how the Co-op runs? Never fear, monthly orientation sessions are starting up again! There's one coming up in the expansion space on Saturday, February 20, during store hours. Want more info? Email Chad at membership@greenehillfood.coop.

Product Spotlight: Simply Ghee Ghee is a kind of clarified butter that originated in ancient India and is commonly used in South Asian cuisine and traditional medicine. Because the ghee-making process removes the carbohydrates from butter it can cook at high heat without burning. Also, if kept clean, ghee can be kept in your cabinet unrefrigerated. Ghee is used regularly in Ayurvedic medicine and recipes. (Ayurveda is sometimes called the “science of life” or the “sister science of yoga”.) A quick and easy recipe for an Ayurvedic dessert combines sliced bananas with cinnamon and fresh grated ginger. Just toss the bananas gently with the spices (to avoid mashing them) and melt the ghee in a saucepan; lay the bananas in the pan and heat up until they look a little browned. Enjoy warm. Delicious!

Last Chance to Get Your Brooklyn Wine Book!

Want to save on your bar tab while supporting local restaurants, the Co-op and an indie media company all at once? We have just a handful of Brooklyn Wine Books left at the store. Once these are sold, that’s it! So if you’ve been thinking about getting one, do it now — before they’re gonezo!

What’s so great about them? Each book is a two-for-one passport to 20 great, Brooklyn wine-centric restaurants and bars, six of them in Clinton Hill and Fort Greene. These highly gift-able books are available for $20 each and our friends at Brokelyn have generously offered to donate 25 percent of proceeds—that’s $5 a book—to the Co-op. You can use them at: Aita Trattoria, Bedford Hill, Bed-Vyne Brew, Concord Hill, Humboldt & Jackson, June, Molasses Books, No. 7 North, Pair Wine & Cheese, River Styx, Selamat Pagi, Sort Of Wine Bar, Sunrise/Sunset, and the Camlin.

Local Discounts for Co-op Members

Don’t forget about our Win-Win-Win Program! Take advantage of your Co-op membership and get discounts from local businesses, like Alice’s Arbor. This restaurant and gourmet store serves seasonal, flavorful American dishes with ingredients sourced from local or nearby farms. They also strive to provide natural, local or organic wine and spirits. AND they are located just around the corner from the Co-op, near the corner of Classon Avenue and Fulton Street!

Just show your Greene Hill FOB to get a 5% discount at the restaurant and in the store.

If you run a local business and would like to participate in our Win-Win-Win program, please contact outreach@greenehillfood.coop.

Q&A with Marissa Neroutsos

This month we interviewed Marissa Neroutsos, who has been a Co-op member from the very beginning. You can find her on Saturdays at the Co-op or walking her dog in Bed-Stuy.

Q: Where are you from and where do you currently call home?

A: I grew up in Seattle, Washington, and moved to New York in 2007 to go to nursing school. Since 2011 I've lived on the same block in Bed-Stuy.

Q: When did you join the Co-op and what were some of your reasons for joining?

A: I joined the Co-op in the fall of 2012 with my two close friends and then-roommates (one of them, Carol Ann Peterson, is still an active member-owner and floor attendant!). I really wanted to make community a more intentional part of my shopping/cooking/eating. And I was even younger and more enthusiastic than I am now, and really was just learning more about what it meant for me to cook and eat "healthy." Joining the Co-op was an important part of my growth process in cooking delicious and nutritious meals made from real foods to share with awesome people!

Q: What is your role at the Co-op right now?

A: I am proud to say I had the same A-week Saturday 1:15 to 3:15 pm check-in shift for over two years until training this year to become a shift leader!

Q: I understand that you were involved in planning the Co-op potluck Sunday Night Dinners! Would you mind explaining how that went and what was shared to Co-op members who didn't attend?

A: Absolutely! Coming out of the General Meeting in June this year we had an idea very much inspired by two things: firstly, our landlord and local community leader Renee Collymore had spoken about how, going back to the days when the building was their family's laundromat, they had used the backyard space for events that were open to the community; secondly, my friends and fellow member-owners at Greene Hill, Julia Fredenburg and Jamie Burkhart, hold an infamous Sunday Night Dinner (a weekly potluck dinner at their home in Clinton Hill, open to everyone). I thought holding potluck dinners in the Co-op’s backyard could be a great way to have fun together, open the Co-op up more to the community and cook some amazing food — and it was! We had three potluck barbecues this summer. Highlights included grilled watermelon, rainbow salad, and great conversations. We’re thinking about picking a regular schedule to keep them going on a monthly basis. Over the next few months we will be taking a backseat and helping out as the Outreach and Marketing committees plan some open house events!

Q: Where would you like to see the Co-op in 5 years? 10?

A: At this point, although we are in a "figure it out" moment at the Co-op and trying to come together to come up with new ways to be sustainable as a cooperative business, I have a lot of hope that we can continue to grow sturdy roots. In five years I would love to see the Co-op financially sound and for it to stand as a steady and positive presence in the neighborhood, and hopefully giving back in whatever ways we are able to. My ideal vision would involve many more community dinners, healthy-cooking workshops and other events as a unique service in the neighborhood so we can be the best resource possible. In ten years I hope that we will have expanded and that we can be in a place to be supportive of other budding co-ops and sustainable food efforts.

Q: What do you do outside of Greene Hill? What do you like to do in your free time?

A: Outside of the Co-op I work in Brooklyn as a community mental health nurse for a state psychiatric hospital. I also recently started taking graduate courses at Hunter College to qualify to become a psychiatric nurse practitioner. I also enjoy long walks on the beach :) and around the neighborhood with my little old man rescue dog (Alfredo!) while listening to podcasts. I love to swim at the Y and go to the movies at BAM and am often found at Sunday Night Dinner. I love to cook and bake — hoping to get a new sourdough starter going soon!

Q: What are some of your favorite Greene Hill foods or items?

A: Hmm, there are so many! Coffee, bulk oats, flour and popcorn, watermelon radishes, Field Roast vegan sausages, the Bridge seitan, Lioni Latticini fresh mozzarella, maple cotton candy, smoked trout, and much more!