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It’s food gossip time!

Applewood’s menu of great food

It’s out with the old and in with the Ethiopian in Carroll Gardens, while Park Slope and Sunset Park go seriously green in this week’s bumper crop of locally produced gossip!

Farm fresh

It’s become common practice for restaurants to virtuously list the provenance of every last sustainably sourced ingredient on their menu, but now Applewood in Park Slope can truly stand behind their heritage pork chops and cage-free eggs. That’s because owners David and Laura Shea have bought their own farm in the Hudson River Valley, which they hope will eventually produce most — if not all — of the veggies, fruits, meats, and dairy used at their 11th Street eatery. “We want to supply as much as we can to become what our restaurant is about and a part of the farm-to-table philosophy,” David Shea told Park Slope Patch. “We want to show that your average neighborhood restaurant can support local farms and use good food and have a viable business model.”

Raise the roof

In other farming news, Sunset Park is about to get a whole lot greener than the neighborhood’s name already suggests. BrightFarms — a development and management business — announced it will construct the world’s largest rooftop farm atop a building on the community’s industrial waterfront. The hydroponic greenhouse will grow enough veggies to feed up to 5,000 people and keep up to 1.8 million gallons of storm water from flooding the harbor during severe rains, according to project backers.

Aw, shucks

Prime Meats Delikat-essan and Provisions store, an offshoot of the wildly popular Prime Meats where high-end, dry-aged protein and fancy kitchen goods came together, may have folded — but all is not lost. Eater reports that the joint’s owners, the same folks from Frankies 457 Spuntino, will open a weekend-only oyster and cocktail bar in its place. Shell-abrate good times!

Tough nut

Chestnut, a Smith Street stalwart that helped set the tone for the community’s transition into a foodie destination, is shutting its doors after nine years. The neighborhood joint lost its foothold in a sea of area competition that includes Seersucker and Buttermilk Channel, among others. “What we built was a true mom and pop and not a theme or franchise,” the owners wrote on their website. “It took an army of hungry food loving people to raise this house and an economic disaster to bring it down.”

Out of Africa

One thing Brooklyn’s dining scene would use more of is Ethiopian restaurants — that’s why we’re pumped that the popular Manhattan eatery Awash will soon bring kitfo, tibs, doro watt, and injera to the vacated Quercy space on Court Street, according to Brownstoner. The fact that old-guard Quercy was yet another casualty of the Carroll Gardens and Cobble resurgence is another matter — all we can say is The Grocery better not be going anywhere!

Packer snacker

We may have hated on the preppy Packer kids during our decidedly more hardscrabble middle school days, but two alums are off on a venture we just might be willing to get behind. The Brooklyn Heights blog reports that 2001 grads Alan Cooper and Stephen Cohen will launch Prospect Restaurant at 773 Fulton St. — the site of the former Aqualis Grill — in July, offering a “serious” menu featuring seasonal ingredients, but assuring that “you won’t look at the plate and not know what’s on it.” We’ll give it a shot, as long as there’s no dress code.

Taste this

Our friends at Brooklyn Exposed sure know how to throw a party, and their second annual Tasting Brooklyn event at DUMBO Loft last Tuesday was no exception. Over 25 of the borough’s best food and drink vendors gathered to show off their goods to a clamoring crowd — and while there was not a bad bite to be found, we defiantly stretched our stomachs to maximum capacity to accommodate more pork buns from the Sunburnt Calf BK, braised beef and hoecakes from Fort Reno, and country ham and Carolina gold rice croquettes from the recently opened Parish Hall.