Alleva Dairy, a 130-year-old cheese store in Little Italy, closed its original location on Wednesday but will reopen in Lyndhurst, N.J. The pandemic dealt financial blows to the shop, which opened in 1892 and became known for its fresh ricotta and mozzarella. The cheese store accumulated $628,000 in back rent and filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy last year. Its landlord agreed to drop attempts to collect back rent if the business vacated its space by March 5. The store will relocate to a 3,700-square-foot space at 9 Polito Avenue — work has already begun on the new location — and there are plans to reopen in August. “One thing is certain,” said Karen King, who bought the shop with her husband in 2014 from the family who founded it, in a statement, “Alleva Dairy will continue to be bigger and better than before.” CHRISTINA MORALES
Alleva Dairy, 9 Polito Avenue, Lyndhurst, N.J., allevadairy.com
A Japanese Market for Cherry Blossom Season
Sakura, the pink abundance of cherry blossoms, is the totem of spring in Japan and a time to celebrate flowers. (Hanami is another term for the season.) With that in mind, Deux Cranes, a chocolatier making bars with Japanese ingredients in Los Gatos, Calif., has assembled a spring market, or ohanami, on Saturday at Café Kitsuné in the West Village. The participants will be selling their wares, including Japas Brewery, Misomaru soup mixes, Bessou Pantry condiments, Yip Studio pastries and Deux Cranes confections. Rice balls, teas, miso caramel popcorn and bento box assortments of sweets will also be sold. Admission is free.
Saturday 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Hanami Market, Café Kitsuné, 550 Hudson Street (Perry Street), 646-755-8158, maisonkitsune.com.
Raise a Glass With a Different Kind of Irish Whiskey
This year’s toast to St. Patrick could take you in a new direction. Powers, the Irish distiller founded in 1791, has introduced Irish rye, leveraging some of rye’s continuing growth in popularity. The 100 percent rye mash gives the spirit an earthier, sturdier profile than is typical for Irish whiskey, which tends to be lighter and is made from a mix of grains. (Rye grain was once used, but over time it was replaced by barley.) Powers commissioned the cultivation of 163 acres of rye near the sea. Neat or on the rocks, the drink leaves your palate kissed with sweetness; it also makes a lovely Manhattan.
Powers Irish Rye Whiskey, $32 for 750 milliliters, Park Avenue Liquor Shop, 270 Madison Avenue (39th Street), 212-685-2442, parkaveliquor.com.
New Strawberry Just Dropped
Oishii, the indoor vertical farm in Jersey City, N.J., devoted to raising exquisite strawberries without herbicides or pesticides, has introduced a new variety, the Koyo Berry. These giant berries, bright ruby red and about two inches long, come in packs of six with each nestled in its own compartment under the observation roof of the plastic package. They’re roughly two inches long and exude a persistent candied fragrance even before the container is opened. A lusciously flavorful year-round treat, sweet with true strawberry flavor, they deserve to be enjoyed on their own with perhaps a pillow of crème fraîche alongside.
The Koyo Berry, $15 for six, freshdirect.com.
Fresh Seaweed for Pastas and Salads
This year, the Noriega family and their partner, Chris Lin, are selling fresh salicornia — a crunchy, briny seaweed also called glasswort, samphire and sea beans — which they have been cultivating in Baja California, Mexico, and dehydrating and pulverizing into a green salt. The slender verdant branches can be used raw, in salads, as crudités and as perky garnishes, especially for seafood. Blanched and buttered, they can be tossed with boiled potatoes, rice or pasta; cooking diminishes the salinity. They will be available until the end of the month.
Green Salt Salicornia, $9 for four ounces, trygreensalt.com.
A New Book of Old Jewish Classics
In the 1880s and through the 1920s, immigrants from Eastern Europe, mainly Ashkenazi Jews, began filling tenements and crowding the streets of the Lower East Side with pushcarts, the food trucks of the day. The traditional foods they prepared and peddled are known as Jewish foods, closely associated with New York. They’re the subject of the food writer June Hersh’s authoritative book, “Iconic New York Jewish Food.” Today these specialties — bagels, lox, pastrami, knishes, rye bread, seltzer and matzo ball soup — have reached a wider audience. The author did her homework, explaining, with a light touch and punnacious style, their origins and evolution, defining “appetizing” stores (there were 500 of them in New York in 1930, she writes) and delicatessens. She documents key purveyors like Russ & Daughters and Katz’s that still thrive, along with glimpses of bygone examples, including Rabinowitz Delicatessen, owned by the father of Jerome Robbins, the choreographer. Illustrated with vintage and modern photographs, the book lists where to find the foods today and suggests noshing tours.
“Iconic New York Jewish Food: A History and Guide with Recipes” by June Hersh (The History Press, $23.99 paper).
