Smashing a feathery tassel jutting out from callaloo leaves between his fingers, Denniston Wilks scattered the seeds that fell from it on his Brooklyn plot, confident they would grow into plants next year.
The co-op is scheduled to open tomorrow in a space formerly occupied by a discount store. With plenty of work to do before then, Salima Jones-Daley, right, the project coordinator for the co-op, and Damian Mercado, left, the market manager, enlisted Lamont Lawes to volunteer.
Mr. Wilks, a 52-year-old city sewer inspector, moved to East New York in 1987 from Jamaica, where callaloo is ubiquitous, eaten with codfish or pork. “It’s very nutritious,” said Mr. Wilks, as he packed a crate of carrots, collard greens and basil for a neighborhood farmers’ market the next day. “It has lots of iron.”
Soon Mr. Wilks and other neighborhood gardeners who have sown once-abandoned lots dotting East New York with beets, bitter melon, eggplant and arugula will have another place to sell their harvest.
The East New York Food Co-op, scheduled to open tomorrow, in time to supply Thanksgiving shoppers, will be a healthful addition to an area with high rates of obesity, diabetes and high blood pressure, and where French fries are easier to find than ripe tomatoes.
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original link: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/19/nyregion/19market.html
