Folks from out of town say New Yorkers aren’t friendly. We don’t smile enough at strangers, they claim. Perhaps. But when disaster strikes, there’s no one we’d rather have at our sides than fellow New Yorkers.
Take Northern Spy Food Co. owner Christophe Hille (we profiled his restaurant in our magazine earlier this year), for example. With Sandy’s surge waters receding, Hille and his staff found themselves spared the flooding by half a block, but faced with a walk-in full of food and the prospect of days without power ahead. Knowing the pork bellies and striped bass wouldn’t keep, the staff set about cooking by flashlight for most of the day and then prepped a makeshift buffet outside on the sidewalk to feed their neighbors. They gave away loads of gorgeous food– roasted lamb shoulders, braised pork bellies, pork sticky rolls, biscuits, sauteed shrimp, whole roasted striped bass, roasted and stewed chicken, pork loin in mushroom gravy, polenta, black-eyed peas, bacon, salads, sandwiches, grilled cheeses, cookies, and muffins. All for free. And they say New Yorkers aren’t kind. Ha.
