Admittedly, it’s a little rough around the edges sometimes. The subways screech, the rent’s high, the
stoops have opinions. But that’s the beauty of sharing a plot of land about 71 square miles with 2 million others.
That doesn’t make us the same.., it’s what we have in common that I have a major crush on:
our jaw-dropping diversity, rubbing shoulders and elbows with one another without thinking about it.
I see it everywhere– in markets where shoppers talk to one another about food, pets and heaven knows
what else, in shops where non-identical teams happily work side-by-side, in playgrounds where, kids
play tag and basketball together, color-blind to their mates’ differences.
It’s that feeling of positivity, of hometown-I’m-from-Brooklyn pride (not Park Slope or Gowanus or
wherever they live) that makes me glow: on the first warm day of the year when everyone makes tracks
from their Park Slope stoops to Prospect Park. At an impromptu block party in Gowanus where somebody’s uncle is going to DJ. Or just walking home from the subway, getting a whiff of dinner cooking from an open window, and remembering — yeah, this is why I love it here.
Before we opened Buttermilk Bakeshop, we walked neighborhoods — during the week, on
weekends, on holidays — to see for ourselves what was going on, stopping on just about every block to
chat with residents and shop owners.
So, the decision to start in Park Slope, and later spread to Gowanus, was not the work of accidental tourists, but of freshman homesteaders itching to be a bona-fide Brooklynites. If there’s one thing you learn fast on the way to becoming a Brooklynite, it’s that nobody’s just doing
One thing, everyone’s building something – a dream, a side hustle, a life that feels like their own.
Like me, the baker who learned to be herself, to do what my culinary degree begged: to be experimental, bold and original. Or the barista who’s writing a film between shifts. Or the up-and-coming artist stepping out the studio to convert an empty lot into a community mural.
There’s no waiting for permission here… It’s like Kobi Yamada, the New York Times best-selling author says: “Sometimes you just have to take the leap and build your wings on the way down”.
That’s been Brooklyn’s story for forever. We don’t wait for perfect conditions — we roll up our sleeves
and start. For Buttermilk, there was flour everywhere, ideas in the air and dreams, maybe half-baked, but rising anyway.
But this bakeshop isn’t just about butter and sugar. It’s about the people — their stories, celebrations,
And their everyday life — that connect us.
Because in this kitchen, everything we make rises from the same thing:
a little grit, a little grace, and a whole lot of heart.
