Brooklyn Flea

Fly to the stars with this week's Scavenger Hunt.

When you find one of the items above, which can be hidden in any vendor booth, it’s yours, absolutely free! Then we post your photo with the generous vendor here on the blog on Monday. Only one winner per calendar month. Items posted every Friday at noon.

From left (click to enlarge):
1. Saturday: Polaroid transfer of "Girl with Plane," matted 8"x10". New/Handmade
2. Sunday: White glass serving platter with zodiac signs screened in gold tone, 1970s. Vintage

Note: The Flea is indoors at Skylight One Hanson Saturdays and Sundays on 3 floors (with food downstairs), 10am–6pm, through March. The Fort Greene outdoor market is closed for the season and reopens Sat., April 2. Our new/second location, in Williamsburg on Sundays, launches April 3.

Pop Chart Lab's designs (above) make you spend some time and look a bit harder. This is information-design at its finest: Patrick and Ben launched their poster and T-shirt line last September and it took off quick, probably because their designs are so darn smart. They've got a special interest in taxonomies and cartography; according to Ben, the Lab displays "an obsessive charting bent." Saturday only, G-39.

Bruce and Elizabeth of Today's New Vintage are longtime antique dealers. Had a Soho shop called Antique Addiction, maybe you remember them from way back? They continue to sell at shows, fairs and on eBay, but in lieu of a brick-and-mortar shop, they're excited to set up at the Flea. Look for Bakelite and all sorts of collectibles and vintage accessories—kerchiefs, eyeglasses, jewelry, hatpins and hairsticks, gloves, handbags etc. Saturday and Sunday, G-61.

You've probably never heard of the traditional Czech cake called "frgal." In fact, we're not even sure how to spell the name of said cake (left), since it sometimes takes a y (frgaly), sometimes an i (frgali); hopefully baker Katya of JNK will give us all Czech lessons. Regardless, these not-too-sweet pastries are very delicious, and come in flavors like cheese with candied raisins and poppy seed, as well as a seasonal fruit spread (they had pear last time and it was awesome). They look like delicate dessert pizzas and are made from a recipe that's over 200 years old, passed down by Katya's husband Janek's family. They'll be carrying on the tradition in the downstairs food area on Sunday, buy 'em by the slice or whole pie.

Jon Stadt was a reseller of fancy pasta for years before he made it his mission to produce his own artisanal, organic pasta that was made from ingredients grown close to home. For two years he perfected recipes in his own kitchen before he started selling his pasta around his home upstate, in the Syracuse area. Now he's on a statewide expansion of his Flour City Pasta brand and will be selling at the Flea for this first time this weekend. He uses locally cultivated, organic whole wheat and emmer grains, plus organic herbs, spices, vegetables and fruit in the flavored pastas. Tonight's dinner is conveniently now taken care of. He'll be downstairs with the food vendors on Sunday.

And yes, it's true. Momofuku Milk Bar is coming to the Flea—crack pie, compost cookies, miso butter and all. Be careful out there; they call it crack pie for a reason. You'll find them in the lobby on the ground floor, to the right as you enter, Saturday and Sunday.

Stephanie and her string band The Pearly Snaps will be performing as a fiddle and banjo duo downstairs in the food/seating area this Saturday. They're accustomed to busking, but this marks their illustrious Flea debut, so we hope you'll enjoy their downhome sonic stylings, and maybe even drop some dough into their passed hat so they come back again. Come on down!

Flea food: you like it, we cherish it, folks are made happy by it. Generally this is fulfillment enough around Flea HQ.

Then we get vendor apps like the one last week from Christina at Momofuku Milk Bar, the Chang empire's sweets spot, saying that not only does MMB want to sell its pies, cookies, and butters at ze Flea, but their "friends" want to join us with their fun chef side projects and potential side businesses. Wipe the sleep from our weary eyes what a friggin' dream scenario. We said yes and accepted them, and bam: this weekend Fleasters will already have a chance to enjoy the fruits sugars of the Milk Bar labor. (FYI the friends concept doesn't start until we move outdoors in April.)

Cut to actually important information:

Pies by the slice—crack (above), candybar, grasshopper, $5.25

Half-dozen assorted cookies, one of each—compost, cornflake-chocolate chip-marshmallow, corn-chocolate-chocolate, blueberry-and-cream, peanut butter, $10

Cereal milk mix, $5

Flavored butters—miso, black pepper, burnt honey, kimchi, apple, $3.25

So yeah, we'll see you on line this Saturday and Sunday and hopefully every weekend until the end of time.

Nordea of Nordea Soaperie started making homemade lotion in 2005, after years of frustration with regular products. Where most people would go buy a more expensive brand at Sephora, Nordea took to the kitchen, cooking up batches of shea butter mixed with various oils. Successful experiments turned into her whipped body butter ($10), and a lesson in soap-making followed. She now uses a process called "superfatting" for her soaps, using more oil than is even necessary. She's been a Flea staple on and off since opening day April 2008—superfat indeed—and was mentioned in New York's recent Harlem profile.

Nordea makes over 20 kinds of soap ($7+ per bar), using ingredients both typical and surprising: cucumber, pine tar, Dead Sea mud, even beer! Her sugar scrubs are a big seller; she's got plenty of paper towels and water in the booth so you can try 'em all. Not to mention that this is a girl who learned how to embroider so she could decorate her handmade lavender satchels.

Her felted soaps (above, $15) are something really special, like a soap with a built-in washcloth cozy—just don't unwrap it! It makes for a gentle exfoliation, and "the wool continues to shrink and wrap itself tighter as the soap is used," she explains. "Eventually, the wool will stop shrinking, but the soap is all squished up inside, so you use the entire soap instead of throwing away the sliver." Very clever.

Nordea sells with the The {NewNew}, a collective of local artisans who have shops on Etsy and help promote each other and other crafties. (The {NewNew} is a Flea fixture, with rotating guests every week.) Nordea is at the Flea a couple times a month with them, and will be there this Sunday outside the vault downstairs.

Many mysteries were solved at this week's Hunt: glasses found, pendants discovered, TV cameos revealed, and everyone's a winner.

Check back at noon Friday for this weekend’s items.

From left (click to enlarge):

Saturday: David (left), a Brooklyn native, eyed the cool vintage glasses on Extinct Optics' table, scored the Pierre Cardin pink frames, and sported them stylishly we must say. When asked what he thinks of the Flea, he answered, "It's the Narnia of Brooklyn." Why yes, David, it is—the lion, the witch and the wardrobe are all downstairs in the vault.

The name Extinct Optics is pretty self-explanatory for Maxwell's (right) year-young vintage biz: digging up amazing old frames from the archives of fashion. Most of his never-worn frames are from the '50s and '60s, though the designs appear to be timeless. Max started up at the Flea last fall and we expect him to stick around for awhile, helping Fleasters see and be seen. He sells every weekend on the ground floor.

Sunday: James and David (right) hail from Hell's Kitchen and on their second visit to the Flea they claimed this week's Sunday prize: a chandelier pendant made from repurposed vinyl records by Flea staples WrecordsByMonkey. The winners are jewelry-makers themselves under the name D + J Artbox; they're especially psyched that their prize is made from recycled materials.

Why did we choose the Wrecords by Monkey pendant? It was featured on last week's episode of Glee! (See the still from the show below for proof; Tina rocked it on her book bag.) We're beaming-proud for Monkey's primetime TV moment (that's Monkey's partner Brian at left), since he's been a part of the Flea from the very beginning. A stylist from Glee found his work at the Gifted holiday market and was so impressed by his vintage LP jewelry that she snagged some to style on the show. Congrats Mr. Monkey!

Everything's looking very mod and mysterious in this week's Hunt.

When you find one of the items above, which can be hidden in any vendor booth, it’s yours, absolutely free! Then we post your photo with the generous vendor here on the blog on Monday. Only one winner per calendar month. Items posted every Friday at noon.

From left (click to enlarge):
1. Saturday: Pierre Cardin pink sunglasses. Made in France circa 1980. Vintage
2. Sunday: Chandelier pendant, made from a recycled material. New/Handmade

Note: The Flea is indoors at Skylight One Hanson Saturdays and Sundays on 3 floors (with food downstairs), 10am–6pm, through March. The Fort Greene outdoor market is closed for the season and reopens Sat., April 2. Our new/second location, in Williamsburg on Sundays, launches April 3.

A few newbies ready for Flea initiation this week. Welcome!

Sarah Mead of Truly Loved NYC is a Brooklyn designer and illustrator who works out of Post Expose, her silkscreen studio and school in Williamsburg. After 15 years as a teacher and commercial artist, she's launched her own line of hand-screenprinted cards, wallpaper, pillows, bags, blankets and paper-craft kits. The totes (above), sporting groovy graphical designs, are sure to be put to good use. She'll be upstairs on the mezzanine, Saturday only, M5.

Don't let the name confuse you: the Thrifty Sisters are represented by a mother-and-daughter team in search of vintage buttons, shoes, kitchenware, accessories and ephemera. Danielle (daughter) reports: "I have spent my entire life pawing through vintage clothing/retro kitchenware/linens and whatnot with my mom. What I don't have room for, I sell—it’s really the only way to keep up such a habit!" They’re trucking down from their home in Schenectady on Saturday, on the ground floor in G24.

From Red Bank, New Jersey, comes Laura of Plum Cottage Antiques. She's got an eye for pretty things, romantic antiques and stuff that's perfect for the crafty ones among us. She’s looking for new storefront space for all of her goods, so maybe we can convince the self-described Jersey Girl that Brooklyn is the place to be. Find her on Sunday only, G61, on the ground floor.

Bill Gager is a Southern New Jersey antiques dealer and estate-sale pro, and for his debut we're anticipating an unloading of all sorts of goodies: antiques, artwork, knickknacks—after 35 years in the biz, the whole gamut basically. Ground floor, G59, both days.

All of a sudden, everyone's into kale chips. New York Naturals were the focus of the kale-chip media trendlet last year, but then they lost their Flatbush Ave. shop soon after. They're still producing the crunchy homemade green chips in Brooklyn, which you can check out at the Flea on Sunday. The snackable leafy vegetable comes in four flavors including Bombay Ranch and Vegan Cheese (whoa, but, yum!). NY Naturals proprietor Amy Hamberry will also have on hand Bhutan Tsheringma tea, a hard-to-find safflower and cinnamon herbal brew. Sunday only, downstairs with the food.

Pro photog Matthew Pillsbury was at the Flea on Super Bowl Sunday, snapping a pic from the mezzanine like so many dozens of Fleasters before him. With one exception: Matthew's a pro, and he was shooting with an old-fashioned head-under-cover camera, which is his signature style. Matthew's had shows all over the world, and is represented by Bonni Benrubi Gallery on 57th St.

Anyway, it's a beautiful shot, and we're happy to share it with you. Like it?

People love taking photos of our fashionable vendors and shoppers. Check out this nice slideshow by the folks at Fort Greene Patch, where David Sokosh of Clinton Hill Clocks and Brooklyn Watches starts it off with his typically dapper look.

We're proudly big bad city folk, but it’s cool that Country Living recognized us as one of the things that makes urban living so swell. The Brooklyn roundup in their new issue is decidedly uncheesy, smart, and informative.

The horsey charm (above) from Found by Susan Walker's booth made a surprise appearance on David Letterman this week, showing up as pocket decor on Libby, who plays bass for Theophilus London (who happens to be from Brooklyn). Look for it in this clip. A gal named Libby picked it up at the Flea from Susan over the weekend. Cool!

Bensonhurst boy Scott Bridi of Brooklyn Cured gets a little hometown love for his amazing sausages and patés. (They insanely spelled his name wrong in the headline.) Scott has deelish packaged lamb, chicken, and turkey sausages down behind the vault every Saturday, and has also started serving pate crostini for a few bucks. So yum.