Lucy Baker in the Brooklyn Paper asks the question and tries to eat her way to the answer. Every morning I see the very sophisticated version of the B/W cookie at Cousin John’s. I see but don’t eat. It looks good.

If there were such a thing as an official borough cookie, Brooklyn’s
would be the black and white. Part cake, part cookie, half chocolate
and half vanilla, the black and white has been my favorite dessert
since I was a little girl. On top of all that, the rumor that the
cookie was invented in Brooklyn makes it that much sweeter.

FIRST SATURDAY AT THE BROOKLYN MUSEUM from 6 p.m. at the museum on Eastern Parkway.

Send in your choices for the 2007 Park Slope 100, the highly opinionated, subjective, obviously controversial list of talented, energetic, ambitious, creative
individuals with vision in the Greater Park Slope area who reach
outward toward the larger community and the world to lead, to help, to create, to teach, to
improve, to enhance, to inform, to network, to make change.

Those chosen for THE LIST are community
activists, good neighbors, entrepreneurs, volunteers, spiritual leaders, publishers,
bloggers, leaders of organizations, social workers, therapists,
artists, writers,
educators, politicians, retailers, thinkers, chefs and restaurant owners and whatever else
I’ve left out.

In other words: we cast a wide net. No one who appeared on last year’s list can be on the new list. You can leave a comment or send me an email: louise_crawford(at)yahoo(dotcom).

The list will be rolled out on December 6, 2007

Park Slope author and former assistant DA Rob Reuland published a crime novel and made a comment in New York Magazine. He was fired by his boss, Brooklyn DA Charles Hynes, who recently published his own crime novel.

This from the New York Times:

In 2001, Mr. Reuland, who had just
published a novel about the prosecuting life, was demoted and then
fired by Mr. Hynes after saying in a magazine interview that Brooklyn
had “more dead bodies per square inch than anyplace else.” Mr. Reuland
sued, claiming that Mr. Hynes had violated his free-speech rights. In
2004, a jury awarded Mr. Reuland $30,000. Mr. Hynes appealed to a
federal appellate court, then to the Supreme Court. On Monday, the high
court refused to hear Mr. Hynes’s case. Mr. Hynes said through a
spokesman yesterday that “the decision of the Supreme Court” — the
single word “denied” — “speaks for itself.”

Day 4 since the installation of the debit card machines and OTBKB wants to know how it’s going. The weekend is the busiest time at the Coop (I NEVER set foot in there on Saturday or Sunday). I would Expect extra long lines.

My guess is that it will take a few more weeks for everyone to adjust to this change. Don’t forget, Coop workers work every four weeks for only 2 hours and forty five minutes.  That means every three hours or so there are new workers doing check-out.

It’s like "Groundhog Day." Wake up and start  all over again.

I know the check-out folks have been trained. But it takes awhile to get the hang of anything new.

The Coop is a bit of a miracle in the way that it works as well as it does. It’s an amazing machine. I am convinced that this change will greatly improve the quality of service to members.

Eventually.

This from Brooklyn Paper:

Spy magazine used to have a popular segment called “Separated at
birth” that featured pictures of celebrities who bore an uncanny
resemblance to each other. Forgive real-life twins Paula Bernstein and
Elyse Schein if they fail to find humor in the photographic
juxtaposition — after all, “Separated at birth” is their life story.

The
twins, adopted by different middle-class Jewish families in the 1960s,
were the victims of a New York adoption agency’s bizarre — and since
repudiated — theory that identical twins would flourish if raised
separately.

Atlantic Yards Report reports on  “Is New York Losing Its Soul?” the first in a series of public programs connected to the  Jane Jacobs and the Future of New York
exhibit and sponsored by the Municipal Art Society. Read more at AYR.

The panelists at the
Donnell Library auditorium, facing an audience of some 250 people,
expressed varying degrees of dismay over homogenization and rising
rents, as well as feelings of impotence in a developer-friendly city.
And Atlantic Yards was again the poster child for unwelcome development.

Leading
off, moderator Clyde Haberman, a New York Times Metro columnist,
brought up the relentless march of chain banks and chain drugstores. “I
suspect history will smile on the Bloomberg administration,” he said,
but “it has yet to meet a developer to which it will say no.” (That’s
not quite true, given the administration’s posture
toward Joe Sitt’s Thor Equities in Coney Island.) The one example he
referenced—noting that panelist Alison Tocci of Time Out New York
wanted to discuss it—was Atlantic Yards.

Wonderful Things Are Sprouting at the Community Bookstore!!!

GROW, WATERMELON, GROW author Charlotte Noruzi will visit the
Community Bookstore as part of our ongoing Sunday Children’s Reading
Series this Sunday, October 7, at 3:00 p.m.

The book is beautifully
illustrated (by Noruzi herself) and very funny, and is about a girl
and her patience (or impatience) at planting a watermelon seed and
watching (and watching…and watching…) it grow.

So park your strollers this Sunday at the Community Bookstore, and
pick up a signed copy of Grow, Watermelon, Grow. As always, this event
is free and open to the public.

Seed-spitting contest to follow.

Sunday, October 7th
3:00 p.m.
Community Bookstore
143 7th Avenue, Park Slope
(718) 783-3075

The New York Post reports that Department of Education is looking for applicants to serve as
permanent principal of Khalil Gibran International Academy.

People are wondering whether the school’s former principal, Debbie Almontaser, is going to apply for the position at the school, which she helped to develop. She resigned from the position, which pays $120,000 a year, after a controversy over "Intifada NYC." t-shirts, in August. Just weeks before the start of the school year.

Fluency in Arabic is preferred, but is not required

October 13: INNER LIVES, DEVELOPING CHARACTERS is Regina McBride’s monthly writing workshop in Park Slope. 10 am until 5 pm. To register: nightsea21@nyc.rr.com.

Using relaxation, sense memory, and emotional memory (Stanislavski
acting techniques transformed for the writer) a variety of exercises
will be offered to enable the student to find a deeper, richer
connection to the character he or she is creating.

Exercises will be followed by writing periods, and opportunities for
people to read and share their work. The atmosphere will be safe, with
the focus on exploration. The class is designed to help the student
break into new territory with the character, and with the story itself.

October 13: TEENS FOR DARFUR, a benefit concert at the Old Stone House
with Cool and Unusual, Dulaney Banks, Post No Bills, Banzai, and the
newly re-formed, The Floor is Lava. 6 p.m. $10 for adults. $5 for kids
and teens. All welcome. Funds will go to the American Jewish World Service  Refugee Relief Effort in Darfur. Fifth Avenue and 3rd Street in Park Slope.

Octobter 18: Centennial Celebration for Ladder 122. 11 am. In front of the firehouse on 11th Street between 7th and 8th Avenues.

October 18: BROOKLYN READING WORKS
at the Old Stone House presents Broken Land: Poems of Brooklyn. Several
poets from this great collection of Brooklyn poems will be on hand at
the Old Stone House: Phillis Levin, Andrea Baker, Patricia Spears Jones, and Tom Sleigh.  Fifth Avenue and 3rd Street in Park Slope.

October 20: JAMIE LIVINGTON. PHOTO OF THE DAY 1979-1997. 6,697
Polaroids, dated in sequence. Exhibition runs from October 13-28, 2007.
Bard College. Bertelsmann Campus Center. Sponsored by the Bard-St.
Stephens’s Alumni/ae Assocationor more information, contact
info@photooftheday.net

October 20: BOB KLEIN AND THE ANCESTORS at the Cutting Room. 7 p.m.  19 West 24th Street.

October 21: BROOKLYN BLOGADE ROADSHOW in Bay Ridge. Location and time to be determined. Organized by Luna Park Gazette.