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Buying ingredients in NYC, Jersey City

ColbaltBlue's picture
ColbaltBlue

Buying ingredients in NYC, Jersey City

Hello,

I have recently moved from Canada to NYC / Jersey City. My wife and I I are near Grove st, Jersey side and I work in lower Manhattan. 

I am yet to find somewhere that sells good flour. Even Bob's Red Mill Artisan bread flour is elusive. 

Does anyone have any recommendations for finding flour in NYC or Jersey City? Preferably lower side but not a necessity.

What kinds of flours do people in the US love using and find great quality with?

Thanks

 

 

WatertownNewbie's picture
WatertownNewbie

My cabinet generally contains King Arthur All-Purpose, KA Bread, and KA Whole Wheat as well as Hodgson Mill Whole Grain Rye.  Those are my core flours.  I also have a bag of Caputo 00 flour, which I like for an occasional ciabatta, and I have a few other flour types (from various brands) for specialty baking.

King Arthur happens to be available in the grocery store (Stop and Shop) that I frequent, so finding it is not an issue.  There are a few other grocers around here (Watertown, CT) that stock many of the Bob's Red Mill products.  Where do you get your groceries now?  Perhaps look there.

ColbaltBlue's picture
ColbaltBlue

Ahh thank you. I have seen king arthur around but wasn't sure. My pre-disposition was it may be like the Robin Hood flour found in Canada. 

Which is mass produced and generally speaking fairly terrible quality sadly.

I will have to check out King Arthur and give it a go, thank you.

Bengoshi's picture
Bengoshi

Welcome to the Big Apple.  As much as NYC is getting on my nerves, the ONE thing it is GREAT for is ingredients of any kind.  As to Flour, hit the Union Square Farmers Market, there is one booth there which sells some great whole grains (I grind my own) and flours. I think they move around  https://www.grownyc.org/grains/wheretobuy

Otherwise, for every product in the world imaginable, you MUST go to Kalutyans on Lexington Avenue in the 20s.  They have every type of flour and grain imaginable, including really hard to find.  Plus everything Middle Eastern, Indian or spice related in the world. My office is a few blocks away, I go all the time and buy way too much. Buy the Turkish and Persian Pisatachios — very rare.....

http://foodsofnations.com/

Bengoshi's picture
Bengoshi

Eataly used to sell some organic flour from Italy, I never loved it. Buona Italia in Chelsea Market has a pretty good selection of Italian flours for pasta and baking.....

ColbaltBlue's picture
ColbaltBlue

These links look fantastic. I am definitely going to check these out. Looking at the growNYC grains, they have a lot of whole grains. Was this the reason you started grinding your own grains? Do you know if they grind the flour for you? At a glance it appears they sell a lot of whole grains with a limited selection of stone ground flour. 

I know what I am doing this weekend, Union Square, here we come. Thank you

Bengoshi's picture
Bengoshi

They do have flours there, give them a ring or reach out I think they even custom order.  As to me, believe it or not I bought a Komo Mill to grind whole grains to make pasta.  I then started looking into making bread with whole grains — I had not baked in a while so it gave me a new incentive and it makes it so much more fun and delicious.

I really suggest one of the Komo or Mockmill mills.  It costs as much as a good espresso machine, and is so worth it. Then buy some grain at the Greenmarket and really go to town — I can tell you their whole grain wheats and rye are excellent, and they also carry corn, which makes great masa for tamales....

David R's picture
David R

[Maybe they carry rare types of Persian pistachios, I don't know, but Iran is the world's second-largest pistachio producer, behind the US. American growers are at about 400,000 tons (metric) a year, Iran over 300,000 tons.]

Bengoshi's picture
Bengoshi

Ill guess you are writing from outside the US since almost all pistachios you see in stores in the US are coming from California.  So Kalustyan having Persian pistachios (and Turkish) is indeed rare, and they are far better.  Check them out...

David R's picture
David R

 You're perfectly right - just a different way of using the word "rare". Makes sense. Most of what I see is certainly American - I'm not the hugest pistachio fan so I don't work hard looking for them.

Tynalb63's picture
Tynalb63

I've always ground my own wheat,  rye and pastry flour.  I have a magic mill flour mill. 

I also have wheat berries if you are interested. 

For any of the others on this post,  I live in northern NJ, and I need to get rid of my large stash of grain. 

Tinalb63@hotmail.com 

 

The Roadside Pie King's picture
The Roadside Pi...

Good evening, Mr. Blue.

Farmers Ground, is a small collective based in the finger lake region of N.Y.S. Good choice for fresh locally sourced flour and wheat berries. I know Whole foods carries it. I usually get mine at the Union Sq. farmers market. I have used their "Half White flour" with good results in many of my white flour recipes. Good luck, happy baking.

 

 Kind regards,

 Will F.

the hadster's picture
the hadster

So, I live in NYC and, if you are willing to travel via the subway - the 9 train uptown - you can find just about ANYTHING at Zabars and/or Fairway on Broadway. They are within a few blocks of each other.

At the Whole Foods chain, you can find "Farmer Ground" flour which is lovely, and is notably fresh.

Personally, I don't spend the money on Bob's Red Mill Artisan bread flour, or any of their wheat flours.  I use King Arther flours for the most part.  I use BRM for interesting stuff such as ground nut flours, ground legume flours etc.

In Hoboken, easy to get to from JC, is a grocery store on Washington Street called Aspen Market.  They have a good selection as well.

The Union Square Farmer's Market also has great stuff.

Hope this helps.