I recently accepted a free shipment of herbs from Daregal Gourmet. During the holidays, every marketer is reaching out to try and touch you and I: the consumer. Most cooks are personally familiar with fresh and dried herbs. Fresh, frozen herbs, however, are a curious proposition. For one, herbs are highly perishable. If greens aren’t frozen properly (usually blanched first), enzymatic and chemical activity can damage pigment, cell walls, and also essential vitamins (specifically vitamin C). This means they turn limp and colorless when you take them out, and may lose some of their nutritional value. Many times this information is unavailable on a company site, and it takes weeks to wrangle it out of those who respond to customer email.

I was looking down the barrel of yet another totally blown afternoon at a second-hand in Brooklyn, this time at the Brooklyn Flea. Apparently hipsters in this borough are made not born, because their rejects certainly aren’t worth the elbow deep rummaging in BO and stale cigarette smoke. I will reserve my thrifty shopping to up-or-out of state.

Five Points has been a mainstay almost since its inception. It has all the makings of a classic - a dynamic couple at its helm, a warm, unique and lively interior, and a daily (sometimes seasonally) rotating menu of fresh (and when possible local and organic) ingredients prepared by passionate and inspired hands. The duo is restaurateur and chef Mark Meyer and wife and partner Vicki Freeman.

The restaurant opened in 1999 with a daily rotating menu. At the time, local was a new menu concept in New York. As Five Points gained popularity, the menu was scaled back to a seasonal rotation. A couple years ago the owners revived the daily change-up, perhaps due to neighborhood competition and the increasing popularity of market-driven fare. The new menu’s staples remain the same (cavatelli, burgers, and baked pasta) but are refreshed with inspiration from the nearby Greenmarkets.

Let me start off by saying three things: 1) festivals, especially food festivals in my opinion generally suck, 2) I wasn’t giving this one much of a chance by bailing on two of the events I had tickets for to pick apples, and 3) I absolutely, positively hate (like spit flinging, cursing, and death eyes hate) Rachael Ray. If you disagree with me… well, just don’t. Now that we got that over with, I attended two events at the New York Wine & Food Festival this year.