As in, come for the bellinis, stay for the $18.95 bowl of minestrone*:

A Cipriani restaurant without a liquor license: aphorisms about dogs without bones spring to mind. How could it go on? And would it even be possible?

On Wednesday, the State Liquor Authority charged several affiliated Manhattan restaurants run by Giuseppe Cipriani and his father, Arrigo, with multiple violations of state laws, and threatened the maximum penalty: revocation of their liquor licenses.

Interviews with people in the restaurant business on Friday suggest that it would not be easy or even practical for the Ciprianis to continue to operate as a dry minichain, but that resourcefulness might go a long way. “They should look at it as an opportunity to get creative,” said Karine Bakhoum, a restaurant publicist.

The Ciprianis run the Rainbow Room, Harry Cipriani and several other restaurants and catering halls in Manhattan. The famous Harry’s Bar in Venice, opened in 1931 by Arrigo Cipriani’s father, is the flagship property of the empire. Ernest Hemingway was its best-known patron, and the bellini — Champagne with peach purée, juice or schnapps — its primary contribution to civilization.

Ms. Bakhoum said that in 2006, she represented Novo, a restaurant that had just opened on Hudson Street before being granted its liquor license. “It had a wonderful Latino menu, so we did a campaign with a water bar and fresh juices,” she said. “You could design your own water, with fruits and extracts. We made it a differentiation point rather than a detraction point. We found that many people weren’t interested in drinking alcohol because of the caloric content.”

Still, restaurateurs say that alcohol sales can account for more than half their revenue — with much higher profit margins than from food sales. The Cipriani chain’s logo depicts a bartender mixing drinks. Can you imagine a bellini built on fortified water?

Another point of inspiration might be called the Club Kalua strategy. Club Kalua is the nightspot in Queens where Sean Bell was shot to death by police officers in November 2006. The subsequent loss of the club’s liquor license became an opportunity to unburden the dancers of bikini tops, and it became a topless club (serving virgin passion-fruit mojitos and Red Bull cocktails).

“You lose a lot of business,” said Roger Duran, Club Kalua’s owner. Still, he said, “It’s working very well for me at the moment.” The patrons who stayed? “They go for the girls, basically.”

*Or the much vaunted $36.95 lasagna:

Over the years the Cipriani restaurant family and its employees have faced charges of sexual harassment, insurance fraud and tax evasion, the last leading to guilty pleas by two family members in July.

But the crime that comes to mind first when I think of the Ciprianis is highway robbery. Based on my recent experience, that’s what happens almost any time Harry Cipriani on Fifth Avenue serves lunch or dinner.

Let us have our raw milk:

Brooklyn raw milk enthusiasts are crying over the loss of their supplier — a horse and buggy-driving Amish farmer from Pennsylvania.

Mark Nolt of New Line, Pa., was arrested and shut down last Friday for selling the contraband.

“Oh God. My heart is pounding. I can’t believe what a God—- police state this is,” said one Brooklyn customer who made monthly pickups of raw dairy products from Nolt that the farmer had dropped off in Manhattan by workers.

“I gave him $100 last week for a huge delivery of stuff, including raw cream that I planned on using to make cream puffs,” she said.

The Brooklyn outcry came after six Pennsylvania state troopers raided Nolt’s farm and confiscated his illegal dairy.

“They swooped in on Friday morning like a bunch of Vikings, handcuffed me and stole $30,000 worth of my milk, cheese and butter,” Nolt told the Daily News.

Nolt is a devout Mennonite who sells raw dairy products at his farm and has them transported by truck to customers in Delaware and across New York City, where the raw goods are illegal.

It is a violation of federal law to transport raw milk across state lines with the intent to sell it for consumption. Nolt was arrested for not having a permit to sell the goods in Pennsylvania, where they are allowed.

He said he was working on the farm with his wife and 10 children when the agents cuffed him on charges of selling the contraband to an undercover officer.

“The government doesn’t have the right to dictate what I eat, and never will,” said an unrepentant Nolt.

Around the city, more and more parents are signing up to find out where dropoff points are to pick up raw milk they have bought online.

To get around the law, no money changes hands. Milk pickup spots are posted in Williamsburg, Queens and neighborhoods in Manhattan — where a milk truck waits.

And who killed the raw milk trade? You did!

As Health Department-mandated chain restaurant calorie counts seem to be surviving last-minute legal maneuvers, some customers yawn:

In an unused corner of a Burger King on Hylan Boulevard, an official-looking sign goes unremarked.

Its tiny print, disclosing the nutritional facts of the fast food on offer, resembles nothing so much as the legal mumbo-jumbo that no one really wants to acknowledge.

But if the city Health Department gets its way, the information soon will be front and center.

Health Code 81.50 mandates that all New York restaurants that are part of a nationwide chain of 15 or more locations must post a calorie count on their menu.

The Restaurant Association, which claims that the proposed law goes against the First Amendment, has until Friday to seek a stay from an appellate court.

While some eateries, such as Starbucks, Quiznos, Jamba Juice and Chevy’s, have accepted the new regulations and posted nutritional information in restaurants, others, such as McDonald’s, Burger King, KFC and Taco Bell, have refused.

. . .

Freida Dibartolo, who admits to not being a regular customer of Burger King, agrees that information should be readily accessible, but doesn’t believe it will affect how people order.

“If you don’t eat it often, you don’t pay attention the few times you eat it. If you eat it everyday, you don’t give a (expletive),” said the Dongan Hills resident.

Restauranteurs, although it may seem strange that you can charge someone $8 for a beer and no one will flinch but try to get $5 for a soda and people get all in a snit, trust me, it’s not worth it:

They don’t call it “The Five Spot” for nothing — because this otherwise reasonably priced Myrtle Avenue soul-food restaurant is now charging $5 for a soda.

Yes, $5 for a large Sprite, Coke or root beer — the same price as about a gallon and a half of gas; two and a half shares of Bear Stearns or a Barnes and Noble classic copy of “Macbeth.”

That’s also 50 cents more than a Coke will cost you at The River Café, one of the most-expensive restaurants in Brooklyn.

Surprised?

So was Kate Myers, who dined with her husband and 5-year-old son at the Five Spot on Sunday, March 9.

The family walked into the restaurant, at Washington Avenue, at about 3:30 pm, and ordered two notably reasonably priced entrees: the Clinton Hill Crispy Chicken Fingers ($6.90), and the Five Spot Fish N Chips ($7.95).

And they ordered three drinks: one vodka tonic ($8), one Brooklyn Lager ($8), and a Sprite for little Joe ($5).

Lest you think the high price for soft drinks stems from a bottomless mug, think again. There are no refills — which Myers discovered when she ordered her son a second soda.

“The bill came and we saw there were $10 worth of Sprites,” said Myers, still in disbelief. “If it had been $3, I would have thought it was too much. I travel a lot for my job, and for room service, I don’t pay ever $5.”

Although it perhaps violates the spirit of Lent, it does make for good press:

At Goodfella’s Brick Oven Pizza in Dongan Hills, there’s a tasty meal this Good Friday for Catholics abstaining from meat.

Their Lenten-specialty pizza features tender chunks of lobster, crabmeat and shrimp drizzled with a champagne and blackberry brandy cream sauce, tomatoes and scallions scattered above a layer of homemade fresh mozzarella cheese. Atop a cheese and coconut-infused 10-inch crust, it’s a veritable slice of heaven.

But some say the name the pie’s creators picked for the pizza, the “Passion of the Crust,” is as sinful as the cheesy seafood masterpiece is delicious.

The restaurant’s co-owner, Scot Cosentino, a Scientologist, and executive chef Sal Russo, a Catholic, insist they mean no disrespect.

“We wanted to give everybody a chance to have a special pizza,” Russo explained, adding that the pie has been popular since it was introduced at the start of Lent, and especially so on Fridays, when Catholics are enjoined to abstain from meat.

And the name, both said, derives from their passion for pizza, and the special coconut crust.

“We’re very passionate when we describe our pizza to our customers,” Russo said. “They start to drool.”

But though he said the pie “is nothing against the church,” he gestured to the old-fashioned brick oven where the Passion pizza was turning a gooey golden brown and joked that he sometimes sees a heavenly light shining from inside. “If you listen very closely, you can hear the voices of the archangels,” he said.

. . .

Russo said pizzeria staff called St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Manhattan to try to arrange for an official blessing of the pie, in preparation for his journey to Las Vegas on April 1 to enter it in the International Pizza Challenge. But an archdiocesan official called back and said the name of the pizza was too controversial, he said.

“I think the owners probably intended to do a very good thing in providing a seafood pizza,” said Sister Lois Darold of St. John Villa Academy. “I think perhaps they didn’t realize the title of this new pizza might be considered a little in poor taste.

“I don’t think there was any intent to make fun of the Catholic religion and the Christian experience. I’m not personally offended, except that I would have preferred a pizza that probably tastes very delicious would have a name that is a little more respectful.”

. . . meanwhile, this guy collected the crap-ass burnt bits from the bottom of the oven and made a bagel out of it:

As is often the case (Post-its, the microwave), the genesis of the everything bagel was a “fluky-type thing,” [David] Gussin said the other day. When Gussin was fifteen, he took a part-time job at a takeout place in Howard Beach run by a guy named Charlie. It was a simpler time for bagels: you had plain, poppy, sesame, onion, salt, garlic, and — on the exotic end — cinnamon raisin. One of Gussin’s duties at closing time was to sweep up the burnt seeds that had fallen off in the oven during the day. Gussin developed a taste for them, and one afternoon — he guesses around 1980 — “instead of throwing them out, like I always did, I swept them into a bin and said, ‘Charlie, let’s make some with these!’ ”

Charlie, who was mildly enthusiastic about the idea, agreed to sell the newfangled bagels for a nickel extra. According to Gussin, the name “everything” came instantaneously. “There was no marketing meeting or anything like that,” he said. “It was a one-second thought process. Boom.” The flavor became popular “the next day,” and pretty soon Gussin’s brainchild — minus the burnt-seed concept — had spread to a bagel place over in Lindenwood. Within a year, Gussin said, “the everything bagel was everywhere.”

Sure, keep worrying about “appearances” . . . this as it takes me 45 minutes to use an elevator that stops at every floor on a Saturday:

Popular Upper East Side restaurant Talia’s Steakhouse recently began cooking up what is believed to be the city’s first kosher cheeseburger — a real-beef patty topped with tofu cheese in American or mozzarella flavor.

The formerly forbidden food is now being served as a “Kosher Parve Cheeseburger” at the popular glatt kosher eatery, which does not serve meat and dairy together, in accordance with Jewish law.

While many are excited to give the taboo take-out a taste, others are kvetching that the burger is bad news.

“I would never entertain the thought of eating cheese — real or fake — with meat,” comedian Jackie Mason, who keeps kosher, told The Post. “It makes me nauseous just thinking about it.”

Trying to skirt tradition is what irks others, also.

“Jewish law is very concerned for appearances,” said Rabbi Basil Herring, the executive vice president of the Rabbinical Council of America. “Not only should you always do the right thing, but it should be seen as the right thing.

“Any Jew who keeps kosher knows a cheeseburger is not permissible. But . . . what happens if a young kid, a 10-year-old, goes in there and says, hmm, maybe cheese on a burger is OK?”

Things that make me never ever want to eat oysters again include . . . this, for example:

Hendrix Creek, flowing for just over a mile in Brooklyn through East New York, passes under the Belt Parkway and between two dormant landfills before it empties into Jamaica Bay. The creek, once fed by a natural stream, now starts at the output pipe of a wastewater treatment plant.

It is the perfect kind of place, said John K. McLaughlin, an ecologist for the New York City Department of Environmental Protection, for an experimental project that would establish oyster beds, not for harvest, but as living water filters.

. . .

Even if the initial change in water quality is not significant, he said, the creation of a self-sustaining habitat in Jamaica Bay — where oysters and other species can survive and spread — would be an achievement. That process, Mr. McLaughlin said, would be the first step to restoring something close to the bay’s original ecosystem.

But if the Hendrix Creek oysters thrive, the city may well face another challenge: keeping away adventuresome gourmands who might be tempted to help themselves to the delicacies.

“There’s a worry that if you have oysters that sell for a dollar apiece, people will steal them and sell them,” [Gaia Institute executive director Paul] Mankiewicz said. “We want them for habitat, not edibility.”

Plans to bring Italian varietals to Staten Island are progressing:

The 2-acre Tuscan Garden Vineyard Project will be planted on a Snug Harbor hilltop by spring 2009, officials said yesterday.

“We’ll be creating, I’m sure, a serious wine,” declared winemaker Piergiorgio Castellani Jr., co-owner of Italy’s Castellani Wines.

The Italian winery, near Pisa — as in leaning tower of — produces 18 million bottles of wine annually.

Castellani estimated the 2,000-vine organic plot planned for the Staten Island Botanical Garden will produce as much as 7,000 bottles a year. The vineyard is to complement the Tuscan Garden Villa at the botanic garden.

. . .

Because the three types of grapes — merlot, cabernet sauvignon and sangiovese — he intends to plant will be the same as those used in his “Super Tuscan” wines, Castellani offered up a name for the Staten Island label.

“We will produce not a Tuscan wine,” Castellani said, “but a Super Staten Island Red.”

At the risk of sounding hypocritical, this absolutely beats the pants off tropical fish tanks:

Borough President James Molinaro, who has committed $2 million in taxpayer money to the project, said the vineyard will draw visitors.

“This is part of branding Staten Island,” Molinaro said, adding that 38% of Staten Islanders are Italian-American.

Bad news:

The wine — a name has not yet been chosen — will not be sold commercially but will go to tourists and could be served at government functions.

Which is to say, start contributing to the Borough President’s reelection campaign now. (And it’s never too early to pitch Talk of the Town.)

The Times’ recent sushi scare story pays dividends all around:

Seafood restaurants around town have felt the fallout since the Times reported that tuna from even Manhattan’s high-end sushi purveyors contains dangerous levels of mercury. (”All of a sudden, our business has fallen down 20 to 30 percent,” says Japonica owner Shingo Yonezawa. “It’s a nightmare. There’s a lot you can eat at sushi restaurants other than tuna.”) But one business is booming: mercury detox. “Not only did we get a rush of new patients, but our current patients asked to be rechecked,” says Dr. Jeffrey Morrison, who offers the treatment. Patients sit in armchairs while the chemical DMPS drips from an IV into their bloodstream to help draw out mercury. “Not all patients need IV,” Morrison says. “Some people can do oral chelation. Saunas work, too, but you have to take about five of them a week.”

Then again, you could just read the Jack Shafer rebuttal, stroll on down to Nobu and forget about it . . .

After initially indicating that the Red Hook Ballfield vendors would get priority with a new formalized RFP process, the city seems to go back on its word:

Despite significant hurdles to overcome, the vendors decided unanimously at a closed-door meeting on Wednesday night to submit a proposal under the city’s new open-bidding process for vending permits at the Red Hook ballfields, which are on Bay Street, between Clinton and Henry streets.

“They decided to stick on, which is good news,” said Cesar Fuentes, who acts as spokesman and advocate for the 13 vendors.

One of the food vendors, Rafael Soler, added: “This is a very important decision. We tried to keep it together because when everyone is together, we’re stronger.”

The decision to dig in culminates months of hand wringing that began after the city decided to put the vending sites, where the food hawkers have been operating for decades, up for open bid.

At the time, the Parks Department said its “request for proposals” would be written to give the existing vendors a leg up. But the RFP unveiled last month would bar the purveyors from setting up folding tables, tarps and grills as they have been doing.

Instead, vendors must get mobile units, licensed by the Health Department, which cost $15,000–$30,000.

“For a corporation, that’s pocket change,” said Fuentes. “But for hardworking people holding down two other jobs, it’s a lot.”

The city says it wants a lively marketplace at the ballfields, but a spokesman recently suggested that the city is less concerned with who actually runs it — the longtime vendors or a new corporation.

Location Scout: Red Hook Ballfields.

Some City Council members are suspicious of a plan to allow more vegetable pushcart permits because of the competition it may create with bodegas that don’t even sell vegetables to begin with:

Under a bill introduced in December at the mayor’s request — with the backing of Council Speaker Christine Quinn — the city would issue 1,500 new permits for street pushcarts to sell just fruits and vegetables in “underserved communities.”

The carts would be confined to specific areas — identified by police precincts — and would be monitored by health inspectors and the police. Violations could lead to the seizure of carts and fines.

If approved by the Council, the measure will call for phasing in 750 permits per year for two years, with 500 earmarked for the Bronx, 500 for Brooklyn, 250 for Queens, 200 for Manhattan and 50 for Staten Island.

While commending the health goal, participants in a hearing by the Consumer Affairs Committee questioned whether the green carts would hurt neighborhood supermarkets, bodegas and greengrocers.

The skeptics suggested other alternatives, such as allowing stores to set up their own fresh fruit and vegetable stands outside their premises, or providing tax incentives.

“It is going to cause harm,” said Councilman Miguel Martinez (D-Manhattan).

Councilman John Liu (D-Queens) questioned whether “this green cart proposal actually makes sense.”

“Maybe we should be licensing vendors to sell suits outside, and lingerie,” scoffed Councilman Simcha Felder (D-Brooklyn).

And Councilman Charles Barron (D-Brooklyn) cited the warring interests of merchants and street peddlers.

“Welcome to the politics of food,” he said.

And crop failures elsewhere and new emerging markets, but I’m still upset about that biofuel sham:

Paying more for flour and wheat has forced H&H Bagels to raise prices in five-cent increments over the past year. In October, a bagel (sans butter or cream cheese) hit $1.20.

“Last year at this time, the price per bushel [of wheat] was $5.31,” said Jorge Delgado, counsel for H & H. “[This week] it was $14.22.”

David Jaffe, a sales rep from Fodera Foods in Queens, sells to roughly 70 Manhattan bagel shop and bakeries. His company may have to allocate goods based on customers’ payment history. “There is no raw material,” he said. “It’s crazy [to talk about allocations], but we’re getting there.”

He blamed price increases on the crop failure in Australia, which forced the Asian market to buy from here, compounded by Argentina not exporting wheat. Plus, more American farmers are switching to biofuels because of ethanol subsidies.

“We’re not in a good situation,” Jaffe said. “China is becoming Westernized and they don’t want to eat rice anymore, they want wheat. Basically, the whole baking industry is under attack and the hardest hit are those who use the most flour — bagels and bread.”

Steve Ross, president of Coney Island Bialys & Bagels, who has kept prices at 70 cents for nearly a year, has seen fluctuations befire, but never a such a steady rise. “It’s always stayed around $18 to $20 a bag,” he said. Ross is now paying $35 for a 100-pound bag. He found out yesterday that’s set to jump $3.

David Wilpon, manager of Ess-a-Bagel, said prices rose 10 to 85 cents in October and they were considering another hike. At Daniel’s Bagels on Third Avenue, Arye Lewkowitz raised prices last month to 90 cents.

“It’s horrible. I don’t know what we’re going to do,” Lewkowitz said. “We’re going to have to sell a bagel for over $1.” He’s set to print new menus shortly, he said.

How stupid are New Yorkers? Not only can a cupcake store clear more than enough to pay its $30,000-plus rent but it can open a second Manhattan location, too:

There are few small businesses that can comfortably afford a $400,000-per-year lease in Manhattan.

There are even fewer ones that can do so selling cupcakes.

Magnolia Bakery, the West Village destination well-known for its butter cream-frosted baked goods, celeb appeal and its cameo in SNL’s “Lazy Sunday” digital short, has recently opened a second domain on 200 Columbus Ave. at West 69th Street. Owner Steve Abrams, who is a 20-year Upper West Side veteran, always believed the neighborhood could embrace the business, but didn’t quite anticipate the orders when it opened its doors on Jan. 19.

“It’s been beyond expectations. Opening day, we ran out of product,” Abrams said. “I think the volumes are going to be very similar [to downtown]. Just the way they manifest will be different. Downtown is touristy. . . . . They’re not buying a dozen cupcakes. Here it’s all families. People buy in bulk.”

The mayor’s nanny-statist obsession with healthy food has gone too far:

This year, when the Liberty Plaza Greenmarket reopened, near the corner of Cedar and Church Streets, its organic overlords told the local streetfood sellers that they couldn’t share sidewalk space with arugula peddlers on Tuesday and Thursday from August to December. Then things got ugly: One of the vendors, Bangladeshi immigrant Mohammed Ali, 44, who’d been selling hot dogs on that stretch of Cedar Street for seven years, refused to move, and a Greenmarket manager called the cops. Ali was ticketed twice, for vending food “when ordered to move due to a market event” and not having twelve feet of path around his cart. Then, six officers seized his cart and everything in it. By the time an administrative-law judge dismissed the summonses later that afternoon (the city still insists the vendor was in violation of the twelve-feet rule), Ali’s Gatorade, Cokes, and hot dogs — buns, relish, and all — were gone. “I go to police station and I’m told it’s garbage,” he says. “They probably ate the hot dogs.”

. . .

“It’s not a contest, us versus them,” says Michael Hurwitz, executive director of the city’s Greenmarket program. It’s just about space. Still, he adds, “I do wish their food was a little bit healthier and was locally grown.”

Where some see “ecosystem killers” others see an opportunity now that the giant nutria rat has made its way to Southern New Jersey:

For decades, the nutria have slowly made their way up the Eastern Sseaboard. It was first recorded in large numbers in Delaware and Maryland in the 1980s

And now, the first has been spotted in Jersey.

“It’s a very large rodent,” said Leonard Douglen, executive director of the New Jersey Pest Management Association.

“As long as we don’t allow the population to grow, we can eradicate them no matter how big they are.”

The rodents — which measure as long as 24 inches from nose to tail - can kill an ecosystem by evicting current tenants like waterfowl, crabs and fish.

Douglen said that if the nutria invade New Jersey in large numbers, he and other pest-control warriors will have to take them out, one at a time.

“We’d probably trap them, wherever there are sightings. We’d have to set traps in those areas,” he told The Post last night.

“Just because a new species comes around doesn’t mean you reinvent the wheel.”

The nutria, as big as most dogs and resembling a beaver, has an average life span of about four years in the wild.

The South American rodent, with its fine fur, was once bred for their pelts in the late 19th century and in the first half of the 20th century.

As nutria farms popped up in the South and Gulf Coast regions, so did feral populations of the big, ugly rodents.

Can’t you have at least one home-cooked meal this year? No need to:

Thankfully, New Yorkers will be able to stuff themselves silly Thursday — without touching a stove.

The city’s takeout culture extends to Turkey Day, with plenty of outlets working 24/7 to offer ready-to-eat or easy-to-prepare feasts for the culinary inept or serial procrastinator.

“This is what you do: You take a big, deep breath and say, ‘I’m in New York, and this isn’t a big deal,’” said Joyce Weinberg, founder of City Food Tours.

“Don’t stress about having a table with 99 side dishes.”

Government offices may be closed, but plenty of gourmet grocers will be bustling.

“You can get fresh-killed turkeys anytime, and all the sides in the deli department — stuffing, sweet potatoes, string beans almondine, cranberry sauce, roasted potatoes, wild rice . . . There should be no problem for last-minute Thanksgiving shoppers,” said Fairway Vice President Dan Glickberg.

Upper West Side mainstay Zabar’s also serves on Thanksgiving Day.

“We’re open 365 days a year,” said owner Saul Zabar. “You can absolutely come on Thursday morning and get everything you need for Thanksgiving dinner. We have turkeys. We’re making 400 of them this year.”

Other last-minute markets include Zabar’s, Citarella, Gourmet Garage, Eli’s and Whole Foods.

Notably absent from that list is Fresh Direct, which somehow had problems delivering thanksgiving dinner on time last year (this from a company that does only one thing — deliver food).

. . . so the knish gets gentrified:

They may say potato is king at Yonah Schimmel Knish Bakery, but it is starting to get some competition from nontraditional ingredients.

While the bakery is still firmly devoted to its original savory and sweet cheese knishes, special knishes periodically appear on the menu that reflect the neighborhood’s changing tastes and demographics. As the knishery moves closer to its centennial in 2010, it now caters to a number of distinct crowds: the traditional knish lover who grew up on them; tourists who don’t know what a knish is; and a newer, younger generation that may not necessarily have had knishes before or know they are supposed to be eaten with a dollop of mustard.

With these varied groups in mind, Yonah Schimmel now produces special knishes, including jalapeno and cheddar, salmon and pizza — and even pumpkin-raisin in October and November.

“It tastes like pumpkin pie,” employee Dane Lepson said of the pumpkin-raisin knish.

“I invent lots of new ones,” Lepson said. “Do you know what the next knish is going to be?”

“Ice cream?” manager Alex Wolfman joked.

“Spinach and feta,” Lepson said.

This is a far cry from the knishes Yonah Schimmel himself made when he opened the store in 1910.

Fame, power and inevitable recriminations:

This should be a moment to savor for the venerable Latin food vendors of the Red Hook soccer fields in Brooklyn.

With help from well-placed allies and the passionate advocacy of their media-wise organizer, the vendors — lately a cause célèbre for pro-immigrant groups, free-market cheerleaders and gastrobloggers alike — recently won an extension of their operating season and an inside track on permanent status for the open-air multinational food court they have run on a temporary basis since the 1970s.

But just as they get ready for a difficult winter-long effort to comply with the city health code while preparing a formal bid for the concession rights, the vendors find themselves a family deeply divided over questions of leadership, money and less tangible issues.

In the last three weeks, the group’s organizer and public face, Cesar Fuentes, resigned as its day-to-day operator, threatened to sue vendors who spoke against him, threatened to quit representing them in city negotiations, then agreed to return, after all the vendors signed a petition on Wednesday avowing their “total support” and asking him to stay.

. . .

. . . Ricardo Ramirez, who helps run the largest stand, said that vendors felt that Mr. Fuentes acted as if he was not accountable.

“We want to know where the money goes,” Mr. Ramirez said last week. “How much he pays for insurance, how much he pays the workers who clean up. But when we talk to Cesar and ask him these things, he gets mad.”

Several vendors said they blamed Mr. Fuentes’s publicity efforts for attracting the attention of the city’s regulators, something they found particularly annoying because the resultant influx of non-Hispanic customers has been offset by a drop in Latino customers. “Business is the same,” Ms. Carrillo said. “But now there’s more problems.”

Mr. Fuentes said that he had provided the vendors with an accounting, and that the salary he pays himself — $20 per vendor per day, a total of $560 per weekend from the 14 vendors — was justified by his work.

Early this month, the vendors met without Mr. Fuentes. At the meeting, Esperanza Ochoa, a supporter of Mr. Fuentes who runs a Guatemalan stand and attended the meeting, said, some vendors spoke of keeping Mr. Fuentes around long enough to help them win the parks concession, then deposing him.

It was that meeting, Mr. Fuentes said, that prompted his resignation.

Location Scout: Red Hook Ballfields.

When a Brooklyn man eats only what he farms in his own backyard, we discover that “eating locally,” ironically, can go too far:

In three weeks of eating nothing but Farm-fresh food, I lost 29 pounds, down from my pre-Farm weight of 234. Abs: That’s the upside of only two meals a day. The downside is the expense. Not counting my own labor, which was unending, I spent about $11,000 to produce what, all told, is barely enough to feed one grown man for a month. But I did learn something about food: Unless you really know what you’re doing, raising it is miserable, soul-crushing work. Eating food fresh from the farm, on the other hand, is delightful.

(Hey, no need to punish yourself!)

When the story of who killed the Red Hook Ballfields is written it will turn out that we are all guilty:

Honduras Maya, a restaurant owned by one of the vendors that serves Latin American food on weekends at the Red Hook Ball Fields, was closed down by the Health Department this week after an inspection stemming from the city’s crackdown on the vendors.

The shutdown could merely be a taste of what’s to come if the 13 food vendors at the ball fields fail to meet strict health code requirements by this weekend. And the city’s Department of Parks and Recreation may not extend the vendors’ temporary permit — which officially expires after Labor Day — until the soccer season ends in late October, as earlier promised.

. . .

Cesar Fuentes, executive director of the Food Vendors Committee of Red Hook Park, said health inspectors are expected to start issuing fines — or shutting down vendors — this weekend for not meeting requirements like providing hot and cold running water, refrigeration, and preparing food in commercial kitchens rather than at home.

Suany Carcamo, the owner of Honduras Maya, has been operating a Honduran food stand specializing in baleadas at the ball fields for more than a decade. Fuentes said her restaurant was investigated by the city’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene as a follow-up to a letter she submitted to prove that she was preparing her food for the stand in a city-certified commercial kitchen — her own restaurant.

The Park Slope restaurant received 122 violation points, compared to the citywide average of 14 points, according to the inspection report. Among the 20 violations listed were: missing Choking First Aid, Alcohol and Pregnancy, and Wash Hands signs; evidence of flying insects and mice; toilet facility not maintained and provided with toilet paper; and wiping cloths dirty or not stored in proper sanitizing equipment.

The owners were not available for comment by press time. An employee, when reached by phone, confirmed that the restaurant had been shut down.

But Carcamo could be viewed as one of the lucky vendors. She is one of only two that also owns a restaurant, while many of the others are struggling to find a commercial or community kitchen certified by the Health Department where they can prepare their food.

“The report from my vendors is that it is basically very, very difficult to do,” said Fuentes. After word traveled that Honduras Maya was shut down, “a lot of people were denying vendors the use [of their facilities] out of fear that the Department of Health would enforce harshly.

“Anyone who doesn’t have that letter wouldn’t be allowed to sell,” he said.

(The vendors do nothing to conceal it, we visit there because we want to eat it, we blame the Health Department for being there, but we are all there . . .)

I guess it’s back to those old reliable subway churros for us . . .

The move to stop our wasteful addiction to ethanol may begin in the steakhouses:

The country’s effort to move away from a dependence on foreign oil and embrace green initiatives appears to be behind a change in one of New York’s purest traditions, the menu of the classic steakhouse.

The production of ethanol, which is made from corn, is one major reason classic cuts of prime beef are becoming more and more expensive, an analyst at the cattle market analysis firm Cattle-Fax, Tod Kalous, said.

“It’s getting worse,” the owner of Ben Benson’s Steakhouse, Ben Benson, said. “The problems the ranchers are having are making it more difficult because feed is getting more expensive.”

Brooklyn’s Peter Luger Steakhouse now serves a rib eye. On some nights at Ben Benson’s in Midtown, diners can order buffalo steak. The Old Homestead of the meatpacking district serves one of the city’s best Kobe burgers.

The new menu items at some city steakhouses are a result of an increase in the price of top-notch beef and a decrease in its availability.

Corn is the primary feed for cattle that produce USDA-grade prime beef. Corn is also the main ingredient for what many believe is the fuel of the future, ethanol. The production of ethanol has not only increased the demand for corn, it has made harvests more profitable for farmers, who receive the fruits of government subsidies when it is sold to ethanol producers.

Lady, please put down the cosmo:

The Bordeaux was flowing, the foie gras abundant and the well-heeled epicures at Daniel were having a refined old time when suddenly all eyes turned toward a table against one wall and all conversation ceased.

Jean-Luc Le Dû, a sommelier in the restaurant, looked in that direction, too. And he saw her: the woman making like a dancer on a pole at Scores.

She stood facing the rest of the dining room. First she took off a vest or a jacket, as best Mr. Le Dû remembers. Then she went to work on her blouse.

Just as she was getting to her bra, the maître d’hôtel got to her. Thus her drunken, wobbly stint as a stripper ended, and so did her dinner. She and her date, a smiling, sloshed man who had seemingly egged her on, were escorted to the door.

“She was not necessarily attractive or young, so it was disruptive,” complained Mr. Le Dû, who left Daniel several years ago and now owns a wine shop in Greenwich Village. “If she were beautiful, it might have been different. People might have been cheering her on.”

At Daniel? Hard to believe. But then Mr. Le Dû’s story provides a reminder that a 1985 Burgundy casts the same dark spell as a 2007 peppermint schnapps. That in a four-star temple as surely as a starless dive, some diners drink too much: way, way too much.

. . .

“If anything, a large bank account enables one to forgo normal levels of decorum, because you don’t have consequences,” said Rocky Cirino, a manager at the restaurant Cru, who previously worked at Daniel. “I’m thinking of several people whose station in life has enabled them to bypass normal civility and caution.”

. . .

Sometimes drunken diners don’t even bother to seek a private sanctuary for their libidos.

“People are often doing things underneath the table,” said a veteran server who has worked in many of Manhattan’s premier restaurants, including Gotham Bar & Grill and Fleur de Sel. The server asked not to be named for fear of angering past or future employers.

“The darker the restaurant, the more romantic the restaurant — there’s going to be some activity,” she said.

Hot dogs have finally gone the way of the egg cream:

Although the city doesn’t collect statistics that distinguish between different types of street food, halal vendors generally agree that their ranks have swelled in the last five to eight years, prompting the obvious question: How did the halal platter become the city’s new hot dog?

“The hot dog now is for tourists,” said a rueful Chafik el-Mokhtar, office manager at 2M Friend Corporation, a hot-dog cart garage and supply store on West 47th Street near 11th Avenue.

“The people usually go for chicken and rice because it’s good for hunger,” he added wistfully.

Mohamed Abouelenein, an Egyptian who used to sell hot dogs, said, “Hot dog is not a meal.” That’s one reason he switched to gyro and chicken in 1992, becoming, he claims, the first peddler in New York to sell halal meat from a cart.

“We figured out that most of the cabdrivers are Egyptian, Pakistani,” he said. “They suffered too much from no halal.”

On some corners of Manhattan, halal carts outnumber hot-dog vendors by as much as three to one. Mr. Abouelenein’s cart, named 53rd and 6th, after the Midtown corner on which it sits, stays open from 7 p.m. to 4 a.m., feeding throngs of clubbers, foodies and cabbies. Its success has been such that Mr. Abouelenein recently opened a new cart across the street, supplanting — yes — a hot-dog stand.

The term halal may be applied to any food prepared in accordance with the laws of the Koran, although in New York the term has taken on special connotations: oily chunks of chicken or gyro meat, yellowish rice, some scraps of lettuce, hot sauce and, of course, the mysterious substance known as white sauce.

New Yorker profiles aside, it’s possible that Will Goldfarb is overestimating the public’s fascination with the way he desconstructs dessert:

Last week Will Goldfarb, who has a sliver of a restaurant in SoHo called Room 4 Dessert where he manipulates desserts the way Magneto does metal, said he was angling to take to the streets in a plexiglass-walled truck armed with a whirring fleet of high-tech Pacojet ice cream makers churning fresh batches every few minutes.

. . .

In addition to his see-through ice cream laboratory on wheels, Mr. Goldfarb has plans to open a virtual pastry shop called Mama Sugar in the online community Second Life. He also has plans for a children’s cooking show (his daughter, Loulou, will turn 3 this fall) and plans to write a cookbook on how to use Willpowders — his line of basic chemical building blocks of modern cooking, like sodium alginate and calcium chloride — at home.

Taco Bell notwithstanding, if the mayor is not careful, perceived Health Department overinspection of DiFara may unravel his administration’s nannyism:

“Put it back in the oven,” Domenico DeMarco was told.

The godfather of Brooklyn pizzadom had just pulled one of his signature pies out of the same old gas oven he’s used since Mayor Wagner’s administration — the temperature cranked up, the way he likes it, to around 750 degrees.

With his bare hand, he sprinkled some extra cheese onto the piping-hot pie.

That’s when the health inspector cried foul. She was spying from the usual packed crowd of pie tasters that assemble daily at Mr. DeMarco’s landmark Di Fara pizzeria in Midwood.

“My customers, they want it the way I do it,” said the legendary 70-year-old pizza-slinger. “I use good cheese. Parmesan Reggiano! So, I told her that.”

The inspector was not impressed. “She made me put it back in the oven,” Mr. DeMarco said.

Then she made him lock the front door.

Busted! Barehanded. Again.

On June 4, the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene shut down Mr. DeMarco’s popular pizza parlor on Avenue J for the second time this year, citing “unsanitary conditions including mouse infestation, flies, and bare hand contact with food.”

“Having failed five of six inspections in the last 18 months,” the regulators concluded, “[Di Fara's] inspection history indicates an unwillingness or inability to meet health code.”

. . .

At press time, the pizzeria remained closed, though Mr. DeMarco and his family had tentatively brokered a set of stipulations that would allow them to reopen by week’s end. Still, Di Fara’s patriarch stressed that he would not reopen until he alone was ready: “The last time they close me up, after they give me the O.K., I say, ‘Nah, I have to close a few days because I want to close.’”

Even locked-up, Mr. DeMarco’s place was an attraction. “All day long, they’re looking in,” he remarked, as passers-by repeatedly pressed their faces up to the locked glass door.

“We’re with you, Maestro!” one supporter wrote in magic marker across a Health Department “CLOSED” sign posted to Di Fara’s door. “DOMINICK FOR PRESIDENT!” scrawled another.

Location Scout: Di Fara Pizza.

Competitive eating experts suggest that Joey Chestnut’s record-breaking feat this week in Arizona is tainted:

Like Bob Beamon’s wind-aided 1968 Olympic long jump in the thin air of Mexico City, Barry Bonds “clear”- and “cream”-aided 73 homer season in 2001, or Roger Maris’s eight-extra-game home-run season in 1961, Chestnut’s 59-1/2 HDB record should have an asterisk — at least until he repeats the “achievement” under actual game conditions.

Without air conditioning, I mean.

Certainly Chestnut is one of history’s greatest eaters. But the full impact of what he did last Saturday in an air-conditioned shopping mall outside of Tempe, Arizona simply can’t be known until he does it again.

In the heat of an actual competition.

After all, last year at Coney Island, with the temperatures and humidity both well above 80, Chestnut finished 1-3/4 dogs behind his nemesis, Takeru Kobayashi, who ate 53-3/4 and captured his sixth consecutive Mustard Yellow International Belt, the world-renowned symbol of gustatory greatness.

And columnist Gersh Kuntzman knows of what he speaks:

I conducted a completely scientific experiment at an indoor Nathan’s stand. With the air conditioning blowing at full bore, I was able to down two HDBs in just one minute (such a pace, if sustained over 12 minutes, would have won me the Mustard Yellow Belt only a decade ago, by the way).

Then I bought two more dogs and took them outside, into the heat and mugginess of a normal New York summer day.

I struggled to get even one of the dogs down my quivering gullet. My face broke out in a sweat (that’s real garlic satisfaction in there, my friends) and I got woozy from the heat.

The result of my experiment was clear: Air conditioning is to competitive eating what steroids are to baseball or, more accurately, the power nail driver is to Amish barn-raising.

Since I don’t much care whether Joe’s Falafel Cart has adequate hand-washing stations or if his ingredients are stored too close together, I wonder whether this could perhaps work:

Restaurant-goers would know if they’re in for a fine or filthy din ing experience under a new A-to-F rating system proposed by a state lawmaker.

State Sen. Jeff Klein has reintroduced a bill that would overhaul the state’s restaurant inspection system, modeling it after California’s, which requires stricter inspections and violations posted right on the restaurant’s entrance.

“It’s a simple system that would allow people to see clearly what the grade is as they enter — A, B, C, D or F,” said Klein, a Bronx Democrat. “The only way to ensure cleanliness and food safety is to make a restaurant’s grade public knowledge. That forces the owner to get it right.”

The measure would allow the city Health Department to devise its own criteria.

The legislator criticized the city’s current inspections, which use a Byzantine scoring system that allows eateries to remain open even if live rodents or rat droppings are found.

This is what they do in Los Angeles County, and there eating at a “B” or lower is sometimes even considered a sort of badge of honor.

Given Brooklyn Brewery’s past labor strife, is its new bottle-conditioned “Local 1″ beer kind of like a big inside joke? Either way, it sounds like it will be good:

Brooklyn Brewery introduced their newest beer — Local 1 — last week at a breakout party at Rockefeller Center.

Their new beer is the first 100 percent bottled-conditioned Belgian inspired ale, crafted by Brooklyn Brewery brewmaster Garret Oliver. Oliver, a well known “beer connoisseur,” is very excited about his new beer, and gave reasons the new Local 1 is a classier and more distinguished beer than other brews.

“What people don’t realize is that aroma makes up 75 percent of a beer’s taste,” expalined Oliver. “I like to think that Local 1 is Belgian-inspired, but also very Brooklyn in spirit.”

Local 1 is Brooklyn Brewery’s 13th beer, and the public should be able to get their first taste within the next year.

Location Scout: Brooklyn Brewery.

It’s that time of year (again) when allegedly overlooked outer borough restauranteurs attempt to stuff their way into Zagat:

The Myrtle Avenue Business Improvement District is offering local caterer Jive Turkey assistance in the three-and-a-half-year-old business’s bid to get listed in a new Zagat guide.

On March 1, the BID’s Web site urged residents to “vote for Jive Turkey.”

“We encourage you to submit your vote and rank your other favorites in the coming week,” the entry continued.

Jive Turkey, on Myrtle Avenue between Clinton and Waverly avenues, serves up a wattle-dropping 15 flavors of deep-fried bird and is a candidate for entry into the new Zagat’s “Marketplace” guide, which will feature caterers, florists, and other stores “ranked” thanks to snarky reviews from actual patrons.

But in order to make the cut, Jive must accrue a minimum number of reviews. Zagat, whose highly unscientific ratings are based on votes by consumers, never reveals exactly how many are required.

“If you have a low vote count, unless you’re considered a really superlative place, you won’t be included,” said a former Zagat employee who would only speak anonymously. “[Encouraging people to vote is] frowned upon, but a lot of people do it. There’s no way to stop it.”