Radio Free Brooklyn
Katy Keiffer reports.
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BROOKLYN, NEW YORK—Heritage Radio Network is the new brainchild issuing from Patrick Martins' fevered imagination. Martins, former president of Slow Food USA and now an owner of Heritage Foods USA, is clearly never satisfied with the status quo. Adding to his full-time work at Heritage Foods, purveyors of heirloom meats and poultry, he launched his new network in April. The shows are currently streamed on the Internet, but Martins hopes eventually to have them picked up on regular bandwidth or on satellite. For now, listeners can tune in at www.heritageradionetwork.com.
As of this writing, the network has six shows, divided between Tuesday, Thursday, and Sunday, accessible any day of the week through the nifty archives feature. Zak Pelaccio of Fatty Crab leads a show called Urban Foraging, but so far he's the only chef host in the mix. All the shows deal with some aspect of food and drink, offering interviews with chefs, farmers, foragers, wine-makers, restaurant managers, and distributors, among others. The Main Course, another show on Sundays, reported on sourcing with Sarah Barber of Frankies Spuntino and Kate Sanzine of Balthazar.
Heritage Radio Network is located in the backyard of Roberta's restaurant in Bushwick, a cozy neighborhood spot with a wood-fired pizza oven up front and a nice little bar at the back. The "station" is composed of two shipping containers (which cost Martins a whopping $2,000), nailed together, with one part being the studio, the other the console for the engineers. The facilities are decidedly rudimentary, but homey. On top of the containers, the restaurant has built an urban garden to service the kitchen. There are a few tables and chairs outside for the restaurant guests, and diners can wander over and put their noses up against the picture window cut into the side of the studio and watch the broadcast.
The station broadcasts on its own search engine, designed by Sympact Technologies. This arrangement allows Heritage to remain independent and gives Martins and his team total control over programming and content. Martins will only accept sponsorship from companies whose practices he endorses. The station, however, is "for profit," so as it grows, a revenue stream will grow along with it. For now it resembles nothing so much as a raffish but benign pirate ship spreading the good news about sustainable food from shore to shore.
