There's a strong DIY wind blowing through Brooklyn, as a recent New York Magazine article about the borough's artisanal food makers noted. It blew through my kitchen window the other night.

Our Last Chance Foods guest this week, Tama Matsuoka Wong, forages and eats stinging nettle, so we knew she wouldn't break a sweat when confronted with the Stir Fry's lightning round of tough-as-overgrown-knotweed questions.

Note to self: invite 66SquareFeet blogger Marie Viljoen to the station more often. The writer, cook, gardener and forager brought a little picnic of goodies made from knotweed for this Friday's Last Chance Foods.

I'm supposed to hyperventilate when I see ramps at my local green market. They're wild! They're the first green veggie of the season! But they're so expensive. The price tag is what gets me breathing heavily: $4 a bunch, $15 a pound. Really? For an onion?

In three months, it feels like Speedy Romeo, on the border of Clinton Hill and Bedford-Stuyvesant in Brooklyn, has galloped from start up to neighborhood fixture. I've been there two times, and it's been packed.

I did a double-take when walking past a fruit stand on the corner of Canal and Mulberry in Chinatown this past weekend. I saw a pile of small hot pink hand grenades with soft, leathery plumes of lime green. Very preppy. Very weird.

Garbage is a natural extension of our consumption of food. There's waste throughout the process and not just at the end. 

And yet, I was still surprised when I came upon a web site about making a garbage truck cupcake topper.

I recently tried making my own donuts. The result: disappointing, exploding circles of greasy dough. OOOfa. I decided that other people's donuts — like the ones I tried this week at the new eatery, 606 R&D, in Brooklyn's Prospect Heights — are much better than any I could make at home.

Well. Little did I know that I could get donut coaching, like 606 R&D gets.

Peter Meehan, the editor of Lucky Peach and co-author of the Momofuku cookbook, says Tokyo's cuisine is unknowable, compared to New York City's.  I think I know why.

Leave your manners at the door when attending a coffee tasting or "cupping." Slurping is a vital part of the process.

The Italians call them cicchetti, the Spanish call them tapas. We call them appetizers, and many restaurants are serving them in lieu of entrees. What's annoying is that many of these "little plates" are priced as if they were "big plates."

I love cooking for the masses. My husband and I host a Palm Sunday brunch in our little apartment for 20 to 25 people every year, and I've got it down to a science. How many pounds of salmon per person, how many minutes in the oven per pound, how many side dishes, how many heads of lettuce for a salad. It's cooking for the two of us that is still a challenge.

'Have we gone too far?' That was the theme of a panel discussion Tuesday night at the Housing Works Bookstore and Cafe in NoLiTa, timed to coincide with the launch of Tracie McMillan's well-received book, "The American Way of Eating: Undercover at Walmart, Applebee's, Farm Fields and the Dinner Table." 

Learn to love Brussels sprouts by trying out Amy Eddings's recipe for Shredded Brussels Sprouts with Bacon, Raisins and Pecans.

More is better -- that's my mantra, especially when it comes to chocolate. But it doesn't hold true for citrus.

Nothing Says "I Love You" Like a Chocolate Madagascar Hissing Cockroach.

The weather has been warm enough to fool the irises and daffodils, which have sent up three inches of growth in the gardens on my block. But the calendar still says February, and my kitchen still says winter, with all the celery root and butternut squash stacked up on the counter.

Which is why I decided to give rutabagas a try.

The world got a little flatter Monday night at Sueños Restaurant. That's where four chefs served up Mexican fare made from vegetables and herbs sourced from local farms run by Mexican and Latin American immigrants.

Maybe you heard of the book, "Make the Bread, Buy the Butter: What You Should and Shouldn't Cook From Scratch." (The author, Jennifer Reese, was recently on Marketplace.) 

I have an addendum.  Make the bread, buy the donuts. 

Looking for the next food trend? Audrey Dettmar, baker at Annex in Fort Greene, gave me these suggestions.