Mina Stone's Bodega Cooking Guide Celebrates NYC Corner Stores

Artist and cook Mina Stone published a personal essay and recipe collection in CULTURED magazine, celebrating New York City bodegas as cultural pillars. Stone traces the history of bodegas to the 1920s, when Puerto Rican immigrants on the Lower East Side opened stores that bridged their homeland and new city. She parallels them with the Greek periptero, a similar neighborhood kiosk that originated to employ war veterans and refugees, and which housed the community phone before landlines were common. Stone shares three simple, bodega-sourced recipes: banana bread, a customizable sandwich, and a lemon-garlic pasta with greens. She encourages readers to shop at bodegas as a form of local support, likening them to farmers markets in strengthening community food ecosystems. The piece includes personal anecdotes, such as her great-grandmother Efthimia, a Pontic Greek refugee who ran a periptero in Piraeus and raised five children with its income. Stone's guide is both a practical cooking resource and a tribute to immigrant-run corner stores as vital urban institutions.