Dear Local Gourmands,
Last week I got a call from Beth Linskey of Beth’s Farm Kitchen who was on the road going farm to farm on Long Island and then back yard to back yard all over Williamsburg foraging for figs to make jam. I was bowled over by her earnest dedication to find these fruits and nearly left my desk at work right then to follow along on her jam-driven journey. On Tuesday night she’ll join a panel at the Brooklyn Kitchen discussing how to start a small food business and scale it up at a sustainable pace while sourcing locally the entire time. Following the talk Beth will lead the audience in a jam and chutney making demo. For her demo, she’ll be using plums, but if you are lucky enough to be one of those city residents with a stray fruit tree growing in your backyard (or even if it belongs to your neighbor and you have to sneak over to pick in the middle of the night), her enthusiasm will surely send you straight to your own kitchen to get crackin’ on preserving the fall harvest.
Jam on,
Jeanne
Tuesday, September 14, 6:30-9pm
Educated Eater: Regional Processing from Strawberry Fields to Strawberry Jam
The Brooklyn Kitchen
100 Frost St., Williamsburg
Tickets, $45
From strawberry fields to jars of jam, preserves, or even flash-frozen fruit to eat all winter, the transformation of local crops into value-added products offers a number of opportunities for regional farmers and small food entrepreneurs alike. Listen to this esteemed panel of Greenmarket participants and peers as they explore the possibilities that processing presents, upstate and down. If ever you dreamed of starting your own small food company, this panel will offer plenty of info on how to secure a commercial kitchen space, the proper licensing you’ll need, and how to scale up your operation sustainably. The discussion will be followed by a jam making demo with Beth Linskey and Liz Beals of Greenmarket’s Beth’s Farm Kitchen. Each audience member will take home a jar of Beth’s locally sourced preserves.
Wednesday, September 15, 5-9pm
Farewell, Summer Dinner at Queens Farm
73-50 Little Neck Parkway
Floral Park, NY
Tickets, $80
Before the tomatoes give way to hearty root vegetables, spend the evening at the city’s oldest working farm enjoying the waning summer warmth and bounty of fresh produce. Tamara Reynolds prepares a farm-sourced supper of pork, vegetables, eggs, and honey.
Wednesday, September 15, 7:30pm
Eat This Film! Sweetgrass
92Y Tribeca
200 Hudson St at Canal
Tickets, $12
Featuring gorgeous cinematography and immersive storytelling, Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Ilisa Barbash’s spellbinding documentary follows a flock of sheep on a their last trek through Montana’s dangerous Beartooth Mountains for summer pasture. Following the film, the directors will join Greenmarket sheep farmer Eugene Wyatt from Catskill Merino Sheep Farm to discuss the film and shed light on raising (and filming) sheep.
Thursday, September 16, 6:30-8:30pm
Slow U: Breaking Bread with Three Women Who Know Their Dough
iCi
Tickets, $25-$35
Join author Lynne Christy Anderson, author of Breaking Bread: Recipes and Stories from Immigrant Kitchens, as she, Hot Bread Kitchen’s Jessamyn Waldman, and Greenmarket’s June Russell, discuss transplanting traditional, old-country recipes to a new land. Tastes of Jessamyn’s bread will be served with New York State wines and American artisan and farmstead cheese.
Thursday, September 16
Let Us Eat Local
South St. Seaport Water Taxi Beach
Tickets
Just Food’s annual benefit honors local food advocates journalist Mark Bittman, CSA farmer Cheryl Rogowski, urban farmer Yonnette Fleming. Enjoy food and drink by locally-minded city chefs, a special purple haze Sixpoint brew made with Red Jacket Orchards plums, and give a little to Just Food, who gives the city a lot by matching communities with CSAs from regional farms.
Saturday and Sunday, September 18 & 19, 10am-2pm; 2-6pm
Farm City Tour
Tickets, $35-$45
Two tours per day: pickup at 10am and 2pm sharp at Atlantic Terminal (Flatbush at the corner of Atlantic). Tour ends at Old Stone House, 234 4th St, Park Slope “The Farm City Tour charts an annotated journey through sites practicing innovative approaches to urban agriculture in Brooklyn. Using a 28 seat bus running on Compressed Natural Gas (CNG), the cleanest burning fuel, there will be opportunities at each stop for workshops and tastings. The tour will provide a view of diverse practices in urban farming such as beekeeping, composting, caring for laying hens, rainwater harvesting and more. The tour will end at Old Stone House in Brooklyn, one of the last surviving structures from the Borough’s agricultural past, where there will be a display of small scale and provocative urban farming projects, such as Truck Farm by filmmakers Ian Cheney and Curtis Ellis (King Corn); Nanofarming by Bryony Romer; and Seeding the City by Eve Mosher. Other sites on the tour may include Red Hook Community Farm; Carlton Brooklyn Bear Garden, Eagle Street Rooftop Farm and others. At the final destination, guests will be served foods from the toured farms prepared by Communal Table along with an opportunity to make and jar of farm-fresh pickles as a souvenir.”
Sunday, September 19, 2-4pm
Sowing the Future
Hawthorne Valley Farm
Ghent, NY
Hawthorne Valley and The Nature Institute invite the public to join in hand-sowing a field of winter wheat and learning about small grains and the evolution of agriculture in Columbia County. Steffen Schneider, Hawthorne Valley Farm General Manager, and Craig Holdrege, Director of The Nature Institute, will discuss the physical form and evolution of seeds, as well as the cultural and economic implications of a changing seed and seed industry. Displays prepared by The Nature Institute and Hawthorne Valley Farmscape Ecology Program will provide participants with an opportunity to sift through various grain varieties and to explore the role of grains in the development and history of Columbia County. The afternoon will culminate as farmers and participants alike walk a field together, sowing seeds of wheat. Sturdy shoes are recommended and participants are asked to bring a mug for refreshments and a hat to fill with seeds. All are invited to participate. Visit http://www.HawthorneValleyFarm.org or call 518-672-7500 x 105 for more information.
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Of note a few weeks down the road…
Monday, September 20, 7pm
City-wide Honey Tasting
Beer Table
427 B 7th Ave.
(Btwn 14th & 15th Sts)
Tickets, $35 (e-mail events@beertable.com for tickets)
Join Annie Novak of Eagle Street Rooftop Farm and other city beekeepers for a city-wide honey tasting. Taste the unique characteristics of different neighborhoods based on the trees and blooms in each, and hear how the bees and their keepers fared since it’s become legal again in NYC.
Tuesday, September 21, noon
The New York City Climate for Food Enterprise:
A talk and tour of the Entrepreneur Space, a kitchen incubator in Long Island City
Food Systems Network
The Entrepreneur Space
36-46 37th St., Queens
Suggested donation, $5
Join Food Systems network for a guided tour through Katherine Gregory’s incubator kitchen in LIC, the Entrepreneur Space. If you have a small food enterprise and are looking to scale up your operation, this full-fledged incubator might be just the next step you need to take to make it happen. For more information, contact kristin@foodsystemsnyc.org.
Tuesday, September 21, 6:30pm
New Food, Old Foodways: A panel discussion with
Noah Bernamoff, Shamus Jones, and Jane Ziegelman
The Tenement Museum
108 Orchard St.
Proprietors of Bierkraft, Mile End, and Brooklyn Brine join Jane Ziegelman, author of 97 Orchard: An Edible History to discuss the ways in which many of the “new” food trends apparent in today’s city dining scene are reflections of old New York foodways.
Thursday, September 23
The Art of Farming
Sotheby’s
1334 York Ave.
Sotheby’s hosts gallery talks, a cocktail hour, and a gala dinner in conjunction with an heirloom vegetable auction to raise funds for GrowNYC’s New Farmer Development Project and The Sylvia Center at Katchki Farm. This first-of-its-kind event will celebrate edible heirlooms and the art involved in their creation. Beets are on the block, as are a number of other fine food and agricultural experiences.
Thursday, September 23, 6:30pm
Life Line of New York: How the High Line Fed New York City
Chelsea Market Passage
Free
“Before it was transformed into a park, the High Line played a critical role in delivering food to New Yorkers. Listen to historian Patrick Ciccone tell the rich–and often overlooked–story of how food reached New Yorkers, and how the High Line connected the city to a nationwide network of food production and processing.”
Saturday & Sunday, September 25 &26, 1-4pm
The Bike Brooklyn Beer Blitz!
$25 per person per tour, includes one beer at Matt Torrey’s Bar, mid-tour
RSVP: Matt@levysuniqueny.com for starting location
BYO bike and helmet to this three-hour tour of former brewery buildings through Williamsburg, East Williamsburg, and Bushwick which were the most densely packed brewing neighborhoods, back in 1890. See historical photographs of various brewery buildings when they were built, between the 1880s and 1920s, compare them with vintage 1970s photos (in the heart of Bushwick’s deep dark arson-and-gangs era) and observe them as they stand today, re-purposed but obviously the same brewery buildings. German Churches, banks and social halls will also be scoped out. The tour will end at Evergreen Cemetery on the Brooklyn/Queens border, where many of the Brewers are buried. Tune your bike up ahead of time at Brooklyn Bike and Board and receive a 10% discount on your tuneup AND a $5 discount on your Bike Brooklyn Beer Blitz Ticket. Tell ‘em “Bike Brooklyn Beer Blitz!” and buy your BBBB ticket right at the shop! Matt Torrey’s Bar will provide our mid-tour & post-tour beers at happy hour prices, and to partake in the Brooklyn Brewerysponsorship, you’ll have to take the tour!
Sunday, September 26
7th Annual Ray Bradley Farm Festival
New Paltz, NY
Tickets, $10 (free for kids)
If you know and love Ray Bradley’s farm from your weekly shopping routine at the 97th St. or Grand Army Plaza Greenmarkets, follow him back up to the farm on Sunday for the 7th annual Ray Bradley Farm Festival. There will be farm-sourced BBQ aplenty, hay rides, “Chicken-sh*t” BINGO, a Succah in the field in honor of the harvest, and one lucky ticket holder will win his or her weight in tomatoes!
Monday, September 26-Wednesday, October 6
Eat Drink Local Week
This state-wide promotion of New York’s local bounty is a collaboration of all Edible magazines in the Empire State, and involves partners from the entire food chain, including restaurants, wine shops and wineries, breweries and beer bars, farms and food artisans, and cultural institutions that celebrate food.
Tuesday, September 28, 7pm
Hungry Filmmakers
Anthology Film Archives
32 2nd Ave.
Tickets, $15
Hungry Filmmakers returns to Anthology Film Archives with a new roster of food-centric shorts. As always, a discussion with the filmmakers will follow the screening. Nicole Taylor of Heritage Radio Network’s show Hot Grease moderates. Beer, wine, and hors d’oeuvres served in the lobby following the program.
Films:
Blue Gold: World Water Wars by Sam Bozzo
Queen of the Sun by Taggart Siegel
The Texas Huntress by Ashley Chiles
Starved for Attention by Jeremiah Zagar and Jeremy Yachts
Soul Food Junkies by Byron Hurt
Saturday, October 2, 11:30am-4:30pm
Pig Island
Governors Island
Tickets, $75-$85
A dozen chefs from some of New York City’s finest venues show off their “whole hog know-how,” serving up pig sourced from local farms The Piggery, Violet Hill, and others. Taste what Sara Jenkins of Porchetta, Jacques Gautier of Palo Santo, Michael Jenkins of Butter, and the barbecue masters Hoppin’ John Taylor of Low Country and Sam Barbieri of the Fuhgeddaboutit BBQ Team bring to the table. Sixpoint will tap a limited-release pilsner, a seasonal pumpkin saison, and Signal, a lightly smoked pale ale. A portion of the proceeds will benefit Food Systems Network New York.
Saturday, October 2, 11am
Brooklyn by Bike: Explore the Old BK Water Supply System
Tickets, $10
Manhattan Borough Historian Michael Miscione will lead a bicycle tour of the now-defunct water supply system that served the once-independent City of Brooklyn. The system, built in the 19th century, brought fresh water from Queens and Long Island into the city. It was largely abandoned after Brooklyn was consolidated into New York City in 1898, and its components– pipes, reservoirs, pumping stations, wells, etc.– were dismantled, build over or repurposed. But some remnants and ruins still exist, and can be seen if you know where to look.
Monday, October 4, 7pm
Beans and Grains with Cayuga Pure Organics
Beer Table
427 B 7th Ave., btwn 14th & 15th
Tickets, $35 (e-mail events@beertable.com for tickets)
What better time than early October for a meet and greet with Cayuga Pure Organics, New York state’s only certified organic growers’ collective of dry beans, whole grains, and milled flour? There will be how-to’s on preparing their products, a talk with CPO’s Tycho Dan about the Ithaca grower’s cooperative, as well as tastings provided and beers paired.
Wednesday, October 6, 6-10pm
Taste of Greenmarket
135 W. 18th St.
Tickets, $175
Taste of Greenmarket, the city’s premiere tasting of local food with thirty of the city’s finest chefs and mixologists, features market-inspired dishes and seasonal cocktails in celebration of the season’s harvest. Mingle with the likes of Dan Barber, April Bloomfield, Michael Anthony, Julie Reiner and numerous other local food luminaries as the fête of the fall spotlights the incredible flavors and talent that comprise New York City’s “Greenmarket cuisine.” Proceeds support Greenmarket’s Youth Education Project which connects thousands of New York City schoolchildren in grades K-12 with Greenmarkets, farmers, and chefs each year.
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