Dear Local Gourmands,

I got up to Maine just in time for the first soft shell crabs of the year. And thank goodness I was staying with a friend who has found her way in the food world like I have– we woke up two mornings in a row, hit the Standard Baking Co., then crossed the street to the old fish market. Inside, the blue-shelled little crabs were displayed in neat rows. We sang our praises, then looked around to see that the baskets of oysters were just being refilled. Kara had to get to work (she’s a terrific cheese monger), so we placed an order to be picked up the next morning.

By the time we returned, the price for soft shells had dropped, an even better selection of oysters tempted us, the razor clams had arrived, and Kara bounced from stack to stack of whole fish from the morning’s catch, checking their eyes, feeling their gills, smelling their heads to check for freshness. In the evening her friends showed up as we were shelling the crabs to make a po’ boy. She showed me how to peel back the shell, then plop the meat in flour, dip it in egg, roll the mess around in cornmeal and finally immerse it in a pot of canola oil (which I’m happy to report was produced in Maine). I got a lesson in shucking oysters from her boyfriend, and remembered what it was like growing up on the coast of Maine, where people are not afraid to touch seafood with their hands– the ocean and the creatures in it are the way of life on the coast. We ate with our hands too, all of us gathered around the grill, gorging ourselves on fish, razor clams, roasted ramps, raw oysters, the po’ boy laden with tomatoes, lettuce, fried crab, and spicy homemade mayo– all flavors that brought this long lost Mainer right back to her seaside roots.

All best,
Jeanne

Monday, May 3, 6-8pm
Slow U: Consider Bardwell Farm
Jimmy’s No. 43
43 E. 7th St.
Tickets, $25 (members), $35 (non-members)
One of my great pleasures is stopping off at the Union Square Greenmarket on Monday evenings on my way home from work to pick up a piece of Dorset cheese from Consider Bardwell Farms. I eat it with a good crust of bread alongside salad or in omelets all week long. Meet Consider Bardwell’s founding farmer, Angela Miller, tonight at Jimmy’s No. 43 where she’ll tell you all about how cheese transformed her life. She will be joined by Consider Bardwell’s master cheese maker Peter Dixon, who will discuss the cheese making process and lead a tasting of Consider Bardwell cheeses, including award winning washed rind, raw cow, Dorset; aged raw goat, Manchester; aged raw cow “Toma”, Pawlet; and aged, raw cow “Alpine”, Rupert. Angela’s new book about her adventures in farming and cheese making, “Hay Fever”, will be available for purchase.

Monday, May 3, 6:30pm
Screening: Pressure Cooker
Eating Liberally and Food Systems Network New York
The Tank
354 W. 45th St btwn 8th & 9th Aves.
Tickets, $10-$20
Eating Liberally and Food Systems Network NYC present a screening of Pressure Cooker, an uplifting documentary directed by Jennifer Grausman that tells the story of a high school teacher in Philadelphia who puts her underprivileged students through a “culinary boot camp” to help them win scholarships to the country’s top culinary schools. The screening will be followed by a discussion with Grausman, Lynn Fredericks, the Family Cook Productions founder, and several youths who have benefited from these programs, including Fatoumata Dembele (one of the students featured in Pressure Cooker) and Dexter Ambrose of Brooklyn Automotive High School, whose inspiring teacher, Jenny Kessler, was recently featured in The New York Times. Proceeds from the event will benefit the Food Systems Network NYC.

Monday, May 3, 8-10pm
Brooklyn Brew Shop Beer Trivia Night
Bar Great Harry
280 Smith St.
Trivia night at the bar gets a whole lot better when the questions are all about beer– to win, it literally pays to drink more. Bring your best beer drinking friends to Bar Great Harry for a night of beer trivia where Erica and Stephen of Brooklyn Brew Shop will challenge your craft brew knowledge and reward winners with 1-gallon homebrew kits complete with new seasonal Rose Cheeked Blonde and Lady Lavender mixes as well as the Shop’s classic Grapefruit Honey Ale mix. Sign up in teams of four or six, or join a team at the bar.

Wednesday, May 5, 4:30-6:30pm
Paisly Farm CSA Sign Up and Seed Swap
Jimmy’s No. 43
43 E. 7th St.
Paisley Farm, a 25-acre farm in Tivoli, NY, will be providing CSA shares at five locations in the city and Brooklyn this season. Organic produce, fruit, and egg shares are all on offer. Visit the Upstate Farms website to learn more about share options and payment, and look forward to picking up your produce at one of these locations all summer long:
Jimmy’s No. 43 (sign up in person at Jimmy’s on May 5, and profit from a seed swap!)
Green Spaces
Central Park East School II
d.b.a. Brooklyn
Metropolitan Exchange

Wednesday, May 5
Brooklyn Uncorked
Edible Brooklyn at BAM
30 Lafayette Ave., Fort Greene
Tickets, $50
Edible Brooklyn, along with her sister pubs Edible Manhattan and Edible East End, and the Long Island Wine Council bring the borough a taste of world-class wines from our neighbors in Long Island wine country. Local chefs will pair seasonal plates with these local sips while winemakers tell you all about their grapes and the soil they’re grown from.

Wednesday, May 5, 6-9pm
Cinco de Mayo at Palo Santo
652 Union St., Park Slope
Call to reserve a table:
(718) 636-6311
Local food champion and Grand Army Plaza Greenmarket regular, chef Jacques Gautier, brings Cinco de Mayo to Brooklyn. Enjoy traditional Poblano dishes like mole paired with unlimited sangria and Mexican beer.

Thursday, May 6, 6-10pm
Brooklyn Food Coalition One Year Anniversary Party
388 Atlantic Ave.
The Brooklyn Food Coalition celebrates its first anniversary with delicious local food, drink and conversation. Anna Lappé will talk about her new book, Diet for a Hot Planet, and emcee as BFC activists share what they’ve been up to throughout the year.

Friday, May 7, 7pm
Dinner on the Farm
Queens County Farm Museum
73-50 Little Neck Parkway
Floral Park, New YorkTickets, $80
The inaugural dinner in a series of suppers on the farm hosted in part by the Queens County Farm Museum and Tamara Reynolds, author of Forking Fantastic! will be held in the Adriance Farmhouse, which dates from the early 18th century. Nearly all of the food will be sourced from the farm to provide a menu that showcases the expansive culinary heritage of the many groups that have made Queens the diverse and delicious borough that it is.

Saturday, May 8, 8am-12pm
Composting with Evolutionary Organics
Grand Army Plaza Greenmarket
Cost: $1
When I lived in Park Slope my dedicated effort to compost meant getting on the subway each Saturday with an impossibly stinky bag of kitchen scraps and terrorizing my fellow train riders all the way to Union Square where I’d contribute the dripping mess to the Lower East Side Ecology Center’s compost collection. I will admit I gave up the ritual by that August, and even though I now live in Fort Greene (with a terrific community compost collection) I still go to the Grand Army Plaza Greenmarket each Saturday. Recently Evolutionary Organics (the stand that sells the watermelon radishes I’m forever raving about) has started to offer a compost collection. Contribute one dollar to the farm, and they’ll happily take your precious carrot tops, leftover lettuce, and other precious kitchen scraps to the place where they belong.

Sunday, May 9-Sunday, May 16
Pig Week
Jimmy’s No. 43
43 E. 7th St.
It’s Pig Week at Jimmy’s No. 43, and the East Village gastropub lauded for its incredible selection of brews and menu featuring local ingredients (this week heritage pork from the Piggery will be featured) wouldn’t let it pass without just fanfare. See the line up below and jimmysno43.com for more info. Tickets are available online or by phone: 212.982.3006.

May 9, 1-4pm ($20): The Piggery butchering demo with porky lunch and live bluegrass.
May 11, 6:30-8:30pm ($35): Bacon, cheese, chocolate, and beer pairing hosted by Josh Ozersky and the New York Degustation Advisory Team.
May 12: Local charcuterie and beer pairings featured a la carte on the menu.
May 13, 7:30-9:30pm ($10): “Meat” the Farmer– Just Food and Jimmy’s No. 43 present an
Informational Q & A with Mike Yezzi of Flying Pigs Farm. Learn how pig farms work, hear anecdotes, and hang out with the farmer. (All proceeds will benefit Just Food and Flying
Pigs Farm.)

Saturday, May 15, 6pm
Slideluck Potshow XV
Manhattan Bridge Archway at Water & Pearl Sts., DUMBO
6pm Beautiful Bountiful Brooklyn Tasting Hour | 7pm Potluck | 9pm Slideshow
Tickets, $10
Slideluck Potshow returns to Brooklyn to team up with the New York Photo Festival for a spectacular evening of local food, potlucking, and a slideshow. Naturally, the theme will be bridges, and the projection will take place just beneath the Manhattan Bridge. Some of New York’s finest photographers will help curate– David Alan Harvey (National Geographic, Magnum, Burn,) Jae Choi (The Collective Shift,) and W.M. Hunt (Hasted Hunt Kraeutler, SVA), and your own photo submissions will be accepted until May 4.

“As Brooklyn is becoming almost synonymous with the seasonal, sustainable and local food movement, we’re going to tap into it by offering up a tasting hour with a number of Brooklyn-based farms, organizations and purveyors alongside Brooklyn Brewery Brewmaster’s Reserve beers – while tickets last. And as this is a potluck dinner, we’d like to invite people to bring dishes that have as many local, seasonal ingredients as possible.”

Sunday, May 16, 8:30am-7pm
A Day-a-Whey
Saxelby Cheesemongers
Tickets, $95
Journey to the East End of Long Islang with Anne Saxelby of Saxelby Cheesemongers to visit Wolffer Estate Vineyard for a wine tasting and picnic lunch and Mecox Bay Dairy for a tour of the farm. If weather permits, the day will end on a near-by beach, leaving tour-goers full of wine, cheese, sunshine. Read on for a full description of the day’s itinerary.

Sunday, May 16, 9am-4pm
Plant Sale and Container Gardening Workshop
Eagle St. Rooftop Farm
Eagle St., Greenpoint
If you fear you were born with a black thumb but are willing it to turn green, head over to the Sunday volunteer day and plant sale at Rooftop Farms on Eagle St. where farmer Annie Novak will give you some helpful instruction on how to successfully grow your own container garden.

Sunday, May 16, noon-4pm
Taste of Williamsburg
N 11th St. btwn Berry and Wythe Aves.
Tickets, $35 for 6 tastes, $95 for 18
Celebrate the flavors of ‘hood at the inaugural Taste of Williamsburg with Tastes from local favorites Dressler, DuMont, Diner, Marlow Sons & Daughters, Miranda, Fornino Pizzeria, Brooklyn Brewery, Juliette, Karczma, Brooklyn Star, Bakeri, Brooklyn Oenology, Sweetwater, El Almacen, Blackbird Parlour, The Lodge, Teddy’s Bar & Grill and more. All proceeds from the event benefit the building of the Northside Town Hall Community and Cultural Center, to be housed in the yet-to-be converted historic former Engine Company 212 firehouse.

Wednesday, May 19, 7pm
Screening: Food Matters
Bushwick Food Coop
V Ultra Lounge
Suggested donation, $5
The Bushwick Food Coop continues to bring on the good food films, this time at V Ultra Lounge, where a screening of Food Matters will explore the health benefits of eating a balanced diet. A collection of interviews with leading nutritionists, naturopaths, scientists, M.D.s and medical journalists answer basic but vitally important questions about vitamins, whether or not organic is a better choice, natural treatments for lowering cholesterol, and foods that combat anxiety, depression, and even cancer.

Saturday, May 22, 2-4pm
City of Merchants
New York Marble Cemetery
41 1/2 2nd Ave., East Village
*Tickets go on sale May 6
The wonderful public market that has taken over where the Fulton Fish Market left off, the New Amsterdam Market, won’t return to the stalls at the old seaport until June. In the meantime, join your friends who are merchants on the LES for afternoon of cocktails refreshments in the honor of the products and service they provide our community.
“City of Merchants is a celebration of the independent businesses who are restoring the health and vitality of our communities, urban and rural. Please stop by on the afternoon of May 22 for spirits, light refreshment and conversation at the New York Marble Cemetery, a hidden garden of the 19th century. The event will feature an exhibit of mercantile paper-works by Robert Warner, Master Printer; a silent auction of items manufactured in our region; and our first annual Toast to Merchants.”

Pasta making maddness and many courses of wild leeks. Click here to see our slideshow.

My streak of eating ramps went something like this: ramp risotto on Friday, smoked ramps on Saturday, pickled ramps on Sunday, ramps and fiddleheads sautéed with bacon on Monday, ramps in my salad for lunch on Tuesday, grilled ramps on Wednesday…I will admit that I contemplated making ramp ice cream at one point, but (thankfully) restrained myself. Perhaps this was when I realized I needed to take a little break and diversify my diet. All that is to say, like the rest of the locavores in New York, I’ve been obsessed with the foraged first greens of spring lately, those little wild wonders, that despite their delicate roots, pack such a punch no matter how you prepare them.

And just as the tables at the markets begin to fill up with other long-anticipated spring specialties like rhubarb and asparagus, the calendar has filled up too. From cocktails made with New York Corn Whisky at this week’s ioby.org fundraiser to a smashing, locally sourced menu pulled together by neighbors in support of the City Reliquary, to Edible Brooklyn’s bash for Long Island wine, the days ahead are filled with plenty of opportunities to appreciate the earliest bites (and sips) of local flavor.

Best,
Jeanne

Monday, April 26, 7-8:30pm
Stinky Cheese and Stinky Beer Tasting
Beer Table
427 B 7th Ave., Park Slope
Tickets, $35
Tonight Anne Saxelby of Saxelby Cheesemongers will present five especially stinky American artisanal cheeses which Justin Pillips will pair with five equally stinky beers. Take a break from sniffing the lilacs and belly up to the bar.

Tuesday, April 27, 7-10pm
Meals and Spiels by The City Reliquary:
An Evening of Dinner & Lectures About NYC’s Food
The Brooklyn Kitchen Labs
100 Frost Street, Williamsburg
Tickets, $150
“Meals and Spiels is a dinner that will focus on the incredible food shops, breweries, bakeries, and kitchens of North Brooklyn. What’s more, each dish and beverage in the Meal will come paired with a lecture about the food on your fork and beverage in your glass! All proceeds will go towards The City Reliquary.” Peep the menu for this event here.

Tuesday, April 27-Friday, April 30
Kingsborough College Eco-Festival 2010
Kingsborough College hosts its annual Eco-Festival replete with several days of activities, workshops and talks by Anna Lappé (author of Diet for a Hot Planet), Makale Faber Cullen on Slow Food and city lore, William Solecki, Director CUNY Institute for Sustainable Cities, Elizabeth Yeampierre, Director of UPROSE, and Holly Kallman, Sustainability Coordinator for CUNY.

Wednesday, April 28, 6:30-8:30
Meet the Radical Homemakers
114 West 47th St, btwn 6th & 7th Aves.
First floor auditorium
Tickets, $10 or $25 (includes signed copy of book)
In her new book, Radical Homemakers: Reclaiming Domesticity from a Consumer Culture, upstate farmer and radical homemaker, Shannon Hayes tells the story of pioneering men and women who are redefining feminism and the good life by reclaiming control of home and hearth. Guided by simple principles of ecological sustainability, social justice, community engagement and family well-being these radical homemakers are questioning the corporate control of the home from the breadbox to the closet. Her presentation will explore the experiences of these rural, urban and suburban folks who are endeavoring to change the world by reclaiming their domestic skills — whether it be planting a garden, growing tomatoes on an apartment balcony, mending a shirt, repairing an appliance, providing one’s own entertainment, or cooking and preserving the local harvest.

Thursday, April 29, 6:30pm
Foodie Book Club
The Brooklyn Kitchen Labs
100 Frost St.
This month’s installment of the Foodie Book Club revisits Laura Ingles Wilder’s Little House in the Big Woods. Bring a potluck dish to share, and your own childhood copy of this American classic.

Thursday, April 29, 7:30pm
Gastronomy in the Still-life Paintings of Luis Meléndez
with Gillian Riley
Culinary Historians of New York
National Arts Club
15 Gramercy Park South
Tickets, $40 Non-Members and Guests | $25 CHNY Members
“British culinary historian Gillian Riley, one of the world’s foremost authorities on the subject of food in art, re-examines the still-life paintings of Spanish painter Luis Meléndez (1715–1780), with an eye for culinary themes. Melendez’s paintings, long admired for their stunning technique and composition, are now being appreciated for their gastronomic content as well. In many of his paintings, what at first seems to be a random selection of objects tipped out on a kitchen table is in fact a rigorous, perfectionist arrangement of items illustrating a precise theme: a meal, a recipe, or a gastronomic event. He presents the ingredients for a gazpacho, a salad, a dessert of fresh and preserved fruit—or in some paintings, a hint of a whole meal, with fresh crusty bread, jamón, and figs, or a composition of young cheese, fruit, and dessert wine.”

Thursday, April 29, 7-10pm
ioby.org Cocktail Fundraiser
10 Lefferts Place
$10-$20 suggested donation at the door
RSVP to nathan.p.storey@gmail.com
ioby.org connects New Yorkers to environmental projects in their neighborhoods. Tonight’s cocktails are mixed with Tuthilltown New York Corn Whiskey by ioby.org digital media fellow cum mixologist, Nate Storey. Learn about ioby’s digital storytelling program while sipping your way through an innovative cocktail menu, mingling with neighbors, and munching on hors d’oeuvres in a backyard garden in Clinton Hill. All proceeds from the event go to specific ioby.org environmental projects.

Saturday, May 1, 7-11pm
Living Liberally 2010 Annual Celebration
Honoring Marion Nestle
DCTV Firehouse
87 Lafayette St, between Walker & White
Tickets, $250, $150, $100
The fourth annual Living Liberally celebration and fundraiser honors Dr. Marion Nestle “for promoting the radical notion that a more sustainable national diet can help build a more sustainable world,” and the Service Employees International Union for “for supporting the netroots and building a more progressive America.” Join a terrific group of hosts to celebrate the liberal media we rely on from livingliberally.org.

Saturday, May 1-Sunday, May 9
NYC Wildflower Week
Celebrate NYC Wildflower Week by picking up free native wildflower plants in Union Square, go out on a guided wildflower walk, take native foods cooking class, or attend a salon dinner at Mas (farmhouse). Most programs throughout the week are free, open to the public, and located all over the five boroughs. See a full list of the week’s events here.
_________________________________
Of note a few weeks down the road…

Monday, May 3, 6:30pm
Screening: Pressure Cooker
Eating Liberally and Food Systems Network New York
The Tank
354 W. 45th St btwn 8th & 9th Aves.
Tickets, $10-$20
Eating Liberally and Food Systems Network NYC present a screening of Pressure Cooker, an uplifting documentary directed by Jennifer Grausman that tells the story of a high school teacher in Philadelphia who puts her underprivileged students through a “culinary boot camp” to help them win scholarships to the country’s top culinary schools. The screening will be followed by a discussion with Grausman, Lynn Fredericks, the Family Cook Productions founder, and several youths who have benefited from these programs, including Fatoumata Dembele (one of the students featured in Pressure Cooker) and Dexter Ambrose of Brooklyn Automotive High School, whose inspiring teacher, Jenny Kessler, was recently featured in The New York Times. Proceeds from the event will benefit the Food Systems Network NYC.

Monday, May 3, 8-10pm
Brooklyn Brew Shop Beer Trivia Night
Bar Great Harry
280 Smith St.
Trivia night at the bar gets a whole lot better when the questions are all about beer– to win, it literally pays to drink more. Bring your best beer drinking friends to Bar Great Harry for a night of beer trivia where Erica and Stephen of Brooklyn Brew Shop will challenge your craft brew knowledge and reward winners with 1-gallon homebrew kits complete with new seasonal Rose Cheeked Blonde and Lady Lavender mixes as well as the Shop’s classic Grapefruit Honey Ale mix. Sign up in teams of four or six, or join a team at the bar.

Wednesday, May 5, 4:30-6:30pm
Paisly Farm CSA Sign Up and Seed Swap
Jimmy’s No. 43
43 E. 7th St.
Paisley Farm, a 25-acre farm in Tivoli, NY, will be providing CSA shares at five locations in the city and Brooklyn this season. Organic produce, fruit, and egg shares are all on offer. Visit the Upstate Farms website to learn more about share options and payment, and look forward to picking up your produce at one of these locations all summer long:
Jimmy’s No. 43 (sign up in person at Jimmy’s on May 5, and profit from a seed swap!)
Green Spaces
Central Park East School II
d.b.a. Brooklyn
Metropolitan Exchange

Wednesday, May 5
Brooklyn Uncorked
Edible Brooklyn at BAM
30 Lafayette Ave., Fort Greene
Tickets, $40
Edible Brooklyn, along with her sister pubs Edible Manhattan and Edible East End, and the Long Island Wine Council bring the borough a taste of world-class wines from our neighbors in Long Island wine country. Local chefs will pair seasonal plates with these local sips while winemakers tell you all about their grapes and the soil they’re grown from.

Wednesday, May 5, 6-9pm
Cinco de Mayo at Palo Santo
652 Union St., Park Slope
Call to reserve a table:
(718) 636-6311
Local food champion and Grand Army Plaza Greenmarket regular, chef Jacques Gautier, brings Cinco de Mayo to Brooklyn. Enjoy traditional Poblano dishes like mole paired with unlimited sangria and Mexican beer.

Thursday, May 6, 6-10pm
Brooklyn Food Coalition One Year Anniversary Party
388 Atlantic Ave.
The Brooklyn Food Coalition celebrates its first anniversary with delicious local food, drink and conversation. Anna Lappé will talk about her new book, Diet for a Hot Planet, and emcee as BFC activists share what they’ve been up to throughout the year.

Sunday, May 9-Sunday, May 16
Pig Week
Jimmy’s No. 43
43 E. 7th St.
It’s Pig Week at Jimmy’s No. 43, and the East Village gastropub lauded for its incredible selection of brews and menu featuring local ingredients (this week heritage pork from the Piggery will be featured) wouldn’t let it pass without just fanfare. See the line up below and jimmysno43.com for more info. Tickets are available online or by phone: 212.982.3006.

May 9, 1-4pm ($20): The Piggery butchering demo with porky lunch and live bluegrass.
May 11, 6:30-8:30pm ($35): Bacon, cheese, chocolate, and beer pairing hosted by Josh Ozersky and the New York Degustation Advisory Team.
May 12: Local charcuterie and beer pairings featured a la carte on the menu.
May 13, 7:30-9:30pm ($10): “Meat” the Farmer– Just Food and Jimmy’s No. 43 present an
Informational Q & A with Mike Yezzi of Flying Pigs Farm. Learn how pig farms work, hear anecdotes, and hang out with the farmer. (All proceeds will benefit Just Food and Flying
Pigs Farm.)

Saturday, May 15, 6pm
Slideluck Potshow XV
Manhattan Bridge Archway at Water & Pearl Sts., DUMBO
6pm Beautiful Bountiful Brooklyn Tasting Hour | 7pm Potluck | 9pm Slideshow
Tickets, $10
Slideluck Potshow returns to Brooklyn to team up with the New York Photo Festival for a spectacular evening of local food, potlucking, and a slideshow. Naturally, the theme will be bridges, and the projection will take place just beneath the Manhattan Bridge. Some of New York’s finest photographers will help curate– David Alan Harvey (National Geographic, Magnum, Burn,) Jae Choi (The Collective Shift,) and W.M. Hunt (Hasted Hunt Kraeutler, SVA), and your own photo submissions will be accepted until May 3.

“As Brooklyn is becoming almost synonymous with the seasonal, sustainable and local food movement, we’re going to tap into it by offering up a tasting hour with a number of Brooklyn-based farms, organizations and purveyors alongside Brooklyn Brewery Brewmaster’s Reserve beers – while tickets last. And as this is a potluck dinner, we’d like to invite people to bring dishes that have as many local, seasonal ingredients as possible.”

Sunday, May 16, 8:30am-7pm
A Day-a-Whey
Saxelby Cheesemongers
Tickets, $95
Journey to the East End of Long Islang with Anne Saxelby of Saxelby Cheesemongers to visit Wolffer Estate Vineyard for a wine tasting and picnic lunch and Mecox Bay Dairy for a tour of the farm. If weather permits, the day will end on a near-by beach, leaving tour-goers full of wine, cheese, sunshine. Read on for a full description of the day’s itinerary.

Sunday, May 16, noon-4pm
Taste of Williamsburg
N 11th St. btwn Berry and Wythe Aves.
Tickets, $35 for 6 tastes, $95 for 18
Celebrate the flavors of ‘hood at the inaugural Taste of Williamsburg with Tastes from local favorites Dressler, DuMont, Diner, Marlow Sons & Daughters, Miranda, Fornino Pizzeria, Brooklyn Brewery, Juliette, Karczma, Brooklyn Star, Bakeri, Brooklyn Oenology, Sweetwater, El Almacen, Blackbird Parlour, The Lodge, Teddy’s Bar & Grill and more. All proceeds from the event benefit the building of the Northside Town Hall Community and Cultural Center, to be housed in the yet-to-be converted historic former Engine Company 212 firehouse.

I took the jars pictured above to a “Get Your Pickle On” party on Sunday afternoon. All the color had drained from the center of the watermelon radishes and turned the brine a stunning pink! I based my recipe loosely on this one from Saveur, replacing the white vinegar with rice vinegar (which is what I had on hand in the cupboard) and added a watermelon radish becasue I love them.

Check out this slideshow from the party. If you’re keen to pickle ramps, here’s a recipe I came across in the Times.

Yesterday I pulled out a pail of homemade sweet daikon, carrot, and watermelon radish pickles from the back of the fridge (after two weeks, the magenta had drained from the centers of the radishes and turned the brine pink!) and headed over to Bedstuy where a fermentation celebration was going down. It was rumored that Sandor Katz, author of Wild Fermentation, who is revered as a godlike figure in serious fermentation circles, might show up. I didn’t spy him, but his aura was omnipresent as guests came thru one by one, presenting bread baked with beer, long-necked bottles of mead, all manner of homebrew, kimchi, krauts, yogurt, cheese, pickled beets and pickled eggs.

One guy was popping a lid off of his great uncle’s sweet pepper chips from ’07—he’d inherited his relative’s collection of preserves in the will, and of all places, this collective, brimming with pickle enthusiasts, was certainly the event for his spirit to live on.

Light shone through jars and jars of kombucha, a mess of sweet, newly pickled ramps were seasoned with fennel seed, someone had invented a Brussels kraut, someone else a garlic kraut, not to mention the ginger mead, the pickled watermelon rind…I kept saying I had to take a break and then someone else would breeze by, crooning, mouth still full: ‘You have to try this kimchi!’ Fullness was not an option. The power of the pickle people is unbeatable—and instantly contagious. If you’re curious about getting in on this goodness, there will be a fermentation demonstration at the NYRP NYC Grows event in Union Square this Sunday (see deets below). It is indeed time to get your pickle on.

All best,
Jeanne

Monday, April 19, 9-11pm
Homebrewers Meet up
Beer Table
427B 7th Ave.
*Free
Beer Table invites all homebrewers to their once-a-month meet up to share recipes, sample suds, and talk shop. Bring some of your own homebrew to share!

Wednesday, April 21, 5-6:30pm
The Full Treatment on Raised Beds
M’finda Kalunga Community Garden
Rivington St. crossover btwn Chrystie and Forsyth Sts
This hands on workshop sponsored by Just Food and GreenThumb goes over all aspects of raised beds, from the lumber to the soil, how to rehabilitate an existing bed, and how to start a new one.

Wednesday, April 21, 6:30-8:30pm
Slow U: Green Beef
The Astor Center
399 Lafayette St.
Tickets, $45
Michael Crupain of TheDairyShow.com takes viewers on a trip via video to Columbia County in upstate New York to check out a completely grass-fed, grass-finished cattle operation. See the farm to fork story in action from Grazing Angus Acres farm to Local 111, a restaurant just a few miles away. Betty Fussell, Marion Nestle, and Anna Lappé give interviews along the way on biology, history, nutrition and climate change issues that are all part of the story of how beef is raised. Following the discussion, Dan Gibson, owner of Grazing Angus Acres, Betty Fussell, culinary historian and author of Raising Steaks: The Life and Times of American Beef and The Story of Corn, Josephine Proul, executive chef of Local 111 restaurant in Philmont, NY, Jake Dickson of Dickson’s Farmstand Meats in the Chelsea Market, and Michael Crupain will be on hand for a panel discussion about grass-fed and grass-finished beef and to answer your questions. Chef Proul will prepare a dish featuring Grazing Angus Acres beef for audience members to try, paired with New York State Wine.

Thursday, April 22, 6pm
Green Screen Film Series presents:Garbage Dreams
The Horticultural Society of New York
Tickets, HSNY Members $5; non-members $10
Refreshments served
RSVP: (212)757-0915 x100
“The Oscar-nominated documentary Garbage Dreams is a film that sees global issues at an absolutely grassroots level. It shows how international companies and the desire for modernization lead to the marginalization of the poor and the inconvenience of the general population. But it focuses on Adham, 17, Nabil, 18, and Osama, 16, three Zabbaleen youths, and Leila, a social worker and teacher of the community’s new recycling school. The film is about the Zabbaleen, Arabic for ‘garbage people’, whose community collected and recycled trash in the city of Cairo for many generations. Far ahead of any modern Green initiatives, the Zaballeen survive by recycling 80 percent of the garbage they collect. When their community is suddenly faced with the globalization of its trade, each of the teenage boys is forced to make choices that will impact his future and the survival of his community.”
In celebration of Earth Day, all attendees will receive a FREE Hort tote bag!

Saturday, April 24, 10am-9pm
Earth Day Council
Hattie Carthan Community Farmers’ Market
Clifton Place and Marcy Avenue, Brooklyn
“Celebrate Earth Day at the Hattie Carthan Community Garden! The day will begin with a Garden Planning Workshop and Free Seed Giveaway followed by Feasting and a Community Workday engaging in various building and spring garden activities. To close the day, participate in Honoring the Web of Life and be a part of the Earth Day Council. This event is free and open to the public. For more information contact Yonnette: 718-638-3566 or hattiecarthangarden@yahoo.com.”

Sunday, April 25, 10am-4pm
Fifteenth Annual NYC Grows
Union Square Plaza
NYRP celebrates the fifteenth annual NYC Grows with a full day of activities and presentations on community gardening, urban agriculture, sustainability, organic cooking and environmental education. Workshops on fermentation, tree planting and care, a butterfly exhibit, potting activities, gardening games, and a pop-up garden center will be ongoing through the day.
“In 2010, NYRP, a New York City-based non-profit founded by entertainer Bette Midler, celebrates its 15th anniversary by transforming this annual community event into a giant gardening celebration. NYRP is dedicated to reclaiming and restoring New York City parks, community gardens and open space. In partnership with the City of New York, NYRP is also leading MillionTreesNYC – an initiative to plant and care for one million new trees throughout New York City’s five boroughs by 2017.”

Sunday, April 25, 7pm
Just Food Benefit Honoring Joan Dye Gussow
Sotheby’s
1334 York Ave. at 72nd St.
Tickets, $175
Just Food honors Joan Gussow, chair of its first board of directors, and one of the founding forces that rallied the local food movement. As the Mary Swartz Rose Professor Emerita of Nutrition and Education at Teacher’s College where she formerly headed the Nutrition Education Department, Joan believes that eating from close to home makes economic, ecologic, and gastronomic sense and sacrifices neither taste nor pleasure. She is a highly acclaimed nutritionist, author, co-author, and editor of a number of articles and books, including her 2001 work, This Organic Life: Confessions of a Suburban Homestead, which is based on the lessons learned from decades of working toward growing her own.
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Of note a few weeks down the road…

Tuesday, April 27, 7-10pm
Meals and Spiels by The City Reliquary:
An Evening of Dinner & Lectures About NYC’s Food
The Brooklyn Kitchen Labs
100 Frost Street, Williamsburg
Tickets, $150
“Meals and Spiels is a dinner that will focus on the incredible food shops, breweries, bakeries, and kitchens of North Brooklyn. What’s more, each dish and beverage in the Meal will come paired with a lecture about the food on your fork and beverage in your glass! All proceeds will go towards The City Reliquary.” Peep the menu for this event here.

Tuesday, April 27-30 2010

Kingsborough College Eco-Festival 2010
Kingsboro College hosts its annual Eco-Festival replete with several days of activities, workshops and talks by Anna Lappé (author of Diet for a Hot Planet), Makale Faber Cullen on Slow Food and city lore, William Solecki, Director CUNY Institute for Sustainable Cities, Elizabeth Yeampierre, Director of UPROSE, and Holly Kallman, Sustainability Coordinator for CUNY.

Wednesday, April 28, 6:30-8:30
Meet the Radical Homemakers
114 West 47th St, btwn 6th & 7th Aves.
First floor auditorium
Tickets, $10 or $25 (includes signed copy of book)
In her new book, Radical Homemakers: Reclaiming Domesticity from a Consumer Culture, upstate farmer and radical homemaker, Shannon Hayes tells the story of pioneering men and women who are redefining feminism and the good life by reclaiming control of home and hearth. Guided by simple principles of ecological sustainability, social justice, community engagement and family well-being these radical homemakers are questioning the corporate control of the home from the breadbox to the closet. Her presentation will explore the experiences of these rural, urban and suburban folks who are endeavoring to change the world by reclaiming their domestic skills — whether it be planting a garden, growing tomatoes on an apartment balcony, mending a shirt, repairing an appliance, providing one’s own entertainment, or cooking and preserving the local harvest.

Thursday, April 29, 6:30pm
Foodie Book Club
The Brooklyn Kitchen Labs
100 Frost St.
This month’s installment of the Foodie Book Club revisits Laura Ingles Wilder’s Little House in the Big Woods. Bring a potluck dish to share, and your own childhood copy of this American classic.

Thursday, April 29, 7:30pm
Gastronomy in the Still-life Paintings of Luis Meléndez
with Gillian Riley
Culinary Historians of New York
National Arts Club
15 Gramercy Park South
Tickets, $40 Non-Members and Guests | $25 CHNY Members
“British culinary historian Gillian Riley, one of the world’s foremost authorities on the subject of food in art, re-examines the still-life paintings of Spanish painter Luis Meléndez (1715–1780), with an eye for culinary themes.
Melendez’s paintings, long admired for their stunning technique and composition, are now being appreciated for their gastronomic content as well. In many of his paintings, what at first seems to be a random selection of objects tipped out on a kitchen table is in fact a rigorous, perfectionist arrangement of items illustrating a precise theme: a meal, a recipe, or a gastronomic event. He presents the ingredients for a gazpacho, a salad, a dessert of fresh and preserved fruit—or in some paintings, a hint of a whole meal, with fresh crusty bread, jamón, and figs, or a composition of young cheese, fruit, and dessert wine.”

Thursday, May 6, 6-10pm
Brooklyn Food Coalition One Year Anniversary Party
388 Atlantic Ave.
The Brooklyn Food Coalition celebrates its first anniversary with delicious local food, drink and conversation. Anna Lappé will talk about her new book, Diet for a Hot Planet, and emcee as BFC activists share what they’ve been up to throughout the year.

Sunday, May 16, 8:30am-7pm
A Day-a-Whey
Saxelby Cheesemongers
Tickets, $95
Journey to the East End of Long Islang with Anne Saxelby of Saxelby Cheesemongers to visit Wolffer Estate Vineyard for a wine tasting and picnic lunch and Mecox Bay Dairy for a tour of the farm. If weather permits, the day will end on a near-by beach, leaving tour-goers full of wine, cheese, sunshine. Read on for a full description of the day’s itinerary.

Sunday, May 16, noon-4pm
Taste of Williamsburg
N 11th St. btwn Berry and Wythe Aves.
Tickets, $35 for 6 tastes, $95 for 18
Celebrate the flavors of ‘hood at the inaugural Taste of Williamsburg with Tastes from local favorites Dressler, DuMont, Diner, Marlow Sons & Daughters, Miranda, Fornino Pizzeria, Brooklyn Brewery, Juliette, Karczma, Brooklyn Star, Bakeri, Brooklyn Oenology, Sweetwater, El Almacen, Blackbird Parlour, The Lodge, Teddy’s Bar & Grill and more. All proceeds from the event benefit the building of the Northside Town Hall Community and Cultural Center, to be housed in the yet-to-be converted historic former Engine Company 212 firehouse.

Inspired by the awesome rooftop gardens I’ve been peeping lately, I’ve been trolling my neighborhood asking local business owners for containters they’re throwing out that I might be able to repurpose as planters. Specifically I’m on the hunt for the styrofoam boxes that fish are kept in for deliveries. I’ve heard these are great for roofs– they’re light, easy to drill drainage holes in, and are insulating.

Greenmarket’s annual plant sales are coming up, with a rich variety of herbs, annuals, perennials, cut flowers, and vegetable plants on offer. Check them out at the following locations:

The Brooklyn Flea
Saturday, April 24, 10am-5pm
Corner of Lafayette and Vanderbilt in Fort Green
Sunday, April 25, 10am-5pm
1 Hanson Place (at Flatbush) in Downtown Brooklyn

Riverdale Y
Sunday, April 25, 10am-2pm
5625 Arlington Ave

Dante Park
Sunday, May 16, 8am-4pm
Corner of Columbus Ave. and W. 64th St.

In this morning from our friends at New Amsterdam Market:

“Dear Friends and Supporters:

This Thursday, April 15 at 11:00am New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn will hold a press conference to promote her ongoing support of public markets. The gathering will take place at the site of the world-renowned Fulton Fish Market on South Street in Lower Manhattan. We ask any of you who can make it to attend. Please check our website homepage for last-minute details and the exact location of the conference.

Speaker Quinn has sponsored a number of innovative food policies throughout her term, and has recognized the importance of public markets by funding initiatives at La Marqueta in East Harlem and the Moore Street Market in Brooklyn. These stalwart survivors -once part of a larger system run by the New York City Department of Markets- are poised to grow into thriving centers for job growth, economic development, and increased public health.

More recently, Speaker Quinn has proposed creating a regional, destination food market on the East River waterfront. As demonstrated these past few years by New Amsterdam Market, its merchants, and its supporters, a permanent market at this site will grow into a premier institution to further policy initiatives, incubate small businesses, and contribute to our city’s cultural patrimony.

We look forward to seeing you tomorrow.

Sincerely,

THE NEW AMSTERDAM PUBLIC MARKET ASSOCIATION”

Last week I had the pleasure of sitting in on a panel in WNYC’s The Green Space, where Fritz Haeg, author of Edible Estates: Attack on the Front Lawn was talking shop with Will Allen, CEO of Growing Power, and hometown heroes Annie Novack of Rooftop Farm on Eagle St., and Scott Stringer, Manhattan Borough President. The conversation focused on growing food in public and private spaces– collectively the work of those on the stage has brought vegetable plots to suburban lawns across the States and the UK, to urban lots in Madison and Milwaukee, and rooftops in Brooklyn. Catch up with what this esteemed panel had to say on WNYC’s site. Just before the talk Ana Joanes was circulating the room, handing out fliers for her new film FRESH, which features Will Allen. The flick is now playing at Quad Cinemas in the city, and it’s screening for free at Stone Barns on Thursday evening (see below).

All best,
Jeanne

Tuesday, April 13, 5:30-8:30pm
Is Organic Food Just a Marketing Hype?
566 LaGuardia Place
Tickets, $35
Six food writers and food professionals go head to head in an Oxford-style debate over whether or not “Organic” is merely a marketing term.

Wednesday, April 14, 1pm
Guided Tour of the High Line
Horticultural Society of New York
Meet at The High Line park entrance on W. 16th St. and 10th Ave.
Tickets, $25 HSNY members, $40 non-members
“Join the HSNY and your guide Dodo Loechle for a Spring tour of the wonderful gardens of the High Line. This signature landscape was designed by James Corner Field Operations, with the consultation of planting designer Piet Oudolf. The High Line’s plantings are inspired by the self-seeded landscape that grew on the out-of-use elevated rail tracks during the 25 years after the train stopped running. Netherlands-based Piet Oudolf chose perennials, bulbs, grasses, shrubs and trees for their hardiness, sustainability, and unique color and texture. With a focus on native species, many of the plants that originally grew on the rail beds have been incorporated into the park landscape.”

Thursday, April 15, 7-9pm
Screening of FRESH at Stone Barns
Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture
The American Farmland Trust
630 Bedford Road, Pocantico Hills, NY,10591
*Free, call 914.366.6200 x151 to reserve a seat
Come out to Stone Barns for a free screening of the new food documentary, FRESH, which Michael Pollan describes as “a bracing, even exhilarating look at the whole range of efforts underway to renovate the way we grow food and feed ourselves.” The screening will be followed by a discussion featuring David Haight, NY Director of the American Farmland Trust; Todd Erling, Executive Director of Hudson Valley Agribusiness Development Corporation; Craig Haney, Livestock Manager at Stone Barns; and Jeni Clapp, Deputy Director of Policy and Research for Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer.

Word has it the baby lambs are just coming into the world at Stone Barns– it’s a great time to visit the farm!

Friday, April 16, 6:30-8:30pm
Pig Butchering Class
The Brooklyn Kitchen Labs
100 Frost St., Williamsburg
Tickets, $80
The butchers at the Meat Hook and The Brooklyn Kitchen break down a farm-raised pig from Fleisher’s meats in Kingston, NY, showing students all the common and uncommon cuts that come from the animal. Attendees receive a $20 credit to the The Labs’ butcher shop.

Sunday, April 18, 3pm
Drop-In Homebrew Salon
The Brooklyn Kitchen Labs
100 Frost St., Williamsburg
*Free
The Brooklyn Kitchen Labs host their monthly homebrew salon, calling together all experimental brewers to talk shop, exchange questions and ideas, and of course sample and share suds.
___________________________________
Of note a few weeks down the road…

Wednesday, April 21, 5-6:30pm
The Full Treatment on Raised Beds
M’finda Kalunga Community Garden
Rivington St. crossover btwn Chrystie and Forsyth Sts
This hands on workshop sponsored by Just Food and GreenThumb goes over all aspects of raised beds, from the lumber to the soil, how to rehabilitate an existing bed, and how to start a new one.

Saturday, April 24, 10am-9pm
Earth Day Council
Hattie Carthan Community Farmers’ Market
Clifton Place and Marcy Avenue, Brooklyn
“Celebrate Earth Day at the Hattie Carthan Community Garden! The day will begin with a Garden Planning Workshop and Free Seed Giveaway followed by Feasting and a Community Workday engaging in various building and spring garden activities. To close the day, participate in Honoring the Web of Life and be a part of the Earth Day Council. This event is free and open to the public. For more information contact Yonnette: 718-638-3566 or hattiecarthangarden@yahoo.com.”

Sunday, April 25, 7pm
Just Food Benefit Honoring Joan Dye Gussow
Sotheby’s
1334 York Ave. at 72nd St.
Tickets, $175
Just Food honors Joan Gussow, chair of its first board of directors, and one of the founding forces that rallied the local food movement. As the Mary Swartz Rose Professor Emerita of Nutrition and Education at Teacher’s College where she formerly headed the Nutrition Education Department, Joan believes that eating from close to home makes economic, ecologic, and gastronomic sense and sacrifices neither taste nor pleasure. She is a highly acclaimed nutritionist, author, co-author, and editor of a number of articles and books, including her 2001 work, This Organic Life: Confessions of a Suburban Homestead, which is based on the lessons learned from decades of working toward growing her own.

Tuesday, April 27, 7-10pm
Meals and Spiels by The City Reliquary:
An Evening of Dinner & Lectures About NYC’s Food
The Brooklyn Kitchen Labs
100 Frost Street, Williamsburg
Tickets, $150
“Meals and Spiels is a dinner that will focus on the incredible food shops, breweries, bakeries, and kitchens of North Brooklyn. What’s more, each dish and beverage in the Meal will come paired with a lecture about the food on your fork and beverage in your glass! All proceeds will go towards The City Reliquary.” Peep the menu for this event here.

Sunday, May 16, noon-4pm
Taste of Williamsburg
N 11th St. btwn Berry and Wythe Aves.
Tickets, $35 for 6 tastes, $95 for 18
Celebrate the flavors of ‘hood at the inaugural Taste of Williamsburg with Tastes from local favorites Dressler, DuMont, Diner, Marlow Sons & Daughters, Miranda, Fornino Pizzeria, Brooklyn Brewery, Juliette, Karczma, Brooklyn Star, Bakeri, Brooklyn Oenology, Sweetwater, El Almacen, Blackbird Parlour, The Lodge, Teddy’s Bar & Grill and more. All proceeds from the event benefit the building of the Northside Town Hall Community and Cultural Center, to be housed in the yet-to-be converted historic former Engine Company 212 firehouse.

Dear Local Gourmands,

The text came at 9am yesterday: “We’re sharpening our knives! Come over!” It was my friend and neighbor, Laena, who had acquired four rabbits to prepare for an Easter potluck. I tied a ribbon on my sun hat, grabbed the red wine we’d purchased for our braising experiment, threw How to Cook Everything into the Easter basket for good measure, and took off for her kitchen which is just an easy block away.

Laena had arrived on my roof for cocktails the night before, still shivering after a bike ride from Mario’s butcher shop in Williamsburg. She showed me a picture on her iPhone, “They look like logs!” she exclaimed of the cottontails. We both recalled having pet bunnies when we were younger, but neither of us had a clue about how to prepare them for supper. From the roof we rang my dad for advice, we consulted Mark Bittman, we put calls in to chef friends, but on Sunday morning it came down to sharp knives, intuition, and Laena’s boyfriend who nonchalantly instructed us to follow the bones.

Some hours later, we arrived at the potluck bearing a coconut cake, two dozen deviled eggs, and the rabbit meat which went into a LeCruset pot on the hostess’ stove along with red wine and several bulbs of garlic. It’s no coincidence that at this party of food friends and cook-off pros someone else had showed up with another Easter bunny. Noah seasoned his meat with prunes and herbs, and the two creations sat side by side, bubbling away and tempting the ready diners who were mingling on the back patio. Pretty soon the table became crowded with fried chicken, no less than four varieties of deviled eggs, pasta and ambrosia salads. We hovered around the smorgasbord, munching happily amidst the forsythia, and the stewing smells that wafted out the back door. It wasn’t until the rabbit was served that we all finally found seats and kicked our heals up. At that point, nearly 24 hours after we’d first started talking about how to braise the bunnies, we finally dug in. The aromatic, tender meat was falling off the bones, and there was absolutely no reason to hop up and do anything else, except go back for seconds.

All best,
Jeanne

Tuesday, April 6, 6-9pm
Good Spirits at The Bell House
149 7th Street, Gowanus
Tickets, $40
Good spirits and good times will be free flowing at the Bell House where Edible Manhattan and Edible Brooklyn ring in the second installment of their cocktail series that celebrates local liquors and our borough’s favorite “mixology-minded chefs.” The Vanderbilt, No. 7, James, Walter Foods, The Farm on Adderley and Palo Santo prepare plates to go with perfectly paired cocktails concocted with storied spirits. Sip Empire State favorites like Tuthilltown Spirits and Warwick Valley Winery and Distillery, as well as small batch selections from Vertical Vodka, Chartreuse and Illegal Mexcal. $40 tickets for this evening of food, drink and merriment come with a complementary one-year subscription to Edible Manhattan or Edible Brooklyn when you enter the code “cocktail.”

Tuesday, April 6, 7-9pm
Moby and Miyun Park: Gristle: From Factory Farms to
Food Safety (Thinking Twice About the Meat We Eat)
Book Launch Party
Powerhouse Arena
37 Main St., DUMBO
“In Gristle, vegan and multiplatinum recording artist Moby, has compiled writings from ten of the country’s leading food-minded folks, laying out a hard-hitting and eye-opening guide to the meat you eat. Both Moby and Park will be present to discuss and sign the book.”

Tuesday, April 6, 6-11pm
Blue Plate Special for FRESH
Jimmy’s No. 43
43 E. 7th St.
$22 Blue Plate Special
Tonight Jimmy’s No. 43 serves up a “Blue Plate Special” as a pre-opening benefit for the movie FRESH. Entreés include roast pork with apples and polenta, shrimp and grits, and local lamb sausages with olives and escarole. Your order includes a ticket to the good food flick that will be shown in theatres around New York beginning in April. Filmmaker Ana Joanes will also be in the house to chat up the cause and encourage a hopeful dialogue about how our food system is slowly being turned around.

Tuesday, April 6, 7-9pm
Monthly NYC Beekeeper’s Association Meeting
Seafarers & International House
123 E. 15th St.
Talk shop with fellow urban beekeepers, discuss the revised healthcode that has recently lifted the ban on beekeeping in the city, and taste mead from Manhattan Meadery at this month’s NYCBA meeting.

“Manhattan Meadery is a small urban winery based in New York City. Nathaniel and his brother Thatcher and the founders and sole employees. They’ve been brewing beer and making wine as a hobby for about 10 years here in the City and have always liked experimenting with unique flavors and ingredients. They started making mead about five years ago and the results were amazing. After buying some commercial mead, they discovered that no one else was making anything like what they had created. The duo decided to start an urban winery and share this discovery with others.”

Wednesday, April 7, noon
Beard on Books: John T. Edge
James Beard House
167 W. 12th St.
$20 suggested donation for non-students
James Beard award-winning writer John T. Edge presents the Oxford American’s 2010 Southern Food Issue, a quarterly publication that celebrates the very best in southern food writing, and the vibrant culture that gives way to one of the country’s favorite cuisines.

Thursday, April 8, 7pm
Edible Estates: Attack on the Front Lawn with
Leonard Lopate, Fritz Haeg, Annie Novak, Will Allen, and Scott Stringer
The Greene Space
Tickets, $15
Leonard Lopate hosts a discussion on the future of urban agriculture in New York City and around the country featuring prominent figures from both the local and national scene. Speakers include Fritz Haeg, artist, designer, radical gardener, and author of Edible Estates; Will Allen, contributor to the book, and MacArthur winning founder of Milwaukee- based Growing Power; Annie Novak, founder of Rooftop Farms in Greenpoint; and Scott Stringer, Manhattan Borough President and the force behind “FoodNYC: A Blueprint for a Sustainable Food System,” the most comprehensive effort to date to unify and reform New York City’s policies regarding the production, distribution, consumption, and disposal of food.

Thursday, April 8, 6pm
Red, Hot and Potted:
a lecture, book signing and tasting with chili expert Dave DeWitt
Horticultural Society of New York Library
148 West 37th Street, 13th Floor, btwn Broadway and 7th Ave
Tickets, $10
The Horticultural Society of New York welcomes Dave DeWitt, co-author of The Complete Chile Pepper Book, to show city dwellers how to grow peppers in containers. He’ll offer practical growing advice, recommendations of chili varieties, sign books, and dole out sample tastes.

Thursday, April 8, 7:30-10pm
Local Beer and Chocolate Tasting to Support FRESH
Mast Brothers Chocolate Factory
105 N. 3rd St., Williamsburg
Tickets, $25 (includes a ticket to see FRESH at Quad Cinema between April 9-15)
“Brooklyn’s Sixpoint Craft Ales and Mast Brothers Chocolate unite for a tasting at the Masts’ Chocolate Factory in Williamsburg. Redd Ale and a chocolate-minded brew will be featured alongside the sweet creations of Mast’s bean to bar process.”

Saturday, April 10, 9am-noon
Black Farmers and Urban Gardeners Community Forum
388 Atlantic Ave.
Between Hoyt and Bond
Take part in the conversation around “What’s for Dinner? Connecting the Dots Between Food Access, Policy and the History of Agriculture from the Black Perspective.” Learn what black farmers and urban gardeners in New York are doing to get fresh, healthy, locally grown food on the tables of their families and neighbors. Guest speakers include Maya Wiley, Founder and Executive Director of the Center for Social Inclusion; Kolu Zigbi, Program Officer for Sustainable Agriculture and Food Systems at the Jessie Smith Noyes Foundation; and Jennifer Steverson, Public Programs Curator at Weeksville Heritage Center.

Sunday, April 11, 4-6pm
Tastebuds NYC Fundraiser for Hot Bread Kitchen
Jimmy’s No. 43
43 E. 7th St.
Tickets, $20
Tastebuds NYC, a lively social networking group for city foodies and good food advocates, throws a cook off benefit for Hot Bread Kitchen, an admirable non-profit that trains immigrant women in traditional baking techniques. The challenge for chefs? Use either Hot Bread’s corn tortillas or granola (both are truly outstanding products on their own) as a muse to show the judges what you bring to the table. Cook-off chefs will go head to head to compete for bragging rights and a great cause. Judges include Nick Suarez and Theo Peck of the Brooklyn Food Experiments, Alexis Powell Grossman from Crop to Cup, and Katrina Schultz Richter from Hot Bread Kitchen. For more information or to sign up to cook, e-mail Heidi Exline: hjexline@gmail.com.

Sunday, April 11, 6:30-10pm
Farmers Market Sweep
Littlefield
622 Degraw St., Brooklyn
Tickets, $12 in advance, $15 at the door
Bikeloc, a team of cycling locavore enthusiasts will take their love for the local food movement on the road this summer in a cross-country bike tour of small farms. Meet the mend behind the madness at a local food trivia night, Farmers Market Sweep, aka Brooklyn’s first food-themed game show. Aaron Zueck and Robert DuBois of Bikeloc, Louisa Shafia author of Lucid Food, Ava Chin of the New York Times, Joanna Shaw Flamm, editor of spoonandtrowel.com as well other prominent foodies will go head-to-head in a battle for the title of Champion Locavore.

The game show will be followed by the savory sounds of Smoothe Moose Laboratories featuring Brooklyn based cellist and electronic musician Cosmo D who will be serving it up with beat master DJ Saucy Crotch. If you’re interested in making a local snack for the event, please contact Aaron at aaron@bikeloc.org for details.

Sunday, April 11, 4:30-8pm
Betty Brooklyn Hors d’oeuvres and Cocktail Hour to Benefit BK Farmyards
220 Plymouth St. Suite 5A, DUMBO
Tickets, $20 in advance $25 at the door
Using the best of New York’s local, seasonal and organic produce, Betty Brooklyn prepares delicious, nourishing meals for people who love food. She also offers personalized private chef classes for individuals and small groups. Tonight her hors d’oeuvres get paired up with cocktails by Sister Liqueurs, Blue Point beer, in a benefit happy hour for BK Farmyards who is working with the High School for Public Service to create a 1-acre youth farm. The menu includes sautéed spring mushrooms with Salvatore Bklyn ricotta and tarragon, grilled marinated flank steak skewers with chimichurri sauce, deviled quail eggs with crispy bacon, and spring peas in ramp and pistachio pesto with radish slices on locally baked baguette.
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Of note a few weeks down the road…

Saturday, April 24, 10am-9pm
Earth Day Council
Hattie Carthan Community Farmers’ Market
Clifton Place and Marcy Avenue, Brooklyn
“Celebrate Earth Day at the Hattie Carthan Community Garden! The day will begin with a Garden Planning Workshop and Free Seed Giveaway followed by Feasting and a Community Workday engaging in various building and spring garden activities. To close the day, participate in Honoring the Web of Life and be a part of the Earth Day Council. This event is free and open to the public. For more information contact Yonnette: 718-638-3566 or hattiecarthangarden@yahoo.com.”

Sunday, April 25, 7pm
Just Food Benefit Honoring Joan Dye Gussow
Sotheby’s
1334 York Ave. at 72nd St.
Tickets, $175
Just Food honors Joan Gussow, chair of its first board of directors, and one of the founding forces that rallied the local food movement. As the Mary Swartz Rose Professor Emerita of Nutrition and Education at Teacher’s College where she formerly headed the Nutrition Education Department, Joan believes that eating from close to home makes economic, ecologic, and gastronomic sense and sacrifices neither taste nor pleasure. She is a highly acclaimed nutritionist, author, co-author, and editor of a number of articles and books, including her 2001 work, This Organic Life: Confessions of a Suburban Homestead, which is based on the lessons learned from decades of working toward growing her own.

Sunday, May 16, noon-4pm
Taste of WilliamsburgN 11th St. btwn Berry and Wythe Aves.
Tickets, $35 for 6 tastes, $95 for 18
Celebrate the flavors of ‘hood at the inaugural Taste of Williamsburg with Tastes from local favorites Dressler, DuMont, Diner, Marlow Sons & Daughters, Miranda, Fornino Pizzeria, Brooklyn Brewery, Juliette, Karczma, Brooklyn Star, Bakeri, Brooklyn Oenology, Sweetwater, El Almacen, Blackbird Parlour, The Lodge, Teddy’s Bar & Grill and more. All proceeds from the event benefit the building of the Northside Town Hall Community and Cultural Center, to be housed in the yet-to-be converted historic former Engine Company 212 firehouse.