CLASSES & RESOURCES IN NYC GrowNYC’s Farm Beginnings — a comprehensive agricultural training program developed for new farmers by the people who run the Greenmarket. Designed for a people looking to start farm enterprises, including urban farmers looking to scale-up and second career farm entrepreneurs.   Brooklyn Grange hosts a whole range of workshops and classes for rooftop farmers. If a full roof installation process is more than you want to take on, their Design and Installation arm...

New Yorkers' interest in where their food comes from and how it is raised has led to a robust farmers' market system, a growing interest in communty gardens and backyard enterprises like raising chickens and keeping bees, and a surprising number of urbanites who are ditching their pots of basil on their fire escape to become farmers. While there’s not what you’d call a mass exodus from New York City, there is a perceptible upward trend in the number of people wanting to learn more about...

It’s the high season for cool, slushy drinks. Nina Planck, author of several Real Food cookbooks, says her fermented watermelon basil cooler illustrates one of her key principles: when she processes food, she does it in ways that enhance nutrition, flavor, and shelf life.  Nina Planck / photo by  Katherine Wolkoff Nina's recipe for fermented watermelon basil cooler (Makes two quarts) Ingredients 8–10 lb watermelon 8–10 Meyer lemons small bunch of Genovese basil 1/4 c organic whole cane...

SMOKED PICKLED POTATOES WITH ANCHOVY AIOLI RECIPEby David Leite, Leite's Culinaria Serves 4 to 6 INGREDIENTSFor the anchovy aioli 3 garlic cloves, minced 1 tablespoon Kosher salt 6 anchovy fillets, minced 2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice 2 large egg yolks, room temperature 1 cup extra-virgin olive oil, or 1/2 cup olive oil and 1/2 cup grapeseed oil For the smoked pickled potatoes 2 pounds small red new potatoes, 1 to 1 1/2 in diameter, scrubbed and rinsed Sea salt 4 cups malt...

Cilantro could very well be the world’s most polarizing herb. Those who vehemently hate it may have the aversion coded in their genes, while others happily add it to everything from salsas to soups. But maybe there’s a middle ground to be found in the cilantro wars. Perhaps cilantro’s cousin culantro is the herb diplomat to please both parties. Culantro, with its long, narrow, slightly serrated leaves, is popularly used in Latin and Caribbean cuisine. “Culantro has kind of the base flavor of...

The Bronx has a weight problem, and part of that stems from parents who simply don’t know how to cook. Chef and educator Tania Lopez knows about that situation firsthand. She grew up in the South Bronx and in Puerto Rico, and says that her parents rarely cooked for her as a child. “They were constantly working all the time and they didn’t have time to cook for me,” Lopez explained. “So I didn’t have a chance to really taste food from all over the world. And I always felt like I was left out...

Here’s a fun project for kids and apartment dwellers: Plant a radish seed in a pot, care for it, and then 25 to 30 days later, you should be able to harvest a fully grown vegetable. When it comes to farming, a month’s time is as close to instant gratification as you can get, said Edible Manhattan editor Gabrielle Langholtz. She’s the author of The New Greenmarket Cookbook, which includes recipes from New York chefs and profiles of area farmers. “[Radishes in the spring] are much milder and...

This week, cookbook authors Brent Ridge and Josh Kilmer-Purcell, known as the reality television duo “The Fabulous Beekman Boys,” charmingly flaunted two long-standing tenants of Last Chance Foods: Don’t sound like "Delicious Dish," and don’t antagonize the farmers. “If people haven’t had a sweet pea before, freshly picked, then they haven’t experienced the true power of the pea,” said Kilmer-Purcell, who admitted after the taping that Last Chance Foods’ listeners could have heard a double...

The cool weather this spring means that farmers markets may be looking surprisingly bare for late May. Parks and forests, however, are already bursting with life — and tasty, nutritious finds for knowledgeable foragers. One commonly foraged favorite is lambsquarters. The leafy green grows in sunny meadows, college campuses, and even between the sidewalk cracks in Brooklyn. Forager Ava Chin might ogle the hearty specimens shooting up along city streets, but she admitted that she stays away...

For Rose Wang, it all started with a scorpion street snack in China. She bit into the insect on a dare and was surprised. “[It was] not what I expected,” says Wang, who went on to co-found the insect-based food company Six Foods with her Harvard classmates Laura D’Asaro and Meryl Natow. “It tasted really great and really made me think, ‘Okay, is there another way to eat protein that’s more sustainable?’”  In particular, the entrepreneurs see crickets as a more sustainable source of protein....

The days are getting longer, and that’s welcome news for humans and chickens alike. More daylight means hens have more time to eat bugs. That additional protein makes for richer eggs with deeply orange yolks. Here’s a suggestion on what to do what all that springtime bounty of eggs: Make a frittata. The egg dish is a favorite, fast weeknight meal in Martha Rose Shulman’s household. “[Frittatas] are very forgiving, and they’re a great vehicle for vegetables,” said Shulman, the author of The...

Some people like a shot of espresso to get the morning started. How about a quick slug of cactus slime instead? That’s the drink of choice at some juice stands in Mexico. “A lot of people think that the slime is really nutritious,” said Lesley Téllez, a food writer who runs the culinary tourism company Eat Mexico. “I’ve seen some places where… they just sell the slime, you know, on it’s own. You can take it to go, and... have it for a quick morning pick-me-up.” Known as “baba,” or the...

We're a little late to the game on this, but it still sounds tasty, so we're calling this a "Past Chance Foods" recipe. It comes from copy editor Francine Almash's mother, Victoria. Easter Wheat Pieby Victoria Almash Makes filling for two pies 1 can soaked wheat (one brand is Asti) or use the recipe* below for cooked wheat berries 1.4 cup hot (scalded) milk ¼ tsp. salt ¼ tsp. sugar 1 ½ lbs ricotta 1 cup sugar 6 egg yolks (beaten) 1 tbs. orange water ¼ cup diced citron ¼ cup diced orange...

The image of rolling wheat fields calls to mind sprawling Midwestern farms, but that may be changing. Just look at Amber Waves Farm in Amagansett, Long Island, where farmers Katie Baldwin and Amanda Merrow are growing wheat on 16 acres. They started their farm in 2009, bucking the then-emerging, now-rampant, gluten-free trend. “For every customer that we sell wheat berries or our whole wheat flour to, there is a customer that is really excited that we’re working to close the gap in the...

Ignore the recent chilly blast of weather, spring is here and so are the blooms. Some of those cheerful flowers aren’t just a treat for the eye—they’re tasty, too. Violas are one edible variety. They’re part of the pansy family, and you can find them at farmers markets now. “Fresh flowers are one of the few things that you’ll be hard pressed to find packaged in a store,” says Annie Novak, a rooftop farmer and co-founder of Eagle Street Rooftop Farm. “So really the pleasure of eating a flower...

If you’re an apartment-bound urbanite with nary a backyard to plant, here’s a micro-farming solution acceptable for even the smallest spaces: Grow yourself a sourdough starter, also known as a levain. “It’s a little like farming,” said Austin Hall, the head baker at She Wolf Bakery. “You’re trying to grow this organism that is going to help you raise the bread.” So if you’re not cleaning out your kitchen this weekend in preparation for Passover, consider combining some good flour with...

When it comes to vegetables, it must be hard to be a rutabaga. As a cross between a cabbage and a turnip, the humongous, humble-looking root vegetable can easily be overlooked when compared to the delicate fiddlehead ferns available in the early spring. But here at Last Chance Foods, we like the underdog vegetables. That’s one reason WNYC’s Amy Eddings recently bought a huge rutabaga from Conuco Farm’s Hector Tejada at the Fort Greene farmers market. Despite all her good intentions, the poor...

Heads up to Mallomars fans out there: The season for the chocolate-covered, marshmallow-and-graham-cracker cookie is nearly over. Yes, this packaged and processed cookie has a season. Mallomars are only made by Nabisco from September through March. The reason for that began when the cookies were invented 100 years ago, at a time that predated refrigeration. The cookies have a thin chocolate shell that would melt during the warmer months. The cool-month schedule continued on track — due to a...

Consider the onion: It forms the backbone of so many dishes, but rarely serves as a main ingredient. Is it because we’re worried about the stink of onion breath? Dirt Candy chef Amanda Cohen says to grab some toothpaste and just get over it. “That’s why [toothpaste] was invented, right?” she said. “You can’t be afraid of a vegetable. The vegetable’s way more afraid of you.” There are plenty of ways beyond traditional French onion soup to make the humble allium a star ingredient. At Dirt...

Cooking live lobster at home is not a task for the faint of heart. But here’s one thing seafood eaters don’t have to worry about. “Lobsters don’t have vocal cords, alright? They do not exist in a lobster. They don’t scream,” said Susan Povich, who owns Red Hook Lobster Pound with her husband Ralph Gorham. “What you’re hearing is steam escaping from the carapace — from the hard shell of the body — if you hear anything. You might be hearing your child scream when you put the lobster in the...

We’ve all seen that iconic image of a straw sticking out of a picture-perfect orange. Turns out, making mass marketed orange juice is not nearly so simple or even natural.

If you’ve ever flipped over packaged food and checked for high fructose corn syrup in the ingredient list, there’s something you should know: “Experts… say that when it comes to calories and nutrition, sugar is sugar is sugar,” says Michael Moss, author of Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us. “And it even gets worse, because they’ll throw in fruit juice, as well." 

Millet is a gluten-free whole grain that tastes sort of like a cross between vanilla and corn. It certainly has a flavor that birds enjoy — much of the millet in this country is used for bird seed. But what’s good for Tweety has long been considered tasty by humans, too.

Today is Valentine’s Day, so we’re going to talk about chocolate. That’s the easy explanation. The more complicated version of how Last Chance Foods choose to approach the topic of such a beloved confection involves a former aerospace engineer turned farmer, a vertically integrated beans-to-bar company, and a three-year-old factory in Red Hook, Brooklyn