Because 2 days is never enough.

Erik and I celebrated our one year wedding anniversary tonight by eating at a Manhattan restaurant that serves locally grown food. We thought it was appropriate to celebrate our anniversary with locally grown food since that was what we served at our 2 1/2 day wedding celebration in the Catskills. (We cannot vouch for the cake ingredients being local, but they certainly included organic flour and were beautifully crafted by Bread Alone, which also supplies organic bread and pastries to Fairway and many green markets in New York City.)

We wined and dined at the Bread Bar at Tabla near Madison Square Park. The Indian fusion restaurant is one of many restaurants operated by Danny Meyer who is inspired by the green market near Union Square, and tries to incorporate locally grown food into many of his restaurant menus. (We’re also huge fans of his burger joint called Shake Shack inside Madison Square Park.)

Erik and I met in Madison Square Park under the “silver tree” sculptures that are currently there for the summer sculpture park exhibit. While we were walking through the park on our way to the restaurant we noticed a small crowd gathered around for the summer book reading event. We stopped to listen in — lo and behold, it was Danny Meyer promoting his new book called “Setting the Table: The Transforming Power of Hospitality in Business“! We listened to him talk about his “itch” to be a restauranteur and his need to scratch it, which led him to his meager start in the New York restaurant scene. Then we headed over to Tabla to experience his hospitality firsthand.

We had (and recommend):

• Tamarind margaritas
• Green market apple & potato chaat – seasoned with tamarind chutney, spicy yogurt and chaat masala
• Green market asparagas foogath – sauteed with mustard seeds, ginger, kokum and fresh coconut
• Laccha parantha – layered whole wheat bread
• Tamarind chutney – sweet, sour, and spicy
• Chicken tikka – boneless murray’s all natural chicken marinated with curry leaf and ginger
• Beef coconut “fry” – malbari style fry with toasted coconut, black pepper, curry leaves and tamarind
• Chocolate bread pudding – black pepper brioche, caramelized banana ice cream, saffron anglaise

The flavors were spicy and complimentary to one another – a flavor jubilee. We definitely over ate, but we couldn’t help ourselves.

The Farm to Table site is a great resource for finding restaurants and stores that serve locally grown food in the greater New York area. You can also find some local food gems by searching the Chowhound boards.

I think eating locallly grown food for our anniversary is the beginning of a nice tradition for us, and it’s also a great way to celebrate summer solstice. Now all we need to do is find more restaurants with locally grown food AND outdoor seating. I can’t wait till next year.

We teamed up with Hardy to create a menu out of the goodies from the Prospect Park farmer’s market and the West Harlem CSA. Mindy and Erik’s first Brooklyn dinner party was a smashing success, with delicious food, great company, and at least one exciting new discovery.

The menu included Hardy’s fresh pea and bib lettuce soup, recipe courtesy of Ma Stecker, two home-made pizzas (using the whole wheat dough recipe from Barbara Kingsolver’s fantastic new book “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle”), a salad, and Mindy’s famous apple pie.

I brought over some treats from last Thursday’s CSA share, including garlic scapes. To be honest, I’d never tasted a scape before I dug a huge pile of them out of the box at the CSA pick up. I’d seen them at the farmer’s market, but wasn’t sure what one would actually DO with a vegetable that looks a bit like a green electrical cord.

Raw scapes taste like garlic with a little bit of green onion mixed in. The night before the dinner party, I had sauteed them like garlic, which was fine, but after cooking them, the flavor was exceptionally mild. Mindy and I put our heads together and decided to make some garlic scape pesto for the pizzas. Let me tell you, this was a revelation. Now, just about every day, I get an email from Hardy heralding the new meals she has created using her scape pesto.

I’m hoping for a summer full of new recipes, unfamiliar vegetables, and dinner parties.

Garden Fresh Pea Soup

• 1 pound peas, shelled
• 1 small head of bib lettuce
• 1 spring green onion, chopped
• 1 sprig mint (optional)
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 3 tablespoons butter
• 4 tablespoons water

Make a nest of the lettuce in the bottom of the pan. Put the onion or mint (one or the other), the salt, butter and peas into the lettuce. Add the water, cover and gently boil until the peas are tender. Depending on the quality and freshness this may take anywhere from 5-20 minutes. Taste and season with extra salt, and perhaps a pinch of sugar (if needed). Serve with the lettuce and liquids in the pan.

[Notes: You can also add a strip or 2 of thick cut bacon cut into 1" pieces to the simmering pile. You can add less water since the lettuce gives it off. When you think the peas are done, lift all the goodies out of the pan and taste the broth. You'll certainly want to add pepper and salt and 1/2 cup of light cream or half and half.]

Pizza #1: Tomato sauce mixed with garlic scape pesto, mozzarella, onions, basil
Pizza #2: Garlic scape pesto, mozzarella, tomato

Garlic Scape Pesto:

• 1 cup chopped garlic scapes (maybe 10 scapes depending on the size)
• 1/3 cup walnuts (or pinenuts)
• 3/4 cup olive oil
• 1/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese
• Salt and pepper to taste

Add scapes and nuts to food processer and blend until smooth.
Drizzle in the olive oil a bit at a time, blending as you go.
Add cheese, salt, pepper, blend one last time.

I just got back from Arizona, where I spent a few days visiting my 91 year old grandmother, Maxine Broad.

I love to spend my time making things and learning new crafts, but this weekend, I realized that my grandma is the real deal. She raised 10 kids on a tight budget by doing everything herself. Grandma didn’t do crafts, she just lived her life. She learned how to sew as a small child, when her mother helped her sew a cooking apron. She spent the rest of her life sewing, looking at fashion magazines and replicating patterns out of newspaper, fitting 10 kids into nearly every piece of clothing they wore, and staying up all hours of the night at her sewing machine. She cooked volumes of food from simple ingredients. She read and played the piano and danced and laughed. And she never let anything go to waste; everything could be turned into something new.
I hope I grow old and have half the satisfaction and joy with the life I’ve lived, half the talent and resourcefulness, and half the love in my heart that she has. If so, I will have lived an amazing life.

I was extremely enthusiastic about joining the West Harlem CSA. On the first pick up day, I wasn’t at the office and wouldn’t be able to make it, so I remined Karl about 2,836 times not to forget to stop off at the pick up at St. John Divine after work. He even strapped the paniers onto his bike to lug the veggie bounty home.
Except, well, it certainly wasn’t a bounty. My expected cornicopia was basically a few leaves of chard, some wilty looking lettuce, and a chive blossom (which was admittedly was sort of fanastic). I came home, bounding into the house searching for the goods and when I found them, I thought Karl was playing a trick on me.

Week two was equally disappointing. I walked over with my colleague and fellow CSA member, Daniel, with high hopes. I think we managed to keep our spirts up, despite the rather small allocation of mixed and mustard greens, but when we got to the half sprig of rosemary and the two emaciated radishes, all we could do was laugh in a sad clown kind of way and speculate that maybe our farmers were on drugs?

This week, Daniel and I walked over with low expectations. Only this week, it REALLY was a cornicopia. I skipped out the door with two heads of bib lettuce and a head of green leaf, a huge pile of crazy mixed greens (with tatsoi, mizuna, mustard greens and who knows what else), a giant handful of garlic scapes, two bunches of cilantro, probably a pound of kale, and two big bunches of radishes. All for about 10 bucks, based on my upfront investment.

Now I love my farmers and my CSA! I can’t wait for tomatoes and the other joys of summer coming our way.

Not to my surprise, I found myself up a tree with the shirt I’ve been trying to sew. Luckily, I saw my mom (and aunts and grandma) this weekend. These women are all experienced and talented seamstresses and I needed all the help I could get. My mom took one look at the shirt and glanced at me with an eyebrow cocked as if to ask me, “do you have seriously low self-esteem?”

I cut the pattern on a size big enough to fit, probably, two of me. As my mom said, at least this way I don’t have to worry too much about the tailoring since there is NO way this thing will fit. Oh well, I have to start somewhere.

Mom helped me rip out a confusing seam and showed me how to repair the situation and she also showed me how to make the gathered sleeves. Everything is all pinned together in what mom describes as a “foolproof” way. We’ll see about that. I’m planning to spend some time sewing this weekend and I hope to finish the world’s biggest shirt in the next few days.

Thanks mom!

I try to buy organic fruits and vegetables whenever I can. (This includes produce from local farmers who might not have paid for the organic certification even though they practice organic farming.) Unfortunately, this is not always possible, so I’ve wondered which fruits and veggies are the most important to buy organically — in other words, which types of produce are the most susceptible to pesticides (and which are the most resistant). The Environmental Working Group (EWG) has published such a list on its “Food News” web site called “The Shopper’s Guide to Pesticides in Produce,” which ranks pesticide contamination for 43 popular fruits and vegetables from 2000-2004.

The six measures of contamination used are:

• Percent of the samples tested with detectable pesticides
• Percent of the samples with two or more pesticides
• Average number of pesticides found on a sample
• Average amount (level in parts per million) of all pesticides found
• Maximum number of pesticides found on a single sample
• Number of pesticides found on the commodity in total

An EWG simulation of thousands of consumers eating high and low pesticide diets shows that people can lower their pesticide exposure by almost 90 percent by avoiding the top twelve most contaminated fruits and vegetables and eating the least contaminated instead. Eating the 12 most contaminated fruits and vegetables will expose a person to about 15 pesticides per day, on average. Eating the 12 least contaminated will expose a person to less than 2 pesticides per day. Less dramatic comparisons will produce less dramatic reductions, but without doubt using the Guide provides people with a way to make choices that lower pesticide exposure in the diet.

The most contaminated include apples, peaches, sweet peppers, celery, spinach, lettuce, and potatoes.

The least contaminated include onions, sweet corn, broccoli, asparagas, avacados, mangos, and papaya.

For the complete list and more information on the study’s methodology and the adverse affects of pesticides go to http://www.foodnews.org/methodology.php.

There is a scary article on BBC.com today titled “What would Old MacDonald say?” that reveals how many British adults, especially those in urban areas, do not realize that bacon and sausage originate from farms. Unfortunately, I think many Americans are in the same boat — equally unaware of the origins of their food.

People who do not know that bacon originates from a farm are “idiots”, according to Mr O’Reilly, who “eats a lot of bacon”. He said: “They must be very naive, or just not interested. They’re not bothered where food comes from so long as they can eat it.” Mr Welch blames convenience food. “If it’s not wrapped up in a bit of plastic then they don’t want to know.”

It reminds me of one of my favorite Simpson’s episodes when Lisa becomes a vegetarian:

Homer: Are you saying you’re never going to eat any animal again? What about bacon?
Lisa: No.
Homer: Ham?
Lisa: No.
Homer: Pork chops?
Lisa: Dad, those all come from the same animal.
Homer: Heh heh heh. Ooh, yeah, right, Lisa. A wonderful, magical animal.

Last fall I had a pomegranate sitting on my desk at work and two of my co-workers individually asked me what it was. One of them exclaimed, “Oh, that’s the source of the POM juice my wife makes me drink.” Chalk this up to yet another reason why farmer’s markets, CSAs and the like are beneficial. You get to see the vegetables in their original state, sometimes even with the dirt still clinging on. It’s fun to shell peas and cut brussels sprouts from the stalk, and it reminds us that our food was grown on a farm without being chemically altered or processed. Magical, indeed.

Urban living, especially in New York City, has its limits. My dreams of a backyard where I can grow my own herbs and veggies will certainly have to wait. I also have to put the lemon tree on hold. Sigh.

Erik and I recently visited what we have nicknamed our “country home” in Connecticut. Erik’s sister Amy and her husband Daniel have settled into a cute neighborhood in Middletown where they have a backyard and a plot in a community garden, just a few blocks away. They showed us a spare sunny room in their house that was filled with tomato plants and various types of herbs, which will be going into the ground soon enough. Erik and I were jealous.

Although I can’t turn my apartment into a greenhouse, I can use my purchasing power to select food that is grown close to home – my larger backyard, in a more metaphorical sense. Jess and I have been excited to see the farmer’s markets here kick into gear the past couple of weeks (although Jess can’t say the same for the CSA), starting with the appearance of asparagus. There is nothing more exciting than buying whatever the farmers have on display and planning a week’s worth of meals around the bounty.

Two nights ago I made a meal from mostly local ingredients — risotto with chicken and peas. Here’s the run down:

• Chicken – organic from New Jersey
• Peas – from the farmer’s market
• Onion – from the farmer’s market
• Stock – homemade from the chicken carcass

The arborio rice was not local, however, but I guess that’s to be expected since I don’t live in Italy.

Risotto with Fresh Peas

1 1/2 tbs olive oil
1/4 cup diced onion
1 cups arborio rice
1/2 tsp salt
3-4 cups simmering homemade stock (chicken or veggie)
1/2 cup dry white wine to replace 1 cup stock (optional)
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1/2 tbs olive oil
a few handfuls of freshly shelled peas
cooked chicken (optional)

Heat olive oil in a large saute pan. Saute onion until soft. Add rice, and using a wooden spoon, turn frequently until all grains are coated with oil. Add salt. Continue to stir rice while it is cooking. Keep stock simmering in a saucepan. Add hot stock 1/2 cup at a time. As each bit of stock is absorbed, add more. Save about 1/4 cup stock to add just before serving. In about 20 minutes, rice grains should be al dente, with a soft outside, but a firm center.

Either steam the fresh peas or boil for 2-3 minutes and drain. Add 1/2 tbs olive oil, reserved 1/4 cup stock to risotto and combine. Then add cooked peas, (optional chicken) and Parmesan. Taste for seasoning and add fresh black pepper if desired.

Yield about 2 3/4 cups.

(Note: Makes enough for 2 people plus leftovers. This can easily be doubled to serve more people.)

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We’ve all seen what happens when craft culture meets computer culture. (Hey, some of us have even gone as far as knitting an Apple powerbook cozy with a Canon digicam cozy to match!) Well, there is now a top ten list for the geekiest yarn creations on the web. My two faves are the Yoda baby accessories and the Nintendo case. Threadbanger is a site that my friend Britton turned me onto — he’s always keeping his favorite knit-wits informed on all things knitty and geeky.

The site also features a blog with some “how-tos,” but the bulk of the good stuff is featured in the “Threadheads” weekly video podcasts.

View the top 10 >
Check out the site >
Subscribe to the podcasts >

My little (not so little really) brother had an impressive three day weekend himself. One of my favorite hometown traditions is the i madonnari festival. Every memorial day weekend since 1987, over 400 artists work all weekend to create large scale street paintings in the plaza in front of the Old Mission. I participated for a couple years in college with my friend Molly (we did a quite nice replication of a Hopper painting), but my brother is actually an artist and the restaurant where he works has sponsored him to do a square for the last few years. This is his terrific final product:

My favorite thing is all the great fruits and veggies.