Long Time Coming

There has been a lot going on in the Brooklyn Forager world in the past 10 months.  Some ups and downs, and surprisingly little cooking (at least any of note) or gardening for that matter.  But that is all going to change.  I've got a couple of Daring Kitchen challenges up my sleeve and some early fall farmers' market shopping to do. 

Keep an eye here for Pear and Ginger Muffins, Carmelized Chipotle Chicken, an attempt at Brown Butter Walnut Cream sauce and other adventures to come. 

For those of you still out there and those of you who have encouraged me to re-seed and continue this blog, thanks for hanging around.  I promise, the next year of Brooklyn Forager will have lots of more to offer.

Stay tuned!

A Year (and then some) of Brooklyn Forager

As I have collected more of them, birthdays and anniversaries pass with less and less fuss. One thing, however, doesn't change. The best part about a birthday is cake for breakfast in the days that follow.

The actual first Blog-iversary was a couple of days ago, and though I didn't get the post out in time, I am still enjoying the cake that I made to mark this special day. I whipped up a very interesting and surprisingly special lime yogurt cake with raspberry sauce from smitten kitchen. (This will show up again on our table in many variations.)

The limes are certainly not local (although they may have been organic) and the yogurt was big organic. I like to think I kept it Brooklyn Forager-style by using hand-picked raspberries from Vermont (my in-laws' harvest has been very good to us) in the amazingly bright and tart and tasty sauce. And, of course, the mint garnish is from our own little urban terrace garden.

In the next year of Brooklyn Forager, I hope to take more advantage of our great farmers' markets in Brooklyn, forage in other Brooklyn hotspots, learn a lot more about urban gardening and farming and homesteading, and doing a lot more preserving at home.

Thanks for following along and I look forward to more adventures!

A Scallion Grows in Brooklyn

I know.  I know.  The whole whatever you're growing grows in Brooklyn joke gets pretty overused.  But it's true! It's garden time in Brooklyn and though the actual planning and garden work is chiefly my husband's domain, I stick my nose in there when it comes to garden design and requests for ingredients for our kitchen.

After reading a recent Re-Nest post about how easy it is to start scallions for your garden reminded me of my friend B-Side's scallion experiment, I knew the universe was calling out to me to get my own scallions on.  I've got a lot of scallions in the kitchen right now, so it seems like a great time to get some bulbs in a jar.  We're not quite ready for planting yet, but these suckers will be ready soon.

The scallions you see above are the end of the last bunch I had.  I'll be adding some more stems after tonight's dinner.  I'll keep you posted!

Musings: Defining Local for Me

In choosing to make local food more of a centerpiece in my lifestyle, I've been faced with deciding what local actually means for me. Certain things get the local stamp without much thought - farmers market produce which generally (at mine) gets vetted by someone else, for instance. And what's good enough for them is good enough for me - generally NY and NJ vendors with the occasional VT cheese vendor (Bufala di Vermont is one that I haven't tried but pops up once in awhile).

Local absolutely consists of the lettuces, herbs, tomatoes and jalapenos we have growing on the deck even though a couple of the plants (chives, mint) were transplanted from a family garden in Vermont.

Furthermore, I've decided that local can be whatever is local while I am traveling. We spend a fair amount of time in Vermont, giving us access to great cheeses, meat and additional produce at their farmers markets and local stores. Naturally, the products must be local to VT to count.

The last layer of local that I've considered is the sort of local that is small business in support of some local vendors and some national. I frequent a store called Provisions in Manhattan which has great olive oils and some local products. The local items are not many, but there are RI, VT, NY and NJ foods available and the store is the base for year-round CSA pickups.

For the purposes of an eat-local challenge, I can't in good faith say that anything bought there regardless of origin is local. However, in the big picture of my personal food values, supporting this store is supporting the kind of "local" that I'd like to see in NYC neighborhoods - independent small grocery stores that have relationships with small local producers, all of whom care deeply about quality, freshness, connection to people and land, and community.

So, is the sea salt from WA sold at the local natural grocery local? Not literally. But maybe, in order to create the world we want to see, we need to make sure the definition is flexible enough to support our small businesses who support some local vendors and find us some interesting national or less local vendors who are marketing great products.