No self-respecting lover of refined brine or fan of the fermented is going to be anywhere but New Amsterdam Market tomorrow, when the first annual Peck Slip Pickle Festival brings nearly two dozen producers of pickled and fermented foods to South Street Seaport between 11 a.m. and 5 p.m. (That’s just over the East River, people: You can leave the borough for just one day, especially if it’s to eat). The event also includes a competition for amateur picklers–judging at 4:30–and as luck would have it, we happened to stumble into a sneak peek of the entries as they were laid out at Brooklyn Kitchen for tasting by a special panel of judges that included Rick Field of Rick’s Picks (the city’s prince of new pickling) Harry Rosenblum of The Brooklyn Kitchen (where you can take a class taught by Field and then buy everything you need to practice what you learn at home) and Robert LaValva, who spearheads New Amsterdam Market and the blossoming food, farm and market scene near South Street Seaport.
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You likely don’t have to be Jewish to get the “certain inside jokes and elements” that go into the flavor profiles of Chozen ice cream, says co-founder Meredith Fisher, but an appreciation for Seinfeld or Curb Your Enthusiasm probably helps. Chozen is a small, family-run, certified Kosher ice-cream brand conceived by Fisher, her mother Ronne and her sister Isabelle Krishana one night as they sat around the dining table and paired vanilla ice cream with Ronne’s homemade rugalach eaten right from the freezer. That became their first flavor–cinnamon ice cream swirled with pieces of apricot, walnut, raisin and almond pastry–which launched in June 2010 along with Matzoh Crunch and Coconut Macaroon.
From internet-enabled turkey tips from a live chat with one of the city’s top chefs (see below) to a celebration of our current favorite quaff (apple-based spirits) here are a couple of events going on around town that we think you’ll enjoy. Start on 11/11/11 at the Brooklyn Oenology Winery in Williamsburg! From 6 p.m. to midnight on November 11, there will be Doc’s Draft Hard Apple Cider, Cornelius’ Applejack, Eve’s Autumn’s Gold Cider, Wolffer’s Apple Wine, Hot Spiced Cider, and or course, the full line of Brooklyn Oenology and other local wines. Apple pie à la mode will also be available for purchase, and be prepared to play a round of the always popular game, Apples-to-Apples.
If you’ve been following our blog the past few weeks you’ve read all about the really stellar series of dinner symposiums Bubby’s has been running on American foodways past and present. The next to last is on lard, and is extra-dear to the heart of Ron Silver, a co-owner of the restaurant famous for its fried chicken and pies. Beyond some those (and killer biscuits and fried clams) you can expect beyond some very serious discussion of the fat from Silver himself. If you like lard, you won’t want to miss it.
Dig this helpful guide from the folks at GrowNYC, the non-profit group behind city Greenmarkets. It’s a list of which of their farmers citywide are selling turkeys, plus how to order them and where you can pick them up. And if it’s heritage breeds and pastured poultry you’re after, don’t forget your mail-order friends at Heritage Foods USA, whose office is based in Williamsburg. There’s also the Meat Hook (Williamsburg), Marlow & Daughters (Southside), and Fleischer’s Grass-Fed and Organic Meats (Park Slope), too.
Over the past few years we’ve watched as parents and teachers with a knack for turning parking lots into produce launch a slew of mini farm projects at New York City Public schools. One of those is Nora Painten, the Carroll Gardens teacher who is starting an $8,000 square foot garden project (complete with a chicken coop) in Brownsville with help from students and teachers at nearby P.S. 323. We hosted the teacher/farmer on our HeritageRadioNetwork.com show Monday night, where she spoke about how she scored a contract to garden on the land from the city and is currently running a Kickstarter campaign to fund the Brownsville Student Farm Project’s first spring in 2012.
In our current issue we profiled the Bushwick fridge of Kid Millions–aka musician John Colpitts—the drummer for and co-founder of Oneida, a loud, weird, brainy Brooklyn band that has produced more than a dozen albums since 1997, and whose psychedelic/ electronic noise-rock is now a linchpin of the country’s underground music scene. The band are also road foodies par excellence: This past summer, in fact, they toured Europe, and the following dining diary (with pictures!) was kept by Millions’ fellow bandmate, Bobby Matador.
Don’t miss Wednesday night’s free potluck party at Brooklyn Kitchen in honor of the brand new Edible Brooklyn cookbook, which hit local bookshelves last month. In addition to the party (it starts at 6:30 p.m. at the shop, which is at 100 Frost Street in Williamsburg) here’s a list of other bookstores where you can find us:
While Edible cooks up plenty of our own events (stay tuned for details about Good Spirits 2012, and enter to win tickets right here), below are some upcoming city events we think you’ll want to dig into… like A History in the Tasting with Brooklyn Historical Society on the history of wine culture in New York tomorrow night from 7 to 10 p.m. in the parlor of the Brooklyn Winery.
The winner of our latke recipe contest will have not just the honor of showing off his or her crispy creation at the event on December 19 alongside some of the city’s best chefs–tickets on sale now–but will also score the brand-new Breville 5-quart die-cast stand mixer at left. It doesn’t come with a grater attachment, sadly, but it can make some sweet cookies. In fact, check out this demo by Momofuku Milk chef Christina Tosi.
Remember that South Carolina style dinner on Wednesday night at Bubby’s with Glenn Roberts of Anson Mills we were telling you about this morning? We just got our hands on the menu, and all we can say is… damn, y’all! We were already drooling over the prospects of meeting one of the more forward-thinking folks in the American food industry, but now we just want to show up and eat. If we were you, we’d be buying tickets asap.
Last week the topic of the latest installment in Edible’s How-To lecture series was Dairy. Anne Saxelby of Saxelby Cheesemongers started off the evening with a discussion of affinage, or the art of maturing and aging cheeses, showing three different blocks of the same cheese at different stages courtesy Jasper Hill Farm. Fromager Tia Keenan continued with a lecture on cheese boards, using cheese from Lucy’s Whey. Keenan showed how to arrange cheeses from left to right, and from mild to complex. She also urged folks to have fun with pairings and play with sweet and spicy flavors, like nori, sesame brittle, strawberry jam, or our favorite, chocolate and blue cheese.
