Recipes, Suggestions, and Anecdotes

Hi all, I decided to participate in an organic farm-share this year in beautiful McGolrick Park in Greenpoint. The Greenpoint CSA or “Community Supported Agriculture” is a organic farm-share that occurs in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.

McGolrick Park in the Spring

Simply put, locally grown organic vegatables will be available to me weekly at a local drop off, from “farm to table.”  Most vegetables and come from farms in Long Island as well as New York State and New Jersey.  Here is a link to the Greenpoint CSA.

The purchase options are either weekly or bi-weekly. Being a busy New Yorker that has to dine out often, I can’t commit to the weekly share, but bi-weekly should provide enough roughage for the summer. (It would be a shame to throw out anything I am not able to use).

Weekly Vegetable Share
$595.20 / pick-up|Details 24 Distributions
Biweekly Vegetable Share $315.00 / pick-up 12 Distributions
Weekly Mega Combo (frt-veg-egg-flwr) $1,050.00 24 Distributions
Biweekly Mega Combo (frt-veg-egg-flwr) $570.00 12 Distributions

But wait, there’s more! You can also add:

Weekly Fruit Share $275.04 / pick-up 24 Distributions
Biweekly Fruit Share -$150.00 / pick-up 12 Distributions
Weekly Egg Share $66.00 / half-dozen 24 Distributions
Biweekly Egg Share $33.00 / half-dozen|Details
Cheese Share $200.04 12 Distributions

I did the Bi-weekly vegetable/fruit/egg share which ran me about 517 dollars. Also, on top of that you have to volunteer to work some shifts assisting the CSA, either driving extra food to soup kitchens, unloading trucks, or working shifts at the farm stand on Saturdays. A small price to pay for delicious local produce.

I will let you all know how it works out! Stay tuned.

This seems like such a tranquil way to cook!

Houston, we have a sprig.

As many of you know, my favorite intrepid travelers Mark and Molly have been conducting a series of web-log travel videos and blog posts. Here is their latest and final blog installment, from Northern Vietnam.

It describes in detail how on a recent trip to Vietnam Mark chows down on a still-beating cobra heart from a “juicy” three pound, five foot long cobra! Then M&M enjoyed the grilled snake meat tossed with some lemon grass. Sounds delightful no?

Check out all the gruesome particulars here on Mark and Molly’s blog Searching for Shangri-La.

If you want to view video of still-beating-cobra-heart-eating-action starring celebrity chef bad boy Anthony Bourdain, below is some gory video for your viewing pleasure.

I’m officially a proud pea pod parent!

I have a horn o’ plenty in veggies growing in my loft in Brooklyn. Most everything was grown from seed too! It seems like I will have a mighty harvest of peas in no time.

Clockwise, raspberry, basil, avocado tree (just potted) and more basil:

The tomatoes below have been growing entirely indoors, but luckily a lot of sunbeams come thru my upstairs windows. They actually were already potted when I bought them, and have been flourishing. A recent visitor from the country complained that my tomato plants in the city look better than the ones in his backyard garden!! I also have other tomato plants growing on my balcony raised entirely from seeds. They also are growing like crazy, but haven’t bared fruit just yet. To be continued…

As many of you know, my two favorite intrepid travelers Mark and Molly have been conducting a series of web-log travel videos. Here is their latest and final video installment, from Hanoi.

Stay tuned for Mark and Molly’s final blog post on Searching for Shangri-La right here.