By: Tom Kearney | May 20, 2010 | #
Farm Visit
As crappy as the weather was here yesterday Steven and I went out to Pennsylvania to visit Amantai Farm owned and run by Jorge Carmona, a farmer we’ve been working with for about three years and about the nicest person you’ve ever met. This is the first year where we bought specific seeds for Jorge to grow for us. Doing this really adds traceability to our purchasing. Our seeds were all sourced from seed companies that specialize in organic, non-gmo seeds. It also gives us a bit of control over what to expect in planning our menus.
What really drives Jorge’s farm is diversity. As anyone who has been paying attention to industrial farming practices knows, monoculture or widely planting one crop has enormous economies of scale but also tremendous disadvantages to the consumer at large. We now see basically one or two varietals of corn, potato, tomato, beets, carrots or lettuce available in supermarkets. Homogenizing the availability of crops is also a great danger to protecting against blight and infestation. Crop diversity sets into motion the natural ability of an ecosystem to take care of itself without the introduction of pesticides or chemical fertilizers. Jorge has been cultivating on his 20 acres everything from lettuce, tomatoes, onions, potatoes, herbs, kale and peppers to chickens and honey. When a pest or form of blight threatens a part of his farm he reacts with a natural solution. He uses hot pepper spray on plant leaves to ward off insects, or he’ll strategically locate some plants next to others because they’ll deter a certain kind of predator. Compost is used on new plantings to slow the growth of weeds. Nearly everything is done by hand. Machines tend to be costly to buy and maintain and specialize in leveraging the task of one crop usually not multiple crops.
After our time in the fields we had a really satisfying Colombian feast of Arepas with homemade cheese, Tostones, beans, rice, and Flank steak. Thanks Jorge! Catch up with Amantai Farm at the Cortelyou Road Farmer’s Market on Sundays.
Photos Above: (top) Jorge pointing out some custom lettuce (below) Greenhouse tomatoes
Photos Above: (top) A “Rhode Island Red” laying hen (below) Deer’s Tongue Lettuce
Photos Above: (left) Steven & Jorge in front of a huge compost pile with wild Dandelion (right) Spring Onions
Photos Above: (left) Beehive (right) Wild Chamomile
By: Tom Kearney | May 11, 2010 | #
Spring Full Blown
So seasonal spring produce is looking hot right now. We’re looking at lots of dandelion, rhubarb, ramps, spring onion, nettles and herbs like hyssop, mint, & lovage. Break out the Quoddy Mocs, the bicycle and the Claritin!
By: Tom Kearney | Apr 08, 2010 | #
Seasonal Limbo
So here’s a hilarious weekly fax from one of the farmers we work with Guy Jones. His punchlist of this week’s offering underscores the awkward disconnect between the weather and the seasonal produce available. Farming season is at a low during March and early April in the northeast and when warm weather kicks in it’s hard to not want to just eat all the asparagus, ramps and fava beans you can get your hands on. If you’re truly supporting local farming then you’ve still got jerusalem artichokes….well at least for another week or so. New York Magazine’s Blog had a great nod to this issue last week with a recipe by Mario Batali.
By: Tom Kearney | Apr 01, 2010 | #
John Fazio Ducks In!
Get it while you can. Stop by in the next day or so and sink your teeth into these really beautiful fresh Normandy breed ducks from John Fazio in New Paltz. The duck is slow-roasted and served with roasted yukon gold and fennel. The skin is lacquered with honey, lavender and fennel seed.
By: Tom Kearney | Feb 24, 2010 | #
Sustainable Fish?
I feel like a lot of people have this notion that there is something inherently wholesome about eating fish. Just the sheer act of ordering fish off of a restaurant menu or going to a fish market and buying it seems like an act of good faith, or at least good intention. The reality though is that the crisis in aquaculture is worse than anything I can think of in agriculture or factory meat farming. Unless you’re equipped to know what’s going on, it’s a minefield. Sustainable seafood choices also seems to be the most overlooked component of restaurant menus. Even those restaurants that are attempting to cook seasonally or locally will still feature Wild Striped Bass or Cod. While wild caught bass is a great ecological choice, you may be surprised to find out that the Environmental Defense Fund does not recommend you eat it because of elevated levels of mercury and PCB’s. Similarly cod seems like a fairly common menu item, but the fact is that it is severely overfished, its population is in massive decline and the trawling methods used to catch it damage the ocean floor’s marine habitat. These are just two examples. There is a bright side…you can make sustainable choices using guides from The Monterey Bay Aquarium and The Environmental Defense Fund.I also like the food journalist Barry Estabrook’s intense investigative pieces on sustainability on The Atlantic’s online food section.
Here’s a nifty link to an iphone app for the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Guide
By: Tom Kearney | Feb 11, 2010 | #
Yes, Turnips…Again
Ok so there’s a ton of snow out there, you’re home, so here’s a project. I guess this is what was done before refrigeration. Here we’ve taken some beautiful turnips from Guy Jones and cut them into wedges. They’re tossed in a lot of salt and then thrown into the jar. The jar is then filled with water. It’s basically a backwards way of making a brine. You could just as easily cover the turnips with brine. This jar has a “double bubble airlock” which allows the gasses created by fermentation to be released without allowing contaminants inside the jar. Let this sit at room temperature (70-75˚F). There is also an inverted lid lightly weighing down the vegetable so they’re completely submerged in the brine. All this is to ensure a very clean fermentation with no spoilage. After five days or so you’ll notice when you taste them that they’ve developed acidity like a pickle. That’s the starches and sugars in the turnip converting into lactic acid. Such a simple way to preserve vegetables. Unlike pickling with vinegar, lacto-fermented vegetables are teaming with beneficial enzymes and retain their vitamins and nutrients. The flavor is tangy, a little yeasty and for turnips this process seems to really bring out their inherent horseradish flavor. I’m thinking these snappy little pickles are the right thing to snack on with a martini or bloody mary in the afternoon looking out at the snow. If you want to experiment, look out for some local cabbage, carrots, celery root, or beets. They’re all out there in season right now. Here’s a link to the jar: Picklemeister
By: Tom Kearney | Feb 02, 2010 | #
Crème Fraîche
So we prepare this at the restaurant routinely, but it’s just as easy to do at home. Crème fraîche is also not something I’m seeing in the average grocery store. You do see the ingredients for it though. I would say try to acquire the best ingredients you can in making something like this. Look for local organic dairy products. In Brooklyn there’s no shortage of easy to find local organic dairy products. Take 1 pint of heavy cream and stir in 1 tablespoon of buttermilk. Store this mixture in a jar covered with a paper towel or cheesecloth that you’ve tied to the mouth of the jar so that air passes in and out. Let this sit in a warm environment (75˚F or so), something like the middle section of the stovetop or the top of the refrigerator. Wait 24 hours. The next day refrigerate for another 24 hours. Yes this is a slow-food concept. After 24 hours refrigeration you’ll have something like a cousin to sour cream but with much more creamy overtones and textural richness. Unlike sour cream you can heat and cook with crème fraîche. We use it as an ingredient in a lemon loaf cake we serve at breakfast, it’s an ingredient in a creamy dressing for our smoked trout salad for brunch, you could serve it whipped along side a slice of apple pie, it adds richness to the body of soups and sauces. Endless possibilities. Clara, my French friend who cannot find crème fraîche on Cortelyou Road, try this at home. For anyone who is adventurous and totally curious about using raw milk products for something like this then try this link: Traditional Nutrition Guild
By: Tom Kearney | Dec 03, 2009 | #
Turnips!
I have to say this isn’t exactly the sexiest vegetable out there, but they’re in season right now and tasting great. I liken them to daikon meets horseradish mild. They also can have an inherent sweetness that’s unexpected. Baby turnips are tender enough to eat raw. Just season with salt and sugar. Finely grate them into miso soup, shave them into a salad, poach them in a mushroom broth, pickle them, roast them and serve with beef of any kind, poach them in butter & nutmeg and serve with duck, eat them raw with sri-racha and a beer. Whatever you do don’t forget about them, they’re cheap delicious and in season.
By: Tom Kearney | Nov 05, 2009 | Announcements | #
Nose-to-Tail Dog Treats
Soo yeah… we’re making dog treats. No we’re not trying to break into the pet food market. But since we’ve ditched boxed meat and been committed to butchering whole animals we’ve got some extra stuff around now. Namely beef liver. Turns out dog’s are friggin nuts for this. I guess that’s no surprise. We just aren’t usually thinking about what to serve dogs. Anyway it’s been like crack for the neighborhood dogs. If you guys want some for your pet we are now selling them through the local pet food store:
It’s a Dog’s World
718-684-5568
593 Coney Island Avenue (near Beverley Road)
Brooklyn, New York 11218
marion@nydogsworld.com
http://nydogsworld.com