Coming Up: Farm City Fair

On Sunday, September 12, the Invisible Dog Art Center and Crossing the Line will present Farm City Fair curated by Derek Denckla. The fair is a celebration of art and food grown in Brooklyn and will be held at the Invisible Dog at 51 Bergen Street and along Bergen Street.

Some activities throughout the day: 

• Brooklyn farms such as Added Value, Rooftop Farms, and bk farmyards will sell their produce and explain its provenance.

• GreenThumb will host a premium "Blue Ribbon Contest" for gardeners to show off their produce and reveal the range of possibilities for home growing in the city.

• Brooklyn Food Coalition will present a day-long series of workshops on how to make or grow food at home, from canning to under-counter compost.

• Greenpoint Food Market will curate the best of Brooklyn’s small-batch vendors, including Anarchy in a Jar preserves and Brooklyn Kombucha.

• The Food Experiments, created by Theodore Peck and Nick Suarez, will select competitive chefs to respond to their Brooklyn roots, using one or more ingredients grown or made in Brooklyn in a cook-off.

• A bar of Brooklyn brews, wines, and cocktails, from Brooklyn Brewery, Six Points Brewery, Red Hook Wines, Brooklyn Oenology, Kings County Distillery and others.

• Chefs from The Meat Hook, Marlowe & Sons, Ted & Honey, Egg and others will serve up eats made in Brooklyn in collaboration with urban farms.

Participants:

• Asphalt Orchestra, a Brooklyn-based 12-piece next-generation avant-garde marching band, will open the event and perform between 11a.m. and noon.

• Andrew Casner, compost painter, will demonstrate his acclaimed, agrarian work — the community process of developing a viable compost with an acid-etched canvas underneath created as a natural by-product.

• Mathilde Roussel-Giraudy, a Brooklyn-based artist, will present Ça pousse! (It’s growing!), human form sculptures made from material such as wheatgrass that change as they grow.

• Miwa Koizumi, Brooklyn-based ice cream maker of “NY Flavors,” will create a geographically inspired new ice cream flavor based on Bergen Street and the festival.

• Tattfoo Tan, the urban farming visionary artist, will launch his new bike-based S.O.S mobile Classroom, as the next installment in his two-year long public art project entitled S.O.S–Sustainable Organic Stewardship.

• Wylie Dufresne, renowned chef of wd-50, will create a new downloadable recipe based on re-imagining local ingredients, to be sampled at the Fair.

• Christina Kelly, Brooklyn-based artist meditates on loss and possibility growing blue corn in monumental street planters in a public art project called, Maize Field, located where Lenape Indians planted in the 1600s.

GreenBeat Links

Green Brooklyn updates from blogs and news sources around the web

The Birds on That Brooklyn Rooftop? Chickens [The Atlantic] 

Two Farms That Supply Local Greenmarkets Reap Inspection Violations [NY 1]

And from the Eagle:

"Green" Cannonball Project Fires Up Third Ave. Festival

Upcoming Chamber’s RED Nite To Be Held At First LEED Platinum Building in Brooklyn

Fabulous Fresh Finds: Week 2

This past Saturday the Grand Army Plaza Greenmarket was packed. It was a beautiful day and we left laden with food, since this time I came more prepared (read: I brought along my favorite helper).

As for produce, we bought a red pepper, some potatoes and some cherry tomatoes from Cedar Hill Farm/Kernan Farms, who are in Cumberland County, NJ. We also got fennel and garlic from Bradley Farms, which are out of Ulster County, NY, and mushrooms from Madura Farms, out of Orange County NY.

More excitingly, we visited the Ronnybrook Farm Dairy stand (Columbia County, NY) and purchased a quart of vanilla yogurt — yum, especially with granola and a bit of jelly — and a quart of two percent milk, which I hear is delicious. Being a lactard (lactosally challenged, lactose intolerant, whatever you want to call it), I can't partake. We also got sweet Italian sausage from Flying Pigs Farm (Shushan, NY). More on that later.

One of my favorite items we brought home was a non-food item: lavender from Lavender By the Bay (Suffolk County, NY). I couldn't resist buying a small bunch after walking by the stand and smelling it. It lasts several years, though, so money well spent.

So what did we make? Well. We feasted. On Saturday night we sauteed the mushrooms up with an onion and ate those with some steak and the remaining carrots, green beans and zucchini from my first trip to the greenmarket. These we roasted in the oven. 

On Sunday we had an almost completely local meal. We sauteed (I use the term "we" loosely. I mostly cut and washed) the sausage and pepper with another onion (should have bought one at the market — an oversight), roasted the potatoes, and assembled a fennel and grape tomato salad. It was a fantastic meal, but the highlight was the pork sausage. Easily the best I've ever had. 

Since we'll be going away this weekend, our next greenmarket trip will have to wait a week. I will miss it.

The Grand Army Plaza Greenmarket is held on Saturdays from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. year-round. The city's Greenmarkets are a program of GrowNYC, a non-profit geared toward improving the quality of life in the five boroughs through environmental programs. This particular Greenmarket, founded in 1989, is GrowNYC's flagship Brooklyn market and is its second largest market behind Union Square.

Related: New Blog Feature: Fabulous Fresh Finds

NY Times Feature on Habana Outpost Owner

Check out this feature in the New York Times on Sean Meenan, owner of Fort Greene eco-friendly restaurant Habana Outpost. Among the local hot spot's sustainable elements are "solar panels, a rainwater-collection system that feeds the toilets, a recycling and composting station, wheat-board wall paneling, corn-based plastic cups and a blender powered by a bicycle."

According to the Times, Meenan opened another location in Malibu and will soon be expanding to Las Vegas and LA.

New Interim Greenway on Flushing Avenue

New York City’s Department of Transportation (DOT) has taken another interim step in the process to establish a Brooklyn Waterfront Greenway — a 14-mile, multi-use, off-road path spanning from Greenpoint all the way down to Sunset Park.

DOT has completed a new 2-way bike lane on Flushing Avenue from Williamsburg Street to Navy Street along the length of the Brooklyn Navy Yard — featuring a physically protected lane from Williamsburg Street West to Washington Avenue and a Class 2 (buffered) lane for the balance of the stretch.

Combined with previously created interim segments on Kent Avenue, Williamsburg Street West and Columbia Street, the groundwork has been laid for nearly 4 miles of the Greenway.

The final designed version of the Greenway will be between 20 and 30 feet wide in total, encompassing a 4- to 8-foot landscaped buffer between it and the street, a 10- to 12-foot bike bath, and a 6- to 10-foot pedestrian path.

The bike and pedestrian path recently opened at Brooklyn Bridge Park will also link to the Greenway route.

The Brooklyn Waterfront Greenway was envisioned by Brian McCormick, Milton Puryear and Meg Fellerath, who incorporated as the Brooklyn Greenway Initiative (BGI) in 2004. They have been working with the DOT on the master plan for the entire Greenway route.

Earlier this year, DOT hosted a series of four community workshops in areas that will be affected by the Greenway — Downtown Brooklyn, Sunset Park, Red Hook and Greenpoint/Williamsburg — to hash out the details of the planned route.

For more information about the Greenway, visit www.brooklyngreenway.org.

And check this out if you haven't already: when I was looking up details about bike paths, I came across this handy little online guide by Transportation Alternatives called "Bike Lanes and Paths: A Primer." Also, a quick trip around the Biking Rules web site might give you some useful info.

Adopt-A-Farmbox: Empowering Brooklyn to Grow Its Own Food

Lately, it seems as though so many people talk about fresh, local or organic food that everyone must have access to it. In fact, there are neighborhoods in New York City that can be characterized as “food deserts” — areas with little or no access to food needed to maintain a healthy diet.

This is where Adopt-A-Farmbox comes in. A new project of Bed-Stuy couple Aki and Ronald Baker through their sustainable design company Baker Design and Build, it partners with schools and community organizations to donate farm boxes: plots of soil enclosed by 100 percent recycled wood in which to grow food.

“If we can empower people about food, what they eat and how that’s going to bring change into their lives, we can encourage them to take charge of their health, their community and their environment,” said Aki, a nutritionist and yoga instructor.

The boxes are custom made, depending on the size and layout of the space they are intended for. If the boxes are built at a school, they fit into the classroom structure. “We know public school teachers have a lot to do already — what we’re trying to do is make it easy for teachers to be able to integrate it easily into the curriculum they already have,” Baker explained. “Kids need to be able to think about [healthy eating] in every aspect of their lives.”

Baker Design and Build will donate all the materials to build and sustain the farm boxes, including the wood for the box structure, organic soil, organic seeds and plan layouts. They also provide consultation on seed placement optimization, soil composition, vegetable and fruit varieties, educational program integration and a standard based curriculum.

Currently, the project is in its early stages, with boxes being built and funds being raised to build more. Adopt-A-Farmbox will soon have a presence at the Brooklyn Brownstone School, P.S. 11 Purvis J. Behan Elementary School, P.S. 307 Daniel Hale Williams Elementary School, the Green-Hill School and LaunchPad creative gathering space, all in Brooklyn. They have one school partnership in Queens and one in Manhattan.

Right now the first boxes are at Community Counseling and Meditation’s Georgia’s Place in Brooklyn, a supportive housing facility for the mentally ill. There are four boxes there, Baker said. She explained that once the boxes are built and the soil is put in, the soil has to settle. Seedlings for new boxes will be started in February and taken outside to plant in April. During the fall and winter, workshops will be held in health, nutrition, farming and composting.

In the meantime, the Bakers are fundraising to cover the cost of the boxes through Kickstarter, an all-or-nothing based fundraising web site, which awards a project money only if it is fully funded by pledges. Adopt-A-Farmbox’s goal is to reach $10,000 by Sept. 11. As of Wednesday afternoon, 48 backers had pledged a little more than $3,500.

Money will also be raised through a party on Sept. 11 in collaboration with theCOMPOUNDbrooklyn, a social experiment designed by a collective of artists, activists and local businesses, in which they throw parties in order to raise funds for good causes. “Back-to-School @ theCOMPOUNDbrooklyn with Adopt-A-Farmbox” will be at 1281 Atlantic Ave. from 3 p.m. to midnight on the 11th.

Baker said they are also talking to council members to secure more funds for the project.

“[The response] has been overwhelmingly positive [so far],” Baker said. “Our hope is to empower people … using food as a catalyst for social change. Food is something that connects us together. We all have to eat.” 

Photo courtesy of Adopt-A-Farmbox

New Blog Feature: Fabulous Fresh Finds

So last week I moved to Brooklyn. I won't tell you where I lived before — I'll just say that it took me over an hour by train to get to the Eagle office in Brooklyn Heights and that there were little to no local food options in my neighborhood.

Now, the Grand Army Plaza Greenmarket is just two subway stops (or a nice walk) away from my apartment! While I'm not brave enough or dedicated enough to embark on an exclusively local diet à la Leda Meredith, I'll try to stop by every Saturday. Since this is a green blog, I thought I'd regularly post what I brought home. Being a fan of alliteration, I've dubbed this new feature "Fabulous Fresh Finds."

A little overwhelmed and under prepared at the magnitude of the market this past Saturday, all I purchased was: a bunch of carrots, some green beans, and some zucchini from Phillips Farms, which is in Hunterdon County, NJ.

In the Northeast, carrots are in season from July to November (but are available through early April), green beans are in season from July through September and zucchini is in season from July through September (the zucchini did not photograph well).

So far, I've been snacking on the carrots and green beans raw — they're delicious — and I haven't done anything with the zucchini yet. I'm thinking maybe soup.

There were some other pretty exciting finds at the market. Next week I'm thinking I might pick up some mushrooms from Madura Farms, which is in Orange County, or maple syrup from Wood Homestead, which is in Schoharie County, NY.

The Grand Army Plaza Greenmarket is held on Saturdays from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. year-round. The city's Greenmarkets are a program of GrowNYC, a non-profit geared toward improving the quality of life in the five boroughs through environmental programs. This particular Greenmarket, founded in 1989, is GrowNYC's flagship Brooklyn market and is its second largest market behind Union Square.