Husk Cherries

Husk cherries, ground cherries, golden berries, Cape Gooseberries; these delicate, papery packages go by many different names.  Inside each lantern-like husk resides a small fruit with a pleasantly unique flavor - something between a strawberry and a tomato.  I tried my first husk cherry while visiting the Queens County Farm Museum booth at the latest New Amsterdam Market.  I’d never seen them before and was staring at the bin, trying to figure out what I was looking at when I was offered one to try. 

With a little squeeze of the husk, a cherry tomato-looking fruit popped out.  It’s not an exaggeration to say the flavor burst into my mouth when I bit down; the husk cherry is firmer than a cherry tomato and really pops when bitten into.  Its taste is hard to place and unlike anything I’d had before - sweet and mild with a little bit of tomato-like acid.

I bought a pint to take home and enjoyed snacking on them straight out of the husks.  After a little investigation I found besides eating them this way, they can be cut up and tossed in a salad or made into a dessert, such as pie.  In fact, I came across this clever recipe for Ground Cherry Cupcake Pies on Yum Yum Vegan’s blog that I’m dying to try; it looks divine.  Because of their high pectin content, husk cherries are also good for preserving into jams and jellies.    

Since my first sighting, I’ve noticed husk cherries several times again at other markets.  I’m sure I’ve walked by them before, focused on something else, and missed a chance to inquire.  It’s a lesson to me to keep my eyes – and mind – open to new things because what I’m passing up might just be a sweet discovery, a tiny treasure, to add to my culinary repertoire. 

Bowery Lane Bicycles

Local food, local….bikes? Yes, there is a super cool bicycle being built in New York City - Queens, to be exact - out of American steel and I saw it firsthand today in the sweltering heat at the New Amsterdam Market. Three guys with a desire to make a traditional cruising bike at an affordable price founded Bowery Lane Bicycles in 2008. Patrick Bernard, Sean Naughton and Michael Salvatore thought there ought to be a comfortable, easy to maintain, good-looking bike to get city dwellers around town. With leather saddle seats, sustainable cork handles, theft-resistant features (this is NYC, after all), and wood crates handcrafted by a father and son in NJ, the Broncks Black, Broncks Raw, and Breukelen models fit the bill. Big tires absorb the shock of uneven, bumpy roads and single or three-speed options suit the flat terrain of the city perfectly.

I was immediately drawn to the simplicity of the design, not to mention the charming wood box on the back for hauling groceries or “two six packs or 25 LPs” as their website notes. Biking in Manhattan has always seemed like a scary proposition to me, but with a bike-loving mayor putting in more bike lanes every day, maybe it’s time to get a helmet, buy a Breukelen, and go.

New Amsterdam Market

I found an apartment and signed a lease – happy day!! Back to normal life. Here’s the view from the roof deck of my new home.




Even in gray weather it’s a breathtaking spot. Aside from being on the water, I love that my new place has a bigger kitchen and is only two blocks from the Tribeca Farmers Market. Hopefully some great posts will come out of my next adventure!

Don’t forget tomorrow is another New Amsterdam Market. In addition to the usual abundant selection of dairy, produce, fish, wine, bread, and meat from the Northeast, this meeting will highlight the resurgence of the neighborhood butcher shop. Four businesses leading the way in this endeavor and participating tomorrow are Fleisher’s Grassfed and Organic Meats of Kingston, NY, Marlow and Daughters and Meat Hook, both of Brooklyn, and newly-opened Dickson’s Farmstand Meats of Manhattan.

In the 1830’s there were over 300 neighborhood butcher shops connecting New York City’s 200,000 residents to regionally-raised meat. The current 8,000,000 residents of the City have, for the most part, lost this connection but are fortunate to have access to these four pioneering shops, all of whom buy whole animals from regional farms committed to raising their animals in a humane and sustainable manner.

If you have questions about the differences between meat that is grass-fed, grain-fed, grain-finished, pasture-raised, and organic (and honestly, who doesn’t?!), tomorrow is a great time to meet and talk to the people who know it best.

I’m volunteering at the Market so I’ll be there at 7:00 am (what was I thinking?!), but the rest of you can sleep in and get there between 11:00 am and 4:00 pm. For a map and directions, click here.

New Amsterdam Market

It’s the end of summer and I’m happy to be back in New York. I always love it here but Labor Day through Christmas is especially exciting as everyone returns from the country or beach and Manhattan starts to bustle again. This past Sunday I kicked autumn off by going to the New Amsterdam Market at the South Street Seaport.

The market, inspired by Paris’s Les Halles and London’s Borough Market, is the beginning of what many of us in the city hope to be a year-round public market featuring “purveyors who source food directly from farmers and producers whom they trust to be good stewards of our land and waters”.

It has previously been held once a year since its founding in 2005. Sunday was the first of four market meetings planned through this fall; the remaining three will be on October 25th, November 22nd, and December 20th.

The weather on Sunday was beautiful and a large, friendly crowd showed up to sample amazing treats (almost all for free) from close to 80 small, sustainable Northeastern food purveyors. I had a chance to taste and/or buy cheese, bread, butter, pasta, pickles, oysters, beef, bison, sausage, vegetables, jams, chocolate, yogurt, ice cream -- I could keep going. Did I mention you should come hungry?

The quality of the products far and away surpasses anything you will find in a grocery store. Think of the gathering as an outdoor, organic version of Dean and Deluca or Eli’s. I missed the first market in 2005 but have attended the last three and each time, while it has gotten bigger and bigger, the range and caliber of vendors has remained consistently high and impressive.


Sunday was the first time at New Amsterdam for Maple Hill Creamery, home to “small batch old fashioned dairy products” made with milk from local, 100% grass-fed cows. I tasted all their yogurt flavors and bought a few delicious Orange Crèmes to take home.

The Bent Spoon from Princeton, NJ was back with plenty of incredible ice creams and sorbets made from seasonal, locally grown ingredients. So was Fleisher’s butcher shop, sellers of pasture-raised, organic beef and member of Saveur magazine’s Top 100 of 2008.

Regional Access is a distributor of specialty and natural foods, many from the Finger Lakes region of New York. There aren’t many local sources for dried beans in the Northeast but they had them here, grown by Ithaca’s Cayuga Pure Organics. The timing could not be better; I’ve just started to feel a little nip in the air and it's got my mind thinking about making soups. No more bags of Goya beans for me!

A crowd watched as People’s Popsicles made shave ice by hand using a big, beautiful block of ice and dousing the fine powder with fruity, herby syrup. They had local fruit popsicles, too.

If you haven’t been, I’m telling you -- life is good at a New Amsterdam Market! Mark October 25th on your calendar and come to the next meeting with an appetite and a few hours to spare. Admission is free and it’s a straight walk east from the Fulton Street subway station.

Events: New Amsterdam Market, Slow Food NYC, Saxelby Cheesemongers

New York City has a surprisingly vibrant local food movement considering the majority of what is grown here comes from window sills and rooftops. Farmer’s markets, CSAs (Community Supported Agriculture), movie screenings, panel discussions, and tastings abound. The surrounding areas – upstate New York, the North Fork, Connecticut, and New Jersey – are also all accessible (albeit not as easily) and a constant source of locavore activities. Here are a few upcoming events:




Slow Food NYC – Slow U: Ice Cream, from Sugar and Snow - Tuesday, September 1, 6:30 pm to 8:30 pm
Location: Astor Wine Center, 399 Lafayette Street, NYC
Learn some ice cream history from culinary historian and author Jeri Quinzio then watch one of New York City’s food truck pioneers, Ben Van Leeuwen, demonstrate how to make ice cream at home and adapt a recipe for larger scale production. Top it all off with a sundae.
Cost: $25.00 for Slow Food members, $35.00 for Non-Members. Sign up is online only on the Astor Wine Center website.

New Amsterdam Market – Sunday, September 13, 11:00 am to 4:00 pm
Location: South Street between Beekman and Peck
This market happens periodically throughout the year in an effort to raise awareness and funds to establish a year-round, permanent market place at the South Street Seaport. I’ve been to all the markets so far and enjoyed meeting new and different vendors from those I see at Greenmarket every week. There is plenty of food to sample and take home. Definitely go with an appetite!

Saxelby Cheesemongers – A Day A-Whey – Sunday, September 27, 9:00 am to 7:00 pm

Location: Bus meets at Saxelby Cheesemongers, 120 Essex Street, NYC
Spend the day in the Hudson Valley at Sprout Creek Farm and Terhune Orchard. Sprout Creek is one of the region’s top creameries; take a tour of the farm and learn how they make their farmstead cheeses. Relax and recharge with a picnic of cheese, salads, fruit, cider, and bread from Sullivan Street Bakery before taking off for apple picking at Terhune Orchard, home of some of the Empire State’s finest apples.
Cost: Tickets are $95.00 and include transportation, lunch, and apple picking. Tickets available online at Brown Paper Tickets.