Inwood Hill Park Wild Food Walk

There are still a few spots left on this walk:

16 May 2015, 12pm - 3pm 
Inwood Hill Park
$35
(Children under 10 walk for free, with prior notice)

Come on a walk in an outdoor park classroom to learn how to recognize the delicious edibles that grow under our noses.

The largest woodland on Manhattan island is beautiful  in May. The wild blueberries should already be in bloom and the catbriar shoots growing by the day. We may spot prickly nettles and jewelweed nearby to soothe the burn. Young, sage-y and very invasive mugwort will be lining the paths. Pokeweed will have poked up... and we may see the tail end of garlic mustard, a far cheaper version of broccoli rabe.

After our walk or perhaps in the middle, we will take a break and enjoy a wild foods snack: perhaps quail eggs dipped in mugwort salt, or  some garlic mustard pesto slathered on field garlic cheese bread.

Bring something to drink and your own snack if long walk makes you hungry. There are hills and dales, and this is a real hike, but not Everest.

We meet at 12pm sharp at the entrance at Seaman Avenue and Isham, returning there by 3pm or a little later. The closest subway is the A to 207th. More information will be emailed to confirmed walkers closer to the time.

[WALK COMPLETE]

Cold Spring on a hot day

I have discovered how to work without interruption. Train travel.Without Internet.

A one-and-half hour ride on Metro North up to Cold Spring, beside the Hudson, is perfect for writing. Write one way, write the other way, forage inbetween. The only downside is carrying the laptop with a ton of camera equipment: merci, Frenchman! It was unseasonably hot. July in May.

Above, a train picture en route: Inwood Hill Park (where this weekend's wild foods walk will take place).

And then we were there.

In the water of this stream we saw a school of what I think were indigenous eastern brook trout - they had a distinctive white line on the leading edge of their fins. They schooled in the shade.

The relief of trees. We sat down and ate lunch.

The baguette above I picked up at Sahadi's after my Saturday wild foods walk in Prospect Park. The sausage came from a "general dealer" (hardly) - in Cold Spring, where I also spied a lovely bunch of books:

After our streamside lunch I chanced upon some wood nettles (Laportea canadensis). Memories of last year's lovely trip to Stockport, and Laura Silverman's memorably good nettle soup.

I didn't have gloves.

Ouch! Ouch! Ouch! 

And then we found ordinary stinging nettles (Urtica dioica). I looked the other way. My hands were still crying, even though I'd rubbed jewelweed juice all over them.

The jewelweed (above) is lovely and the terrace is covered in it this year. You can eat the tender leaves, too - they're not just good for stings and for hummingbirds.

I picked the first pokeweed (Phytolacca americana)I have seen this year, and we ate it for supper.

A frog friend. Anyone know what s/he is?

And then it was back home in the train again, with a look up now and then, to see the beautiful, greening woodlands flash past.

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Book a Botanical Spring Walk

What's up?

Climbing beans! Happened over the weekend. Planted from my saved seed.

Let the screening begin.

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Book a Botanical Spring Walk

The dinner run

Before the New York City forage, comes the commute.

Then the woods (where we don't forage, since we know those woods too well).

And then, at last, the reward: bunches of succulant garlic mustard - Alliara petiolata.

Hit reverse, go home, make a drink, prep dinner, take notes.

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Book a Botanical Spring Walk

LIC Market - hello, Queens!

I'd been seeing these tantalizing pictures on Instagram - toasted sourdough bread I wanted to bite into, chicken liver pate in pots, marinated olives - my kind of food. And so I heeded the siren call:

I'd be in real trouble if we lived around the corner from LIC Market like my friend Bonbon does. As it is, we are house hobbits and cook at home most nights. But the commute from Harlem to LIC Market's Court Street stop in Queens is pretty painless (according to CityMapper I burned a mere 37 calories in the process). The 7 train from Grand Central dropped me just a long block away.

This beautiful olive paste is a meal in itself. Bonbon and I dipped into it at the bar, where I was offered the nicest Italian Chardonnay (unwooded) I think I've ever drunk: Di Noutro, very few cases produced. The wine list itself is a story.

My first ramp of the season, with morsels of Hudson Valley foie gras and a yellow egg. Soft on soft on soft. There was also a bowl of nettle broth and young asparagus.  Be still, my wild foods heart. And a wonderful risotto with fiddleheads, apple and Taleggio.

To end,  a very delicate dish of black cod with green chickpeas in a bonito broth.

The lunch menu is quite different from dinner's, kind of like Prune's, back in the day (but with far more seasonal influence), when they still served lunch - with super-friendly prices to match. And a happy hour from 3.30pm - 6.30pm with excellent wine prices and snacks to match.

And: service. It can kill a place for me. 'Frinstance, I love the food at Vinegar Hill House but I'd rather not go there because I feel I'm an annoying interruption in the social life of my server. At LIC Market the service is impeccable. And that is quite rare. Old school French attention to detail underpinned with laid back friendliness to soften the corners.

We'll be back with friends, soon. It was an exciting foray back into the world of Other Peoples' Food.

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Book a Botanical Spring Walk

Starting

Seeds have been sown. That's the easy part, really.

Sub tropical, all:

Nasturtium, purple pole beans, scarlet runner beans (saved from last year)
Cardinal vine, lablab beans, Malabar spinach (ditto)

Mostly things that go UP. For the birch screen.

A slow spring, but not unexpected. Hey, do you see the hot pink spot, bottom right? That is the Malabar spinach after soaking for a few hours. Fantastic colour.

Plant shopping is a challenge, locally, and there is mose def a niche for someone who wants to open a shop with interesting, well chosen plants for city spaces. Along the lines of GRDN Brooklyn. Except at night I'd turn it into a bar with botanically themed drinks and snacks.

And no, I'm not going to do it.

But I would be your best customer.

Mint Julep

This is a good drink.

Make a mint syrup by boiling:

1 cup of water
1 cup of sugar

Turn off the heat and dunk into the liquid two bunches of mint (about 3-4 cups, loosely packed) - use the stems, too, but cut off the lower, thicker parts.

Cover the pot and allow to steep till cool. Strain, bottle, and keep in the fridge. It is delicious stuff. Use it in iced tea, with sparkling water, with gin, rum, or:

A Deconstructed Mint Julep

I object to drinking any kind of alcohol through a straw. And drinking  a traditional Mint Julep is hard - all that chopped ice and a hedge of mint to suck through. I prefer this. More grown up, and very good. In a fat glass combine:

1.5 parts mint syrup
3 parts bourbon
A lot of ice
A splash of seltzer or sparkling water

Sip.