Yesterday when we were waiting to eat pancakes with almond frangipane, toasted almonds and raspberries at Clinton Street Baking Co.–hey, it’s pancake month!–we met Sidsel Robards, who is a director of program development and events with New York Sun Works. They’re the folks behind the original Science Barge, the 2007 prototype floating hydroponic farm in the Hudson River, and now a similar rooftop farm project at PS333 in the Upper West Side.

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Enough of you have asked about the incredible macaroni and cheese (five kinds of the latter) our editor in chief was talking about on Tuesday that we figured we should score you the recipe. It’s from Home Cooking with Jean-Georges: My Favorite Simple Recipes, which chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten published just last fall. Turns out it’s actually a dish created by his wife, Marja, who has her own TV show and cookbook out called The Kimchi Chronicles (she’s also Korean). Writes Vongerichten in the headnote: “This is one of the most requested dishes in my home, especially when we have children over.

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Not only does this recipe call for butter, milk, half-and-half, and heavy cream, it of course deploys plenty of cheese—three types of cheddar plus Monterey Jack. But the crowning glory is, get this, cream cheese. After throwing everything else together—oops I mean assembling the layers—you dot the top with little blobs of cream cheese, which, once baked, become the best part of the dish. The recipe calls for four ounces, but I just might double that next time.

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Over the past few years we’ve watched as parents and teachers which a knack for turning parking lots into produce launch a slew of mini farm projects at New York City public schools. Launched last year with help from The Mayor’s Office and GrowNYC, The Citywide School Gardens Initiative hopes to help them, providing not just supplies and expert advice from the community gardeners at the GrowNYC Greenthumb program, but literal seed money. They call the program Grow to Learn, and until November 30 you can apply for a $2,000 grant to start or enhance a garden for schoolkids.

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Raisins have a reputation of being the Halloween treats that remain at the bottom of the sack long after the sugary lollipops and chocolates have been devoured. If the enthusiasm for vegetables at Eat NYC–held Monday night at Columbia Grammar and Preparatory School on W. 93rd Street–was any indication, dried fruit might be able to hold its own this Halloween.

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Thanks to the fine blog The Food Section for alerting us to the fact that the Girl Scouts added a locavore badge earlier this month. (It looks a lot like our very own business card, which maybe isn’t surprising.) According to a piece in USA Today, the badges are the first major upgrade since 1987 and a part of a modernizing of the group as they get ready for next year’s 100-year-anniversary. Though as Josh Friedland of The Food Section points out, like adult locavores, the scouts are going back in time as much as they’re going forward.

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We like to pride ourselves on using up every bit of a plant, gobbling up everything to young radish leaves, to pickled Swiss chard stems (a tip we learned from Michael Anthony at Gramercy Tavern) to the fresh roots of green garlic (that one was from Shea Gallante, of Ciano). But until we went with NY1 to The Bronx to visit Toby Adams, the manager of the 1.5-acre Ruth Rae Howell Family Garden at the New York Botanical Garden, we didn’t know that you could actually eat the tops of carrots.

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Thanks to Pig Island, a heritage breed hog is headed to the AutoGarden, the urban gardening and food program run by Jenny Kessler at Automotive High School, a public school in Brooklyn. (And tickets are still available, as the 20 participating chefs gather to get their locally and sustainably raised pigs in Union Square from upstate farmers.)

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