It might not be the most bitter winter in recent memory, but in February fresh produce is still pretty scarce even when it’s 62. So in recent weeks we’ve been happily guzzling a slew of picked-in-summer-and-minimally-processed local produce products like this tomato juice from Migliorelli Farm. (So good we couldn’t even keep it long enough to take a photo.) The Tivoli, N.Y. grower–find them at dozens of Greenmarkets citywide–also has tomato sauces (three for $15 last time we went by) and frozen vegetables like kale, corn, mustard greens and Brussels sprouts.

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If you have any interest in becoming a cheesemonger, butcher or specialty foods buyer, running an urban farm, shooting documentaries about farm workers, writing the history of the taco, working the line in a killer farm-to-table restaurant, working to change agricultural policies, opening your own craft beer bar and grilled cheese shop or helping kids discover the joy of a watermelon radish, then have we got the job fair for you.

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New Yorkers sure do like their chili; when we arrived at Sunday’s Chili Fest at Chelsea Market, the line from the Tenth Avenue entrance stretched halfway back to Ninth. Altogether, more than 1000 people jammed into the market to sample 22 different chilis made by shops and restaurants around the city. To supply the meat bound for all those bowls, Dickson’s Farmstand Meats had been saving up its beef trimmings for a couple of months. And that means all of them; Gramercy Tavern’s chili should have been called Tongue ‘n’ Cheek, because that’s what it was made of.

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I’ve been thumbing through the short, final chapters of Joan Gussow’s most recent book, Growing, Older. They’re humorous even if the themes include dying, lifelong regrets, sea level rise and climate change. The later geological preoccupations are shared by both of us—we both garden in floodprone areas—and the balmy, 60-degree afternoons this past weekend reminded me that the future-oriented predictions of climate scientists seem more and more to have arrived in the here and now. (And, my colleagues at Edible Brooklyn tell me, the annual winter festival at Prospect Park was just cancelled, due to weather too warm to make snow.)

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Last weekend I had a few seriously inspiring days at the annual winter conference held by NOFA-NY, the Northeast Organic Farming Association of New York. The sessions were fantastic, and I just love being around men holding babies, women talking about carcass weight, everyone knitting and yes, people bringing their own garlic to slice onto salad. Here are some photo highlights (with captions) from my trip.

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Monday night we’ll be getting down for a great cause at a fundraiser for the New Farmer Development Project, and you should too. Presented in partnership with Gourmet Latino, tickets are $75. What, you ask, is the NFDP? An inspiring Greenmarket effort, it helps immigrant farmers set up their own farms in the NYC area. (In-the-know urban eaters seek them out especially for seldom-seen herbs like papalo and pepiche.)

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This Saturday, January 21st, from 10:30 am to 5:45 pm, make yourself a some lunch and get comfortable in front of your computer for TEDxManhattan’s “Changing the Way We Eat,” a live simulcast from the TimesCenter in Times Square. Twenty speakers who know more than a thing or two about the subject of sustainable eating and farming (including Mitchell Davis, the Executive Vice President of the James Beard Foundation, Michelle Hughes, the Director of GrowNYC’s New Farmer Development Project, and Wayne Pacelle, President and CEO of The Humane Society of the United States) will explore a variety of issues, and talk about our choices and their consequences.

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Today on our weekly NY1 television segment we visit Orwasher’s Bakery on the Upper East Side, whose 100-year-old basement brick ovens were bought by Keith Cohen in 2007. (And were profiled in the last issue of the magazine, to boot.) As you’ll see in the piece (online right here), Cohen bought the place with a vision to make true artisan breads using the best of both old-fashioned techniques and new ideas. But we forgot to tell you about his amazing jelly doughnuts.

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