Real deal tomato juice: Pulpy and bright, one step above drinking straight puree, which we've been known to do as well.

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. It’s so good we couldn’t even keep from drinking it long enough to take a photo; this is real deal tomato juice. Pulpy and bright, one step above drinking straight puree, which we’ve been known to do as well.

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.

We’re even happier about scoring a taste of summer out of season because we know the backstory of the products: Our last issue included a piece on locavore entrepreneur Jim Hyland, who created a processing and co-packing plant for local farms after realizing his CSA grower had to compost a ton of his excellent kale when he couldn’t sell it all at harvest time. Why couldn’t that farmer freeze or can his crops, thought Hyland, just like he did? The answer was that there weren’t any processing plants geared to small farmers, so Hyland created Farm-to-Table co-packers in Kingston, N.Y., so that farmers could can or freeze or jar their crops when they couldn’t sell them all fresh. He’ll even buy the end result off of them, selling it wholesale or from Winter Sun Farms, the frozen (and jarred) veggie CSA he launched at the same time.

Now he helps farmers like Migliorelli and S&SO Produce sell their crops even when they are out of season. S&SO also stocks tomato sauce, which is plenty tasty, but we’re currently addicted to their dried shallot powder, which we’ve already added to homemade mac and cheese, deviled eggs and potato salad to excellent reviews. We are proud to say we haven’t tried drinking it straight–yet.

Held on February 24th in conjunction with Just Food’s annual conference–this year’s theme is “Eat · Work · Grow the Movement“–the fair is being organized by Good Food Jobs, the job-hunting site that does exactly what its name suggests, in fact they call themselves a “gastro-jobs search tool.” What that means is that beyond the coolest job postings you’ve ever seen, like internships at a food tech start-up or buyers for a vegetable distributor, the site offer links to resources for training and education, as well as profiles of folks in food that are well worth a read.

This is your chance to meet the people behind those postings in person, and maybe convince them to hire you, or just learn more about what they’re doing and hope to achieve. Networking, we believe it’s called.

It’s February 24th, from 5:30 to 7 pm, at the Food and Finance High School at 525 West 50th Street in Manhattan between in Tenth and Eleventh Streets, which is itself a cool place to check out, if you’ve never seen this public school’s training kitchens. The event is $15 for job seekers, or free if you have bought a ticket to either day of Just Food’s conference. (More on that here.) If you’re a business seeking employees, on the other hand, you have until Friday to apply to run a table at the event. It’s $100, includes two free postings on GoodFoodJobs.com, and here’s where you apply.

goodfoodjobs.com/jobfair

What did Brooklyn Star's Chelsea Market Chili fest dish taste like? After 22 bowls, our author can't quite recall.

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.

Jake Dickson and Mary Cleaver, who runs the Green Table down the hall, dreamed up the Chili Fest a year ago specifically to use up a post-Christmas glut of beef.  “All those Christmas roasts leave an awful lot of hamburger,” Cleaver said on Sunday.  (For more about Dickson and the Chili Fest’s origins, click here.) Feeding this year’s crowd  took more than a pound of trimmings per person, heaven knows how many kegs of beer, and a whole lot of logistics: both Dickson and Cleaver were armed with walkie-talkies to keep things running smoothly.

And smooth it was; for most attendees, the evening’s biggest problem was keeping all those chilis straight.  We passed one attendee who was bragging that he’d tasted all 22.  Which was his favorite?  ”I can’t remember,” he said.

According to the judges–who could remember which chili was which–the evening’s top contender was La Palapa’s, made with a paste of guajillo chiles and chiles de arbol. Did we taste that one?  Who knows?  They were all good.

Sample seven Roanoke Vineyards wines, all in a row

Although it feels like spring is beginning, it is indeed still technically February, and that means Valentine’s Day.  Below are a few Edible-approved ways to woo this year.  If you’re looking to plan your social calendar beyond the 14th, be sure to stay tuned to our Events Calendar to fill your dates. And if you got an event to add–from CSA meet-ups to farm schools to secret suppers–let us know.

The Guy’s Guide to Valentine’s Day Dinner at the Bowery Culinary Center On Tuesday, February 7th from 6 to 9 pm, let Julia Jaksic, Executive Chef of Employees Only, help dudes learn how to prepare an unforgettable meal for Valentine’s Day.  You’ll get a crash course in basic cooking techniques, including slow-braising, roasting, and seasoning food the right way.  On the menu? Winter Salad with Radicchio, Watercress and Blue Cheese; Beer-Braised Beef Short Ribs with Potato Purée and Roasted Cauliflower; Easy Flourless Chocolate Cake with Brandied Cream.  It’s $50, reserve your spot here.

A Roanoke Vineyards Winery Dinner at the American Hotel in Sag Harbor: It’d be super romantic to take trip to Long Island’s lovely American Hotel, right? Roanoke Vineyards and The Grapes of Roth are hosting a four-course, $70 dinner paired with seven of their wines. It’s on February 9, so you can still go out in the city, too. RSVP at (631) 725-3535.

Good Spirits at 82 Mercer: In addition to V-Day and G-Day (Groundhog’sDay), February also marks the month for our first Good Spirits of the year.  On February 28th from 6 to 9 pm, eat and drink your way around 82 Mercer in SoHo–judging from the size of the space, you won’t leave the event hungry.  This year’s lineup of food and drink makers is especially stellar–learn more about it and buy a ticket right here.

Our ducks have been plenty happy that their kiddie pool pond hasn't frozen over and that they can still grub for worms in the (still) soft soil.

THE HAMPTONS–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.)

It will be another couple of weeks before global weather watchers, like NOAA, release their monthly data, but my money says we’re on track for another warmest winter on record. On a Saturday morning seal-spotting walk to Oyster Pond in Montauk, we overhead a veteran hiker remark that he had never seen so many T-shirted folks on the trail at the end of January, traditionally the coldest time of the year.

For our post-hike lunch at Hampton Chutney Company in Amagansett, we got to enjoy our lassi and dosas, on the outdoor picnic tables sans outwear (a very un-wintery thing to do). We bumped into farmer friend Scott Chaskey, who was coming from a pick-up day at Quail Hill Farm, and who noted that the ground has yet to freeze at Quail Hill and the root cellar, packed with goodies for CSA members, wasn’t as cold as he’d like it to be. Had he known, he might not have pulled all the carrots and parsnips and beets in a rush just before the New Year.

But how could we know? At the annual Food Almanac event put on by Food Systems Network NYC, the panelists offered a number of likely and hopeful predictions. Thomas Forster said that New York City would continue to lead the world in urban-rural alliances to reverse climate change and other global challenges. American Farmland Trust’s David Haight predicted that the loss of farmland might come to a halt—it has slowed dramatically in the last five years–and begin to reverse this year.

And Print restaurant’s pastry chef Heather Carlucci-Rodriguez, who also founded Chefs for the Marcellus, said 2012 would see the rise of chefs and restaurant workers as major opponents to fracking in Upstate New York: If there’s no clean water, then there’s no restaurant business, Carlucci suggested, noting that businesses ranging from the Park Slope Coop to Ommegang Brewery are considering quitting Upstate if fracking goes forward.

Cheryl Rogowski shared reflections from her family farm in Orange County, noting this time last year, the farm was under a yard of snow, and just a few months ago, post Hurricane Irene, the farm was under 8 feet of water. After cleaning up and digging out, Rogowski’s attention turned to what she called “weather management.” She has relocated her greenhouses and other important structures to the highest ground on the farm and is redoubling her efforts to extend her growing season and build the supply of vegetables she can sell year-round.

“This has turned from a story of destruction to one of resilience,” Greenmarket director Michael Hurwitz recently said when he reflected on Greenmarket growers, some of whom lost 80 percent of their crop. (Resilience and adapatability—in the face of climate change and other challenges–are also themes of this week’s Pennsylvania Association of Sustainable Agriculture (PASA conference, where I’m speaking on Friday.)

Climate change deniers are always suggesting endless silver linings to a warming planet. Although it’s likely that with longer growing seasons will also come weeds, pests and other threats once held in check by winter. Still, on my own homestead, our coldframes are as abundant as ever, and I wish I’d sown a cover crop of kale, tatsoi and other hardy greens over our whole garden. Our oyster cages still hang from the dock, with little threat of being iced in. The warm weather has been particularly friendly to our latest agricultural addition—four jet-black Cayuga ducks.

Ducks have no problem with frigid weather: our breed was first domesticated around Lake Cayuga way up north. But as anyone who knows anything about ducks can tell you, they love water—splashing in it, diving under it and guzzling large quantities. On the handful of days when the mercury dipped into the 20s and 30s, the ducks emerged from their pen in the morning to stare wistfully at their kiddie pool pond frozen over. Their water dispenser–and our outdoor hose bib–had also frozen, so we toted a bucket of tepid water from the kitchen sink and filled a dog bowl for them.

Better-prepared farmers would have installed an ingenious device called a frost-proof yard hydrant, which looks like an old fashioned water pump. The valve that controls the flow of water is buried below the frost line, so after you’re done dispensing water, the water falls back below this valve, keeping the above ground portion from freezing and bursting. It’s the next big farm investment we’re budgeting for, although I wonder if–like snow tires, cross-country skiis and other cold-season paraphernalia–we will need them less and less.

Or as Gussow might say in one of her endearing messages–part meteorlogical report, part philosophical reflection–she records on her answering machine: “You’ve reached the riverfront home of Joan Gussow. It’s a balmy and 60 degrees in late January. Climate change is here. I hope we’re prepared.”

Chris Rendell plates the mains at the Mary Queen of Scots' Burns Night Supper. Not a fan of sheep hearts? We gather the steak and ale pie and roasted cod were plenty good too.

Last Wednesday we had the pleasure of reporting on our first-ever Robert Burns Night Supper at Mary Queen of Scots, a beautifully appointed Scottish gastro-tavern in the old Allen and Delancey space. Born in 1759, Burns is a beloved Scottish poet: January 25th is his birthday and MQofS is a Scottish place owned by a trio who hail from Scotland and Great Britain. Like all good Scots who run Manhattan restaurants, they host a special dinner on Burns Nicht for what is a national holiday celebrated nearly everywhere in Scotland and even Northern Ireland.

So that’s why last week if you walked by what was once a very, very Jewish corner in the Lower East Side, you’d gotten a serious glimpse of Scottish pride: Burns’ doleful poems and songs were recited and sung, a slew of tartan was on display, a bag piper played mournfully in his kilt and spats as the crowd applauded, and a bowl of Scotch was poured over a two-foot-long haggis, the oft-scorned savory pudding made with minced sheep’s heart, liver and lungs; onion, oatmeal and suet stuffed into a sheep’s stomach and simmered for about three hours. (To us, it tasted a little like blood sausage mixed with kasha, which is to say, fantastic.)

Sadly you will have to wait until a future issue of this magazine to learn more about our most memorable meal–not just creamy cullen skink but neeps and tatties–and to see some pretty stellar photos of bagpiping, haggis, Scotch-drinking and even Aberfeldy-born actor Alan Cumming singing a Burns tune. But we can tell you that just off the heels of an eating and drinking tour of London, where we fell hard for modern reinventions of stuff like mushy peas and bacon sandwiches, we were pretty taken with chef Chris Rendell’s skills cooking the best of Great Britain.

The owners of MQofS also own the Scottish bar Highlands and the new British spot called Whitehall in Greenwich Village, and Rendell manages the Scottish/British kitchens at all three; Whitehall, in fact, boasts mushy pea fritters, which are on the very top of our list of things to try this week, along with sausage rolls with harissa and housemade pickled veg at Highlands. (Rendell is actually from Australia, and worked at the Sugar Club in London and Public here in Manhattan.)

Haggis, on the other hand, isn’t on the regular menu at MQofS–though happily fish and chips with mushy peas is. But haggis is served at Highlands, with plenty of  neeps and tatties and whiskey butter sauce. So if you need a fix between now and next January 25th, that’s where to head.

What's Inside: The barrel aged Negroni, from Nick and Toni's Cafe on W. 67th Street.

If you missed last week’s NY1 segment (it airs Fridays and Sundays) be sure to take a gander online. We visited Nick and Toni’s Cafe on the Upper East Side to talk to Richard Scoffier, who took over their beverage program about four years ago. Like other bartenders in the borough, Scoffier is keen on locally sourced  spirits, and is now using an old Tuthilltown Hudson Baby Bourbon barrel to age a Negroni cocktail made with Seneca Drums gin from Finger Lakes Distilling, which uses nearly 100% NY State-sourced ingredients.

A 1-1-1 mix of gin, Campari and sweet vermouth, the Negroni, you might recall, is our current cover star, since the issue featured a story about the comeback of the classic Italian aperitif in the city. Naturally, any resurgence now arrives with variations on the theme, and one iteration we neglected to mention in the piece was this barrel-aged beauty on W. 67th Street. In the NY1 segment, Scoffier explains how the aging process tames the Negroni’s signature bitter bite, and turns it into a different drink entirely. It’s rounder, mellower, almost caramelized, and Negroni fans should be sure to try them both side by side.

Here’s how to enter to win this week’s contest: Tell us about your favorite supermarket in the comments below before midnight on Friday. Be sure to register with a real email address so we can contact you later if you win. We’ll pick a reader based on what we think is the best response. Extra points for those who lead us to best–ofs we haven’t already tracked down for our online listings.

Now back to last week’s contest winner: We encourage you to read all the answers both here and on Edible Brooklyn.com, since they covered great fish shops around the city, including Staten Island and Queens, which is the home of our winning answer from Korber, who posted on Edible Manhattan‘s site:  It was tough to pick a winner, but we chose Korber because she picked a place where you could pick out a fish and eat it there. We like that. (However, we were a little bummed nobody suggested the great seafood companies that bring in their catch directly to city Greenmarkets. No middleman means extra-fresh and excellently priced!)

Here’s what Korber said: “The best fresh seafood in Astoria is Astoria Seafood Shop on 33rd St. and 37th Ave.  and you can kill two birds with one stone in multiple ways: While you’re picking up your fish to cook for dinner, you can sit and enjoy lunch.  They will clean and debone anything you buy and the prices are so reasonable.  Or if you are going to eat, choose what you want and they’ll prepare it right there.”

It’s just a few blocks from Northern Boulevard, the N/Q and the E/M/R, the massive beer garden called Studio Square, plenty of decent Brazilian food and Brooklyn Grange Farm, so even if you don’t live in the area, we suggest you keep it in mind should you be passing through.

• Pamphlets on not one but two topics I’m already planning to cover! Great minds think alike. (Couldn’t resist those Organic Valley coupons btw.)

   

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• I wanted to buy everything at the trade show. One prize find – this bottle of Tart Cherry Juice concentrate made at Farm to Table Copackers [ link to Frozen Assets story in Design issue]. The only ingredient is sour cherries. Looks like cough syrup but tastes like cherry pie, and the farmer I bought it from says its anti-oxidant properties help sore muscles. I won’t even tell you what he said about garlic.

   

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• It was awesome rapping with George Weld of Williamsburg’s Egg. (We profiled them in 2009.) Sure, we dig any chef using local ingredients, but how many show up at farming conferences to attend sessions about pastured hens?

   

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• Pennsylvania-grown organic grains--spelt and emmer—ground into flour and handily made into pasta by i Trulli’s Patti Jackson. My kid took one bite and said “I could eat this allllll day.”

   

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• New York used to be the region’s breadbasket and many locavores regard it as the next frontier. This reception featured bread made with regional flour. No butter needed.

   

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• I love signs like these. The sausage demo was at by the fine folks from The Piggery, whom we covered last year.

   

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• Presentations cover everything from cover crops and rooftop farming to raw milk and, here, the currant renaissance.

   

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• Breakfast buffet featured awesome upstate oats.

   

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• I dug this chick’s earrings. Covergirl for our upcoming dairy issue?

   

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• I’ve been to way too many conferences where the meals contradicted the whole meeting’s mission. Props to NOFA for working with the Saratoga Springs Hilton to serve us real ingredients. Then back to work!

   

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• I’ve seen a lot of obscure veg in my days but this was a new one for me. Kossak is basically a giant kohlrabi. Great storer, easy slicer, literally tender-hearted, crunchy and delightful. Where’ve you been all my life?

   

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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.

• Haven's Kitchen

   

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• Haven's Kitchen

   

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• Haven's Kitchen

   

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• Haven's Kitchen

   

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• Haven's Kitchen

   

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• Haven's Kitchen

   

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• Haven's Kitchen

   

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• Haven's Kitchen

   

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• Haven's Kitchen

   

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• Haven's Kitchen

   

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As any urbanite can attest, in order to survive and thrive in the concrete jungle, it is absolutely vital to have some sort of haven, whether it’s a coffee shop that always seems to have that one free electrical outlet or a spot in Central Park that gets the perfect amount of sun in the wintertime.  If you don’t have a special spot, Alison Schneider wants to introduce you to a new place to escape, which she’s appropriately named Haven’s Kitchen.

Schneider had a vision for “a food community where people could learn about, prepare, and share delicious food that sustains people, our environment, and our local economy,” she says. She’s talking about a multi-storied building on W. 17th near Sixth Avenue that once served as a carriage house.  Now classes such as To Market! take students over to the Union Square Greenmarket two blocks away where they are introduced to the day’s farmers, in the hopes that they will be able to develop relationships and seasonally inspired flexibility in their shopping and cooking.

If you could find your way around Greenmarket with a blindfold on, Haven’s Kitchen offers a wealth of other one-day classes, including Crops, Cups & Cappuccinos, taught by Nicolas O’Connell of La Colombe Torrefaction, Our Family Pantry, run by Schneider herself, and Knife Skills by Haven’s resident chef Julia Sullivan.  Haven’s Kitchen also has a retail shop that has many of the relevant products from your class for sale, in addition to a gorgeous array of linens and serving ware.  With an emphasis on supporting the community, several of the products being sold are from small businesses who themselves do not yet have a storefront. There’s also a market with a cafe serving coffee, pastries and shelves with other pantry and grocery products.

Upstairs is where monthly Supper Clubs are held, all featuring guest chefs and delicious and culturally diverse menus.  Luckily, if you fall in love with the space, it’s available for you to rent out for private parties, where menus are prepared with what’s available at the Greenmarket, allowing for a nice element of surprise.  The icing on the carriage house cake is the rooftop garden, opening next year, which Schneider hopes to provide some of the produce for Haven’s Kitchen.

So the next time Sixth Avenue is causing your blood pressure to rise and your ears to ring, consider a trip into Haven’s Kitchen, sign up for a class, pick up a bottle of Sir Kensington’s Ketchup, or simply, grab a cup of Bellocq tea and a pastry.  Then, get back out there and tackle this city.

Haven’s Kitchen: 109 West 17th St. near Sixth Ave; 212.929.7900

Martin Rodriguez of Mimomex Farm in Goshen, NY loads up calabacitas bound for city farmers' markets, thanks to the NFDP.

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.) The project helps with everything from land identification to microloans, plus emergency assistance when a natural disaster wipes out substantial crops—as Hurricane Irene did. But don’t take my word for it—watch a video on the project here.

Monday’s benefit bash will be held in Chelsea at restaurant Sueños, and guests like me will feast on superb regional Mexican fare by chef Sue Torres plus John Keller of Viktor & Spoils Joseph Macchia of Vynl NYC and one of my own favorite cooks in town, Jacques Gautier of Palo Santo. The menu includes the likes of Toluca Chorizo & Potato Sopes with Cilantro Salsa, and Rajas & Cheese Empanadas with Salsa Ranchera, all showcasing ingredients grown by NFDP farmers, plus heritage pork donated by Flying Pigs Farm. Delicioso!

There will be wine aplenty, but I’m looking forward throwing back a few a produce-kissed cocktails by the AKA Winegeek Team or sipping El Tinieblo Mezcal straight.

In between eating, drinking and dancing to the rollicking Mexican polka of farmer Fily Angel’s Norteña duet, guests can bid on the silent auction—including everything from CSA shares of that unique Mexican produce to a cooking class and sangria lunch for 8 with chef Torres.

And the best part: All party proceeds will help NFDP farmers recover from Hurricane Irene, which devastated over 50% of their crops. You’ll be able to talk to NFDP farmers, meet the folks who run the project, and learn more about the cause you’re so generously supporting. While eating, drinking and dancing. See you there!

The Deets:
Monday, Jan 30^th 6 to 9 pm
Sueños – 311 W 17th Street (btw 8th & 9th Ave.)
Tickets $75

Burp!

Make the most out of “staying inside” for the winter this weekend: Drink beer cocktails on Saturday  and make sushi on Sunday. Looking for more things to do? Be sure to check out our Events Calendar to stay up-to-date on the edible ongoings around the city. Or if you have an event to add, send us an email at info@ediblemanhattan.com.

The Beer Cocktail Brunch-Off at Jimmy’s No. 43 . On January 28th from 1pm-4pm, head to Jimmy’s No. 43 to see competing brewers (like Maia Raposa from Brooklyn Brewery and Luke Manson of Blind Tiger) make new beer cocktails.  The winning concoctions will be featured on the restaurant’s brunch menu.  A mere $35 gives you unlimited tastes of brunch samples plus beer cocktails.  Tickets are available here.

Make Your Own Sushi at the Bowery Culinary Center: On January 29th, send the kids to learn how to prepare a simple, healthy Japanese meal, including Cucumber-Carrot Inside-Out Rolls and Chocolate-Cherry Crispy Dessert Rolls.  It’s $30; make a reservation for your child and find out more about the class here.

Good Spirits: Are you as excited as we are for Good Spirits, our latest cocktail event going down between 6 to 9 pm on February 28th? We have an amazing line-up in store (Finger Lakes Distilling, Perry St, Privateer Rum, Jo’s…) and your $45 ticket covers all food and drink.  Get your tickets here and we hope to see you downstairs at 82 Mercer in SoHo next month.

• I had a blast Tuesday night judging the Great King Street Cocktail Competition.

   

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• Of the three judges, I (center) was definitely the moron: Patrick Watson (far left) is co-owner of Brooklyn’s beloved drinks destinations Smith & Vine and Jake Walk while Greg Seider (brown jacket) owns the Summit Bar and was named best mixologist in New York.

   

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  Of the three judges, I (center) was definitely the moron: Patrick Watson (far left) is co-owner of Brooklyn’s beloved drinks destinations Smith & Vine and Jake Walk while Greg Seider (brown jacket) owns the Summit Bar and was named best mixologist in New York.

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• We drank ten cocktails, five from Manhattan and five from Brooklyn, and carefully considered multiple weighted qualities, from execution to balance.

   

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• Manhattan’s champion, John McCarthy from Mary Queen of Scots, won us with his The McQueen, aka the “Smoky Smoke Smoke.”

   

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• Anthony Sferra of Buttermilk Channel took the boro gold with his beautifully smoky drink the Tinderbox.

   

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I had a blast Tuesday night judging the Great King Street Cocktail Competition. Faithful readers will remember we asked local drinks pros to submit seasonal cocktail recipes made with the new Scotch blend from Compass Box, designed precisely for such muddling and mixing.

Here’s how to enter to win: Tell us about your favorite seafood shop in the comments below before midnight on Friday. Be sure to register with a real email address so we can contact you later if you win. We’ll pick a reader based on what we think is the best response. Extra points for those who lead us to best-ofs we haven’t already tracked down for our online listings.

Now back to last week’s contest winner: Your answers were amazing, calling out butcher shops and shopkeepers from both Brooklyn and Manhattan that both know their trade and choose their proteins wisely. (We encourage you to read about them both on Edible Brooklyn’s site and right here.) It was tough to pick a winner, but we chose Peter Durnin, a commenter on Edible Brooklyn’s site, because, well, he told us about a butcher shop that wasn’t even open yet. Impressive.

Durnin suggested Tiberio Custom Meats, a little shop currently run in the window of Sauce restaurant in the Lower East Side by former Dickson’s Farmstead Meats man Adam Tiberio.  (Dickson’s is in Chelsea Market, and it was a top choice among commenters, who pointed us to plenty of spots around the city.) Tiberio, who is hoping to open a USDA-inspected cut-and-wrap meat processing facility in New York City to serve not just us but restaurants, Greenmarket farmers, and other meat companies–even ran a workshop this year at New Amsterdam Market on meat cutting and getting more sustainably raised meats onto city plates.

Writes Durnin: “Tiberio Custom Meats. Adam Tiberio knows his trade. Has collaborated with Frank Prisinzano at Sauce Restaurant. Head butcher at Dickson’s Farmstand. Creator of the Tiberio Steak. And, from what I have read, is planning to open a storefront in Brooklyn. Would make sure to keep an eye out for more news of this venture.”

Thanks to you, Peter, we will be sure to!

On February 9 to 11, the Roger Smith Hotel will host the Cookbook Conference, a three day intensive series of panels and workshops for publishers, writers, editors, agents, researchers and readers. The goal isn’t just practical advice–how to pitch, position and test a cookbook, say–but also to think deeply about the history and future of a genre that most of those who read this site take very, very seriously. In our opinion, cookbooks cover as diverse a world as fiction, and can be just as transporting. (Not to mention handy at times.)

Some very big names in cookbooks will be on hand (Molly O’Neill, Darra Goldstein, Melissa Clark, Judith Jones, Anne Mendelson, Betty Fussell, Amanda Hesser, Paul Freedman, Madhur Jaffrey, Laura Shapiro, Barbara Fairchild, Barbara Ketcham Wheaton, Joan Nathan, Ken Albala, Cathy Kaufman, Anne Mendelson, Adam Salomone, Bruce Shaw, and Andrew F. Smith) to talk about some very big topics covered in 30 panels on Friday and Saturday.

Registration is $299 for both days and includes lunch and evening receptions featuring local and handcrafted goods, both of which we can also get behind. Plus there’s an onsite bookshop operated by Kitchen Arts & Letters showcasing authors participating in the conference, including yours truly: We’ll be taking part in one of the three $75 workshops on Thursday: Introduction to Cookbook Publishing. There’s also Reading Cookbooks: a Structured Approach and Structured Dialogue; and A Cookbook for the Year 2020: An Experimental Case Study. (We’re hoping to sneak into those, too.)

Born in Scotland, yet inspiring drinks here at home.

At last, the final recipe for the five cocktails that made it through the preliminary round of judging for our Great King Street Cocktail Competition. As you may recall, we asked local professional mixologists to submit seasonal recipes using Compass Box Whisky Company’s new blend made for drink-making. This one is from Dominic Hoferer of Almond–the Flatiron restaurant has won our culinary contests before, as a matter of fact. Wish them luck–the winners get crowned tonight!

The Gunsmoke

From Dominic Hoferer of Almond 

8 fresh mint leaves
1 1/2 oz Great King Street Artisan Blend Scotch
3/4 oz Solerno Blood Orange Liqueur
1/4 oz Smoked “Mike’s Hot Honey” from New York City, infused with Maker’s Mark
1/2 orange slice
1 long piece of orange zest, for garnish

Crush mint in the palm of your hand, place in a cocktail shaker along with all of the remaining ingredients except for zest. Place three large cracked cubes of ice in a rocks glass. Add 2 to 3 regular pieces of ice to the cocktail shaker, shake vigorously for 5 seconds. Strain contents over ice into glass. Rim the glass with orange zest twist and drop into the cocktail.