In our current issue, Marie Viljoen, mistress of edible weeds, waxes eloquent about the flowering stems of the burdock plant.  “Those who eat burdock typically cook only the root. But the fast-growing stems are a delicious wild food. Cooked, they are a semantic and gustatory marriage of globe and Jerusalem artichokes,” she writes.  Read more here.

Rhubarb Soda Syrup
Adapted from The Homemade Pantry by Alana Chernila

2 pounds rhubarb, roughly chopped
4 tablespoons fresh lime juice (from 2 to 3 limes)
1 tablespoon fresh ginger, peeled and roughly chopped
1/2 cup sugar or more to taste
A few springs fresh thyme, lemon balm or mint

In a medium saucepan, bring the rhubarb and 8 cups water to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer until rhubarb is soft, about 20 minutes. Use a slotted spoon to scoop out rhubarb and discard (or sweeten it with sugar and serve over yogurt or ice cream).

Add the lime juice, ginger and sugar to the rhubarb water. Bring to a low boil and cook, uncovered, for 20 minutes, until thickened. Remove from heat, add herbs and steep, covered, 5 to 10 minutes. Strain into a jar or bottle. Keeps in fridge for 10 days.

If you missed our amazing panel of food writers and journalists at last month’s Food Media 101 at Brooklyn Brewery, you’re in luck.  We caught a few of their expert tips for making a career in food media on video and, generous beings that we are, decided we’d share them with you!

So turn up the volume and take notes (you wanna be a writer, right?) as Rachel Wharton (James Beard Award winner, contributing editor at Edible Brooklyn and Edible Manhattan, and editor of Edible Brooklyn: The Cookbook), Annaliese Griffin (editor-in-chief, Brooklyn Based), and Gabriella Gershenson (senior editor, Saveur and blogger at gabiwrites.com) dish up some spot on advice for newbies to the field.

Finally! It’s time for one of my all-time favorite wine events of the year, Brooklyn Uncorked – a sipping and swirling smorgasbord of Long Island’s fab vinified offerings. But this year in particular is pretty special because it marks a moment in Long Island wine country history – the 40th Anniversary (for a great run-down of the last four decades of planting, coaxing, weathering storms, and celebrating great vintages, check out Eileen Duffy’s great piece that appeared in Edible Manhattan last month). IMHO, it’s not just a milestone on the calendar, but a noticeable milestone in the glass that shows how we’ve come into our own as a wine region with which to be reckoned. A glass raised to that.

If you got tickets, you’re in for a great night at Skylight One Hanson on May 29th – not only is it super fun (and delicious – great NYC restaurants like Gramercy Tavern, Hundred Acres, Red Gravy, and a bunch more on hand, too), but it’s a fab opportunity to sample the latest and greatest from a multitude of different wineries from both the North and South Forks. And if you got tickets to the special 40th Anniversary VIP section, you are in for some pretty slammin’ (and rarefied – some of this is hard to get your hands on) sipping, like Clovis Point’s stunning 2007 Archaelogy (which was a big fave of mine when I tasted it and wrote it up for Edible East End this year), the lush 2007 Ben’s Blend from McCall Winery, a Bordeaux-style blend that the New York Time’s Howard Goldberg had some rather nice words for in his 2010 write-up, and Mattebella’s swellegant 2005 Old World blend. Long Island deliciousness abounds!!

In honor of Eat-Drink-Local week, our annual 8-day celebration of our foodshed, we’re teaming up with ‘wichcraft for a backyard pig roast in Bryant Park.  Aside from the obvious, a pig–this one sustainably raised at Niman Ranch–we’ll have loads of Greenmarket fixings and ‘wichcraft’s award-winning oatmeal cream’wiches, plus Long Island wines, New York state beers and music.  For more info and tickets, check here.

And as we gear up to celebrate the seasons and all the amazing farmers, chefs, and artisans in our area, ‘wichcraft is busy celebrating a full decade of Greenmarket-driven sandwich making.  To mark the occasion they’ve put together some videos about the art of a good sandwich and their mission to support local artisans and growers.  We like this one.  It’s about bacon and features a cameo by D’Artagnan’s Ariane Daguin (featured here in our mag).  What’s not to love?

Hungry? Our events calendar has loads of Edible events around the city, like this Sustainable Seafood Supper Club at Brooklyn Commune. Here’s what’s happening this week:

Wednesday, May 22nd

Greenmarket’s 2013 Season of “Educated Eater” presents Educated Eater: International Cuisine, Local Ingredients

Long Way on a Little: An Earth Lover’s Companion for Enjoying Meat, Pinching Pennies and Living Deliciously is my new bible on grass-fed meat. Much more than a cookbook, it’s a serious text on buying, cooking and overall understanding pastured meats. The almighty Joel Salatin says the book, “should grace every omnivore’s kitchen – open, stained, spattered and loved.”

I plan to get mine splattered pronto, starting with this recipe:

Classic Roasted Leg of Lamb
Serves 6–8

This quintessential spring recipe keeps things simple so you can taste the delicate flavors of the grass-fed lamb.

4 cloves garlic
4 tablespoons coarse unrefined sea salt
2 tablespoons ground black pepper
1 cup olive oil
2 tablespoons parsley
1 (5–6-pound) bone-in leg of lamb

In a food processor, combine the garlic, salt, pepper, olive oil and parsley to make a paste.

Rub the paste all over the leg of lamb, then set it aside for at least 30 minutes so that it can come to room temperature before roasting.

Preheat oven to 300° F, put lamb in a roasting pan and roast for about 17–20 minutes per pound of meat, until the internal temperature is between 120 and 145 degrees, depending on how rare or well done you like it.

Serve simply au jus (with just the pan juices), with a reduction sauce (see Shallot-Dijon Reduction Sauce below), or make gravy as follows: Remove the lamb to a cutting board or platter. Pour off all but ½ cup of the drippings then set the roasting pan over medium heat on the stovetop until the pan drippings are bubbling. Whisk in ¼ cup flour to form a paste. When smooth, whisk 1–2 minutes longer until slightly browned. Slowly whisk in the reserved pan drippings and 1 cup meat broth or water. Allow the mixture to bubble and thicken. Add additional water or broth until the gravy is your preferred consistency and simmer 2–3 minutes.

Shallot Dijon Reduction

2 tablespoons minced shallot
2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
2 cups meat broth
4 tablespoons butter

Heat leg of lamb’s pan drippings on stovetop over medium heat until they are bubbling. Add the shallots and Dijon. Continue cooking, stirring and scraping, until the shallots are clear and the browned bits from the pan are mixed into the paste. Add the broth and continue to simmer until the sauce is reduced by half. Add the butter one tablespoon at a time, stirring well after each addition. Drizzle the reduction over the meat and serve.

Tamar Adler – As we wrote when Everlasting Meal came out, this gorgeous book changed the way we cook everything, including onions. Haven’t read it? Get thee to a library. And we were proud to print her on-the-ground essay on a hot August spent in northern Italy in our Travel Issue last fall.  Oh yeah, and her brother is Franny’s chef John Adler, which, you know, is just awesome.

Sandor Katz – This NYC ex-pat’s Art of Fermentation is both practical and poignant, ancient and new. A must-read, whether you want to get serious about sauerkraut, be a weekend-warrior yogurt maker, or just understand this ancient preservation technique.  Prepare to become obsessed.

The Perennial Plate –We profiled this food-filming duo, chef Daniel Klein (formerly of Applewood, don’t ya know) and his co-producer (and recent fiancé, yeah!) Mirra Fine, when they first kicked off their weekly video series focused on adventures in socially responsible eating. What began as a weekly post from Minnesota became a national and then world-wide tromp through exactly the kind of stuff we cover in our pages. www.theperennialplate.com: it’s about to become your favorite thing on youtube.

Hank Shaw – We’ve long been foraging fans, but when Shaw’s Hunt Gather Cook came out, we ran a page on it in Edible Manhattan and vowed to pick up a gun and a blaze orange vest. Shaw’s honest and entertaining journey into becoming a full-on hunter-gatherer will make you feel the same way. Way to bag a Beard, Hank! (And we can’t wait to cook from your new Duck, Duck, Goose book, which we got our hands on yesterday!)

Tracie McMillan –This Brooklyn-based writer’s article “As Common as Dirt,” which appeared in The American Prospect, shines an illuminating beam on the dirty world of farm-labor policy. It’s a sobering read, but coverage like this is exactly how change happens.

One week to the day later, I’ll get to see both Pickerell and Erenzo again at the kick-off Manhattan Cocktail Classic Gala at the New York Public Library. For the first time EVER (!) in the history of MCC, there will be twenty freakin’ four New York spirits producers on hand, pouring their delicious, hand-crafted spirits in a special NY-centric party room at the Gala, and in other spots over the course of the weekend-long event.

“Thirty distilleries have opened in New York since 2007, and 18 of those are in the Hudson Valley,” Erenzo told me. “That didn’t exist before.” True enough — Erenzo himself was the man who kicked off the home-grown spirits trend here in the mid-aughts. That new, strength-in-numbers vitality has made the Gov himself take notice — the State of New York helped fund the presence and presentation of those 24 distilleries you’ll get to check out tomorrow night. And that’s hopefully only the beginning. Erenzo is working on getting the state to sponsor a malting facility for use by both distilleries and breweries (“Up to now, if you needed malted barley you had to go out of state or to Canada,” he says). Hillrock, who grows their own barley and have their own malt house, has shown it can be done. On a larger scale, it could be a great spirited boon to spirit and suds makers.

“Spirits made in New York  was a trend for a while,” said Erenzo with a big grin, “but now, it’s a movement.” Cin-cin to that.

First, Craft Beer Week is a time to celebrate the small and independent brewers who give beer its good name.  So on your commute home today, pop in your corner bodega for a six pack or grab a seat at your neighborhood watering hole and enjoy a craft brew on tap.  Whether it’s a citrusy, hoppy brew like Six Point’s Bengali Tiger or a light, refreshing Summer Ale from Blue Point Brewing Company, we won’t judge.  Just get out there and support the men and women behind our nation’s growing craft beer scene.  Click here for some official craft beer events taking place around the state.

From June 22nd to 29th celebrate Eat-Drink-Local Week with us by dining out, cooking in and enjoying local, seasonal ingredients like, you guessed it, local beer!  Visit a neighborhood brewery, try your hand at homebrewing, or raise a glass of your favorite ale in honor of our local foodshed.

And last, but very far from least, join us at Good Beer, our beer and food pairing extravaganza, on July 31st.  Last year the pairings ran the gamut from rich meat dishes like chicken gizzard and lamb bacon kebabs to seafood-spiked fare like mini Maine shrimp rolls and spicy avocado soup with pickled squid.  And, obviously, there was whole lot of good beer.

There you have it: three reasons to drink beer from now til August.  Cheers!

Heard recently in the halls of The Earth School: “Dude, our farmers are in the house!”

“Everything is ‘our farmers,’” says Elizabeth Horton, director of public relations for Organic Valley, who helped organize the day’s events.

The farmers in question are Susan Hardy and Maureen Knapp, Organic Valley dairy farmers from upstate New York who have formed an ongoing relationship with The Earth School, an eco-minded public school on East 6th Street. Two weeks ago, the farmers paid the schoolkids a visit. They helped 4th and 5th graders make ice cream, taught them about healthy soil (and how it relates to milk) and collected a box of recently hatched chicks ready to start their life on the farm.

“When we started visiting, the schools kept saying ‘Can you bring a cow?’” Susan says with a laugh. “No, we can’t bring a cow! The chicks were our compromise.” Soon she found herself walking the city streets with a giant bag of corn for the chicks that would also be used for a lesson in seed saving and grain grinding.

Susan and Maureen agree that their efforts to bring a slice of farm life to the city are paying off. The kids seem to remember every detail of the farmer visits, from Maureen’s collection of cow earrings to the more important things. Sitting on plastic milk crates, the students lean in as Susan holds up flash cards and asks questions.

“Do you know what organic means?”

A hand shoots up: “No chemicals!”

When time comes to take turns cranking the old-fashioned ice cream maker, most of the kids walk away rubbing their arms. It turns out, making food is hard work, even if you aren’t on a farm.

We’re thrilled to announce our fourth annual Eat Drink Local week, an eight-day locavore love fest for our foodshed celebrated by Edibles around the tri-state area. For one week, starting June 22nd, we urge you to show some love for our local food system by dining out, cooking in and enjoying local, seasonal ingredients.  Here you’ll find a directory of participating restaurants, fantastic farmers markets, and businesses churning out artisanal goods made with love and lots of local ingredients.

And with all the focus on food, don’t forget our local brewers and booze makers!  On Wednesday, June 26th, join us at Brooklyn Brewery for Pass the Paella, a night of local beer and all-you-can-eat paella made by Nick Suarez of the Backyard Cooking Company and Theo Peck of Peck’s.

Stay tuned for more ways to eat and drink local…

At his West Village Japanese restaurant, Chef Takashi Inoue features all sorts of unusual cuts of meat.  Taking the nose-to-tail trend to a whole new level, customers will find animal parts unheard of on other menus (cow’s testicles, calf’s brains, and three kinds of cow stomach among them) prepared in inventive new ways.  Read more here in our current issue.

Wowza!  When we asked you, dear readers, to send us your pics of an ingredient or dish that makes you heart NY, we hardly expected such a response.  Now we need your help sifting through these beauties to choose a winner to send this cookbook to.  Vote for the best pic in the comments below!

Hungry? Our events calendar has loads of Edible events around the city, like tomorrow’s pig butchering demo at Jimmy’s No. 43 where farmer Michael Klampfer from Møsefund Mangalista Farm will break down half a Mangalista hog.  Light lunch to follow. Here’s what’s happening this week:

Thursday, May 16th

At Cookshop, sourcing locally is serious business.  From a strict Made-in-America-only cheese policy to the grand six-foot chalkboard displaying the names of the farmers who provide the restaurant’s ingredients, every touch celebrates our local foodshed.  Read more here in our current issue.

Here are just a few things we’ll be tasting:

The latest Edible Manhattan is ripe for the picking! Our annual Eat-Drink-Local issue is a terroir-driven testament to fresh ideas, including:

a woman who morphed from celebrity journalist into compost guru

the offal-good yakiniku stylings of chef Takashi Inoue, who likes his meat “rare” in more ways than one

what happens when a public high school arms its students with knives—and cutting boards

an upstate wine mind who champions little-known bottles in the big city

why Chef Zak Pelaccio traded our city for a 40-mile menu in the Hudson Valley

how Cookshop made Chelsea a destination before the High Line was born

We got our hands delightfully dirty making this issue—and hope you’ll have just as much fun digging in. Read it free on any screen, anywhere (find out how here). To paraphrase Dorothy: The next time you find yourself seeking your heart’s desire, look no further than your own backyard.

We did. And boy, did we find a bumper crop.

So does Mimi Sheraton, the former NY Times restaurant critic.  “It should be no surprise that this book is as beautiful as it is enjoyable, and as delectable as it is inspiring, given the history of the authors in their restaurants.  Their passion for New York and their loyalty to local suppliers of superb ingredients shows throughout the pages, as does the respect and inspiration Daniel Humm exhibits in everything he serves,” she writes.

Want to win a free copy?  Just send us a pic of an ingredient or dish that makes you heart NY and we’ll choose one lucky winner.  Attach your entry as a .jpg and send to info@ediblemanhattan.com with the subject “I heart NY cookbook” by Monday, May 13th.

That tap offering, though — it’s interesting stuff. At Pod39, its downstairs “Play Room” (e.g. indoor bar in the lobby), and Salvation Taco there are two on the menu from The Gotham Project, a kind of vino super-duo collaboration between Bruce “Cab Franc” Schneider of Schneider Vineyard’s on the North Fork and elsewhere and Charles “Pere et Fils” Bieler. This tap-centric, low-waste, sometimes locally sourced wine project launched in 2009 with a Finger Lakes Riesling (which Bloomfield had on tap at the John Dory right outta the gate), and took off from there. I had their zippy, refreshing 2011 Sauvignon Blanc and my friend tried the bright, pretty rose — both great with the super-fresh snacks on hand and for the warming-up months ahead. Point being: If you’re stuck in Midtown looking for some juice that left a kinder, gentler mark on the planet at large, a rooftop perch with a glass full of Gotham isn’t a bad way to be on sunny spring day.

Hungry? Our events calendar has loads of Edible events around the city, like this weekend’s Food Book Fair at the Wythe Hotel where you’ll meet writers, chefs, editors, bloggers and other movers and shakers in the food movement. Here’s what’s happening this week:

The fair kicks off tonight at the Wythe Hotel (Yes, yes, it’s in Brooklyn.  That’s what bridges are for, people!) and runs through Sunday, featuring book signings, tastings, dinners and speakers, some on topics we dare say haven’t been covered elsewhere (“Food and Fatherhood”?). Get more info and tickets here.

Catalan Pea Shoots
Serves 4

1 pound pea shoots
½ cup pine nuts
½ cup raisins
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
Salt
2 tablespoons good olive oil

Over medium-high heat, in a pan large enough to hold the pea shoots, cook the pine nuts and raisins in the butter until the nuts start to brown. Add pea shoots and a pinch of salt, and stir until shoots cook down, about 30 seconds to a minute. Taste, add more salt if you like, leave excess butter in the pan and finish with a drizzle of olive oil.

Last week aspiring food writers, bloggers, editors and everyone in between came to Brooklyn Brewery and got schooled on how to make a career in food media.

Our very own Gabrielle Langholtz, editor extraordinaire of Edible Brooklyn and Edible Manhattan, led the panel and got some of our favorite food writers and editors to share their battle stories and insider tips, like how to pitch and trendy food words to avoid. We heard from Rachel Wharton (James Beard Award winner, contributing editor at Edible Brooklyn and Edible Manhattan, and editor of Edible Brooklyn: The Cookbook), Annaliese Griffin (editor-in-chief, Brooklyn Based), and Gabriella Gershenson (senior editor, Saveur and blogger at gabiwrites.com).

Thank you to our participants, guests and the brewery for a fantastic event! If you missed the event or want to re-live it, check out our slideshow for some photos and stay tuned to our website for cool footage from Get Schooled: Food Media 101.

But the thing I wish I had known — and that I hope will be helpful for any of you venturing with little ones out to the fun CP Zoo in the coming warm-weather days — is that Slow Food-centric Rouge Tomate has their solar-powered, electric food cart set up right outside the entrance to the park at 64th and 5th Avenue! Which is exactly where you walk in to get to the zoo! Damn. If I’d known that ahead of time, I could have skipped the congealed, mystery veg sammy and gotten myself their marinated portobello ‘shroom burger, with feta from Riverhead, LI’s Goodale Farms, black olive tapanade, wild arugula, pickled red onions, and creamy cucumber tzatziki. Heed my warning and let my loss be your gain.

Trina Pilonero and her fantastic seedlings.

These days, everyone’s abuzz over the arrival of spring at the Greenmarket. I’ve seen triumphant tweets about asparagus and fiddleheads and obsessive instagramming of duck eggs and ramps (and Edible recently posted our own market watch with produce-minded insider tips). But my personal favorite Greenmarket goods, which returned to Union Square last week, aren’t actually ready to eat. Rather they’re seedlings—specifically the spectacular, city-friendly heirloom seedlings found at Silver Heights Farm (which we featured here in the magazine) each Wednesday and Saturday.

Farmer Trina Pilonero—a master gardener and seed saver extraordinaire with whom I once journeyed to Slow Food’s annual Terra Madre congress in Turin, Italy—offers baby plants ready to thrive in Manhattan’s microclimate, be that your rooftop farm, community garden plot, or sunny windowsill. Sure, plenty of Greenmarket stands sell plants in spring, but Trina’s are seriously special and staggeringly biodiverse: no “early girl” tomato plants here.  Instead she’ll offer over 300 heirloom tomato varieties from Mayona to Valencia. But it’s still too chilly for those, and Trina refuses to sell them before their time. Right now she’s ready with the likes of lettuces and leeks, pak choi and peas.

Last year the heirloom cucumber seedling I bought for a few bucks climbed straight up my fence, city-style, and yielded dozens of killer crunchy cukes, while the rhubarb I bought from her two years back is going strong.  Last week I could almost sit there and watch it grow. But while Trina’s seedlings will pay for themselves many times over, something else at her stand is an even better deal: Trina’s masterful gardening advice, which she dispenses free of charge. See you there.

Hungry? Our events calendar has loads of Edible events around the city, like An Evening with Mark Bittman where he’ll speak on “The Future of Food” and discuss how we can eat for the health of our bodies and the planet.  Here’s what’s happening this week:

Joyce’s Granola
Makes about 3 quarts

1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter
2/3 cup honey
1 cup maple syrup
1 cup light brown sugar
7 cups rolled oats
1 1/2 cups sliced almonds
1 1/2 cups chopped walnuts
1 cup pumpkin seeds
1 cup dried cranberries
1 cup raisins
1 cup chopped dried apricots

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. In a large saucepan, bring the butter, honey, maple syrup, and light brown sugar to a boil over medium-high heat. Stir in the rolled oats, nuts and seeds until well coated with the butter mixture. Pour the granola directly onto a sheet pan and spread it out evenly.

2. Bake the mixture for about 15 minutes, until evenly brown, making sure to stir with a large spoon every 5 minutes to bake evenly and keep the mixture loose. Cool the granola until it reaches room temperature, and add the dried fruit. Store in an airtight container for up to 1 week.

Has the lack of greens been making you feel blue? Us, too. So to whet our appetites for the arrival of all that luscious fresh spring produce (any day now!), we asked Jeanne Hodesh of Greenmarkets to give us the lowdown on what’s available at the markets right now.

To tide you over until the real spring greens arrive, try some broccoli rabe, kale and collards that have been sweetening in the ground all winter. There’s also plenty of arugula, chives and baby spinach around, as well as greenhouse greens like mizuna and mustard greens.

You may have read on our very own pages about the beauty of ramps, which are gradually appearing in the markets and on our plates. Jeanne recommends roasting them in olive oil and a little salt until they turn into ramp ‘fries’. Delicious!

While we’re waiting for asparagus and rhubarb to arrive (rumor has it the former has made some cameo appearances at a few markets already, but the latter is still a month or so away) there are sweet pea tendrils and bundles of fresh herbs. And if you look carefully you might even find stinging nettles, watercress and peppercress. Happy hunting!

L.A.-based sculptor Miguel Nelson developed Woolly Pockets, a modular living-wall system that allows even the blackest thumbed among us to turn chain link fences and drab brick walls into lush, green gardens.  Read more here in our current issue.

T.S. Eliot may have been talking about the locavore pantry when he famously wrote that April is the cruelest month. After all, as the daffodils bloom and the mannequins don spring prints, I’m in a panic for peas and fava beans. But despite misleading “spring menus” all over town, seeds are only just going into the ground, and for real Greenmarketeers, the cupboard’s still pretty bare. Frankly the eating was better in frozen January when my potatoes and carrots were three months fresher.

But even before the radishes and scallions hit my cutting board, there’s one ingredient that makes April eating great: eggs. Everyone knows birds build nests in spring, but we somehow forget that includes chickens. When daylight gets longer, birds get busy laying—including chickens, but also geese, turkeys, and pheasants, to name a few whose eggs are available at Union Square right now.

It’s the perfect time to practice poaching or nail your golden-yolked barely-boiled technique. (Our publisher Brian keeps backyard ducks and let’s just say I’d be up for a breakfast meeting anytime.) But when it comes to eggs for dinner, my favorite incarnation is in noodle form. Fresh pasta sounds like an elaborate weekend project, but it comes together in a weeknight snap. About as fast as, well, a box of pasta.

Just throw together eggs and flour (all purpose works fine, but I especially love King Arthur’s pasta blend, as well as Bob’s Red Mill Semolina), let the dough rest for 30 minutes while you put a pot of water on and page through our latest issue, and you’re ready to roll. You can use a rolling pin or one of those old-school, hand-cranked devices that grip the counter, but after inheriting my mom’s KitchenAid (about as old as I am, and nearly as heavy) I splurged on pasta rolling attachments—best $75 I ever spent. You can also just cut shapes with a knife or, as my friend Eric recently taught me, regular cookie cutters.

Plus the fresh pasta cooks in just a minute or two—which is about how much longer I can wait until asparagus.

Hungry? Our events calendar has loads of Edible events around the city, like our Food Media 101 expert panel at Brooklyn Brewery. Here’s what’s happening this week:

Sunday, April 21st

Crown Victoria Bar and Gardens Hosts an Outdoor Oyster Bash

Last week, New Yorkers sipped from beakers and toasted with test tubes at the World Science Festival Gala. Over hors d’oeuvres, dinner and desserts prepared with carbon dioxide tanks, high-speed evaporators and centrifuges, attendees celebrated the 60th anniversary of James D. Watson’s co-discovery of the structure of DNA. For the scientifically inclined, the festivities will continue May 29 to June 2 at the World Science Festival. Tickets go on sale April 25th, including to the “A Taste of Science” session, in which scientists and chefs will team up to explain the physics, chemistry and technology involved in making an array of innovating dishes. Eating and drinking required for that one.

Great Performances is the exclusive caterer at Jazz at Lincoln Center and also designed and produced the event.

“The East Village has a new watering hole—and for once, that term’s not a misnomer. The drink on tap at Molecule isn’t wine or beer, but pure water.”  Read more on this anti-pollution, eco-friendly spot here in our current issue.

Soon, very soon, growing edible things will emerge from the soil, spreading locavore joy throughout the land.  Among these early crops, ramps–those garlic-scented slender bulbs that taste like onions and make a million dishes more delicious–have garnered such a following, there’s a whole festival dedicated to celebrating their arrival.  Ramp Fest 2013 will take place at the Basilica Hudson in Hudson, New York (directly across from the Amtrak station, a short 2-hour train ride direct from NYC) on May 4th.  Expect loads of ramp-studded dishes from the likes of Chef David Shea of Applewood and Chef Stephen of The Farm on Adderley, plus drinks and live music.  Click here for tickets and more info.

Hungry? Our events calendar has loads of Edible events around the city, like tonight’s premiere of American Meat. Here’s what’s happening this week:

Sunday, April 14th

Ferment! Ferment! At the Brooklyn Free School

Pickled Herring and Potato Salad with Creme Fraiche and Dill
from Peter Berley, local chef
Serves 8-10

2 pounds fingerling potatoes, scrubbed
3 (12 oz) jars pickled herring (like Blue Hill Bay from Acme Smoked Fish)
2 cups creme fraiche
1 lemon, zest finely grated and juice freshly squeezed
1/4 cup chopped fresh dill, plus sprigs for garnish
Salt
Cracked black pepper

1. Place the potatoes in a large pot with salted water to cover and bring to a boil. Cook until tender (about 15 minutes). Drain and let rest until cool enough to handle. Slip potatoes from their skins and slice into 1/2-inch-think rounds.

2. Drain the pickled herring, reserving about 1/2 cup of the brine. In a large bowl, toss the herring with the potatoes, creme fraiche, lemon zest and juice, and chopped dill. Drizzle with a little of the reserved brine and add salt and pepper to taste. Refrigerate until chilled.

3. Serve garnished with sprigs of dill.

Squid tastes great just about any way you serve it, whether boiled, grilled or fried.  Flexible in the kitchen, abundant in the water–what’s not to love?  Read more in our current issue about one of the greenest ingredients in the sea.

Hungry? Our events calendar has loads of Edible events around the city, like Opening Day of the Down to Earth Farmers Market at McGolrick Park.  Stop by for fresh fish from American Pride Seafood and pastured beef, lamb, goat meat and pork from Stone & Thistle Farm. Here’s what’s happening this week:

Sunday, April 7th

Opening Day at McGolrick Park’s Down to Earth Farmers Market

Tuesday, April 9th

Sycamore Bar & Flowershop Presents Small Batch Bourbon

Thursday, April 11th

Slow Food NYC Presents the (s)low Down

Warm Spiced Ginger Tea
from Caroline Mak and Antonio Ramos, co-owners of Brooklyn Soda Works

1 quart water
3/4 cup sliced fresh, peeled gingerroot
1 piece star anise
5 cardamom pods
10 whole cloves
Juice from 1 lemon (about 2 tablespoons)
4 tablespoons honey

1. Bring the water to a boil in a large pot. Add the gingerroot, star anise and the cardamom. Simmer for 20 minutes. Add the cloves and simmer for an additional 5 minutes. Turn off the heat, and add the lemon juice and the honey.

2. Strain out the spices and ginger and serve in mugs. You can also use more ginger for an increased spice level, or substitute orange juice for the lemon juice, adding a bit of orange zest along with the cloves.

Saxelby Cheesemongers is New York’s first cheese shop devoted to locally sourced cheeses. Saxelby’s sells a premier selection of regional farmstead cheese to retail customers in our Essex Market shop as well as a growing number of restaurants and shops throughout the city.

We pride ourselves on selecting cheeses from small producers who farm sustainably with respect for their land and animals. The range of cheeses available at Saxelby Cheesemongers changes throughout the year as we work with and celebrate the seasonal nature of cheesemaking.

We are looking for a fun, energetic, outgoing individual to sell cheese at our Essex Street Market shop.

Previous experience working in a retail environment (especially one where working with cheese) is a plus. Applicants must be extremely detail-oriented, good at multi-tasking, and most of all, must love people and the fine art of selling cheese!

Responsibilities include: opening and closing the shop, managing daily cash, interacting with retail customers and chefs, cutting and wrapping cheeses, preparing wholesale orders for pickup, stocking and organizing inventory. Applicants should be prepared to commit at least one year to the position.

Applicants should also be well-versed in social media and able to maintain and grow the shop’s current social media pages.

In the wake of California’s failed Proposition 37, which would have mandated the labeling of foods containing genetically modified organisms (aka GMOs), the debate over the consumer’s right to know is getting heated.  Several states are pushing for legislation to require GMO labeling and last month Whole Foods announced they would label all their products containing GMOs by 2018.  Despite consumer outrage, even The New York Times Editorial Board says GMO labeling is unnecessary.  With all this in mind, the NYU Wagner Food Policy Alliance and GMO Free NY  are hosting a panel tomorrow night, April 4th, called “GMO Labeling: Do We Need It?”  The panelists are Dr. Walter S. De Jong of Cornell University’s Department of Plant Breeding and Genetics, Dr. Carolyn Dimitri of NYU Steinhardt’s Department of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health, Jean Halloran of Consumers Union’s Food Policy Initiatives and Patty Lovera of Food & Water Watch’s Food Team. It’s free to attend from 6:30-8:30, but you need to RSVP here.

We heart our subscribers and on March 21st, we showed them just how much.  In conjunction with Danny Meyer’s Union Square Events, we celebrated our inaugural Subscriber Appreciation Event with passed savory and sweet canapés, a tasting station, cocktails and of course, fun.

If you weren’t there, here’s a glimpse of what you missed:

-Hudson Valley Foie Gras Macarons with Fig Jam

-Salvatore Brooklyn Ricotta Cavatelli with Braised Lamb, Kale and Mustard

-Mac & Cheese Croquettes with Great Lakes New York State Cheddar

-Crisp Ricotta Fritters with Mosefund Mangalista Pig Farms Bacon Jam (served atop a thick slab of bacon!)

-Meyer Lemon Brioche Doughnuts

-Caramela Lollipops with Freeze Dried Raspberry Coconib

-the Hudson Rickhouse Rickey featuring Hudson Whiskey

-Bruce Cost Ginger Ale

-the Soothe Operator from Creative Juice with jicama, pineapple, cucumber, mango, cilantro, young ginger and jalapeño

-and one last sweet treat for the road, Meringue with Strawberry Powder and Cocoa Nibs

Not a subscriber yet? Become one today so you don’t miss out next time around.

Hungry? Our events calendar has loads of Edible events around the city, like the 2013 Just Food Conference featuring over a 100 workshops on national farm and food issues, CSA trends, cooking and food preservation techniques, and ways to mobilize communities in order to increase access to farm-fresh, locally grown food. Here’s what’s happening this week:

Friday, March 29th

Just Food Presents the Just Food Conference Eat – Work – Grow the Movement

Wednesday, April 3rd

Citywide In-Store Tasting with Sailor Jerry