Via Edible Queens, Joe DiStefano will lead you to fantastic finds, such as this fiddlehead fern-studded spicy beef Korean stew, served, of course, at a spa.

A comment on our recent post about our search for Local Heroes (vote now!) wondered whether you couldn’t also tip your hat to the great food folks in Queens. The answer is of course yes, and in fact it reminded us to remind you that Edible Queens‘ own blogs are a fantastic read, the kind that inspire even the most dedicated Manhattan diner that they need to get on the 7 train every now and again. Alia Akkam’s blog — “The Q Nosh” — covers everything from new pour-over coffee bars to the Sunday gravy-making (that’s red sauce) of a Whitestone family. Meanwhile Joe DiStefano is a chowhounder par excellence for the borough, and his posts — appropriately titled “World’s Fare” — about Franco’s gooey Italian steak sandwiches and spicy yukgaejang, or Korean stews, always put us on the fence about our choice of community.

Like us, but about Queens!

The Magazine:

Edible Queens. Our year-old sister publication that covers the borough of diverse deliciousness — and 2.2 million resident diners in tight-knit communities from Astoria to Flushing – to our north.

What They Do:

They celebrate the food culture of New York’s most diverse borough in one beautiful quarterly magazine, naturally! Better yet, during Eat Drink Local week they’ve been doing their own series of Eat Drink Local profiles on the food-makers and sellers in their borough. Some we’ve run in entirety here (like #36, on the Sweet Afton Burger and #27, on Queens farmer Kennon Kay) but you should be sure to read them all on Edible Queens Eat Drink Local page. We’ve also got some excerpts from those they’ve already posted to get you hungry for more.

#1. Editor Jesse Hirsch, on Queens County Farm Museum farmer Kennon Kay: “Kennon Kay is the much-beloved director of agriculture at the Queens County Farm Museum, presiding over two acres of vegetables and a large stable of livestock in the city’s oldest continuously working farm. Centuries before the crew behind Brooklyn Grange hit paydirt in Long Island City, this farm had carved out a 47-acre niche in the far eastern reaches of Queens. Under Kay’s careful eye, the farm produces a full range of organic produce, including eggplants, basil, potatoes, summer squash, melons, beets, chard, celery, fennel, peas, kale, mustard greens and okra (much of which is sold locally, to city restaurants and greenmarkets). She also oversees a large menagerie of well-tended farm animals, including fleece-producing Cotswold sheep, heritage breed pigs, Rhode Island Red laying hens, dairy cows and goats. All the animals are given space to roam and the produce is grown sustainably and chemical-free.”

#2. Contributor Stacy Lazar, on the Astoria tavern Sweet Afton: “The lyrically named Sweet Afton oozes both tradition and progress, much like the neighborhood of Astoria where this gastropub and its part-owner, Ruairi Curtin, dwell. In the year since it opened, Sweet Afton has quickly materialized into an unpretentious bar and restaurant dedicated to the quintessential locavore. The Dirty Pickle Martini is their signature cocktail and also their number one seller, its unique flavor derived from McClure’s Pickles, a family-run production based out of a Brooklyn basement. Each batch of pickles comes with its own unique spicing, the result of which is a deliciously inconsistent drink. If pickle brine sounds less than palatable, try the Red Lemonade, made from citrus vodka, simple syrup, lemon and cranberry. The subsequent sugar kick, Curtin insists, “will wire you to the moon.”

#3. Contributor Alia Akkam, on the Long Island City store/restaurant LIC Market: “Alex Schindler, a Kew Gardens resident raised in Bayside, presides over the kitchen at newcomer general store-cum-café, LIC Market, where he makes blueberry Danish and zucchini and bacon frittatas for breakfast, or caramelized onion-dressed roasted chicken sandwiches and slow-cooked pork with basmati and black beans for lunch. After dining, guests linger in the front of the marketplace, perusing homemade pickles and cashew butter. “The Court Square area of Long Island City was always lacking in food,” says Schindler. “Even to get groceries it’s either C-Town or walking all the way to Food Cellar.”

#4. Contributor Stacy Lazar on the  Long Island City grocer Natural Frontier Market: “For fifteen years, Sonam and Nima Lama have provided the health-conscious consumers of Manhattan and Brooklyn with aisle upon aisle of all-natural groceries and environmentally friendly household products. Natural Frontier Market’s newest location, which opened on May 21 in Long Island City, isn’t unlike the rest, down to its ever-popular juice and smoothie bar. But whereas their best-selling juice blends, like the carrot-apple or the “green” juice (a salad in pulverized form), have come to be expected of Natural Frontier Market, it’s the addition of a charming café that sets the Queens branch apart. Enclosed by a picturesque grass-lined picket fence, the café seats 20-25 and offers a crowd pleasing menu of vegan-friendly lasagna, vegetarian burritos, sushi, salads, wraps, and an entire showcase of locally baked brownies, croissants, muffins and mixed berry breakfast bars.”

#5. Contributor Alia Akkam on Long Island City wine shop Table Wine: “Just shy of a year old, Table Wine in Jackson Heights reels in locals eager to explore a new bottle, say a lesser-known Côtes de Castillon white. “Opening a wine shop is something my wife and I wanted to do for a long time; the idea had been germinating for many years,” says owner Ernesto Vega.”

#6. Editor Jesse Hirsch on the Sunnyside Restaurant Quaint: “Since opening in 2006, Sunnyside’s Quaint has been serving up New American fare featuring a seasonal menu with local ingredients. After cooking in Manhattan for many years, owner Tim Chen opened this casual bistro with fine dining aspirations to fill a void he saw in Sunnyside cuisine. “I tried to create a space that was comfortable for locals to drop in regularly, but with a good enough menu to attract people from farther away,” says Chen. Living only two blocks away, he had a pretty good idea what the neighborhood needed.”

Read the complete profiles here.

Why We Love Them:

They say it themselves best, so we’ll just quote them: “Edible Queens is the first quarterly magazine to celebrate the food cultures of our communities. Our passion is to explore the tavernas of Astoria, the food stalls of Flushing, and the pubs of Woodside. To savor the traditional flavors of Thailand, Korea, Cyprus, Colombia, Ecuador, and more. To relive a foreign adventure right in our own backyard. To travel the world, for the price of a roundtrip metrocard.” Exactly!

Where to Find Them:

Like Edible Brooklyn, Edible Manhattan and Edible East End, Edible Queens is distributed freely throughout the restaurants, bookshops and markets of its borough (they’ve got an online list here). They’ve also got much of their content up online here. And you should also be sure to check out their two blogs on the borough, called The Q Nosh, by Alia Akkam, and World’s Fare Blog, by Joe DiStefano.

Eat Drink Local week is a celebration of the local food chain—a restaurant week with a mission.

It runs statewide from September 26-October 6, 2010, with the collaboration of all Edible magazines in the Empire State, and involves partners from the entire food chain—including restaurants, wine shops and wineries, breweries and beer bars, farms and food artisans, and cultural institutions that celebrate food.

Co-produced by Edible magazines and the GrowNYC Greenmarket, the aim is threefold:
1. to raise awareness about the bounty of products grown in the region
2. to drive customers to the restaurants and other businesses that support local food
and drink
3. to raise funds for a charitable partner dedicated to promoting regional agriculture

To give the week more definition, and create demand for regional food and drink, each day of the week is defined by a specific local ingredient (cheese on Monday, vegetables on Tuesday, wine on Wednesday, etc.), offering partners and sponsors an ideal hook for promoting their industry.

In addition, there are some other major events planned during the week, including:

• September 23. An Amish style heirloom vegetable auction to be held at Sotheby’s

• September 25. A Long Island wine auction.

• September 27. The Edible Institute at the New School, a public discourse on urban food issues.

• September 29. A public discourse at the Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture. (The center’s Harvest Fest is October 2.)

• Throughout the week. Edible programming at the New York Botanical Gardens.

• Throughout the summer, the Union Square and Grand Army Plaza Greenmarkets will feature cooking demos from partner chefs, New York wine pourings and other happenings.

To receive updates on the week, check back at ediblemanhattan.com, or sign up for Edible’s enews list.

(Click here to read about last year’s week, and see the map of partner restaurants, which will give you a sense of what’s shaping up for this fall.)

Click here for Sponsorship Opportunities

Listen to this week’s Edible mixdown from 1010 WINS, sponsored by Eat • Drink • Local Week:

{audio}http://www.ediblecommunities.com/manhattan/Edible Week mixdown.mp3{/audio}

SUPPORT RESTAURANTS THAT SUPPORT THE GREENMARKET
(Click here for map of restaurant locations)

We thank the restaurants–and diners–who made the first annual Edible Eat • Drink • Local Week a success.

In case you missed it, at the end of September, partner restaurants in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens and on the East End showcased the mouthwatering bounty of local food and drink. At the end of the week, they made voluntary contributions to Greenmarket, a program of the Council on the Environment of New York City, to benefit its Youth Education Project, which works to teach and nurture the eaters of tomorrow. (Edible will also be donating revenue from any subscription sales from now through the end of the year to Greenmarket. Subscribe to Edible Manhattan, Brooklyn and East End here; subscribe to Edible Queens here.)

And you can still help by dining out and digging in at one of these great eateries.

Edible Eat Drink Local Week is co-produced by Edible magazines and Greenmarket, and thanks the following sponsors: Brooklyn Brewery, the Long Island Wine Council, Manhattan Beer, and OpenTable.

SUPPORT RESTAURANTS THAT SUPPORT THE GREENMARKET
(Click here for map of restaurant locations)

Upper East Side partners map
Upper West Side partners map
Midtown partners map
West of 34th-14th Street partners map
East of 34th-14th Street partners map
West Village partners map
East Village partners map
South of Houston Street partners map
Brooklyn partners map
Queens partners map
East End partners map

View Edible Eat Drink Local Week in a larger map