Early this past Saturday morning, Carlo Petrini, the Italian founder of the international Slow Food movement, visited the Union Square Greenmarket to meet a few of the farmers headed to Italy later this month for the you-wish-you-could-go Slow Food conference called Terre Madre held every two years. Or make that trying to visit: In case you hadn’t noticed, it’s expensive to travel to Italy. That’s why GrowNYC, the nonprofit that runs the city Greenmarket programs, is hosting a $10 Pie Cook-Off at Jimmy’s No. 43 this coming Saturday afternoon. (Details here.)
You don’t have to bake one to get some of the area’s most skilled growers to the Old Country — like Nevia No, who curates some of the most beautiful greens, cucumbers, chiles and vegetables at Bohditree Farm, or the grains growers of Wild Hive, whose stand is pictured above — just judge those who do (by eating their pie, naturally). But if you do decide to enter a pie, it probably wouldn’t be considered cheating if you used the frozen local butter and lard pie crusts sold by the pork producers at Flying Pigs Farm (that’s co-owner Mike Yezzi, third from right, above). Might even be the first time a frozen pie crust would earn extra points, in fact.
