I saw this beautiful rock salt orb lamp at Susans Beeswax Candles & Himalayan Rock Salt Products while browsing this past weekend at the Union Square Holiday Market. These lamps make attractive art gifts and create a soothing environment in office or home.
We also tried their delicious pink Himalayan table salt at a dinner party we hosted on Saturday in place of regular sea salt. We use antique salt cellars, and this salt was not only tangy and tasty, but its lovely color added to the table decor.
You can meet Susan and Susan (hence Susans) through the holiday season and try out their products for yourself!
Like the rest of the city, the Tribeca Greenmarket is blooming after a long winter. Kudos to the wonderful farmers and other food purveyors who stuck with the neighborhood throughout this bitter winter! And welcome back to everyone bringing us the new seasonal fare.
The weather this Saturday was cold, gray and ominous, but we bundled up and headed to the Tribeca Greenmarket in search of fresh spring veggies. As usual, we came home with a market bag full of delicious treats, starting with the delicious, crunchy lavash from Hot Bread Kitchen, which we ate on Sunday night with the amazing pecorino stagionato from Dancing Ewe Farm that we got at Union Square on Friday. We also picked up some plain yogurt from Ronnybrook Farm Dairy, which I mixed with some Buffalo Wing Sauce for an experimental chicken marinade. Fortunately, it reduced to a delicious, almost buttery and subtly tangy sauce for the pan fried chicken for lunch. And we did pick up some tender baby lettuces from Lani’s Farm as well.
We had a usual lovely time wandering along in the market, sampling organic apple crisps from Prospect Hill Orchards. We picked up a beautiful almond and fruit tart from Not Just Rugelach, with was moist and flavorful with a crispy crust. We had the great pleasure of meeting Alex Villani, the proprietor of Blue Moon Fish. Blue Moon is in my book, and I’ve seen Alex’s catch in markets all over town. So it was lovely to meet him in person.
My aim for this week is to get my hands on some ramps. If you have a good recipe for ramps, please post it!
Springtime has clearly arrived at the
Greenmarkets in town. A few lucky people snagged the first wild-harvested ramps at Union Square on Friday. There will be more soon, and in the meantime, I’ve been loving the colorful local tulips and dainty sweetpeas from
Dutch Mill Garden, and the delicate pale blues and greens of Araucanian chicken eggs from
Tellos Green Farm. I also love seeing people carrying home bunches of flowering branches and pussywillows.
On Friday we picked up some tangy, earthy pecorino stagionato from Dancing Ewe Farm for our friends on Sunday. And we had a wonderful breakfast of fresh biscuits from Wild Hive Farm, slathered in Summer Flower honey from Tremblay Apiaries. It was mouthwatering.
Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloomy days stays our farmers from the Union Square Greenmarket! The snow has been falling like popcorn since last night, turning into slush when it lands. And our farmers and local food purveyors are out there today, selling cold but tasty baked goods, apples, pretzels, squashes and more. Breezy Hill Orchard has hot apple cider!
Thank you for keeping the market going, no matter the weather. Days like today, as much as the glorious, bountiful days of summer, are why we love New York City’s Greenmarkets as much as we do!
With apologies to the US Postal Service Creed.
Soigné doesn’t just hand paint his vivid menagerie of creatures on brightly colored shirts and canvasses. He creates stories to describe the worlds they live in. Each wide-eyed beastie has a name, like Dad E. Longlegs, one of the newest residents of Soigné’s tabletop at Union Square (pictured on the blue tee-shirt on the far left). Every design is painted by hand, so you will never find two that are exactly alike. (You can wash them in the laundry too.) One of my favorites was a snake with big eyes and a sweet expression that draped all the way around the collar of the tee, just as you would expect a snake to do. Soigné is a painter and a model, and he enjoys selling his creations on Union Square several days out of the week. Stop by and meet his bugs, bats, and smiling aliens, and if you’re lucky, he’ll tell you stories about all about them.
Soigné can be found in Union Square several days a week. He is out there today in fact, so go find him at lunchtime. Today is the perfect day to spend an hour browsing through the Greenmarket and artisan vendors on the square.
Yesterday’s heat advisory dampened t-shirts all over town, but it certainly did not dampen the energy at the Union Square’s Saturday Greenmarket! The fruits, vegetables, seafood, bread, honey, jam and so much more remained cool and fresh under the tents. James and I were out on our Summer Markets Book Tour, spending the day with the Greenmarkets/GrowNYC team and meeting market shoppers from across New York City and the world – Australia, England, Spain, and Mexico!
I’ve posted 10 of my favorite photos of the day, taken by James, featuring the energy and colors of the markets. We even enjoyed an extended visit from a butterfly, who landed on one of the chefs from the Natural Gourmet Institute as they prepared a food demo of blueberry cornmeal pancakes. I guess even a butterfly can’t resist a home made pancake.
Thanks to everyone who stopped by to say hi, especially my friends Chris and Lucinda, Joseph and Miss Molly the Min Pin (pictured), Lauren and Lauren, and Jen! And a huge thank you to Market Manager Tara and her team, and to GrowNYC for your hospitality yesterday and for your wonderful service to the city! Follow Union Square Greenmarket on Twitter (@unsqgreenmarket).
And now I’m off to the Hell’s Kitchen Flea Market for the afternoon! It’s going to be another wonderful day at the Markets of New York City!
Lavender By The Bay brings the charms of the French countryside to the heart of New York City. They grow twenty varieties of lavender on 10 acres of farmland in East Marion, Long Island, and they bring their wonderful smelling piles of tiny blooms to the Union Square Greenmarket. I picked up a fresh big bunch of lavender for our office on Monday, and it smells amazing. This morning I pressed it lightly between my hands to release the scent, and my hands smell like fresh lavender.
The fields and bunches of lavender attract the ever more endangered honeybees, who produce golden, delicious lavender honey. You can pick up a jar from Lavender By The Bay at the market, as well as beautifully scented sachets to put in your drawers or in your pillowcase for sweet lavender dreams.
Photographer Donna Lee Michas of fotografia47 has an eye for detailed, beautiful, and meaningful images. She combines these images with inspirational or funny quotes from Abraham Lincoln to VW billboards. Her photos come in crisp white frames or unframed, and she will be happy to help you find the perfect one for any occasion. Meet Donna at Union Square, and also check out her shop on Etsy.
It’s a typical weekend day at Union Square, where artisans and other creative types can set up shop and provide goods and services to the good people of New York City. I regret not stopping to kick off my shoes, grab a stool, and talk some things over at this open air counseling center. Next time I definitely will because I have several big ideas to go over.
These are some amazing fruit preserves from Beth’s Farm Kitchen in the beautiful Hudson Valley. They make over 90 kinds of jams, marmalades, jellies, chutneys, pickles and relish! You can find these products, and sometimes Beth herself, at the Greenmarkets.
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