costa rica, part one

I’ve been back in Brooklyn for a couple of days now, and am just starting to get my head straight after a truly incredible journey to Costa Rica. I was on a press tour sponsored by the Rainforest Alliance, and met so many wonderful people who are doing seriously great work to better all of our lives. Anna, Yessinia, and Irene of the Rainforest Alliance were incredible hosts; and the other media types on the trip became fast friends. But the country itself made the greatest impression on me. Costa Rica’s natural beauty was stunning. We saw three-toed sloths and poison dart frogs; adorable and sweet saguates (street dogs) galore; plenty of rain; lush, dense rainforests; foggy mountaintop farms; an idyllic banana plantation and factory; a flower factory; and a sustainable agriculture school. There were bizarre and delicious fruits everywhere, haunting bird cries, and pristine landscapes for miles. read more »

strawberry jam with vanilla bean and lime

Whenever we leave the city, one of us will inevitably say in the car on the way home “Can you believe we haven’t left the city since [some time we left the city]?” and the other of us will agree and then five minutes later one of us will remember some more recent time we left the city. But even if we get out more often than we think, it’s still probably only five or six times a year tops, and that includes trips to the suburbs to buy bulk diapers. So when we do manage to get out, we want everything to be perfect, and perfection is what we got this weekend when we went strawberry picking at Fishkill Farms in Hopewell Junction, NY. (If Fishkill seems like a weird name, it’s just Middle Dutch for Fish River.) read more »

a bittersweet fall and apple chips

Fall settles strangely here in the city. One minutes it’s warm, sunny, and the leaves are on the trees. Then suddenly, the winds pick up, the leaves turn and quickly fall off. Elsewhere, fall is a more gradual process with vibrant colors and fresh, bracing air. That’s why we always head out of town in October–to get a sense of our favorite time of year. But this year, things have been different. read more »

community supported agriculture

In late August Hurricane Irene hit the Northeast hard, and then, a week later, Tropical Depression Lee dumped even more rain. We went on the have a thoroughly soggy September. And the harvest? Wiped out. Whether underwater, or just drowned, farmers across the region lost almost all of their crops just as they were preparing to harvest. Many farmers have lost an entire season’s worth of investment and work. read more »