As part of this year’s New York Wine and Food Festival, Freshocracy is partnering with the Food Network to raise money for Food Bank for New York City and Share Our Strength through the event’s online auction.
Bidding is closed.
Summer Jersey Peaches
Two of my favorite things come out in the heat of the summer: corn and peaches. So the obvious thing to me is to put them together, add some citrus, heat and herby goodness and create a spectacular summer salad that can be made in 5 minutes. We served this up to our Freshocracy customers and also just shared a few bites at our Freshocracy Greenmarket cooking demo…to rave reviews. So for those of you who would like to try this simple sweet and savory salad at home, here’s to sharing…
Lime-Kissed Peach and Corn Summer Salad
Serves 4
Recipe modified from Jessica Albertson
4 ears of corn, shucked
2 peaches
1/2-1 serrano pepper
1/2 red onion, diced finely
0.5 oz cilantro or mint, chopped
1 lime, zested and juiced
Salt and pepper to taste
Filed under @home {recipes to love}
Freshocracy
“Freshocracy takes real ingredients, from real local farms, and wraps them in a bow with a recipe card that promises success at the table.”
— Keith Gibson, Grazin’ Angus Acres Farm
Local Naked Cowboy Oysters from the Long Island Sound
When I co-founded Freshocracy with my partners, we set out with the primary mission of making it easier for busy New Yorkers to get back in the kitchen and cook from scratch. But our secondary mission was to delight our customers with the simple and intense flavor of locally harvested and seasonal ingredients that taste like real food is supposed to taste. You can’t argue with a sweet, juicy field red tomato when it’s picked at its peak and comes straight from the farm to our customers’ tables.
Eating local or calling yourself a locavore may seem like a new trend or matter of awareness to most of you, but there are a few trailblazers in the New York food scene who have been upholding this food philosophy since before it was a coined phrase. Jimmy Carbone, owner of Jimmy’s No. 43 {an East Village locavore-centric artisanal beer and food den} and founder of The Good Beer Seal, is a man everyone should know. He is an avid supporter of local farmers {check out his menu or join a small-farm CSA with pick-ups at Jimmy’s}, an innovator in planning fantastically fun food fests {Cook Out NYC, Meatopia, Taste of Tribeca, The Great New York City Shuck ‘N Suck} and an educator in what it means to enjoy good food and good beer {local oysters and beer tastings every Wed/Thurs + other local-centric events}
In honor of Edible Manhattan’s Eat Drink Local Week, I chatted with Jimmy to understand what inspired his love and respect for all things local…and then slurped down a few Long Island Naked Cowboy Oysters and cold brews at the Jimmy’s No. 43 Eat Drink Local Oyster Event to fully appreciate how he spreads the local love.
While Jimmy grew up with a sensibility that food from local farms is the freshest, getting access to it wasn’t always as easy as going to Union Square on the weekend with your resuable bags. It wasn’t until Jimmy opened his first restaurant, Mugsy’s Chow Chow, in 1994 that he started going to the greenmarket to shop, but even then the market was smaller and his menu wasn’t entirely dedicated to local ingredients. In 2002, with his lease running out he renamed the restaurant to Patio Bar and reinvented the menu to be more focused on the market. The result was amazing food, but there was still a disconnect between his diners’ undeniably positive reactions and their understanding of the local influence on their meals. In Jimmy’s words, “people thought it was weird.” The seminal moment in Jimmy’s locavore timeline came after he opened Jimmy’s No. 43 in 2005. Jimmy hired a new chef to go to the market five days a week to source their dairy, produce and meat from local purveyors. After setting a number of standards for their menu, Jimmy’s No. 43 was awarded Slow Food NYC’s Snail of Approval seal {an award recognizing quality, authenticity and sustainability of the food supply of the City of New York.} Six years later, Jimmy’s continues to serve up an inspired menu that could only be made better by enjoying one of the many fine microbrews on his bar list. His local philosophy and New Yorker’s reception of it finally converged.
But just because Jimmy uses high quality, local ingredients, doesn’t mean his menu will put a large hole in your wallet. Jimmy very smartly works with farmers to select cuts they have excess supply of, keeping his costs low while helping these small producers sell their inventory. If his regular good food menu and good prices aren’t enticement enough to spend some time sipping beers and noshing at No. 43, then swing by on Wednesday or Thursday for $2 local oyster night. If you’re lucky, Eddie Oysters, the fastest shucker in the land, will be on hand to entertain and feed you. Oyster Trivia: don’t be afraid to slurp one too many of those slippery little suckers — they are only 10 calories a piece!
The thing I love about Jimmy is the casualness of the world he has created. It’s not about didactic local teachings, but enticing a community of diners and sippers with a consistently good local food and beer atmosphere. Lure them in with a stellar menu and fantastic food events and perhaps they will leave with a better understanding of what it means to Eat Drink Local. We at Freshocracy certainly hope so too!
Eddie Oysters Gettin' Naked
More Local Goodness:
Freshocracy {and yours truly} Featured on Good Food Jobs
Summer Lovin’ Me Some Oysters @Mermaid Oyster Bar
NYC Best: Purely Good Food & Wine
Local. Local. Local. We at 8.ate@eight and Freshocracy think Local is where it’s at. Not only are there amazing foods being harvested within 250 miles of NYC, but there are amazing people doing things with this food {and drink}. This is one of my favorite weeks in the city each year — everything from local oysters to local brews are being showcased in a series of seriously summery shindigs. So clear your calendar and devour all the goodness coming our way from Edible’s Eat Drink Local Week!
Those are seven stellar spring foods–in this case strawberries; peas; chives and green garlic; rhubarb; lamb, oysters and yogurt–produced or farmed or fished locally. Each has delicious stories to tell, and to jump start Eat Drink Local Week Edible Manhattan is hosting a festival and tasting (oyster stew! green garlic and chive quesadillas! spicy lamb salad with pea greens!) and includes wine from Wolffer Estate in Long Island and beer from Kelso of Brooklyn.
When: Saturday 6/18 6 to 9pm
Where: OpenHouse Gallery in SoHo at 201 Mulberry Street
Tickets: $25 HERE
The benefit of all benefits to raise money for the Greenmarket Youth Education Project. Just check out this incredible lists of chefs:
Michael Anthony of Gramercy Tavern
Dan Barber of Blue Hill & Blue Hill at Stone Barns
April Bloomfield of The Spotted Pig, The Breslin & The John Dory Oyster Bar
Marco Canora of Hearth & Terroir
Mary Cleaver of The Green Table & The Cleaver Company
Marc Forgione of Marc Forgione
Alex Guarnaschelli of Butter
Kurt Gutenbrunner of Cafe Kristall, Cafe Sabarsky, Blaue Gans & Wallsé
Rick Hickman of The Green Table & The Cleaver Company
Lauren Hirschberg of Craftbar
Peter Hoffman of Savoy & Back Forty
Patti Jackson of I Trulli
Gabriel Kreuther of The Modern
Bret Macris of Rose Water
James Meehan of PDT
Marc Meyer of Cookshop, Five Points, & Hundred Acres
Marco A. Moreira of Tocqueville Restaurant
Deborah Racicot of Gotham Bar and Grill
Julie Reiner of Clover Club & Lani Kai
Aaron Sanchez of Centrico
Justin Smillie of Il Buco
Bill Telepan of Telepan
Karl Franz Williams of 67 Orange Street
Galen Zamarra of Mas (farmhouse) & Mas (la grillade)
When: Saturday 6/18 6 to 9pm
Where: Studio 450 450 West 31st Street, New York, NY
Tickets: $225 General Admission 7 to 10 PM; $350 VIP Tasting 6 to 10 PM Purchase tickets
Beer and barbecue at Townline BBQ in Sagaponack to kick off Eat Drink Local on the East End. Look for all seven ingredients, including a roasted lamb with yogurt and chives, smoked oysters, plenty of peas and strawberry-rhubarb something.
When: Sunday 6/26
Where: Townline BBQ in Sagaponack
RSVP: call Townline, 631.537.2271, or buy your tickets here.
“Meet Your Maker”: a local food and drink artisan tour at the Brooklyn Brewery. In celebration of Edible’s Eat Drink Local Week Edible is teaming up with The Brooklyn Brewery, Blue Bottle, Brooklyn Winery and Mast Brothers Chocolate for a night local food tours and beers. $15 gets you a tour of one of four businesses and a gathering at the Brewery for beers afterwards.
Where: The Brooklyn Brewery, 79 N 11th St, Brooklyn
When: Wednesday June 29th, 6 to 9pm
Tickets: Reserve your space here.
The Strawberry Social: to raise funds for Food Systems Network NYC at La Plaza Cultural Community Garden.
Where: La Plaza Cultural Community Garden; 9th St. and Avenue C
Tickets: $50 Reserve your space here.
A Long Island oyster and beer party to end Eat Drink Local, at Jimmy’s No. 43. This all-you-can-eat event will offer up precious Blue Points along with “Naked Cowboy Oysters,” wild-harvested bivalves named after the infamous Naked Cowboy himself (heads up, word is he will be making an appearance). Craft beer and wine (sourced from the East End of Long Island) will be available for purchase. Featured beer will include Greenport’s Duck Porter, and wines will be from the Paumanock region vineyards. Notable shuckers will attempt to dethrone Jimmy’s No. 43 champ, Eddie “Oysters,” winner of the 2010 NYC Food Film Festival’s Great New York City Shuck and Suck.
Where: Jimmy’s No. 43
When: Thursday, June 30; 5 to 10pm
Tickets: $35 Get your tickers here!
Freshocracy
“Freshocracy takes real ingredients, from real local farms, and wraps them in a bow with a recipe card that promises success at the table.”
— Keith Gibson, Grazin’ Angus Acres Farm
Freshocracy
I met Taylor Cocalis and Dorothy Neagle, the Gastronomes behind GoodFoodJobs, at an event a few weeks ago. It was not long before we were chatting about food, blogs, and their brilliant gastro-job site that was designed to connect passionate foodies with job opportunities with farmers, food artisans, purveyors, retailers, etc. With everyday centered around bringing these two sides to every good food story together, they also started a blog to feature intresting stories of people who have pursued what they love and landed that ultimate good food job. After a few glasses of bubbly {and I think a slice of pie from Martha Stewart’s pop-up shop} they suggested writing a profile on what led me to launch freshocracy with my two co-founders and how I came to find my Good Food Job. Here it is…
What attracted you to a good food job?
Good food has never been a job. For me, it is a stress reliever and a way to relax around a table with friends and family, share a meal, a few drinks and inevitably good conversation. I get a great deal of satisfaction from those moments. After working almost 10 years in a corporate non-food job, I started a food blog and private supper club called 8.ate@eight to inject a little more good food into my professional life. I quickly realized that I put more heart into that venture than anything I had done previously. With a new awareness of knowing what it means to do what you love, I found myself on a year-long “good food job” path, that eventually led to launching my new business freshocracy.
How did you get your current good food job?
freshocracy largely started because of my supper club. For the 8.ate@eight supper club dinners, I prepare 4-course meals for at least 8 people in a very small New York City kitchen. Undeterred by the lack of counter space and mini appliances, I realized the size of your kitchen is not a valid excuse for not cooking in New York. Our busy lives often demand we take shortcuts, which may mean ordering take-out, buying pre-cut vegetables or relying on packaged meals – often at the expense of flavor, quality and our health.
With my two freshocracy co-founders, we were inspired to make it easier for busy New Yorkers to put better meals on their table. With this shared mission, we launched freshocracy – a NYC local farm-to-table grocery and delivery service. Each week we plan amazing recipes for 3 dinners (entrées and sides) and source the best seasonal ingredients from the local greenmarket (you’ve never tasted a tomato, until you’ve had one from Kernan Farms). We also provide all the pre-measured pantry items and seasonings. In a nutshell (well, actually a recyclable bag), we deliver everything you need to make a fantastic meal, while eliminating the least fun things about cooking (planning, shopping, prepping). We’re committed to supporting local farms and local kitchens (our customers!), and making it fun to get a few pots and pans dirty along the way.
Filed under 8.ate@eight
Wow, what a week! After launching Freshocracy under the radar just a few weeks ago, we somehow got picked up by Fox News Live {Video: HERE}! One week later, I’m riding the subway down to News Corp. with two bags of fresh greenmarket ingredients, recipes and pre-measured seasonings to show the entire world how easy it is to get back into the kitchen and cook from scratch {seriously, we’re taking all the hard work out of the equation!}
We’re small, but growing and our goal is to make it really easy for busy New Yorkers to put better meals on the table. We do all the planning, shopping and some of the pre-measured prep to deliver everything you need to make dinner easily. The best part about it {well there are many things} is that we source the absolute best ingredients from the local farmers’ market — you just can’t get quality and flavor like this elsewhere. All you have to do is pull out a few pots and pans, follow our easy directions and enjoy!
So if you know any busy working urbanites, new moms or just lovers of good food who are looking for an exciting cooking experience to be apart of, spread the word about Freshocracy! Ramp butter, green garlic, 100% grass-fed beef, 100% Berkshire Pork, mustard greens — are all part of next week’s delivery. Oooooooh!
Filed under 8.ate@eight, Do This!, Eat Here!, NYC Best
After a year of exciting new food ventures — launching my blog and the 8.ate@eight supper club, attending countless foodie feasts and meeting so many food-loving friends along the way, I’m starting a very exciting new greenmarket grocery and recipe delivery service called Freshocracy.
So many people ask for advice and recommendations about how to make a delicious meal without a lot of effort. Undeterred by the lack of counter space and mini appliances in my own kitchen, I realized all people really need is good products and a little guidance.
{fresh, local and sustainably-farmed greenmarket goods is a great place to start — you really can taste and see the difference, I promise}.
Local sustainably-farmed greenmarket goodness
Awesome Recipes!
{And then it helps when you have a great recipe to follow. How do you know it’s great? because I’ve tried it and recommend it much great ooompf! We’ve integrated the instructions for the entree and side, making it extremely easy to get a complete meal on the table at once using all the ingredients we deliver. Each recipe can be made in 30-45 minutes}.
Pistachio-Crusted Lamb with Green Bean and Tomato Salad
{And of course it doesn’t hurt to have some conveniences that save you time — we’re all busy New Yorker’s after all. The Freshocracy team pre-measures everything you need for the recipe. Right down to the 1 TBS of worcestershire sauce you need so you don’t have to go out and spend $9.99 for an entire bottle that you will never use again}.
Freshocracy does all of recipe and ingredient planning, shopping and packaging — and then delivers it right to our customer’s door. We take the least fun parts about cooking out of the equation. All you have to do is Join, turn on the stove, chop a few fresh ingredients and enjoy a meal made from scratch in the same amount of time it would take you to review a menu, place an order and wait for take-out.
Filed under 8.ate@eight, Do This!, Eat Here!, NYC Best
8.ate@eight 