So last week I moved to Brooklyn. I won't tell you where I lived before — I'll just say that it took me over an hour by train to get to the Eagle office in Brooklyn Heights and that there were little to no local food options in my neighborhood.
Now, the Grand Army Plaza Greenmarket is just two subway stops (or a nice walk) away from my apartment! While I'm not brave enough or dedicated enough to embark on an exclusively local diet à la Leda Meredith, I'll try to stop by every Saturday. Since this is a green blog, I thought I'd regularly post what I brought home. Being a fan of alliteration, I've dubbed this new feature "Fabulous Fresh Finds."
A little overwhelmed and under prepared at the magnitude of the market this past Saturday, all I purchased was: a bunch of carrots, some green beans, and some zucchini from Phillips Farms, which is in Hunterdon County, NJ.
In the Northeast, carrots are in season from July to November (but are available through early April), green beans are in season from July through September and zucchini is in season from July through September (the zucchini did not photograph well).
So far, I've been snacking on the carrots and green beans raw — they're delicious — and I haven't done anything with the zucchini yet. I'm thinking maybe soup.
There were some other pretty exciting finds at the market. Next week I'm thinking I might pick up some mushrooms from Madura Farms, which is in Orange County, or maple syrup from Wood Homestead, which is in Schoharie County, NY.
The Grand Army Plaza Greenmarket is held on Saturdays from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. year-round. The city's Greenmarkets are a program of GrowNYC, a non-profit geared toward improving the quality of life in the five boroughs through environmental programs. This particular Greenmarket, founded in 1989, is GrowNYC's flagship Brooklyn market and is its second largest market behind Union Square.
