Serious Eats (and I) Fall for Small Farms
It’s been a tough year for everyone, and small businesses — farms, especially — are no exception. That’s why it’s so exciting to see more consumers and the media rallying behind them. Today, Serious Eats posted a wonderful video about farmers at NYC’s Greenmarkets, and how they’ve contributed to our food system. It’s centered around a trip the Serious Eats team took to Mountain Sweet Berry Farm, and followed them as they packed up their harvest and trucked it into Union Square one Saturday. It was a long day for the Serious Eaters, who drove up to Roscoe, NY that morning to begin shooting. But perhaps a shade emblematic of the everyday toil these farmers go through. As Ed Levine exclaimed in the video, “The risks that they take every day!”
It includes interviews with local food aficionados like chefs Alex Guarneschelli, Dan Barber, Michael Anthony and Tom Valenti as well as food bloggers Lisa Fain and myself. Needless to say, it’s a ton better than my shoddy attempt at Greenmarket video-making last spring! (And it you haven’t had a chance to see Fresh, a feature-length documentary celebrating sustainable farmers and fresh food advocates, it’s a terrific expansion on these and many more topics.)
Also, Saveur magazine has a new online look, one that includes short posts from a new batch of contributors. Be sure to check out those of Josh and Jessica Applestone, the principals of Fleisher’s Grass-Fed Meats of upstate New York. I’ll be writing weekly posts that feature a different small, sustainability-oriented farm, and the fruits of their bounty. They’re brief introductions, at best, to the fascinating story behind their thoughtful work in the field. This week, say hello to Rhode Island’s Scratch Farms!