Locavores NYC Alert #2 The Sweet and the Sour

If you are in the NYC area, you’ll find a few more of my local food discoveries in this post. If you are interested in local foods but live outside the New York City area, please browse the archives in the blogroll to your right for posts that are not so NYC oriented.

You can mail order both balsamic vinegar and burgundy wine vinegar from Arbor Hill, 223 miles away. To be honest, their balsamic tastes more like a plain wine vinegar to me, and since my homemade wine vinegar is quite good I’ll probably stick to that. But if you are eating local and don’t want to go to the trouble of producing your own homemade vinegar, Arbor Hill is a good option.

The ultimate in local honey is definitely Berkshire Berries’ New York City Rooftop Honey. Yes, it really is made from bees on NYC rooftops. I bought a jar to celebrate the launch of my 250-Mile Diet in August, but at $15 per eight ounce jar it’s not something I’ll be indulging in too often (their other local honeys are less expensive). If you want to indulge yourself, Berkshire Berries is at the Union Square market on Wednesdays and Saturdays. Other local honey is available at almost all the farmers markets in Manhattan and Brookyn, but it doesn’t always get a stall to itself. Sometimes you don’t see it until you get past all the fruits and veggies and are near the tables and scales in the back. You can also order honey through some of New York City’s Community Supported Agriculture memberships. It is usually available from the farmer who coordinates the CSAs meat and egg orders.

Maple syrup is available at the Union Square market and through CSAs. Some of Vermont’s is from too far north for me, but there is good syrup from Massachusetts that is within my 250-mile radius. The syrup I order from my CSA comes from Sugar Mill Farm in Greenwich, NY, 169 miles away.

Now that apple cider is making its seasonal appearance at the markets, I’m going to make a third sugar alternative, boiled cider. This is just cider boiled until it is reduced down to a syrup. It is delicious. I bought some of Oak Plantation‘s buckwheat flour at the Friday Union Square market this past week in anticipation of buckwheat pancakes with boiled cider syrup. Yum!

Not sure what this is about? Read Getting Ready for the 250-Mile Diet and The Rules

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