Tag: local

Edible Boston Summer 2013 Issue Is Our Friday Link

Be on the lookout for the Summer 2013 issue of Edible Boston with this fresh seasonal cover of shrimp from SKy8 Shrimp Farm.

Farmers' Market Listings by County

This issue contains listings of the summer farmers' markets by county. I know I'll be clipping and posting those pages on my refrigerator to check when I'm going to be in a specific neighborhood or town. I love visiting all the different markets in our area.

How do you support a publisher like Ilene Bezahler and her remarkably talented team?

May I suggest that you let their sponsors know you saw them in the magazine and grab an extra copy and get it to someone else who cares about supporting the local food movement. Also, if you have a blog, twitter account, or facebook page, write about them, link to them, follow them, retweet their tweets, like them on Facebook, and in general, spread the word about this great asset to our community.

And, to be sure you never miss an issue, you can subscribe over on their website!

You can also buy the Edible cookbook – Edible: A Celebration of Local Foods or find more local food in The Boston Homegrown Cookbook.

Details:

Words: Penny Cherubino
Artwork: Courtesy of Edible Boston

Note on Comments: We monitor comments constantly and anything that is pure spam, inappropriate, or nasty is swept away. In addition to readers' comments, we welcome hearing from the people, places, and services we cover. Often, those add great insights for our readers. As long as it doesn’t become a pure ad, we’d love to hear from you. We do reserve the right to edit ads and links out of comments.

June 7, 2013
At the Market: a Visit to the Prudential Center Farmers’ Market

One of our walks this week took us to the Prudential Center where we picked up a few items for our supper from the specialty food vendors. The Prudential Center Farmers' Market is open on the Bolyston Street side of the complex from 11 am to 6 pm each Thursday.

We'd been missing the pretzels, and pretzel rolls from swissbäkers. We know they have a new shop on Western Avenue in Allston, but we haven't made it there yet! We'll add it to one of our Watertown runs. For now, it's great to have them back in the city at the Prudential and Dewey Square markets.

We enjoyed our pretzels with cheese and zingy pepper jelly from Stir It Up. We took our cue from the sample they were offering and their famous savory cheesecake torte baked with a glaze of their pepper jelly (below). Think about picking up one of these the next time you need party food.

In addition to chilled goat cheese with a dollop of "sweet heat" (as they call it), we also warmed some brie and spread the lime pepper jelly on that. It was a big hit!

This market will be another source for fresh-from-the-boat fish this summer with Cape Cod Fish Share on hand.

While we do occasionally visit the Coolidge Corner shop for a When Pigs Fly bread fix, it's good to have them back in the neighborhood on Thursdays!

We also stopped by the Copley Square Farmers' Market on Friday and picked a great dinner from the vendors there including a fine fillet from Red's Best seafood. Looks like it will be a summer of healthy eating!

A special thank you to Dave Gilson from The Herb Lyceum for bringing some chervil clippings to town to share with cooks like Penny. She sprinked rouchly chopped chervil leaves on that moist flakey fish before serving it. Perfect!

In Season Right Now!

We also saw: mushrooms, swiss chard, spinach, green garlic, salad mix, lettuce, arugula, lots of annuals, herbs, and vegetable plants, hot house tomatoes, scallions, and cucumbers.

Enjoy now before it's gone!

Asparagus and early hoop house strawberries.

Follow all our Local Food/Farmers' Market and At The Market reports:

We heard talk about some early hothouse tomatoes. Curtis Stillman said Stillman's Farm would soon have kale and their first peas.

What's on your Food Lover's Shopping List? Shop Amazon for all your kitchen & dining needs and support this site!

Details:

Words: Penny & Ed Cherubino
Photos: ©2013 Penny & Ed Cherubino

Note on Comments: We monitor comments constantly and anything that is pure spam, inappropriate, or nasty is swept away. In addition to readers' comments, we welcome hearing from the people, places, and services we cover. Often, those add great insights for our readers. As long as it doesn’t become a pure ad, we’d love to hear from you. We do reserve the right to edit ads and links out of comments.

May 29, 2013
At the Market: a Visit to the Prudential Center Farmers’ Market

One of our walks this week took us to the Prudential Center where we picked up a few items for our supper from the specialty food vendors. The Prudential Center Farmers' Market is open on the Bolyston Street side of the complex from 11 am to 6 pm each Thursday.

We'd been missing the pretzels, and pretzel rolls from swissbäkers. We know they have a new shop on Western Avenue in Allston, but we haven't made it there yet! We'll add it to one of our Watertown runs. For now, it's great to have them back in the city at the Prudential and Dewey Square markets.

We enjoyed our pretzels with cheese and zingy pepper jelly from Stir It Up. We took our cue from the sample they were offering and their famous savory cheesecake torte baked with a glaze of their pepper jelly (below). Think about picking up one of these the next time you need party food.

In addition to chilled goat cheese with a dollop of "sweet heat" (as they call it), we also warmed some brie and spread the lime pepper jelly on that. It was a big hit!

This market will be another source for fresh-from-the-boat fish this summer with Cape Cod Fish Share on hand.

While we do occasionally visit the Coolidge Corner shop for a When Pigs Fly bread fix, it's good to have them back in the neighborhood on Thursdays!

We also stopped by the Copley Square Farmers' Market on Friday and picked a great dinner from the vendors there including a fine fillet from Red's Best seafood. Looks like it will be a summer of healthy eating!

A special thank you to Dave Gilson from The Herb Lyceum for bringing some chervil clippings to town to share with cooks like Penny. She sprinked rouchly chopped chervil leaves on that moist flakey fish before serving it. Perfect!

In Season Right Now!

We also saw: mushrooms, swiss chard, spinach, green garlic, salad mix, lettuce, arugula, lots of annuals, herbs, and vegetable plants, hot house tomatoes, scallions, and cucumbers.

Enjoy now before it's gone!

Asparagus and early hoop house strawberries.

Follow all our Local Food/Farmers' Market and At The Market reports:

We heard talk about some early hothouse tomatoes. Curtis Stillman said Stillman's Farm would soon have kale and their first peas.

What's on your Food Lover's Shopping List? Shop Amazon for all your kitchen & dining needs and support this site!

Details:

Words: Penny & Ed Cherubino
Photos: ©2013 Penny & Ed Cherubino

Note on Comments: We monitor comments constantly and anything that is pure spam, inappropriate, or nasty is swept away. In addition to readers' comments, we welcome hearing from the people, places, and services we cover. Often, those add great insights for our readers. As long as it doesn’t become a pure ad, we’d love to hear from you. We do reserve the right to edit ads and links out of comments.

May 29, 2013
At the Market: a Visit to the Prudential Center Farmers’ Market

One of our walks this week took us to the Prudential Center where we picked up a few items for our supper from the specialty food vendors. The Prudential Center Farmers' Market is open on the Bolyston Street side of the complex from 11 am to 6 pm each Thursday.

We'd been missing the pretzels, and pretzel rolls from swissbäkers. We know they have a new shop on Western Avenue in Allston, but we haven't made it there yet! We'll add it to one of our Watertown runs. For now, it's great to have them back in the city at the Prudential and Dewey Square markets.

We enjoyed our pretzels with cheese and zingy pepper jelly from Stir It Up. We took our cue from the sample they were offering and their famous savory cheesecake torte baked with a glaze of their pepper jelly (below). Think about picking up one of these the next time you need party food.

In addition to chilled goat cheese with a dollop of "sweet heat" (as they call it), we also warmed some brie and spread the lime pepper jelly on that. It was a big hit!

This market will be another source for fresh-from-the-boat fish this summer with Cape Cod Fish Share on hand.

While we do occasionally visit the Coolidge Corner shop for a When Pigs Fly bread fix, it's good to have them back in the neighborhood on Thursdays!

We also stopped by the Copley Square Farmers' Market on Friday and picked a great dinner from the vendors there including a fine fillet from Red's Best seafood. Looks like it will be a summer of healthy eating!

A special thank you to Dave Gilson from The Herb Lyceum for bringing some chervil clippings to town to share with cooks like Penny. She sprinked rouchly chopped chervil leaves on that moist flakey fish before serving it. Perfect!

In Season Right Now!

We also saw: mushrooms, swiss chard, spinach, green garlic, salad mix, lettuce, arugula, lots of annuals, herbs, and vegetable plants, hot house tomatoes, scallions, and cucumbers.

Enjoy now before it's gone!

Asparagus and early hoop house strawberries.

Follow all our Local Food/Farmers' Market and At The Market reports:

We heard talk about some early hothouse tomatoes. Curtis Stillman said Stillman's Farm would soon have kale and their first peas.

What's on your Food Lover's Shopping List? Shop Amazon for all your kitchen & dining needs and support this site!

Details:

Words: Penny & Ed Cherubino
Photos: ©2013 Penny & Ed Cherubino

Note on Comments: We monitor comments constantly and anything that is pure spam, inappropriate, or nasty is swept away. In addition to readers' comments, we welcome hearing from the people, places, and services we cover. Often, those add great insights for our readers. As long as it doesn’t become a pure ad, we’d love to hear from you. We do reserve the right to edit ads and links out of comments.

May 29, 2013
At the Market: New Location for City Hall Market

The big news this week is the relocation of the City Hall Farmers' Market to the Congress Street side of City Hall Plaza. This move is due to the MBTA's renovation of the Government Center Station over the next three years.

It's also close to the site of the planned permanent public market. Both the City Hall and the Dewey Square farmers' markets are operated by the Boston Public Market Association. While this market may be closer to the Haymarket MBTA station, the vendors here sell local, farm fresh, high quality products and are not associated with that other market known for clearance goods that shows up on weekends.

One new addition to both the Monday and Wednesday roster at City Hall is Red's Best seafood. Penny had already purchased asparagus from Silverbrook Farm and asked what would be a good match. Not only did she get a recommendation of scallops, but the chef at their stand even gave her a tip for cooking them.

Penny prepped the aspargus for oven roasting with a sprinkle of olive oil, salt, pepper, and a chopped shallot, and popped them into a hot oven. While they cooked, she seared the scallops in a very hot pan with just a coating of grapeseed oil. Just before these beauties were done, she added a piece of butter and squeeze of lemon.

With some good bread and dessert from Pain D'Avignon, we had the perfect farmers' market supper.

Monday's stop at City Hall was followed by a Tuesday visit to the market at Copley Square. Penny was on the hunt for strawberries from Atlas Farm and didn't want to find them sold out so we arrived just before opening and camped out on a bench near their stand.

We weren't the only ones impatient for the 11 a.m. opening call.

It's interesting to watch the vendors set up their stands. Ann from Crystal Brook Farm wheeled her sign and supplies to her spot where she would soon be selling her amazing goat cheese and clever brown bag lunches.

In Season Right Now!

All the items we mentioned above plus:

Radishes from Atlas Farms

Cucumbers from Foppema's Farm / Keown Orchards – they also had herb plants, rhubarb, greens, and popcorn on the cob.

We also saw mushrooms, green garlic, salad mix, lettuce, arugula, lots of annuals, herbs, and vegetable plants.

Coming Soon!

We heard talk about some early hothouse tomatoes. Curtis Stillman said Stillman's Farm would soon have kale and their first peas.

What's on your Food Lover's shopping list? Shop Amazon for all your kitchen & dining needs and support this site!

Details:

Words: Penny & Ed Cherubino
Photos: ©2013 Penny & Ed Cherubino

Note on Comments: We monitor comments constantly and anything that is pure spam, inappropriate, or nasty is swept away. In addition to readers' comments, we welcome hearing from the people, places, and services we cover. Often, those add great insights for our readers. As long as it doesn’t become a pure ad, we’d love to hear from you. We do reserve the right to edit ads and links out of comments.

May 23, 2013
At the Market: New Location for City Hall Market

The big news this week is the relocation of the City Hall Farmers' Market to the Congress Street side of City Hall Plaza. This move is due to the MBTA's renovation of the Government Center Station over the next three years.

It's also close to the site of the planned permanent public market. Both the City Hall and the Dewey Square farmers' markets are operated by the Boston Public Market Association. While this market may be closer to the Haymarket MBTA station, the vendors here sell local, farm fresh, high quality products and are not associated with that other market known for clearance goods that shows up on weekends.

One new addition to both the Monday and Wednesday roster at City Hall is Red's Best seafood. Penny had already purchased asparagus from Silverbrook Farm and asked what would be a good match. Not only did she get a recommendation of scallops, but the chef at their stand even gave her a tip for cooking them.

Penny prepped the aspargus for oven roasting with a sprinkle of olive oil, salt, pepper, and a chopped shallot, and popped them into a hot oven. While they cooked, she seared the scallops in a very hot pan with just a coating of grapeseed oil. Just before these beauties were done, she added a piece of butter and squeeze of lemon.

With some good bread and dessert from Pain D'Avignon, we had the perfect farmers' market supper.

Monday's stop at City Hall was followed by a Tuesday visit to the market at Copley Square. Penny was on the hunt for strawberries from Atlas Farm and didn't want to find them sold out so we arrived just before opening and camped out on a bench near their stand.

We weren't the only ones impatient for the 11 a.m. opening call.

It's interesting to watch the vendors set up their stands. Ann from Crystal Brook Farm wheeled her sign and supplies to her spot where she would soon be selling her amazing goat cheese and clever brown bag lunches.

In Season Right Now!

All the items we mentioned above plus:

Radishes from Atlas Farms

Cucumbers from Foppema's Farm / Keown Orchards – they also had herb plants, rhubarb, greens, and popcorn on the cob.

We also saw mushrooms, green garlic, salad mix, lettuce, arugula, lots of annuals, herbs, and vegetable plants.

Coming Soon!

We heard talk about some early hothouse tomatoes. Curtis Stillman said Stillman's Farm would soon have kale and their first peas.

What's on your Food Lover's shopping list? Shop Amazon for all your kitchen & dining needs and support this site!

Details:

Words: Penny & Ed Cherubino
Photos: ©2013 Penny & Ed Cherubino

Note on Comments: We monitor comments constantly and anything that is pure spam, inappropriate, or nasty is swept away. In addition to readers' comments, we welcome hearing from the people, places, and services we cover. Often, those add great insights for our readers. As long as it doesn’t become a pure ad, we’d love to hear from you. We do reserve the right to edit ads and links out of comments.

May 23, 2013
At the Market: New Location for City Hall Market

The big news this week is the relocation of the City Hall Farmers' Market to the Congress Street side of City Hall Plaza. This move is due to the MBTA's renovation of the Government Center Station over the next three years.

It's also close to the site of the planned permanent public market. Both the City Hall and the Dewey Square farmers' markets are operated by the Boston Public Market Association. While this market may be closer to the Haymarket MBTA station, the vendors here sell local, farm fresh, high quality products and are not associated with that other market known for clearance goods that shows up on weekends.

One new addition to both the Monday and Wednesday roster at City Hall is Red's Best seafood. Penny had already purchased asparagus from Silverbrook Farm and asked what would be a good match. Not only did she get a recommendation of scallops, but the chef at their stand even gave her a tip for cooking them.

Penny prepped the aspargus for oven roasting with a sprinkle of olive oil, salt, pepper, and a chopped shallot, and popped them into a hot oven. While they cooked, she seared the scallops in a very hot pan with just a coating of grapeseed oil. Just before these beauties were done, she added a piece of butter and squeeze of lemon.

With some good bread and dessert from Pain D'Avignon, we had the perfect farmers' market supper.

Monday's stop at City Hall was followed by a Tuesday visit to the market at Copley Square. Penny was on the hunt for strawberries from Atlas Farm and didn't want to find them sold out so we arrived just before opening and camped out on a bench near their stand.

We weren't the only ones impatient for the 11 a.m. opening call.

It's interesting to watch the vendors set up their stands. Ann from Crystal Brook Farm wheeled her sign and supplies to her spot where she would soon be selling her amazing goat cheese and clever brown bag lunches.

In Season Right Now!

All the items we mentioned above plus:

Radishes from Atlas Farms

Cucumbers from Foppema's Farm / Keown Orchards – they also had herb plants, rhubarb, greens, and popcorn on the cob.

We also saw mushrooms, green garlic, salad mix, lettuce, arugula, lots of annuals, herbs, and vegetable plants.

Coming Soon!

We heard talk about some early hothouse tomatoes. Curtis Stillman said Stillman's Farm would soon have kale and their first peas.

What's on your Food Lover's shopping list? Shop Amazon for all your kitchen & dining needs and support this site!

Details:

Words: Penny & Ed Cherubino
Photos: ©2013 Penny & Ed Cherubino

Note on Comments: We monitor comments constantly and anything that is pure spam, inappropriate, or nasty is swept away. In addition to readers' comments, we welcome hearing from the people, places, and services we cover. Often, those add great insights for our readers. As long as it doesn’t become a pure ad, we’d love to hear from you. We do reserve the right to edit ads and links out of comments.

May 23, 2013
We’ll Pass on Restaurant Week, But We’ll Share 5 Tips…
We know that Restaurant Week (RW) has it's fans, but it's not the type of event that appeals to us. We're grazers! We often have a couple of appetizers or share an entree. We like to sit at the bar and nibble our way through a meal. We seldon eat three courses. What's more, most of our favorite restaurants don't take part in the event.

Since we don't have recent Restaurant Week experience, we can't comment on the service or the overall quality of the offerings. But, we can link you to conversations over on the Boston Chowhound Board about last year's event and we'll add new links as they pop up this year.

Restaurant Week Boston, Winter 2012 reports?

Here are a few tips that might increase your enjoyment of Restaurant Week.
1. Check the menus carefully. Is there something on that special menu that is on the chef's regular menu or that this restaurant will do very well. Skip the places with the chicken, short ribs, and salmon specials.
2. A few places offer their full menu. Here's a Chowhound report on that from LAST year. Things change but you can check the menu on the RW site or call ahead for confirmation.
3. Support and enjoy the places that are not taking part. Again, here is a Chowhound list from LAST year that you can check against the official RW list.
4. Pick a chef-driven place that takes pride in its food every day of the year over a chain experience. Support small and local.
5. Tip your server as if you paid full price for 3-courses at this restaurant. This is a very hard week on servers. They didn't decide to run the promotion but they take the brunt of the problems from the event and work harder for less money. Since you're saving money, share a bit of it with your server.
Give us your Restaurant Week thoughts and experiences in the comments below or send us an email and we'll add your ideas when we do updates.

Updates:

(03/19/13) From www.welovebeantown.com : Boston Restaurant Week 2013 – Staff Picks!

(03/19/13) Here's Rendezvous in Central Square's answer to RW. A much better deal!

(03/24/13) Over on BostInno, Lisa Decano has reported on 7 Unofficial Menus for Boston Restaurant Week
Do you have an Amazon Gift Certificate to use? Or, do you need to buy one for a gift? Remember to click over to Amazon from here to support this site!

Details:

Words: Penny & Ed Cherubino
Photography: istockphoto.com

Note on Comments: We monitor comments constantly and anything that is pure spam, inappropriate, or nasty is swept away. In addition to readers' comments, we welcome hearing from the people, places, and services we cover. Often, those add great insights for our readers. As long as it doesn’t become a pure ad, we’d love to hear from you. We do reserve the right to edit ads and links out of comments.

Related articles

Guest Commentary: The real winner of Denver's Restaurant Week

High Back Booths or Irish Snugs, a Solution to the Noise Problem?

Where Are These Grazers? Play Attention to Detail

Your 17 Best Bets for Boston Restaurant Week
March 19, 2013
We’ll Pass on Restaurant Week, But We’ll Share 5 Tips…
We know that Restaurant Week (RW) has it's fans, but it's not the type of event that appeals to us. We're grazers! We often have a couple of appetizers or share an entree. We like to sit at the bar and nibble our way through a meal. We seldon eat three courses. What's more, most of our favorite restaurants don't take part in the event.

Since we don't have recent Restaurant Week experience, we can't comment on the service or the overall quality of the offerings. But, we can link you to conversations over on the Boston Chowhound Board about last year's event and we'll add new links as they pop up this year.

Restaurant Week Boston, Winter 2012 reports?

Here are a few tips that might increase your enjoyment of Restaurant Week.
1. Check the menus carefully. Is there something on that special menu that is on the chef's regular menu or that this restaurant will do very well. Skip the places with the chicken, short ribs, and salmon specials.
2. A few places offer their full menu. Here's a Chowhound report on that from LAST year. Things change but you can check the menu on the RW site or call ahead for confirmation.
3. Support and enjoy the places that are not taking part. Again, here is a Chowhound list from LAST year that you can check against the official RW list.
4. Pick a chef-driven place that takes pride in its food every day of the year over a chain experience. Support small and local.
5. Tip your server as if you paid full price for 3-courses at this restaurant. This is a very hard week on servers. They didn't decide to run the promotion but they take the brunt of the problems from the event and work harder for less money. Since you're saving money, share a bit of it with your server.
Give us your Restaurant Week thoughts and experiences in the comments below or send us an email and we'll add your ideas when we do updates.

Updates:

(03/19/13) From www.welovebeantown.com : Boston Restaurant Week 2013 – Staff Picks!

(03/19/13) Here's Rendezvous in Central Square's answer to RW. A much better deal!

(03/24/13) Over on BostInno, Lisa Decano has reported on 7 Unofficial Menus for Boston Restaurant Week
Do you have an Amazon Gift Certificate to use? Or, do you need to buy one for a gift? Remember to click over to Amazon from here to support this site!

Details:

Words: Penny & Ed Cherubino
Photography: istockphoto.com

Note on Comments: We monitor comments constantly and anything that is pure spam, inappropriate, or nasty is swept away. In addition to readers' comments, we welcome hearing from the people, places, and services we cover. Often, those add great insights for our readers. As long as it doesn’t become a pure ad, we’d love to hear from you. We do reserve the right to edit ads and links out of comments.

Related articles

Guest Commentary: The real winner of Denver's Restaurant Week

High Back Booths or Irish Snugs, a Solution to the Noise Problem?

Where Are These Grazers? Play Attention to Detail

Your 17 Best Bets for Boston Restaurant Week
March 19, 2013
We’ll Pass on Restaurant Week, But We’ll Share 5 Tips…
We know that Restaurant Week (RW) has it's fans, but it's not the type of event that appeals to us. We're grazers! We often have a couple of appetizers or share an entree. We like to sit at the bar and nibble our way through a meal. We seldon eat three courses. What's more, most of our favorite restaurants don't take part in the event.

Since we don't have recent Restaurant Week experience, we can't comment on the service or the overall quality of the offerings. But, we can link you to conversations over on the Boston Chowhound Board about last year's event and we'll add new links as they pop up this year.

Restaurant Week Boston, Winter 2012 reports?

Here are a few tips that might increase your enjoyment of Restaurant Week.
1. Check the menus carefully. Is there something on that special menu that is on the chef's regular menu or that this restaurant will do very well. Skip the places with the chicken, short ribs, and salmon specials.
2. A few places offer their full menu. Here's a Chowhound report on that from LAST year. Things change but you can check the menu on the RW site or call ahead for confirmation.
3. Support and enjoy the places that are not taking part. Again, here is a Chowhound list from LAST year that you can check against the official RW list.
4. Pick a chef-driven place that takes pride in its food every day of the year over a chain experience. Support small and local.
5. Tip your server as if you paid full price for 3-courses at this restaurant. This is a very hard week on servers. They didn't decide to run the promotion but they take the brunt of the problems from the event and work harder for less money. Since you're saving money, share a bit of it with your server.
Give us your Restaurant Week thoughts and experiences in the comments below or send us an email and we'll add your ideas when we do updates.

Updates:

(03/19/13) From www.welovebeantown.com : Boston Restaurant Week 2013 – Staff Picks!

(03/19/13) Here's Rendezvous in Central Square's answer to RW. A much better deal!

(03/24/13) Over on BostInno, Lisa Decano has reported on 7 Unofficial Menus for Boston Restaurant Week
Do you have an Amazon Gift Certificate to use? Or, do you need to buy one for a gift? Remember to click over to Amazon from here to support this site!

Details:

Words: Penny & Ed Cherubino
Photography: istockphoto.com

Note on Comments: We monitor comments constantly and anything that is pure spam, inappropriate, or nasty is swept away. In addition to readers' comments, we welcome hearing from the people, places, and services we cover. Often, those add great insights for our readers. As long as it doesn’t become a pure ad, we’d love to hear from you. We do reserve the right to edit ads and links out of comments.

Related articles

Guest Commentary: The real winner of Denver's Restaurant Week

High Back Booths or Irish Snugs, a Solution to the Noise Problem?

Where Are These Grazers? Play Attention to Detail

Your 17 Best Bets for Boston Restaurant Week
March 19, 2013