fesenjan's Profile
Need Help with Choosing a CSA for Summer '12
I buy from Farmer Dave's at the Beverly Farmers Market occasionally and have enjoyed their stuff. Not a big issue for me, but just in case this is a priority for the OP in making choices, they are Integrated Pest Management, not organic.
Please help me learn to love kale......!!
Dino/tuscan/lacinato kale is great with a Caesar salad dressing, too. Chiffonade, dress ahead of time to let it wilt a bit. If 100% kale is a bit strong for you, you can 50/50 with Romaine.
And as others have said: kale chips. So good.
February 2012 Fresh & local markets, farm stands, CSA, Delivery etc
I went to the Winchester Market last week and yes, not as much produce. However, one of my favorite producers, Winter Moon Roots from Hadley, has a stall there. All kinds of beets, watermelon and daikon radishes, turnips, carrots, and more, running about $2-3 a pound. They are also in Somerville at the winter market at the Armory.
CSA Share North Shore of Boston (near Wakefield)
The CSA I'm in, First Light Farm has a pickup in Lynnfield. http://www.firstlightfarmcsa.com/
Where to buy Paneer in Cambridge/Somerville?
Yes, I second this -- over to the back right of the Market Basket at 400 Somerville Avenue. I've always found it there, reasonably priced. I think it's called Little India Market.
November 2011 Winter Markets, CSAs, Farm Stands & Other Fresh, Local Sources
The Salem Winter Market starts today, and has some new vendors. 2-6 PM inside the little structures on Artists' Row downtown.
H Mart [Not] Closed!
Could it have been just that they were without power from the storm?
Biryani Park - Sri Lankan in Malden
Thanks to the wonderful hounds on this board for sending us to Biryani Park. We went last night, and were blown away by the food. Service was very friendly and warm but quite slow. This was 3 days after the positive Globe review, and the place was fairly full but not packed (no one waiting, an empty table or two, some takeout orders going on).
As we waited for our order we were comped a whole series of things (I'm not sure why):
-mini mango lassis. Very thick and rich, quite sweet.
-fish "cutlets," 4 fried balls of fish/potato, spiced deliciously and fried very well (from the Sri Lankan menu)
-2 string hoppers - as others have said, these don't do much for me, and I found the yellow sauce a bit monochromatic
What we ordered:
-Chicken 65. I believe this is the only a time a dish, upon arriving at my table, has activated some reptilian, evolutionary suspicion about the color being so intensely red that I might be about to ingest some kind of poisonous berry. Fortunately I overcame this evolutionary suspicion immediately. Delicious, very hot, nuggets of boneless chicken, some sort of citrusy or vinegary tang in there. Awesome. Too hot for me. Ate it anyway. There are several other "65" dishes with the same preparation. The name has a number of possible explanations, apparently.
-Gobi Manchurian on the rec of this board. Fried very, very crisp, studded with peppers and onions. Really great, not just your standard fried cauliflower app.
-Goat biryani. Revelatory. Complex melange of flavors, just incredible. You really should get some kind of biryani.
-Lamb Deviled Grill. This was big chunks of lamb layered with strips of cabbage, pepper and onion, plus "capiscums" (you know what those are) tho not especially spicy. Came off to me as sort of Chinese or more properly I guess Indo-Chinese. The least interesting of the dishes we had, and suffered by comparison (but only by comparison). Lamb was tender, but its flavor not really well integrated with the rest of the dish.
The table next to us got dosas, which were beautiful and the size of, like, a small watercraft.
All the dishes other than the string hoppers (which I'm guessing I just don't "get") and the lamb gave us that elusive sense of "I've never eaten anything quite like this before." We chatted some with the owner, who was very nice and friendly. Prices quite reasonable.
That said -- I hope they are able to make some progress with organizing their service a bit better, because they really deserve customers who are as happy with the pace and flow as with the food. We saw one table wait 20 minutes to have a credit card picked up, and another actually walk out after waiting some time to get an order taken. There were also a couple instances of staff literally running to and from the kitchen, which just conveys an unnecessary sense of panic and trouble. I hope they get to the point where managing 8-9 covers at a time plus some takeout does not overwhelm them, because I want to go back to Biryani Park more than once!
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Biryani Park
105 Broadway (Route 99), Malden, MA 02148
where to buy organic chicken livers in Boston area?
Thanks - yeah, I'm on the North Shore so that would be a bit of a hike, but who knows, I might be out that way for something else.... that's exactly the kind of thing I'm looking for!
where to buy organic chicken livers in Boston area?
Thanks, emannths. I've driven past that place more than once but never been in! In case I wasn't clear, I've had no problem at all finding organic poultry in the area -- it's packages of livers I'm looking for especially.
Your description is rather different from what I've been reading elsewhere, and in recipes for chicken liver, etc. so I do appreciate having some different input.
where to buy organic chicken livers in Boston area?
So over the past few years I've learned from this board about lots of great Eastern MA CSAs, sources for eggs, sources for meat, etc. What about packages of organic, no-antibiotics chicken liver? We love the stuff, and have been buying it in the white tubs at Market Basket, but have been thinking recently that, uh, since the liver filters all the toxins.... probably it's not so great a choice to eat a half-pound of factory-farmed chicken livers all that regularly.
It seems to me I may have seen a national brand in similar little tubs at Whole Foods, and will check there the next time I go -- but I'm wondering if anyone has a source for livers from a local farm. Thanks!
cocktails Amherst/Northampton?
Just wanted to say thanks again - we tried Amherst Coffee one evening, where I had a nice tart Sidecar and my husband had a Corpse Reviver #2, and also Hope & Olive where we both had a seasonal drink involving bourbon and apple cider (at lunch [blushes]). I don't think I'd have happened on either of these places for cocktails without help from the board.
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Hope & Olive
44 Hope St, Greenfield, MA 01301
Amherst Coffee
28 Amity Pl, Amherst, MA 01002
Go to Go Berry in Northampton, MA
Thank you so much for this post. I was in the Pioneer Valley for a few days this week, and would never have stopped at a frozen yogurt place had I not read your rec. Absolutely fantastic, creamy, fresh, real-tasting yogurt, and a bargain at $3 for a small. Wow.
Winter CSA Help Needed
My family is also me and my husband, and we went with First Light this summer and *just* were able to use it all every week -- but they are going to a "mid-size" share next year, at a lower price ($500). I would rather keep the big one, but I think many people will be really happy about that change. As I said above, I have also signed up for the winter share with First Light.
Ladycale, what CSA were you with that is ceasing to distribute? Just interested to know, as the trend had seemed to me to be in the direction of more CSAs rather than fewer.
Any others in Boston area taking Slow Food $5 Challenge?
Enjoy! FYI, if you send them a picture even of your home meal (photos@slowfoodusa.org or tweet to @slowfoodusa,) they're offering a prize for the best 3 photos of people eating a $5 challenge meal together: a free copy of "Poor Girl Gourmet," a cookbook by Amy McCoy from RI.
Any others in Boston area taking Slow Food $5 Challenge?
Just going to bump this in case anyone is looking for a Chowish event this weekend in the Boston area. The Slow Food challenge has gotten a lot of press nationally, tho not so much around here for some reason. I think we're still the only Boston-area public $5 Challenge meal.
We're meeting in Beverly at 5:30pm at 4 Ocean St (the dining hall at St. Peter's church), bring a dish that serves 4-6 for $5, use up your CSA tomatoes or your Baer's Best Beans or your Chip-in Eggs, etc. It's free.
Winter CSA Help Needed
These comments apply specifically to the winter/fall CSA at Green Meadows only: I did it one year - 2 yrs ago? - and at that point they were buying in a fair amount of produce/fruit from other East Coast farms (not just local farms) and the quality was not the best -- had some wilted stuff, things I needed to use very quickly. It looks on their website like this has changed, though, and they are only doing local things now, which should be easier to keep quality high on. Their in-house stuff is very high quality, and being able to pick up anytime they are open is super convenient.
The quantity on the winter CSA at GM was less than I'd hoped for for the price. The price on their site now ($320 for 8 pickups) seems higher than other winter CSAs I've looked at the past couple years. This is consistent with the impression I had being with them for the summer for a few seasons, when it seemed to me that the price kept rising while the quantity got smaller and a few things that used to be free for shareholders ceased.
Finally, the Green Meadows farm stand is a nice place to go if you enjoy shopping for prepared foods, gifts, local products, upscale packaged food, etc -- and young kids really like meeting the animals.
Winter CSA Help Needed
It looks like the info I posted has now been tweaked a little on the website - maybe it was a draft. It now says $150 for 5 pickups. I'm definitely signing up!
Winter CSA Help Needed
Just adding new info to this - First Light Farm just put up their winter share info today - 10 pickups between Jan-May in Topsfield or Lynnfield, $200, no pickups in Feb or Mar.
http://www.firstlightfarmcsa.com/join-our-csa.html
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First Light Farm
94 Locust St, Danvers, MA 01923
Any others in Boston area taking Slow Food $5 Challenge?
Both those suggestions from Treb sound delicious, but yes, it's a cooking at home challenge, so Madrid's ideas are right on the money! Actually on the North Shore we're doing a public potluck in Beverly, in which everyone brings a dish that serves 4-6 for under $5 and we all share.
Any others in Boston area taking Slow Food $5 Challenge?
Anybody getting on board with this Slow Food campaign later this month? The theme is "Take Back the Value Meal" and the challenge is "On Sept. 17, I pledge to share a fresh, healthy meal that costs less than $5 -- because slow food shouldn't have to cost more than fast food."
It's a national thing (see Slow Food's front page: http://www.slowfoodusa.org/) but the execution is very grassroots, around local tables. I'm involved with a $5 Challenge potluck on the North Shore (you can "Find A Meal" by zip) but the only other one in New England I see is Portland ME. Anybody else making a $5 feast that's not on the list?
Winter CSA Help Needed
You bet. Stacked up milk crates we've had sitting around since college in 2 different places in the basement to make a sort of shelving unit. Duct taped some big contractor-type trash bags over them to keep it dark. Put the stuff that needs some humidity near the sump pump, put the stuff that needs less humidity in the middle of the room (Shared Harvest gave us a list of optimal storage conditions for all the produce). It wasn't pretty, but it worked fine,
Where can i find BISCOFF spread??
There is a sale on Biscoff spread (and the cookies) right now at Market Basket, at least in Danvers. It was displayed prominently near the front door, and when I saw it I thought of this post immediately since it might be a chance for the OP to stock up.
Winter CSA Help Needed
I had an excellent experience with Shared Harvest last year. I put together a root cellar type thing with milk crates for storage but actually could probably have done without it. (There was a swap box, so you could likely swap out potatoes for squash, celeriac, apples....) I am with First Light for the summer and will probably stay with them for the winter this year, but that is not because of any dissatisfaction with Shared Harvest. They were great and the quality was great.
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Shared Harvest
Belmont, Belmont, MA
cocktails Amherst/Northampton?
Thanks so much everyone - some great suggestions there!
cocktails Amherst/Northampton?
Hi all, Boston hound heading out west in a couple weeks for some college nostalgia. Is there anyplace in the Amherst/Northampton area doing craft/interesting cocktails?
Lyon recomendations.......
I had lunch at Daniel et Denise last fall and though the ambiance was very homey, I was not especially impressed by the food - I didn't feel I was getting a strong regional meal (which I did at the other bouchon I ate at, Le Garet) but neither did I feel like the food was so good as to stand on its own without the "regional" attraction. I don't remember my main dish but the two vegetables that came with it were scalloped potatoes and macaroni and cheese.
I had two wonderful meals at "market cuisine" type restaurants that are part of a group called Les Gueules de Lyon -- one was Mon Bistrot à Moi in the 6th, and the other Le Potager des Halles in the 1st. Both offered contemporary, thoughtful, fresh dishes presented well and with warmth from the servers. Not bouchons, though.
Maki, Peabody
Haven't seen any more talk about this place on CH, so here's some: Went to Maki this week for lunch. There is a "signature" section with fusiony options on the menu, which we didn't investigate. Also there are lots of Americanized rolls with multiple ingredients (jalapenos, cream cheese, imitation crab...), and if that's your cup of tea getting a few of those might be a serviceable meal in a pinch. However, the nigiri and sashimi were both sub-par, cut not only far thinner than I've ever seen but also irregularly, for a very amateurish look. I'm talking a strip of whitefish with a lump on one end and then the middle so thin it pulls apart when you pick it up. Impossible to appreciate mouthfeel and texture of the different fish when it was cut so poorly. The service was friendly and quick, but this will not be a sushi choice we make again.
Best spot for PYO strawberries?
We like Connors Farm in Danvers (depending on where you are). Open for picking now, 9am-6pm. Strawberry Festival Sat the 18th.
Diverse Questions from Boston hound coming in July
Thanks Nick - I was wondering about that move, good to know it happened. You may have just tipped the scales for Mavi.... :)
