The Year in Food – 2013 Highlights

Before I pitch headlong into 2014 and all the exciting things I have planned…I am reviewing a few of the food highlights of 2013. This is not an exhaustive list — and if you can think of something I’ve missed, feel free to let me know.

So here it is, in no particular order, fun events from the past year, with images where I happen to have some….

Leandro’s Oatmeal Cranberry Chocolate Chip Raisin Drop Cookies won First Place in Junior Culinary at the Long Island Fair!

Read it for yourself! (I had to read it several times to be sure….)

Piles of homey goodness (and sneaky science lessons)

And my banana bread took second place in the Banana Bread category

Chocolate Chips are the secret

Second place for me

I started off the year with an invitation to be a regular contributor for the newly-launched Edible Long Island magazine. I was (and am) thrilled to be closely associated with the newest member of the Edible Communities family of magazines. I have written for Edible East End and Edible Queens in the past, but it is even more exciting that the region formerly considered flyover country by foodies is getting some recognition of its culinary traditions, food growers, and craft producers.

Here are links to some of the stories I wrote for Edible Long Island’s first three editions:

LI is Little India (which I especially like because my NCC colleague Carolyn Monastra did the photos and my other colleague Jainy John Thomas was my guide for the narrative!)

Cooking His Way to a White House State Dinner – at Age 9

Besito restaurant builds kitchens in San Miguel

Día de los Muertos Is Very Much Alive on Long Island

Dia de los Muertos at Spanish All Year (which is not what the story is about, but what a nice shot of Leandro’s teachers, no?)

Stony Brook Heights Rooftop Farm

AHRC Farm Helps Adults Become Independent

I also do frequent blog posts for Edible…here is one of my favorites that we did early on and might have been missed!

Spanish School Teaches Cooking!

We were also invited to do a cooking demonstration at The Old Country Road School, a K-5 school in the Hicksville Union Free Public School District. The school was celebrating its successful garden project, now in its third year! It being a school, I figured it would be a hoot to let my then-five-, now-six-year-old show everyone to make one of his favorite sauces – hand-ground basil pesto! I mean, if a five-year-old can do it, why can’t everyone?

Cilantro-parsley pesto

Thanks to Sue Simon, the school social worker who has gone to enormous lengths to bring vegetable gardening into her school – building community, curriculum and all good things, who spearheaded this project and who I met when she presented at a Small Farms Summit a few years ago (thus the invitation). Also thanks to to the Old Country Road School and its principal Anthony Lubrano , and a shout-out to Whole Foods which awarded the project a competitive grant to expand from the original 5 raised bed to the current 11. Thanks also to Kara Gallagher, Robin Rivera, and their girls for coming out to support us, take pictures, and eat!

Food activist Oran Hesterman visited our class! He is the author of Fair Food.

Fair Food

We had a terrific time celebrating Paumanok Vineyards’ 30th Anniversary at a beautiful lamb roast at the vineyard in August.

With Ashley Fifer, enjoying the wine, food and the great outdoors!

The lamb

Winemaker and friend Kareem Massoud surveying the proceedings.

I tried crickets for the first time as part of my birthday celebrations

Yum!

Of course there were fun times at our CSA, Restoration Farm.

Celebration at the Farm

And best of all, my dad survived his surgeries, is cancer-free and went off the crazy-ass diet, so cooking and eating in our household has just become a lot more fun again!

Happy 2014, everyone….