From now until October 6th, we welcome you to take part in our second annual Eat Drink Local week, an 11-day celebration of the local foodshed. This is not just a massive restaurant week (though our posts right here over the past few days have been rolling out many of the incredible meals our restaurant partners will be creating) but a get-to-know your local food market, farmer and artisan foodmaker week. It’s being held statewide with the collaboration of GrowNYC, all the Edible magazines in the Empire State and partners from the entire food chain, including restaurants, wine shops and wineries, breweries and beer bars, farms and food artisans, and cultural institutions that celebrate food.
We’d also love it if you would help spread the local love by posting about what you’re eating, drinking or cooking and where on Facebook, on Flickr, on Foursquare or on Twitter. Don’t forget to include the hash-tag #edlw! As a reminder, below is the run-down of what we have planned:
• Special locavore meals and deals: All week-long from our partnering restaurants, wine shops and wineries, breweries and beer bars, farms and food artisans, and cultural institutions that celebrate food.
• Ingredients of the day: Each day of the week will be defined by a local ingredient we think deserves your love. Restaurants that take part will be cooking with them and you should try them at home, too. Check the list — which includes clams, Concord grapes, apple cider and Long Island duck — right here.
• Profiles in deliciousness: Ongoing online profiles of our favorite local farmers, food-makers, ingredients, recipes and other edible items of note. Check the ever-growing list of those profiled right here.
• The EDL Challenge: We’ve got a list of 20 local cooking must-trys from canning to clamming to making butter to reading Michael Pollan, and we want you to master as many as you can. (If you tell us about it on Facebook, Twitter via Flickr or in person at our Festival at Chelsea Market on Oct. 4, you might win one of our rapidly growing mountain of prizes.)
• The Educational Institute: The Edible Institute at the New School, a public discourse on urban food issues on September 27.
• The Food Film Fest: Hungry Filmmakers, which features sneak peeks at some of the best up and coming food films, September 28.
• The Stone Barns Harvest Fest: The annual party and pig roast that is Harvest Fest at Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture, October 2.
• The Festival of the 11 Ingredients at Chelsea Market: A tasting of our 11 ingredients of the week from the vendors at Chelsea Market, plus local brews and bottles, October 4.
• Taste of Greenmarket: The annual, unforgettable fundraiser for the youth outreach component of the city’s Greenmarket program, October 6.
• Edible Gardens: Throughout the week, there will be programs and lectures on gardening and eating what you grow at the New York Botanical Garden.
• Cooking Demos: The Union Square and Grand Army Plaza Greenmarkets will feature cooking demos from partner chefs, New York wine pourings and other happenings. Find them in our calendar.
