Six years ago, I was busy editing the launch issue of Edible Manhattan. Since then, we’ve told hundreds of stories about the most meaningful food and drink experiences in New York. You can read our issues, free anytime, on our site, but just in time for your week at the beach, we just went and made it even easier.
I’ve edited every word we’ve ever printed and when the chance came to tap my favorite features, it wasn’t easy. But somehow I winnowed it down to 17 stories and now I present, free to download on any device, our “Icons” e-book — a 334-page essential collection of the most quintessential Gotham stories in Edible’s archives.
While editing our 36-and-counting issues, I’ve had the absolute pleasure of telling the stories of the people and places that have made New York not only a delicious place to eat but a deeply meaningful one, too. This lineup moves from the early days of Washington Market’s bear steaks up through Audrey Saunders’s post-modern transformation of cocktail culture. Along the way we hail the tastemakers who built this city’s scene — chefs like Rozanne Gold, Jonathan Waxman and Peter Hoffman who planted the early seeds of the locavore revolution. And artisans like the crew at Russ & Daughters who kept real lox alive through culinary dark ages, Coach Farm Dairy who introduced America to the glories of goat cheese, Amy Scherber who decided New York deserved real bread and Rob Kaufelt whose Murray’s Cheese has changed palates — and sustained great farmers — far beyond the 212 area code.
These tastemakers built the foundation for today’s good-food movement, which we chronicle in features on Anne Saxelby’s tiny-but-mighty all-local cheese counter, Michael Anthony’s fanatically fresh fare at Gramercy Tavern and, of course, a day behind the scenes at the Union Square Greenmarket orchestrating box trucks, carnival-like crowds, buskers and pickpockets, and the heirloom melons, grassfed lamb, sun-ripened tomatoes and farmstead cheeses that arguably make Manhattan a better place to eat farmy foods than any rural county in the country.
You can download the book here. Happy reading.
