Tag Archives: garden

Happy Wildflower Week

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It’s Wildflower Week in New York City. (Who knew?) Apparently, it runs through the 19th and there are over 30 events highlighting the beauties throughout all five boroughs.

To celebrate, here’s a lovely poem, “The Wild Flower’s Song,” penned by William Blake (1757-1827):

As I wander’d the forest,
The green leaves among,
I heard a wild flower Singing a song.

I slept in the Earth In the silent night,
I murmur’d my fears
And I felt delight.

In the morning I went
As rosy as morn,
To seek for new joy;
But O! met with scorn.

So to celebrate this week, be sure to bring some flowers to someone you love.

The Spring Menu Is Here

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Chef Yoel Cruz brings us lighter fare featuring delicious seasonal produce like carrots, spring onions and radishes.

Check out these appetizers:

Grilled marinated shrimp with lemon orzo, roasted tomato and saffron broth.

Shrimp!

A spring barley risotto with pearl barley (not Bailey–sorry, couldn’t resist), carrots, fresh green peas, fennel and spring onions, ricotta and parmesan cheeses and fresh basil.

New dinner apps feature the additions of an organic kale salad with organic gala apples, roasted baby carrots and manchego cheese, toasted almond and buttermilk dressing.  Plus a seafood salad with shrimp, scallops, grilled calamari, New Zealand mussels, Boston lettuce, radishes, red onion, meyer lemon vinaigrette.

There are a few new entrees at dinner:

Roasted lobster with creamed corn, shiitake mushrooms, escarole and shellfish chili broth.  Another dish from the sea is pan-seared halibut with roasted tomato and eggplant, amaranth (a super-healthy, gluten-free grain) and a mustard cream sauce.

Meat eaters like me are looking forward to the braised short ribs with wild rice, ancho chili sauce and a spring vegetable timbale.

Finally, there’s a grilled pork ribeye with fingerling potatoes with ladrons, morels, fresh peas and spring onions with a shallot au jus.

Pork and Peas, please!

Welcome to spring, everyone. I’ll update you on what’s happening with the rooftop garden shortly!

Have a great weekend!

 

 

Orchids and Sexy Ladies and Stinky Cheese

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There’s lots of stuff going on in the city this week….listen up!

The Armory Arts Week: The Armory Show at Piers 92 and 94 (which features important artwork from the 20th and 21st centuries) is the main attraction, but there are art-related events all week long all over the city, from the Bronx to the Lower East Side to Brooklyn. (3/5 through 3/10)

The Orchid Show begins at the New York Botanical Gardens. The event provides demonstrations on how to care for orchids, Q&As with experts (or as I like to call them, orchid whisperers) plus lectures, guided tours and musical entertainment. If you can’t make it this week, the show runs though April, 22nd.

Fusion Film Festival: Students run this festival at our neighbor, NYU’s, Tisch School of the Arts. Fusion is a multi-day festival with the mission of encouraging, promoting and inspiring women filmmakers and the collaboration between the sexes. (Go, sisters!) You can find screeenings, industry panels, master-classes, retrospectives and student showcases. Runs 3/7 through 3/9.

ADAA Arts Show: This show is one of the best, showcasing some of the greatest art dealers and galleries. Meet the dealers, discuss and perhaps purchase the works on view. Or just browse, like I do. Through 3/10.

Strip Strip Hooray with Dita Von Teese:  The burlesque queen headlines at The Gramercy Theater from Wednesday through Sunday.  I mean, it’s called “Strip Strip Hooray”, people. Seriously, don’t you want to go?

The Winter Stinky Cheese Festival: (3/5 through 3/12)  Chefs at nine French eateries will prepare special dishes highlighting the stinkiest of the stinkiest fromage.  Sigh…I can’t wait.

 

Five Things You Really Need to Know About the Rooftop Garden

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1.  We’ve got heirloom tomatoes and chillies and herbs, oh my!

2.  It’s a family thing. The garden, dubbed Jake’s Rooftop Garden, was named after owner Judy Paul‘s granddad, Jacob.

3.  It’s an herb thing.  Seventeen of them to be exact, including three varieties of thyme (English, silver and lemon) and two each of sage (garden green and golden) and oregano (Mexican and Italian).  They’re  used both in the restaurant (Thai basil in the lobster and crab cakes) and the lounge (mint

juleps, because we’re in Southern Manhattan y’all.)

4.  It’s a local thing. All the chillies, herbs and tomatoes are locally sourced from Oak Grove Plantation in New Jersey and Binder Farm and Atlantic Nursery, both in Long Island.

5.  If you thought Chef Cruz’s food was yummy before….well, you ain’t tasted nothing yet.  Farm-to-table scrumptious.