I didn’t like 24 in 24. If you can imagine trying to eat at that many places in that amount of time, you know you’d be hating food by the end of the 12th restaurant. To do 24 in 24 in NYC, you’d need a theme, like Brooklyn or Pizza because you couldn’t possibly take only 24 restaurants and claim it was the best of the city. I wanted to capture the full flavor of the boroughs in one project. The only way to do this would be to eat at all the restaurants in the city that people liked to call their favorites.

There has been a huge surge of interest in urban agriculture in the last couple years, and we believe the only way to make urban agriculture a lasting profession is if there is a model for financial sustainability. We never want to hear, ‘Remember in the 2000-2010’s when urban farming was the latest fad?’ Part of BK Farmyards mission is to eliminate barriers for jobs in urban agriculture. We plan to teach intensive, production farming techniques on site and use the production sales to expand the farm to its full acre and employ talented farmers in Brooklyn.

Farming full time is a lot of physical labor, and I enjoy social media for the short breaks I can take. I don’t watch television and I spend so much of my life either outside or in the kitchen. I rarely see people, speak mostly to animals, and social media gives me a little human contact.

Part 2 of my video interview with Steve Jenkins of Fairway Market is below. Produced and directed by Stacey Szewczyk, the second half of our interview finds Steve and I discussing the search for authenticity within the food movement, the viability of a Fairway in Williamsburg and the evolution of Brooklyn as an eating destination.

Bion Environmental Technology, Inc. is proposing to develop a cattle finishing facility that would hold over 72, 000 cows. The project has the town’s board approval. If built, Bion’s Beef finishing facility would be the largest of it’s kind east of the Mississippi River and would bring the trend toward consolidated feeding operations to New York’s back yard. It is no surprise that the town board of Schroeppel, NY has been receptive to the project as Oswego County is one of the most economically depressed counties in New York State.

Part 1 of my video interview with Steve Jenkins of Fairway Market is below. Produced and directed by Stacy Szewczyk, this interview covers some important ground about where the food movement is, how we got here as well as the role of the grocer in today’s world.

Nestled in the hills and villages north of New York City lies the Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture, a non-profit farm and education center dedicated to spreading knowledge about sustainable agriculture. Utilizing an innovative farming operation centered around local crops and sustainable practices, the center runs a number of educational programs for surrounding communities, including increasing numbers of New York schools.