New Local Link: 3 Brothers Pizza Cafe, Rockville Centre

A new vendor has been added to the Local Links (on the right of this page) -- 3 Brothers Pizza Cafe in Rockville Centre. Their restaurant was recently featured in a Rockville Centre Patch.com article by Judy Griffin, certified holistic health coach at NourishingSolutions4Life.com, for their extensive and delicious vegan menu.

To view the article, click here.

To view 3 Brothers Pizza Cafe's website, click here or on their link in the Local Links menu.

Local Links lists farmers markets, restaurants, and health food stores in Nassau County by town. Do you know of a great Nassau vendor not listed? Email Locally Long Island at locallyli@gmail.com to include it!

NY Locavore Challenge - Breakfast, Day One

Today's the first day of NOFA-NY's NY Locavore Challenge! It's not even 10:00am, and I'm realizing just how challenging this month is going to be if I don't set some ground rules for myself. I've always wanted to see just how locally I could source my food, and the Challenge is the perfect opportunity to push me into a full-blown locavore. So, here goes nothing!

Melissa's NY Locavore Challenge:

• When I must go out to eat, I will choose only local restaurants & franchises - this means going to La Bottega instead of Olive Garden, Brew 7 instead of Starbucks, Speakeasy instead of Applebee's, etc. 

• I will try my best to replace the products I would buy from chain stores with locally-produced goods. So, I'll be having Papa Pasquale's ravioli from the Long Beach farmer's market instead of Trader Joe's.

• I will incorporate a locally-grown, organic fruit or vegetable into at least one meal a day. Ideally, I'd like to have at least one meal a day of entirely local food.

• I will try canning tomatoes, cooking fresh tomato sauce and foraging.

Breakfast this morning is already a challenge! I'm out of organically-fed, pasture-raised chicken eggs from Garden of Eve - I'll have to pick up more at Crossroads Farm at Grossmann's in Malverne today. Instead, I'll have Polka Dot Pound Cake's Chocolate Chip Banana Bread, a delicious, albeit sugary, start to my day. I also brewed a pot of coffee for myself - a sticky locavore subject, since the beans are grown outside the US - but I will only be buying from Gentle Brew from now on. These 4 young friends source Arabica beans from fair-trade growers, and roast & grind them right here in Hicksville, NY. I never "got" quality, fresh coffee until I tried their Columbia Sierra Nevada blend, and I'm never going back!

I'm sure lunch on Day 1 will be equally interesting...I'm wishing I stocked up on local goods before the month began! But this is why it's called a Challenge, right? And I'm looking forward to seeing just how local I can go...

The 2011 NY Locavore Challenge

Today, I registered for the NY Locavore Challenge, a program by the Northeast Organic Farming Association's New York Chapter (NOFA-NY).  Registrants pledge to eat locally for the month of September at their own choice of commitment level by participating in different activities. Luckily, the end of summer & beginning of autumn is an especially abundant time for local farms, so I doubt I'll go anywhere close to hungry!

nofany.org/events/ny-locavore-challenge

To chose your level of commitment, you select which activities you'd like to do in 3 their categories: "Grow, Cook, Eat", "Join the Movement", and "Take Action."  The amount of challenges you chose  determines whether your pledge is "Bite-Sized", "Meal-Sized", or "Feast-Sized". Registration is free, and participating helps show just how many of us are looking for local, sustainable options - an especially important statement in a suburban county like ours, only just beginning to offer these resources!

The categories & challenges are as follows [I've added links & my own notes in blue brackets]:

"Grow, Cook, Eat"
-Take a 250 Mile Challenge - for a day (counts as 1), week (counts as 2), or month (counts as 3)

-Shop at a Farmers Market, Farm Stand or U-Pick [for Nassau County farmer's markets, see this post]
-Dine at a Locavore Restaurant
-Join a Winter CSA or Join a Food Co-op
-Eat (at least) 5 Servings of Local, Organic Fruit & Veggies per Day
-Cook with Local Oils, Grains, Meats & Cheeses
-Sip on Local Milk, Juice, Beer, Wine & Spirits
-Swap Sugar for Local Honey & Maple Syrup
-Try Food Preservation (Canning, Freezing, Drying)
-Go Foraging! ["Wildman" Steve Brill hosts foraging tours in the Northeast - he'll be in Kings Park, LI on September 3rd & Brooklyn and Manhattan mid-September!]
-Make Your Own Butter, Yogurt, or Ice-Cream [a great activity to do with kids - and you can use milk from Long Island Dairy Farms!]
-Grow an Herb Garden
-Plant an Indoor Winter Garden-Plant at Cover Crop in Your Garden

-Compost Your Kitchen Scraps [I keep mine in the freezer to prevent odor & drop off at nearby gardens]

"Join the Movement"

-Like NOFA-NY on Facebook and/or Follow NOFANY on Twitter
-Blog About Your Challenge Experience (and send us the link!)
-Become a Member of NOFA-NY
-Attend a Locavore Event [there's a film screening event this Thursday at Crossroads Farm at Grossmann's, Garden of Eve's Garlic Festival, and plenty others I'll post in September ]
-Host a Locavore Potluck on Sept. 25th (Counts as 2) or Attend a Locavore Potluck (Counts as 1)
-Read a Locavore Book, and/or Host a Locavore Book Discussion (Counts as 2)
-Participate in a Crop Mob [contact a local farm - Crossroads Farm at Grossmann's, Restoration Farm, etc. - for similar volunteer programs]

"Take Action"

-Join the Millions Against Monsanto Campaign

-Lobby Your Food Store to Include More Local Product
-Ask Your Representative to Support Organic Farming
-Speak With Your School About Local Sourcing [check out Garden City's Waldorf School & Long Beach's NIKE School for local inspiration]
-Start a Garden in Your Community or School
-Volunteer at a Farm or Community Garden [check out all the farms & farmstands on the right of this blog for a project near you!]
-Donate to the NOFA-NY Farmer Education Fund

I, somewhat ambitiously, chose a Feast-Sized challenge (gulp!), and for the sake of being publically encouraged to follow through, will share my experiences here on Locally Long Island throughout the month of September. Please consider joining me in seeing just how local you can get (and, pretty please, mention you heard about it through Locally Long Island!): 

 Take the NY Locavore Challenge!

Nassau County Farmer's Markets 2011

Want Long Island corn on a Tuesday? Looking for local tomatoes on a Thursday afternoon? Well, it's my pleasure to present to you a calendar of all the farmer's markets for the 2011 growing season in Nassau County, for your week-long local food shopping needs:

You can download the PDF here.

Believe it or not, that took a lot of work - phew! If I missed a market you know of, please leave me a comment or send an email at locallyli@gmail.com.

You can use the links to the right of this page for more details about each town's market; the links are arranged alphabetically by town. You'll find health food stores in the list, too (like Lynbrook's Yogi & Tea cafe', now serving bubble tea - a hard-to-find treat in Nassau!).

[ EDIT: If you're looking for winter farmers market in Nassau County for 2011 & 2012, check out this post ]

Grown on Long Island Day is August 5th!

Copied from the Long Island Farm Bureau:

CELEBRATE GROWN ON LONG ISLAND DAY 
Farmers Market, Activities for Kids, Roasted Corn

Date: Friday, August 5, 2011  

Location: Suffolk County Farm in Yaphank   

Time: 12pm to 5pm.  

• Large Farmers Market
• Meet Local Farmers
• Activities for Kids
• Educational Animal Yard
• Roasted Corn & Wine and Food Tastings

Admission to the event is FREE.  

The First 500 visitors to donate $10 of produce to Island Harvest, a food rescue organization, will receive a FREE Grown on LI T-shirt.  

For more information about the event, please call 631.727.3777 or visitwww.GrownOnLongIsland.com    

Book: Short Nature Walks on Long Island

Short Nature Walks on Long Island

Wandering through the Barnes & Nobel on Old Country Road in Carle Place, I was thrilled to find an entire section dedicated to Long Island books! There was Long Island Rail Road, a history of the LIRR, Crazy Stuff Long Island: Little Known Facts About the Longest Island in America, and the most exciting to me, Short Nature Walks on Long Island. 

Now, I've been known to push myself through a challenging hike (willingly or otherwise...), but I'd been looking for a guide to easy trails on LI. This book includes maps, park hours, facilities & suggestions for what to bring, and the low-impact nature of these spots makes them accessible to any age. There are so many ecosystems here on LI - the marshlands of Jamaica Bay, the rocky beaches of the North Shore, the woodlands of central LI, and historic former estates - that I can't wait to explore with the help of this guide.

Top Ten Reasons to Buy Food Locally

The list below is copied from With an Ear to the Ground, a collection of essays about sustainable agriculture by Vern Grubinger (available at UVM bookstore):

Ten Reasons to Buy Local Food

1. Local food tastes better. The crops are picked at their peak, and farmstead products like cheese are hand crafted for the best flavor. Food imported from far away is older, has traveled on trucks or planes, and has sat in warehouses before it finally gets to you.
2. Local produce is better for you. The shorter the time between the farm and your table, the less likely it is that nutrients will be lost from fresh food.
3. Local food preserves genetic diversity. In the modern agricultural system, plant varieties are chosen for their ability to ripen uniformly, withstand harvesting, survive packing and last on the shelf, so there is limited genetic diversity in large-scale production. Smaller local farms, in constrast, often grow many different varieties to provide a long harvest season, in an array of colors and flavors.
4. Local food is safe. There's a unique kind of assurance that comes from looking a farmer in the eye at farmers market or driving by the fields where your food comes from. Local farmers aren`t anonymous and they take their responsibility to the consumer seriously.
5. Local food supports local families. Wholesale prices that farmers get for their products are low, often near the cost of production. Local farmers who sell directly to consumers cut out the middleman and get full retail price for their food, which helps farm families stay on the land.
6. Local food builds community. When you buy direct from a farmer, you are engaging in a time-honored connection between eater and grower. Knowing the farmer gives you insight into the seasons, the land, and your food. It gives you access to a place where your children and grandchildren can go to learn about nature and agriculture.
7. Local food preserves open space. When farmers get paid more for their products by marketing locally, they are less likely to sell their farmland for development. When you buy locally grown food, you are doing something proactive to preserve our agricultural landscape.
8. Local food keeps taxes down. According to several studies, farms contribute more in taxes than they require in services, whereas most other kinds of development contribute less in taxes than the cost of the services they require.
9. Local food benefits the environment and wildlife. Well-managed farms conserve fertile soil and clean water in our communities. The farm environment is a patchwork of fields, meadows, woods, ponds, and buildings that provide habitat for wildlife.
10. Local food is an investment in the future. By supporting local farmers today, you are helping ensure that there will be farms in your community tomorrow.

as found here.

And I'd add that...

11. Local food inspires new recipes & seasonal eating. Farm stands can introduce you to a variety of fruits & vegetables beyond the standard potatoes & carrots you can find in the store. Ever cook with a garlic scape or use celeriac instead of celery? Local farms can introduce you to new crops as they come up, and many farmers are even willing to let you sample unfamiliar items.

12. Local food gives a sense of place. I know that "fertility" and "abundance" aren't the first things that come to mind when I imagine my suburb's landscape, but seeing a productive farm emerge in my community makes me proud of where I come from & happy to be a part of this place.  Reconnecting to the towns we grow up in can restore those feelings of community & home.

13. Local food introduces new friends. With regular local shopping, you're bound to start seeing familiar faces, and chances are that many of those faces have something in common with you. They may be neighbors, members of local organizations, or fellow locovore/vegetarian/gluten-free/all organic -eaters like yourself. Many people shop locally simply because they prefer the friendlier environment of farm stands.

14. Local food helps sync bodies with the seasons. As reported in this Grist article, our bodies have been eating seasonally for hundreds of years, until the recent phenomenon of industrialized agriculture in the last few decades. Although these adaptations may not be necessary anymore (ex: stocking up on fats before a cold winter in the forest), it can still have effects on our hormones. 

What if it's a hoax?

We're Back!

Alright, Internet, I'm back! After some inspiring & rejuvenating locovore experiences, I'm revisiting this blog to post Nassau County resources for green living on Long Island. More posts to come ASAP, but in the meantime, check out the Local Links to the right for this season's farmers markets.

Incredible, Edible, Humane Eggs

I know a post is long overdue!  I plan to continue posting, but Locally Long Island is no longer my senior thesis project.  Instead, I'm researching urban environmental education and the resources available in New York City.  If you have any information, please let me know!  I'll be posting some environmental education programs for children on Long Island ASAP.


So back to the topic: humane eggs!  I was thrilled to find out that the Nest Fresh eggs I bought from Walbaums today were as cruelty-free as they advertised.  Because there are no regulations or labeling standards for terms like "cage-free," "free-range," and "humanely raised" for meat and animal products, many manufactures use the terms very loosely.  For example, "free-range" chickens have access to outdoors, but the frequency, quality, and availability of their outdoor time is not standardized.  Therefore, a small window or doorway could qualify a facility as "free-range," even if the majority of the chickens never go outside in their lifetimes.  There are also many cruel practices manufactures use to increase chicken growth and output, like starvation to induce egg production and beak-clipping to prevent chicken interaction and behavior.  Be sure to pay attention to labeling so you can avoid supporting these practices!

It's also important to note that the terms "organic," "all-natural," and "fair wage" are frequently misused, too.  Carefully check out the label's certification system (if there is any) on the web to ensure that the product supports its claims.  Usually there is a section that outlines the standards that must be met for a manufacturer to use their label.