July 2020
Photo by Aaron Hutcherson, NYC based food writer
Grainstand Market Schedule
Find the Grainstand at the GrowNYC Greenmarkets below:

Union Square Greenmarket  every Wednesday and Saturday year-round.

Additional market dates:

July 18: McCarren Park (Brooklyn)
July 25: Fort Greene (Brooklyn)

August 1: Inwood (Manhattan)
August 2: Carroll Gardens (Brooklyn)
August 8: Grand Army Plaza (Brooklyn)
August 15: McCarren Park (Brooklyn)
August 22: Fort Greene (Brooklyn)
We will return to the Columbia, Jackson Heights, and 79th street Greenmarkets in September.

To see the full schedule click here.
Pre-ordered bulk bags are available at any of our locations upon request.  Check availability and pricing here.  
The Grand Dame of Southern Cooking
This month we are featuring Edna Lewis, renowned chef, teacher, and author born in Freetown, VA in 1916. Freetown, a farming settlement community founded by formerly enslaved people (one of whom was Lewis' grandfather), encouraged others through her love of cooking with fresh, local ingredients.

Her deep knowledge of Southern cuisine and African American history has made Lewis one of the most influential figures in American cooking. In a time when female chefs got little recognition, Black chefs even less so, Edna Lewis made history opening C afé  Nicholson in Manhattan in 1948 with John Nicholson. The caf é became hugely successful, highlighting Southern cooking and inspiring chefs generations later.

Lewis won the James Beard Living Legend Award in 1995 and was named Grande Dame by Les Dames d’Escoffier, an international organization of female culinary professionals, in 1999. Among her many accomplishments, including writing the perfect rhubarb pie recipe (below), Lewis wrote four books:
The Edna Lewis Cookbook  (1972)
The Taste of Country Cooking  (1976)
In Pursuit of Flavor  (1988)
The Gift of Southern Cooking  (2003)

Other readings:
Edna Lewis' Rhubarb Pie
FOR THE CRUST
  • 1 ½ cups, plus 2 teaspoons, sifted flour, plus additional flour for rolling the pastry
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • ¼ cup chilled lard, cut into small chunks
  • ¼ cup cold water
FOR THE FILLING
  • ⅔ cup sugar
  • ¼ teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
  • 2 teaspoons cornstarch
  • 4 cups chopped fresh rhubarb
  1. To make the crust, put 1 1/2 cups of the flour in a bowl with the salt and lard and combine quickly with fingertips. Add the water and stir to combine; the dough will be sticky. Add the remaining flour, form into a ball and put in refrigerator for 15 minutes.
  2. Divide the dough in two. Lightly flour a board; roll half the dough to cover the bottom of a 9-inch pie pan and put it in the pan. Flour the board again, and roll out the remaining dough. Using a pastry wheel or a sharp knife, cut the dough into 3/4-inch strips and put on wax paper.
  3. Preheat the oven to 450 degrees. To make the filling, combine the sugar, nutmeg and cornstarch in a bowl. Sprinkle 3 tablespoons of this mixture on the pastry in the pie pan. Combine the remaining sugar mixture with the rhubarb and fill the pie. Moisten the rim of the pastry with water and make a latticework top over the pie with the dough strips. Crimp the edges well. Bake pie for 40 minutes .
Donate to GrowNYC
Help us fight hunger and protect family farms. Bank of America is providing a guaranteed match for donations to GrowNYC up to $250,000. Please give today to support programs like our Emergency Food Box in high need NYC neighborhoods.