Marcus Samuelsson and Nils Noren joined Executive Director Maritza Owens in hosting Savor the Season Uptown! The event benefits the not-for-profit organization that has created a network of farmers markets throughout New York City in underserved neighborhoods.
Also important, the event showed that Harlem has a “real” food scene with many restaurants that are affordable and source from local farmers in NYS and in the region. A great reason to support Harlem restaurants.
And please read the linked stories and share with friends.
Harvest Home’s corporate this season has been EmblemHealth. With the support of EmblemHealth, Harvest Home Farmer’s Markets in the Bronx, Brooklyn, Harlem and Queens are offering families:
Direct access to farm-fresh fruits and vegetables from local farms.
Live cooking demonstrations by Community Educators using foods found at the farmer’s market to prepare healthy dishes. Receipe cards of each dish, printed in English and Spanish, will include nutritional information and be available to take home.
Additionally, EmblemHealth is providing:
Vouchers for $1 off purchases at the markets, distributed to Medicaid members.
Health screenings and information throughout the season.
Vouchers for a free glucose meter.
Harvest Home is a leader in providing low-income communities access to farmer’s markets and pioneered the “Eating for Good Health” initiative to bring under-served residents the foods, know-how and hands-on tools to eat and live well.
“EmblemHealth’s support is instrumental in our mission to educate families about the health benefits of eating fresh, local and seasonal produce and how to prepare delicious, healthy meals,” said Maritza Wellington Owens, chief executive officer and founder of Harvest Home.
About Harvest Home Farmer’s Market The market is operated by Harvest Home Farmers’ Market, Inc. (HHFM) an East Harlem based non-profit whose mission is to increase access to farm fresh, locally grown produce for consumers in high need, low-income New York communities identified as “fresh and healthy food deserts.” Founded in 1993, HHFM operates a network of farmers markets in East Harlem, Bronx, Brooklyn and Queens communities under-served by grocery stores and other fresh food outlets. The farmers’ markets provide direct producer-to-consumer economic opportunities for farmers and food producers who sell their goods at HHFM markets. For more information, visit www.harvesthomefm.org.
About EmblemHealth
EmblemHealth, Inc., through its companies Group Health Incorporated (GHI) and HIP Health Plan of New York (HIP), provides quality health care coverage and administrative services to approximately 2.8 million people. Groups and individuals can choose from a variety of PPO, EPO and HMO plans, as well as coverage for prescription drugs and dental and vision care. We offer a choice of networks, including quality doctors and other health care professionals throughout the region, leading acute care hospitals across the tristate area, and physicians and hospitals across all 50 states. For more information, visit www.emblemhealth.com.
Photo credit: Chris Kausch (For Mr. Samuelsson’s picture)
Here is your curatorial team for Savor the Season Uptown! Starting with celebrity chef Marcus Samuelsson. Lead Planner is Savona Bailey-McClain, Executive Director of the West Harlem Art Fund; Wine Consultant is Eric White from The Winery located in Central Harlem; Beer & Spirits Consultants are Lauren Lynch and Jason Janawsky from the new gastropub Harlem Pub and floral design by Louis Gagliano from Harlem Flor.
The team is so delighted to be apart of this great event. Everyone is proud to showcase fine dining and living in Harlem. Guests will have a memorable time.
And we wish to offer a special, special thanks to Lizette LeBron, Banquet Manager for Dinosaur Bar-b-que. We could not have done this without her.
Starting next week, Harvest Home will have raffle tickets available for sale. We want to be as inclusive as possible. And so, we have curated wonderful gifts for lucky winner. Raffle books are just $20 dollars. Individuals would receive a book of five raffle opportunities. Raffles will be available at our markets and other distribution vehicles soon.
“The twenty-somethings who make up Tumbling Bones play a mix of old-time country and old-fashioned blues that belies their relative youth. But their folk music is no museum piece. It is living, breathing music infused with
a little of the contemporary rock ‘n’ roll the band members were reared on and reworked into their original arrangements and compositions.
The last half decade has taken them from street-performing on European street corners to venues across the continental United States to an acclaimed performance on NPR’s A Prairie Home Companion with Garrison Keillor. The band’s debut EP Risk Not Your Soul (2011) reached the Top Ten on the Roots Music Report‘s folk radio chart. Since the release of their second record Schemes in May of this year Tumbling Bones has been on the road non-stop including dates throughout the midwest, east coast, and an outstanding three week tour of Ireland.”
Since the turn of the 20st century, most people stopped cultivating fruits and vegetables in their own backyard and opted for the easy option of purchasing their vegetables at the supermarket that are sometimes out of season, and not at all as tasty. I mean, if you can believe it, there was a time when tomatoes weren’t available all year round!
I grew up with the impression that everything you eat comes from the farm, but not just any farm, in particular it was my grandfather’s vegetable patch. Ever since I was little I remember going with him to his field that was always overflowing with gorgeous fresh cucumbers, watermelons, beans, peppers, anything you could imagine it would be there, depending on the season of course.
When we would wake up in the mornings my grandfather would already be back from tending to his vegetables and his goats and sheep. This would mean fresh goats milk for breakfast with our cereal, and of course my grandma would cook up a nutritious meal for lunch with all the vegetables he would bring back.
I look back on my childhood, and particularly this influence of fresh fruit and vegetables being readily available, with a great fondness and am very fortunate to have had the exposure that I did to such a lifestyle so young as I can see how it has influenced my own food choices that I make daily now, so many years later.
Making sure fresh produce being present in the life of a young child during their developing years is one of the greatest gifts that one can give their child, and it is one that will always be increasing in value as the years pass.
As of this morning, Harvest Home Farmer’s Market has received confirmation that the following restaurants are on board for its food tasting benefit this September:
Jin Ramen
Melba’s
LeMonde
Dinosaur Bar-b-que
Creole
Red Rooster
Levain Bakery
5 and Diamond
And congratulations to Melba for her appearance on the View.
Evita Gahagan began her love affair with good food in the most common of places: her Puerto Rican mother’s kitchen. Over the years, she has travelled to over 11 different countries and 46 states, discovering regional culinary wonders and nurturing her love of “cooking from the heart”. In 2004, she moved to New York City, which she considers the epicenter of cutting edge gastronomic art. Since her move to the City, she married a man that truly appreciates good food and became the mother of three beautiful girls (who only sometime appreciates good food). Her family has grown their roots deep in West Harlem, a neighborhood brimming with foodie fodder. She contributes to several blogs of varying topics, maintains a few of her own and is honored to be contributing a constant voice and honest opinion on the up and coming food scene of West Harlem.
If you love food, come to the tasting event of the season — Uptown! Below is the link where you can order your tickets. Tell all your family and friends. You will have a great time, great food and beverages.
Our staff created more suggested readings that are real classics. We hope you will enjoy them.
And the Earth Did Not Part/ y no se lo tragó la tierra
One of the first Mexican American writers to use the migrant experience as a primary focus in fiction was Tomàs Rivera, a native of Crysrtal City, Texas. And the Earth Did Not Part/ y no se lo tragó la tierra was first published in 1971 after it won a Quinto Sol Award. The fourteen inter-connected stories are based on Rivera’s experiences as a migrant worker in the 19405 and 1950s. A well-known educator and advocate of Chicano literature, Rivera overcame the poverty of his childhood and youth and was chancellor at the University of California at Riverside when he died in 1984.
Today Rivera’s legacy lives on at the Tomàs Rivera Policy Institute in California, which “promotes the well-being of the Latino population of the United States,” and the Tomàs Rivera Mexican American Children’s Book Award, established in 1995 at Southwest Texas State University in San Marcos, Texas. This award is presented annually for children’s and young adult literature that portrays Mexican American culture in a positive manner. Pat Mora’s Tomàs and the Library Lady (1997) is based on the real-life experience of young migrant worker Rivera and the Iowa librarian who introduced him to the world of books. Beloved by librarians across the country, Mora’s picture book is a tribute ro her one-time co-worker Tomàs Rivera. Fittingly, it was awarded the Tomàs Rivera Award in 1997.
Their Eyes Were Watching God
Their Eyes Were Watching God is a 1937 novel and the best-known work by African American writer Zora Neale Hurston. The novel narrates main character Janie Crawford’s “ripening from a vibrant, but voiceless, teenage girl into a woman with her finger on the trigger of her own destiny.” Set in central and southern Florida in the early 20th century, the novel was initially poorly received for its rejection of racial uplift literary prescriptions. Today, it has come to be regarded as a seminal work in both American and African-American literature. TIME included the novel in its TIME 100 Best English-language Novels from 1923 to 2003.
The Grapes of Wrath
The Grapes of Wrath is an American realist novel written by John Steinbeck and published in 1939. For it he won the annual National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize for novels and it was cited prominently when he won the Nobel Prize in 1962.
Set during the Great Depression, the novel focuses on the Joads, a poor family of tenant farmers driven from their Oklahoma home by drought, economic hardship, and changes in financial and agricultural industries. Due to their nearly hopeless situation and in part because they were trapped in the Dust Bowl, the Joads set out for California. Along with thousands of other “Okies”, they sought jobs, land, dignity, and a future.
The Grapes of Wrath is frequently read in American high school and college literature classes due to its historical context and enduring legacy. A celebrated Hollywood film version, starring Henry Fonda and directed by John Ford, was made in 1940.
Savor the Season Uptown! 