October New Amsterdam Market

Oooh, look what I found at October's New Amsterdam Market!

Purple mustard greens from the Queen County Farm.

Fresh masa from Hot Bread Kitchen--I'm making empanadas tonight.

Ginger cake and currant-filled cookies from Saltie.

Driest apple cider ever from Bellweather made with heritage apples, Mama O's kimchee, caramels from Liddabit.

I also enjoyed a Luke's Lobster roll and fresh oysters from Stella. And I met the publishers of The Art of Eating and Edible Brooklyn/Manhattan/East End. Did you go? Did you read Zachary's review? What did you eat/buy?

A new kind of grocery store: Basis Foods

baby artichokes: Norwich Farm, bread: Orwasher's, yogurt: Argyle Cheese, butter: Hails Family Farm, honey: Stockin' Apiaries, fennel blossoms & polenta from ???

There's a new kind of grocery store on the horizon. It's a grocery store with food sourced from small, local farms at prices that are, if not cheap, at least more affordable than you would expect. Rob Smart in Vermont is working on his own version of this idea, which will include simple recipes and ideas for cooking the food he sells. Meanwhile here in New York we are months away from the opening of Basis Foods. Founder Bion Bartning gave us a little teaser in the form of a pop-up farmer's market Saturday as part of the New York Food & Wine Festival.

Argyle Cheese FarmerBartning took his idea for Basis Foods and partnered with Farm to Chef, a distributor connecting Washington County (NY) farms with NYC chefs. He expanded that program and is now bringing some of the same farms as well as several others to Basis Foods, expected to open by the end of the year on 14th Street.

Norwich Meadow FarmsWhat's different about Basis, besides that it sells locally-grown foods with full traceability, is that Basis is also the distributor. They order the food themselves and do not warehouse anything. What I like about this idea is that it opens another market opportunity for farms that are otherwise too small for other grocery stores. Many of the farms that will be featured at Basis also sell at farmer's markets, but now they can also sell to people who do most of their grocery shopping on weekdays after work (when farmer's markets are closed).

Check out the adorableness at the Beekman 1802 Blaak cheese stand.Rumors of investor challenges and lease troubles have been swirling around Basis Foods. I asked a few employees about this at the market Saturday and was given a vague reassurance that "things are coming along fine." Landlord difficulties are pretty common in New York, actually. But I think it goes to show what a tightrope act this new grocery store model is. If it succeeds we have a lot to gain--more Basis stores around the city and greater market opportunities for more small, local farms. Here's hoping it takes off!

More from New York Magazine about other new food stores offering traceability in NYC.

Mark Bittman's vision for online grocery shopping.

Marczyk in Denver

Just this week I delved into one of my Denver souvenirs: MouCo ColoRouge cheese. It was at peak ripeness and I ate almost all of it by myself. It was so hard to leave Lane a couple of bites. And do you know what these cheese geniuses do? They affix a label that actually tells you when the cheese will be at peak ripeness! Actually, the label gives a date for "runny at edges chalky at center," "runny all the way through," and "better eat now or it's too late." (I'm paraphrasing.) Of course, if you buy cheese from a good cheese shop they'll just tell you which cheese are ready to eat when, but if you're buying packaged cheese like this ripeness labeling is so useful. I wish the cheeses at the Food Coop had these labels.

Anyway, I found this little bundle of joy at the wonderful artisanal food market Marczyk Fine Foods.

Yes, there it is. What joys to behold within.

They let me photograph their seafood case. You can get ye olde heritage breed turkeys here around Thanksgiving along with an array of delicious local anything yummy. I bought some perfectly ripe peaches as well as Marczyk's own delectable whoopie pies with filling made with marscapone.

I was able to indulge Jasper with an array of what he calls "Jasper food." I want to spend more time in Marczyk next time we're in Denver. Like hours. Every day. Think they'd hire me to work as a stocker just for a week? I sound like a stalker now, don't I. Darn. I'm just a fan.