Healthy and Green Living » The Green Dish

The Green Dish: Ice Cream Pops and Popsicles

Melissa Breyer — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 20:00:23 +0000

The ice cream bars and popsicles available at the store on our corner are a little scary. Supernaturally vibrant and made from ingredients that seem completely superfluous, I always feel a huge flush of guilt when my daughters talk me into getting them. But when it’s a hot, Brooklyn day, and we’re walking by, it’s [...]

Cherry Clafoutis: Hello, Summer!

Melissa Breyer — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 20:00:21 +0000

The summer solstice crept up on me quietly this year. It’s a day I usually relish, but this year I’ve been distracted by writing and family and found myself waking up by the very early morning light and realizing that, wow, is it the summer solstice today? With nothing planned to celebrate, I realized it [...]

The Green Dish: Nutty For Hazelnuts

Melissa Breyer — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 22:00:27 +0000

I woke up this morning with hazelnuts ribboning through my thoughts. Their snappy, clean crunch and sweet nuttiness kept replaying in my mind, nothing more than that, just crunch and savor, over and over. It was like having a song stuck in my head. I like nuts. But until now, the hazelnut has been evasive. What [...]

The Green Dish: Eggs in the City

Melissa Breyer — Tue, 27 May 2008 13:00:03 +0000

As I�ve said before, these nature-loving heels of mine are stubbornly stuck in the concrete sidewalks of Brooklyn. But if there was one thing, just one thing, that could seduce me away to country life, it might be a small, sassy flock of laying hens. It must be the farm women in my [...]

The Green Dish: Eating Chia

Melissa Breyer — Wed, 07 May 2008 20:00:54 +0000

I have a confession to make. I ate my kids� Chia Pets�and they were good. I can see now that it might seem a bit wicked: me content and absent-mindedly humming the �ch-ch-ch-chia� jingle as I picked and chomped the sprouted seeds from the clay kittens

The Green Dish: Dandelion Syrup

Melissa Breyer — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 21:00:44 +0000

I�ve been wild about dandelions lately. Dandelion greens proffer their fleeting sweetness at the first nod of spring and inspired me to write about harvesting and eating them a few weeks ago, immediately followed by a recipe for Cream of Dandelion Soup. So next up, I thought, I just have to make dandelion wine. I�ve [...]

The Green Dish: Pretty Potatoes

Melissa Breyer — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 10:00:00 +0000

Ever since I had the pleasure of meeting my first Yukon Gold potato I have been a bit of a one-potato pony. It was in the early 1990s at the Union Square greenmarket in New York City, and I was just very excited by the vendor�s enthusiasm about these golden tubers. After taking it for [...]

The Green Dish: Make Butter

Melissa Breyer — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 21:00:09 +0000

I have to say, the comments left for the introduction of The Green Dish were very touching! I knew that I wasn’t the only city mouse playing country life, but it was so nice to hear from those of you paddling around in the same boat. Also lovely to hear from those of you in [...]

Introducing the Green Dish

Melissa Breyer — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 23:17:42 +0000

This blog is titled "The Green Dish," but could have just as easily been named something about a farm girl in Brooklyn, maybe "Little House on the L Train." I have never lived on a farm, nor do I think I want to, I just tilt that way. I'm all about back to nature&#151but in the city&#151and I look forward to sharing my ongoing adventures of pursuing a handmade life in a manmade town. Today I am just introducing myself to you, but in the future I will be sure to include a recipe or a tip, something fun to chew on.

It's all a rather unlikely scenario, how a green-hearted, nature-loving mom could be so dang happy to live in New York City. I'm definitely having my Zsa Zsa Gabor moment here&#151I'm head over heels for this big town, while my husband dreams of mud boots and outbuildings.

The funny thing is that by most accounts, I should want to live in the country. I want chickens and beehives and sheep. I want to grow my own food. I want a big, old, creaky house. I want to bake bread. I might even want to see more stars than planes in the clear evening sky. But I just can't pull myself away from this town. I love being surrounded by dynamic, eccentric, progressive-thinking people. I feed on the hum of all of us packed together. And I love my neighborhood of 20 years. What I really want is a slow life in a fast city.