Articles — Larissa Zimberoff

Transportation Alternatives Bike/Walk/Shop & Eat

Last Sunday I attended an event thrown by Transportation Alternatives, an organization that I volunteer for. As a cyclist I am in debt to the work TA does to improve the city for people not driving cars. As a pedestrian, I am again thankful to TA because they lobby for improved conditions for everyone outside of cars. What's surprising is that despite the massive population of New York, the membership in TA is lower than that of a similar organization out west, the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition. If you're not a member, but you walk, cycle, take the bus or subway, you can show your support by becoming a member. (There are tons of perks too.)

The SciArt of Ice Cream

When I walk down the cereal aisle of my grocery store, I see a breadth of options that are overwhelming. Baristas at my local coffee shop inquire whether I’d like my coffee brewed using a Chemex, French press, or siphon pot. To continue this hyper-granular thread, my new corner ice cream shop––yes, it’s in Manhattan––offers four flavors of chocolate ice cream.

A Review: Eating Wildly

Outside my grandparents’ home was a walnut tree. It stood uncomfortably close to their front picture window, creating an off-putting darkness that I tried to escape. When I walked from the sidewalk to the front door, I gingerly stepped around its detritus: thickly hulled green orbs that dropped from its branches and rolled around. They would get crushed, blacken, and, eventually, open to reveal a magical wrinkly nut. My memory holds the walnuts there, even though I’m sure the tree did not produce nuts every year of my childhood. There are other plants I remember too: olallieberries grew in the backyard, thickly covering a red fence. The word seemed plucked from a Dr. Seuss book. I thought they had made it up because, well, the berries looked exactly like blackberries. Over that red fence I could see a slide that went into what must have been a pool. This was the San Fernando Valley. This was my early life. Despite the messy debris, it felt urban, clean.

5 Weeds I Love To Eat

Foraging, urban exploration, finding surplus in local parks or growing at the base of your neighbors tree, are all options for eating a meal that is far left of the mainstream. However finding these ingredients might mean you need to pick up a few un-city-like tools, like say, a shovel. Don’t want to buy a shovel? No problem. In most cities you can find these formerly frowned upon weeds at your local farmer’s markets.

Show Me The Honey

As New York City hosts Honey Week with its honey infusion workshops and apiary tours, local beekeepers say they have an added reason to celebrate this year. Their bees have been extra busy. "It was the best year in my last 10 years," said Andrew Cote of Andrew's Honey, a full-time beekeeper with about 50 hives in Manhattan.

Making Pickle Juice Enviro Friendly

Brine—that wonderful liquid you might find in a martini, or accompanying a shot of whiskey as part of a pickle back—is also harmful to the environment. In fact, how to dispose of vast amounts of brining salt is one of the biggest problems facing the pickling industry. But the USDA may have just uncovered a solution.

Blue Apron: The Future of Home Cooking?

A few weeks ago a friend sent me a free trial week to Blue Apron, the home-delivery meal service that sends every little thing you need to make dinner for 2 (or more) . Everything except for the olive oil, salt and pepper.

Larissa ZimberoffAugust 28, 2014Blue Apron, home-cooked meal, meal delivery service

Dinner in Brooklyn: From Trash To Table

Last Thursday I attended a dinner where every ingredient used to create the meal had been earmarked for the landfill. What am I talking about? Moldy grapes, floppy herbs, limp carrots, overripe peaches and eggplant scraps.

I wrote about the dinner for the Wall Street Journal, and you can read that here. One item that we weren't quite able to get up on their website in time were the tips the host, Josh Treuhaft, and his chef, Celia Lam, shared with me on ways to minimize your food waste.

Dining From Trash to Table in Brooklyn

Bruised apples, floppy herbs and moldy grapes might not be considered acceptable ingredients for most home cooks. But a Manhattan man is hoping to change New Yorker's outlook on food freshness—one dinner party at a time.

Kickstarter: Nomiku Sous Vide

Larissa ZimberoffAugust 16, 2014Kickstarter, foodandwine, foodandwinemagazine, fwx, nomiku, sous vide

Honey Talk at the Highline

“Dude, I have a bee hive!!” This was how Chase Emmons, Apiary Director at Brooklyn Grange, received his first brush with beekeeping. A friend in Vermont was the one exclaiming, “Dude,” and Emmons didn’t take more than a second to think about whether or not he should hop in his car and drive from Western Massachusetts to another state. He drove. A few more brushes with kismet and Emmons met the folks at Brooklyn Grange. Now a partner at the Grange, Emmons has spurred on the Brooklyn Grange Bees (BGB’s) growth. They now have hives on rooftops in Long Island City, Brooklyn, Manhattan and Harlem. Hopefully those bees in Harlem are baseball fans, because they can see right into Yankee Stadium.