The Chicken or the Eggs...

Along the Hudson Valley, just 2 hours away...leaf time..fun ride!

There are abundantly fresh seasonal fruits and vegetables, from sustainable farms with orchards and grass-few cows.

At Saffron59 we strive to source local for freshness and support our farmers. For us New Yorkers, we are blessed with farmers not only from Hudson Valley but also from Pennsylvania and New Jersey. At the Union Square Market, one can find produce from Burmese okra to shashito peppers. I recently purchased delicious grass-fed steak & kale parmesan sausages at the Applestone Meat, formerly from one of the butchers Fleishman and they are located below Catskills, NY. 

It's rewarding and satisfying to buy from your local farmers and creates a sense of community, even in a big city like New York! Get to know the farmers, ask questions..they love to tell you their methods...and are glad you're curious. For example: ever wonder when you open up a box of different colored eggs, light blue, white and brown....what this means? The color of chicken eggs is determined by the genetics of the hens. The breed will indicate what color eggs she'll produce. As the Ameraucana species will yield blue color eggs. Barnavelder will be dark brown and Buckeye is light brown. I learned while hiking in a small kingdom country, Bhutan several years ago. A farmer at a village explained to me, regardless the egg shell color, the taste has no difference.

Did you know Rooster is not a necessary for hens in order to lay eggs? A rooster is needed to fertilize the eggs to hatch them into baby chicks, but hens will lay just as many eggs whether there's a rooster around or not. Roosters sound the alert against predators or other perceived danger, calming the hens, so that they may lay their tasty eggs in peace.

Did you know that each individual garlic clove goes through the winter months deep in the soil till late spring when the 'scapes' blossom, yielding nice, succulent bulbs in the summer?

Matured garlic scapes, a prized addition in the kitchen

Now to bitter melons: I planted their seeds in the spring after the last frost. The tiny, yellow bright flowers need pollinating in order to bear fruit. And...by growing plants that attract bees, their pollination helps bear more tasty fruits and vegetables for the coming summer and beyond: a lengthy process, but worth the wait. The rewards are incredible, tasty and nutritious.

Bitter gourd in 4 months to 1 1/2 month