transcript

Speaker 1:
[00:00] Kayak gets my flight, hotel and rental car right, so I can tune out travel advice that's just plain wrong.

Speaker 2:
[00:07] Bro, Skycoin, way better than points.

Speaker 3:
[00:10] Never fly during a Scorpio full moon.

Speaker 4:
[00:13] Just tell the manager you'll sue. Instant room upgrade.

Speaker 1:
[00:17] Stop taking bad travel advice. Start comparing hundreds of sites with Kayak, and get your trip right.

Speaker 4:
[00:23] Bad advice? You talking to me?

Speaker 1:
[00:25] Kayak, got that right.

Speaker 4:
[00:29] So, you're saying with Hilton Honors, I can use points for a free night's stay anywhere? Anywhere. What about fancy places like the Canopy in Paris?

Speaker 1:
[00:38] Yeah, Hilton Honors, baby.

Speaker 4:
[00:40] Or relaxing sanctuaries like the Conrad in Toulouse?

Speaker 5:
[00:43] Hilton Honors, baby.

Speaker 4:
[00:45] What about the five-star Waldorf Astoria in the Maldives? Are you gonna do this for all 9,000 properties?

Speaker 2:
[00:52] When you want points that can take you anywhere, anytime, it matters where you stay. Hilton, for this day. Book your spring break now.

Speaker 6:
[01:07] The key to farming, in my opinion, is having good labor that can help you achieve your objectives. And farming is a very, very hard work. It's not easy. And if you have people who are committed to it, who have been farming all their lives and can help you achieve your goals, I think that is what can take you from point A to point B.

Speaker 7:
[01:28] Yeah. This is TASTE. I'm your host, Aliza Abarbanel. Samer Saleh and Diane Aboushi Saleh are the married farmers behind Halal Pastures, an 100% organic and Halal certified farm in Rock Tavern, New York. They first started growing food for their family on half an acre of land without any previous farming experience in 2015. Today, they're one of the busiest stands at the Union Square Green Market with specialty produce that lures in chefs from top restaurants and home cooks alike. Today on the show, Samer and Diane share how they've grown a farm and what they're looking forward to as the bountiful spring and summer season unfolds.

Speaker 8:
[02:08] At the top of the show, it's the return of Three Things, where Aliza and I talk about what is exciting us in the world of restaurants, cookbooks, and the food world as a whole. Aliza, we're back with Three Things. How are you doing?

Speaker 7:
[02:21] I'm good, Matt. We're recording on a Monday, so I'm feeling bushy-tailed, bright-eyed.

Speaker 8:
[02:26] Bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, me as well. It's funny, our office time is flexible. A lot of companies were not in the office five days a week. This took me back to pre-2019, commuting on a Monday.

Speaker 7:
[02:40] Do you have 2019-related wrecks?

Speaker 8:
[02:43] That would be so great. What would a 2019 wreck be? I feel like-

Speaker 7:
[02:46] Black tap milkshakes.

Speaker 8:
[02:48] Black tap milkshakes, yes.

Speaker 7:
[02:50] Maybe that's 2017.

Speaker 8:
[02:52] Yeah, probably. Was Graz a 2019? They're post-pandemic. It's not really a food wreck, but-

Speaker 7:
[03:00] I feel like 2019 is kind of a lost year, honestly, because it was the year before the pandemic.

Speaker 8:
[03:04] It was, and then early 2020. I mean, we could go back to 2020 and do a whole, like, where were you at 2020? March 13th, Friday 13th.

Speaker 7:
[03:11] I have a lot of stories, but I think probably our 2026 wrecks are more useful to the center today.

Speaker 8:
[03:17] Let's put a pin in that, because I actually went to a restaurant on March 13, 2020, and it was like their last day. And they had not planned that there would be a global pandemic that day, like starting that day.

Speaker 7:
[03:28] It just happened to have been their last day.

Speaker 8:
[03:30] It happened. It was called Slaughteria. It was an amazing on South Court Street, one of my favorite neighborhood spots. They were just like, we're retiring, we're done.

Speaker 7:
[03:37] They should go buy lottery tickets.

Speaker 8:
[03:39] I know. I think about them having that timing was so good for them. Anyways, what is your first thing?

Speaker 7:
[03:44] My first thing is that I come bearing the results of a very competitive chocolate chip cookie recipe competition that my friend Mehreen Kareem had for her birthday. She took this very seriously. She made a spreadsheet of different iconic chocolate chip cookie recipes and then lovingly forced all of her friends to sign up to bake them and then bring them to her. Then we all did a very elaborate group taste test to find the winner of the cookie competition.

Speaker 8:
[04:11] Incredible birthday party idea. I could imagine you all around a table slowly looking and turning. Was it one of those vibes?

Speaker 7:
[04:19] Yeah, she had five, a weighted scale of five different criteria that we judged each one on. And then they were tabulated by a friend who was not present. Five scale options were depth of flavor, pliability, chocolate to dough, thickness, and indescribable joy was the final category.

Speaker 8:
[04:39] Was the last one weighted high?

Speaker 7:
[04:40] No, that was like the 10% boost over the top. The pliability, depth of flavor were each 25%. And then I think they went down to 20% and then 10%.

Speaker 8:
[04:51] I see.

Speaker 7:
[04:51] But this was actually part one. There's actually a second group that's convening next weekend to do it. So I'm not sure what the ultimate results will be because there are some cookies that are being made for the second one that were not made yesterday. But I can tell you the winners from the one yesterday.

Speaker 8:
[05:07] Please, yeah, I'd love to hear.

Speaker 7:
[05:08] Okay, so the top three were, and these were very close. They were like 0.1 apart. BA's best chocolate chip cookie. We did this all blind. That was number one.

Speaker 8:
[05:19] Of course we did, yeah.

Speaker 7:
[05:20] Number two was a brown butter chocolate chip cookie from this blog, Butternut Bakery, which was new to me. And then the third one was Ham El-Waley's glossy chocolate chip cookie from his new cookbook.

Speaker 8:
[05:31] So what does thickness mean?

Speaker 7:
[05:33] Well, obviously it's subjective, right?

Speaker 8:
[05:35] Exactly.

Speaker 7:
[05:36] It's kind of like to your liking, is this as thick as you would want it to be? And there was some kind of, you know, pudgy, stout, thicker cookies, not quite Levain size, but on the thicker side, there was some very kind of thin, shatteringly crisp cookies. I made the King Arthur Flour chocolate chip cookie recipe because it was the easiest one. And I felt like it was more of a classic Toll House style cookie. And that it would be useful to our judging criteria to have more of a kind of, quote unquote, basic, maybe classic entry. But I felt completely sick after eating.

Speaker 8:
[06:09] A lot of gluten. The King Arthur's, did they use rye flour and AP?

Speaker 7:
[06:14] No, it was just AP and it also used both Crisco and butter, which I thought was kind of crazy.

Speaker 8:
[06:19] That's finicky, man.

Speaker 7:
[06:20] I've never done that before. It was so easy. I didn't have to brown the butter. I didn't have to really do anything. I was feeling stressed. I just kind of went for the easy route. It's not actually, I've never even made that before. Like the chocolate chip cookie I make the most is a buckwheat chocolate chip cookie that Sarah Jempel developed for Bon Appetit when I was there. But yeah, we ate seven cookies. I went down to like quarters by the end, but I still, but I felt like the judging criteria was off if I only ate a quarter, because how can you weigh in on chocolate to dough distribution if you're only having a quarter of a cookie?

Speaker 8:
[06:50] You also want to see how, right, a whole cookie, how it like, how you feel after it in some ways.

Speaker 7:
[06:55] I felt crazy, to be honest.

Speaker 8:
[06:57] You felt crazy?

Speaker 7:
[06:57] But then at the end of the night, I was texting with Macaroon and I was looking at the photos and I was like, you know what? Maybe I would have another cookie right now.

Speaker 8:
[07:04] It's weird after you do like one of those crawls, like taco crawls, like seven places or whatever, like six hours later, you want more tacos. It's a weird brain thing.

Speaker 7:
[07:11] Your body adjusts.

Speaker 8:
[07:12] It adjusts. Happy birthday, Macaroon.

Speaker 7:
[07:14] I know.

Speaker 8:
[07:14] Absolutely. This is great, great idea. I love this spirit there.

Speaker 7:
[07:18] Yeah, I will say you have to be a good friend for me to bake for you, to be forcibly asked to bake, but you know, it was a fun and kind of unusual birthday.

Speaker 8:
[07:27] So cool.

Speaker 7:
[07:27] What was your first thing?

Speaker 8:
[07:28] Well, I've got some restaurants here. I've been back in New York. I went to Dean's. Very excited to report back. Have you been yet?

Speaker 7:
[07:36] No, but I've been hearing whispers. This is the new pub from The King.

Speaker 8:
[07:41] The King crew, Jess Shadbolt and Annie Shee. It's their new, I would say, a full-fledged pub, a style of dining that we know. This is the first time in a while that a pub has opened where food is the focus. They used to call them gastropubs back in the day.

Speaker 7:
[07:59] Back in the day. That's 2019.

Speaker 8:
[08:00] 2019 is gastropub for sure. And I think we definitely take a lot of inspiration from the UK. I think it's really, really easy. You're seeing it all over America. But Jess, who's the chef, and I think Annie is absolutely there, and I saw both of them on my visit. But Jess is in the kitchen, and I loved catching up with her. It's a cool kitchen. You wait by the bathroom, and the kitchen is kind of a little bit below where you're waiting for the bathroom. So you can chat with Jess while you're just hanging out there. It's a really unique space. There's a great bar that I've seen a lot of Instagram shots from people just standing around it in that post-work vibe. They seem to have an outdoor license, so when the weather gets better, there'll be an outdoor element there, a cafe seating element. But I want to report on the food. The food is really, really good. I had the fish and chips, which I think there's a high bar. You know, dames fish and chips are so legendary at this point, and this is quite different. I had dames a few weeks ago, and much lighter here. I just thought that they really have a point of view with the breading, and it's very light and just shatters in your hand. It's a good way. Good for me. The Guinness bread with marmite butter. Very cool pairing there. I thought that marmite is not really my favorite thing, but I thought it worked perfectly with this really dark bread. And there's this curried coronation salad with a creamy dressing, raisins and almonds. I loved it. It was probably my favorite dish of the night. Mushy peas are just jumping out. Spring is here and they're doing mushy peas so well. I mean, are you a mushy peas fan?

Speaker 7:
[09:36] I like mushy peas okay. I love coronation mayo, which is the salad that you just mentioned. I had that for the first time when I was in London, maybe two years ago, but obviously it's a very iconic UK dish.

Speaker 8:
[09:46] So good. I tried the stargazee pie, which I love, like little mackerels sticking out of the pie.

Speaker 7:
[09:51] This is like a pie with the fish sticking up out of, yeah.

Speaker 8:
[09:54] Exactly. And the mackerels were perfectly cooked. I mean, that was delicious. And the bar is cool. Like they have old speckled hen on tap, which is I think pretty unique. And I really think this, the energy there is super right. And the music was quite loud, which I loved. To be honest, I don't love loud music, but it was really working well and a really cool soundtrack when I was there. Yeah. So I want to keep going back. I think that this is the kind of place that has a lot of buzz now. And then as summer comes in, I'm sure it'll continue to be full. But I don't think they'll be like crazy weights because they turn the tables fast and they really want to be a public house for New York City. And I love it.

Speaker 7:
[10:32] Well, I'm excited to go and eat the stargazzy pie.

Speaker 8:
[10:34] It's really cool. What's your next thing?

Speaker 7:
[10:35] My next thing is I want to talk about the Caity Weaver free bread story in The Atlantic. Have you read this piece?

Speaker 8:
[10:41] Started to hit the paywall. Didn't do my thing where I need to pay for the paywall. I wish, because it's Caity Weaver's great.

Speaker 7:
[10:49] I won't give any spoilers, but if anyone is listening and they're a fan of free bread or of Caity Weaver's writing, she's such a funny contemporary, just unexpected writer. Her story about how glitter is made, which is in The New York Times. It's one of my favorite pieces. The photos are exceptional and her wild questions are always so great. This piece is her basically going on assignment for The Atlantic to find the best free bread in America, which if you're listening and you think that that is a hotly objective opinion, I think she would say yes and that is a point. It's so funny and weird and heartfelt and it goes to so many places. I was going to maybe read a line from it to get the point across, but I also don't want spoilers for you.

Speaker 8:
[11:34] Read the line. I'm going to pay The Atlantic some money.

Speaker 7:
[11:36] Okay. This is why she went on the quest in the first place. She says, here is where the notion for the undertaking came from. Tucked within the viscera of the Continental United States is a restaurant that gives away superb free bread. Every time I have eaten it before this past year, three times in total, I have said aloud to my husband who did not care. This is the best free restaurant bread in America. The thought made me feel the way you do when you realize that you are just half a moment away from being plowed by a car and spared only by a chance nanosecond of dawdling before stepping into the street, giddy and flabbergasted and grateful to be alive. It seemed incredible but also possible that this could really be the best free restaurant bread in America. What if it was? And even more dizzingly, what if it wasn't? What if unfathomable? Someone else was giving away an even better bread for free. The thought drove me crazy. I begged for the opportunity to investigate. What she does, which I think most people would be afraid to do, is she really does say this is the best free bread. You have to read the piece to get there. But I love free bread and I love the story.

Speaker 8:
[12:38] Does she get into like bread bread, like making bread and the like fascination with naturally fermented breads and into that world?

Speaker 7:
[12:48] Yes, I mean, it's both a survey of some specific restaurants that offer free bread and also what bread means and also the idea of offering free bread and how in the past it would be inconceivable to not offer a bread. And now it's kind of gone in the other direction. And I spent a lot of time thinking about bread for the bread issue of Cake Scene that we did. There are some niche tidbits from that magazine that she's covering in this, like the fact that gluten-free bread cannot be used as Eucharist, that the body of Christ must contain gluten. She talks about how so many cultures around the world, their word for life and their word for bread are the same. It's kind of like anything. And she interviews bread experts, most of whom are aghast by the idea that she's trying to name a best bread.

Speaker 8:
[13:27] I love it.

Speaker 7:
[13:28] It's great. That's my second thing.

Speaker 8:
[13:29] So cool. I'm going to read that.

Speaker 7:
[13:31] What's your next thing?

Speaker 8:
[13:31] My next thing is I made it to Kabawa for the first time for a proper meal.

Speaker 7:
[13:35] How was it?

Speaker 8:
[13:36] I mean, I love Paul Carmichael. I was with some friends, Max and Jordan, in from LA, and we wrapped up our meal. And Paul walked us to our next location just to be a gentleman. It was such a nice gesture. Rarely does a chef leave his restaurant to walk you to the next.

Speaker 7:
[13:52] He needed to get out.

Speaker 8:
[13:53] He needed to get out fair. It was a beautiful night as well. But, you know, just like Paul is such a sweet man and just so smart. And I really, really recommend going back to the interview I had with him about a year ago when he was opening Kabawa. Now, I've been to Bar Kabawa, I think, twice. And I think Bar Kabawa is a great place for, you know, cocktails of Caribbean origins and, you know, lots of great bar snacks and really it's less expensive and more accessible. So if you can't get into Kabawa, that's a great option. But I got to actually try the full menu. You know, it's a three course prefix for $145. Interesting cost structure here. You know, not quite a tasting, so not quite the tasting menu, $200 plus price point, but a prefix with lots of, like, incredible bread service we'll talk about. I think it's really well priced. I think this is a really, really, for us in New York right now, this is such a bargain in many ways, it feels like, just because of the options that you're given and the, kind of the work that goes into the full meal. A little bit more about Paul Carmichael, he was born in Barbados and he worked under Wiley-Dufresne, Marcus Samuelson and David Chang, where he worked at SIABO in Sydney for years. I loved his cooking at Ma Pesh back in the day in Midtown. I loved that restaurant, his food there. The meal really unfolded with that roti course, like two types of breads with all sorts of spreads. I really loved that to start the meal. We had a guava calypso chicken. And guava is so, I think, difficult in some ways. It's very sweet. And I think he was able to really not, you know, the balance there with the lacquering of the guava on this beautiful bird. And it had like the full leg on the bird presentation. The meat was so delicious. We like picked it apart right at the bone. I loved the pepper shrimp, which is like a lightly cooked shrimp with scotch bonnet, really beautiful pepper. Hits you hard at the beginning and then it kind of goes away quickly. It's like the kind of the perfect pepper. I loved that. And then dessert was such a highlight. There was a coconut sorbet served in a coconut shell. And then there was this beautiful coconut cake called, they call it a turnover, but it's more of a loaf. And it came with a cream cheese frosting, felt very Midwest to me. Love that combination. I could go on about this meal, but I know we get to do more things. That is Kabawa, also named by Food and Wine as the best restaurant in America recently. Like low-key, like crazy. Paul was like, wow, but I love it. And you should go.

Speaker 7:
[16:41] I have been dying to go, so this is a good reminder.

Speaker 8:
[16:43] It's very good. What's your next thing?

Speaker 7:
[16:45] My last thing is a restaurant. I just went to Bar Ferdinando, which is the re-opening of Ferdinandos for Cotcheria, a very legendary Carol Gardens restaurant. I'm sure you know it well.

Speaker 8:
[16:57] I did when I used to live there. I used to go there quite a bit. So cool that they made it.

Speaker 7:
[17:01] It's so nice that it's been re-opened. And I feel like I would love to go with you to see how similar it feels, because I've only been once previously. And to me, the inside looks very similar, but maybe to the trained eye, there are some differences. This is New York's oldest Sicilian restaurant. It was opened in 1904 to feed the longshoremen who were working on the waterfront. This is very close to the water in South Brooklyn. Hi guys, is it South Brooklyn?

Speaker 8:
[17:27] I call it Red Hook Columbia Waterfront, is what the technical Columbia Waterfront.

Speaker 7:
[17:30] This is very close to the water. So in 2025, after 52 years of the owner, Frank Buffa, opening and running this restaurant, he handpicked Sal Ambogia to reopen it and be the new owner. And this is a Brooklyn native and restaurateur. He does Café Spaghetti, Sweeney's, Salt's Tang. And I think he really came in with this love of this institution and also wanting to breathe a little bit of new life into it. I had a lot of really delicious things. The clams and fries is something that I think almost every table was eating. This is just this beautiful platter of perfectly crispy fries with little tiny clams and they're kind of buttery, lemony juices all over the top of it. Arancini with bolognese, super delicious. Olives, just perfect little marinated olives. They're doing a panel sandwich, which when I ordered this on the menu, I thought I was just getting the panellas in a fried chickpea pancake, but instead it comes on focaccia bread.

Speaker 8:
[18:29] Double carbs.

Speaker 7:
[18:29] Ricotta. If I was hung over, this would be the perfect thing to eat. Very hefty, solid sandwich, complimentary, but made me catch my breath after I was done eating that. And I had a really good house made strawberry Kampari soda as well.

Speaker 8:
[18:46] Oh, cool.

Speaker 7:
[18:46] I went on the opening night and I think the neighborhood was really excited to have this place back open and I love seeing New York institutions get to kind of live on.

Speaker 8:
[18:55] I love to hear that. I've heard great things about Cafe Spaghetti and a new kind of mini empire being built in South Brooklyn by this restaurant tour and love seeing an old restaurant not be totally gutted after it goes away. Well done there.

Speaker 7:
[19:08] Totally. What's your last thing?

Speaker 8:
[19:10] Last thing is I just want to shout out this cool collaboration. Two of my favorite brands, Zab's Hot Sauce and Taco Bell. Whoa. Yeah, right. Whoa. My friend Miles runs Zab's and he's been on the podcast and I love chatting with Miles about all things food. And I know this has been in the works for a long time. He mentioned it on that episode. And to remind folks, Zab's is a hot sauce that uses the date old pepper, which I think in the form of the sauce, which has two different bottling. One is like spicier than the other. One is a little more barbeque-y, but neither are too spicy and there's a really distinctive flavor that hues more sweet with the heat. And I love that. So they collaborated on this Chicken Ranch Nacho Fry menu item. So here's the crazy thing. So Taco Bell just launched three menu items. This and two other things. One included, it was like basically like a Crunch Wrap that was double the meat. So I was like, cool. I went on Instagram to like get a little more information. I swear there was over 30 accounts reviewing these menu items in the backseat of their vehicles in various forms. No, like literally 30 of them. Like I didn't realize that that was so popular. I mean, I know it was popular, but...

Speaker 7:
[20:30] I mean, I feel like the Taco Bell fandom runs deep. And the car review is like the preeminent food review of our era. For better or for worse.

Speaker 8:
[20:38] In some ways, yeah. I mean, congrats to Miles. I think it's great. It's on the menu until mid-May. And it's in like all Taco Bells. It went to my Taco Bell, which is in a random town upstate. It's not like, you know, in Manhattan or anything. And I was happy to see it all over the country via the Zab's Instagram account.

Speaker 7:
[21:00] Well, I'm continually blown away by the creativity that goes into Taco Bell menu items. So I'm excited to seek this one out.

Speaker 8:
[21:06] So props to those guys. Well, thanks for sharing your Three Things.

Speaker 7:
[21:09] You too.

Speaker 8:
[21:11] On a recent episode of This Is Taste, I spoke with Erica Roby, barbecue champion, former criminal defense attorney, and the person who taught me exactly what to look for when buying a brisket. She wants striations. She wants white flecks throughout. She described it like a kaleidoscope, because fat is flavor and that marbling is the whole game. It's what keeps brisket moist from the smoker all the way to the moment the judge takes a bite. We also heard from Tucker Brown, a sixth generation Texas cattle rancher whose family has been in business since 1895. That's episode 754 of This Is TASTE. This episode is presented by Beef. It's What's For Dinner, on behalf of the Beef Checkoff. You know how much effort goes into taking care of yourself physically, eating the right amount of protein, drinking the latest probiotic soda, hitting those Peloton personal records. Mental health deserves the same energy. But finding a therapist who actually takes your insurance? That's where things usually fall apart. Rula fixes this. They're a healthcare company that works with over 100 insurance plans, so the average copay is just $15 a session. $15. They match you with licensed therapists based on your actual goals and needs, not just whoever is available. And appointments can happen as soon as tomorrow. Thousands of people are already using Rula to get affordable, high-quality therapy that's actually covered by insurance. Visit rula.com/taste to get started. That's rula.com/taste. You deserve mental health care that works for you, not against your budget.

Speaker 7:
[22:52] Samer Saleh and Diane Aboushi Saleh, this is Taste. Thank you for coming on the podcast.

Speaker 9:
[22:57] Thank you.

Speaker 7:
[22:59] I'm really happy to get to speak to some of my favorite farmers and producers. Whenever I get to do that on the show, it's the most interesting part of the food process for me. So thank you both for leaving the green market and coming into the studio today.

Speaker 6:
[23:12] Of course.

Speaker 9:
[23:13] Thank you. We feel very honored to be here.

Speaker 7:
[23:16] We're on the mic. We're in the official studio. It's really fun. It's the most beautiful time of year at the green market. I think new things are just starting to come up. So I'm curious, how was it today? Do you get to bring in new crops to the market?

Speaker 9:
[23:29] Yeah. Today was a really beautiful day. The weather helps. Everyone comes in a good mood. Totally. It really felt like spring today slash summer, so I'm sure we'll feel colder days up ahead. We had green garlic, quite a bit of that today. And then the flowering mustards just make everything look so beautiful. They look like Forsythia flowers on them. But these are edible. And then we had arugula flowers. But the green is popping out more and more. So it was really nice to see that.

Speaker 7:
[23:58] Do you have any strategy with, do you put the new crops at a specific place in the stand? How do you let people know that a new thing has kind of come in for the season?

Speaker 6:
[24:08] Our front table is always like the talk of the market. We try as much as we can to design it in a way where it's very catchy to the eyes, but also all our new produce that we just have it for the first time for the season. We always try to keep it up front so that everyone can see it.

Speaker 7:
[24:25] That's funny. I feel like it's such an East Coast, like New Yorker even tendency that like the new, like when ramps or like rhubarb or anything like that hits the market, like people are frothing and like going for it. What does it feel like to be on the receiving end of the kind of frenzy for spring produce?

Speaker 6:
[24:42] It's super exciting. To walk in the land and to see all this stuff flowering and becoming available. We start talking to all our contacts and all the chefs and all our buyers and it's like, hey, listen, we just have the green garlic that just came out. They're amazing. It's such an exciting time.

Speaker 9:
[24:57] Yeah. To see everyone's reaction when they come to the stand.

Speaker 10:
[25:00] Oh, you have this?

Speaker 9:
[25:01] How long are you going to have this?

Speaker 3:
[25:02] Oh, you have that?

Speaker 9:
[25:04] It's always really fun. It's also nice to talk to people who are equally excited with you, who can feel the first beginning of spring. Then people always tell us they get excited when Samer and I are at the market because our stand is there year round. In the wintertime, we're short staffed at the farm, so we have to be back at the farm. When we're back at the market, one chef told me, he's like, I'm so excited to see you. This means that the bounty is coming in. Thank you. You wouldn't be here if there's not a ton of stuff coming with you. So it's nice to just feel that excitement. I love that.

Speaker 7:
[25:38] It shows how much people pay attention to the little things that you are a beacon of hope when you're back at the market. How does it work with the chefs? When green garlic comes in, I know a lot of people want to work with that. Do people ask you to set things aside for them or is it just like they come early and see what they can get?

Speaker 6:
[25:56] So now is the time we have conversations with all the chefs because they change their menu according to what's in season. So we always like to have a one-on-one conversation with all of them and explain to them what we have and how long we will have it for so that they can design the menu accordingly. And Diane is really the expert with that. She's like the chef master. She talks to all the chefs, has a good relationship with them. And yeah.

Speaker 9:
[26:18] Yeah, so it's just a conversation like I'm just saying green garlic because it was just on our mind today. So when we knew that the garlic harvest was about ready for green garlic, so we kind of have a sense of, okay, it's ready, how much do we think we can harvest? And let everybody know, hey, we have green garlic. Now's your chance. Basically, a few weeks to do whatever you need to do with it. I have this much, are you interested in it? Because we do have a limited supply, so I need to account for the restaurants and our customers that want a certain amount. So I have enough for the people who are asking for it.

Speaker 7:
[26:52] Yeah, do you have to ever tell somebody, you're asking for too much, I need to save more for other people?

Speaker 6:
[26:58] All the time, all the time. You think you are growing enough, but it's never enough.

Speaker 9:
[27:07] Yeah, I mean, it depends if someone comes to the stand and they're going to take the entire product, I would let them take it.

Speaker 7:
[27:12] Right.

Speaker 9:
[27:14] I'm not going to say no. But we know that means for next time to bring more.

Speaker 7:
[27:19] Yeah, that's funny. I'm always a late riser at the market relatively speaking, which is hard. When the first strawberries hit, if you're not up early enough, then they run out. And I often have the experience of being in line and seeing the person ahead of me taking like three or four cartons of strawberries. And then I'm just standing there panicking and hoping that there's more like beneath the table.

Speaker 9:
[27:40] You know, I had a woman when we first started Union Square. She really wanted our strawberries. So she and she was coming all the way from like far Rockaway, like somewhere deep in Brooklyn, maybe even the Midwood area. And she said, oh, she was in Brighton Beach. That's where it was. And she goes, I'm going to text you when I come. Please, I cannot get to your stand before 830. Just hold these strawberries for me. I was like, yes, I will hold the strawberries for you, no problem.

Speaker 7:
[28:04] That's nice. And I feel like that's the benefit of like building relationships with the farmers at the market that like they can come to rely that you'll be there. And 830 is pretty early still. I feel like if she didn't show up by 9, you could still give them to someone else.

Speaker 9:
[28:16] Yes, that's exactly right. But that's exactly right. But we really try hard to, if someone really wants a vegetable at the market and like they really want it, then I'll put them to the side and save it to them for them. I'll hold on to it, it's no problem.

Speaker 7:
[28:31] That's very nice of you. And I feel like we just jumped straight into produce talk, which is my favorite. But I want to get a little bit of insight into like the beginnings of Halal Pastures. And I was wondering if you would tell me about kind of how the farm came to be and what those kind of early stages looked like for you.

Speaker 6:
[28:47] When we first got married, Diane and I, we were having these debates about the concept of halal and organic. I wanted to make sure that everything in our house is halal, meaning it's permissible for Muslims to consume. That's what the word halal means. And then she wanted to make sure everything is organic. And we couldn't find anything out there that had both halal and organic. And we were talking about meat at that time. So we decided that, you know what, we're just going to go out and start a small business just for ourselves mainly. We want to make sure we have halal and organic meat for us and for our kids. And when we started visiting the farms and seeing what people are doing and how they're growing their vegetables, I've always had this love for growing vegetables. I never got a chance to do it. But seeing it in the ground and then like eating from these fresh vegetables, I immediately fell in love with it. And I'm like, we need to do some of that. And we started looking for a farm in 2015. And we moved into our current farm. And we formed about an acre, more or less, for quite some time. 2015 until 2022 is when we expanded and we grew.

Speaker 9:
[30:00] One of the things I just want to build upon what he said, in that time period that we got married and we were just meshing our lives together. And he was just like, as long as it meets halal. And I was like, as long as it meets organic. I had read Fast Food Nation back in the day. And it just like I went into a panic mode after reading Fast Food Nation. That's why I was really supporter of the organic and I wanted the organic. Around that time that we were having these conversations and really just trying to understand what the food situation would look like in our household. There was a GMO wars that was happening amongst countries. And so we had read an article, he had read an article in Al Jazeera about how Egypt had rejected several tons of corn from the United States because it was genetically modified. And we're like, first of all, why is Egypt rejecting corn? And number two, what is the GMO?

Speaker 7:
[30:45] Right.

Speaker 9:
[30:46] And so that really opened up a whole can of trying to understand the food system here. And that's when also kind of really reinforce our decision to grow our own food. Like you just can't trust the labels, you know?

Speaker 7:
[31:01] Yeah. I mean, I think it speaks so much to your character that you're both the kind of people who if you can't find the thing you're looking for, you're going to go to the lengths to like open your own farm, do it yourself. At that period in time, you were both working like kind of very like professional jobs, right?

Speaker 9:
[31:18] Yes. I'm an attorney. I'm licensed in New York. I litigated for quite some time, up until like a few years ago to focus on the farm.

Speaker 6:
[31:26] And I work in finance. I help manage a pension fund for retirees of a church.

Speaker 7:
[31:33] So in the beginning, it was kind of like you guys weren't necessarily thinking of becoming full-time farmers. You were wanting to have this farm that kind of fit in to the fabric of your lives.

Speaker 9:
[31:44] Basically. I mean, I think it just, it's kind of interesting, like, you know, Steve Jobs said that you connect the dots backwards, right? So at that time, we just wanted to have good food and then other people wanted good food. And we're like, okay, so we're going to do this. I had no idea, like I would walk the green market and be like, man, it'd be so cool to be here. I never occurred to, never thought that this would be for us, that we would be at the green market, and that we'd have a farm. It just was not part of our life plan. But I think like the steps that we took kind of, you know, I think God took us in that direction.

Speaker 7:
[32:20] Yeah, when did you reach the point when you decided that you really wanted to kind of like double down on the farm and make it like a bigger part of your lives and a bigger project in general?

Speaker 6:
[32:31] When we found good labor. The key to farming, in my opinion, is having good labor that can help you achieve your objectives. And farming is a very, very hard work. It's not easy. And if you have people who are committed to it, who have been farming all their lives and can help you achieve your goals, I think that is what can take you from point A to point B.

Speaker 9:
[32:53] It would be, yeah.

Speaker 7:
[32:54] Yeah, I think especially knowing that you didn't have this like farming background in the early days, how did you decide what you wanted to be growing, especially when you went from just having meat to introducing produce?

Speaker 6:
[33:06] We made a ton of mistakes. We were not shy of making mistakes. We studied a little bit. We read a lot of books. We did a lot of research and we attended some of the young conference farmers, young farmers conferences in Stoneborn.

Speaker 7:
[33:20] Oh, yeah.

Speaker 6:
[33:21] This was one of the stepping stones that helped us really understand what the world of farming is like and what kind of equipment we need. I remember the first time I attended this conference, everyone was talking about a BCS. I'm like, what's a BCS? What is that? It's a two-wheel tractor that everyone used to help till the land. I'm like, I've never used a tractor before. I don't even know what tilling is. I've never farmed before. So our curve was very steep. We had to really learn everything from scratch and make all the mistakes. Diane can tell you our mistake with winter squash, for example.

Speaker 9:
[33:58] I know. It's like the first time we've played. So this mistake was over 10 years ago, just we don't make these mistakes anymore. But you know, I remember being like, Oh my gosh, I really like pumpkin. I want butternut squash. Well, it's a full crop, right? So I'd like plant the seed in September. No, you plant the seed in June and you harvest in August. Plant the seed in September and die.

Speaker 6:
[34:16] We planted it in September, like by September 30th, it was all dead because the frostbite came in. We thought it's winter squash, so you actually plant it close to the winter.

Speaker 9:
[34:26] Even though I was telling someone today, I can laugh at this. At the time, it was not funny, but when we bought our house and we bought the land, when you buy property, you buy land, like you're basically broke, at least we were. We put all our resources into this property. But we wanted to start farming right away, and we wanted to be part of our local farmers market. So we worked with another farm that was selling organic transplants. Even though at the time we were not certified, we wanted organic transplants, I wanted to make sure everything we did was according to organic standards. So we bought like $2,000 worth of transplants at the time, and we planted them. I was like so happy. We planted them in the morning. And then I went to Home Depot to get something. I came back, they were gone. I look, and there's a groundhog with his head up. Aliza, number one, fence, plot, you have been to a plot.

Speaker 7:
[35:23] You have like the book of things that you learned the hard way, basically.

Speaker 6:
[35:26] Yeah, make sure you have a fence around your transplants.

Speaker 9:
[35:31] No, we have 100 acres. We fenced the entire 100 acres from the deer.

Speaker 6:
[35:35] Last year, we just had like, the deer decimated our cabbage crop. We were so excited. It was looking good for a while. And then I guess when everything dies down outside the farm, they look for what's inside the farm. So I would go in the farm at night and I would see like 40, 50 deers munching on our cabbage.

Speaker 7:
[35:54] Did they just jump the fence?

Speaker 2:
[35:56] No, that was before we found the fence.

Speaker 9:
[35:57] And then we're like, you know what? Okay, we're not dealing with groundhogs anymore. But you know, we got the right fencing. We knew when we put that up. But as I was trying to say is like, you know, you make the mistakes because this is not something that was, you know, we didn't inherit a farm or grew up in a farm or grew up in a farm environment. We just really had a desire to have like good food. So you make these mistakes and you learn from them. And the beginning years of High Pressure was...

Speaker 6:
[36:18] One thing for sure, we were never shying away from trying things and experiencing things. And, you know, if it works, it works. If it doesn't, we learned it doesn't. So we have to fix it next year.

Speaker 7:
[36:28] Yeah. I guess maybe to like counterbalance some of the early struggles, will you tell me about a really successful moment that happened when you felt like you were on the right path and doing things in the right way?

Speaker 6:
[36:41] We've always had amazing success with our tomatoes from day one. Like we, you know, all the research I did and all the things that relates to how you to relish them and how you plant them and how you harvest them. Our cherry tomatoes from day one were just excellent and they continue to be. I really spend a lot of time in the greenhouses, like caring for them and taking care of them. And they've always given us a beautiful crop. So that's what, yeah.

Speaker 9:
[37:08] Yeah, like the Sakura cherry tomatoes. We started the green market actually, not at Union Square, we were at 90, what was former 92nd Street now, it's called Rupert Park. We started there right when I was about to deliver Noah, our son, that was eight years ago. And they called us and they said, hey, we applied for the green markets, like you can go to 92nd Street. And I remember like harvesting the cherry tomatoes at that time. And we took everything so seriously. We had like one table, by the way, nothing. Like one small table. We'd have people sample the cherry tomatoes and people would just, I would come with crates and people would just take the crates. People would wait on line for them.

Speaker 7:
[37:47] I think tomatoes are one of the most kind of like idealized crops also. I think like in the summer, it's always about the tomatoes and people, like a bad tomato out of season is like, it's so bad compared to what a good tomato can be. So having that be a success, I think, it's a very like desired crop, I think to have. You mentioned being certified organic. I know that can be a really like difficult process. Like why did you want to go for that certification instead of just saying that you do like organic style farming or something like that?

Speaker 6:
[38:19] We were already following all organic practices. So it was a very easy transition for us. It was basically all about paperwork. It's not about the practice itself. I felt like it's a good thing to have. Some people are just looking for the label. They don't necessarily look into your practices. I felt like, okay, we have the practices. We should also have the label for our business to grow. Yeah, we delved into it. We did all the paperwork and got it done.

Speaker 7:
[38:49] Luckily, you're a lawyer, I guess.

Speaker 9:
[38:52] My husband handles the paperwork. I just get involved.

Speaker 7:
[38:56] That seems like a better setup maybe. I would not want to do the paperwork.

Speaker 9:
[38:59] I don't like doing the paperwork. The good thing is, it's a lot of paperwork, but we're already doing the paperwork. We already keep track of our harvests. We keep track of our seeds. We keep track of a lot of stuff anyway. If they didn't ask us to do it, we would have done it anyway because we're doing it just for the way to manage the business properly.

Speaker 7:
[39:21] For the Halal certification, is that like a similar kind of process?

Speaker 6:
[39:25] The Halal certification was easy because that's what we eat, that's what we consume, and we wanted to make sure it's done proper. So we worked with a scholar out in California who has his own certification. And from day one, we just got them into the slaughterhouse. We got them to monitor our process. And they saw that we do everything by hand. Everything is following the rules of Halal. And we got the certificate from day one, and we've had it ever since. Yeah.

Speaker 7:
[39:54] I think considering what you told me about how you started the farm because you wanted to be able to serve food that fell under both of those categories, it makes sense to me that you would kind of pursue both of those certifications just so that you can be kind of like mentioning them together in one breath. But I imagine there are not a lot of other farms that are both like Halal and organic certified.

Speaker 9:
[40:13] I don't know. It's a tough, it's very tough to do. It's very tough to do. But we're able to do it. I mean there's a lot of, anytime you try to, when you, I think one of the things that we're thinking about is like we were a consumer before we became a producer, right? So I'm always thinking about this from a consumer perspective. Consumers look for these labels, right? So for us it's like it's a lot of work, but I think it's, unless you have conversations like this where you know you're a farmer and you know where your food is coming from, there are people who in lieu of having those conversations look for these labels.

Speaker 7:
[40:46] Yeah.

Speaker 9:
[40:47] The labels are replacing for the conversation too for a certain degree, so I think we were able to do it.

Speaker 7:
[40:53] Yeah. And on the consumer side of things, the first time that I got to have your produce was at the Union Square Greenmarket. How did you get involved with being at that Greenmarket? Because I know that it can be also like a long process to get one of those stands. They're very coveted.

Speaker 6:
[41:08] So we were just very blessed from day one, because if I tell you like the sequence of events, when we decided that we want to expand and grow, we talked to the guys at the Greenmarket and we told them our intention, not knowing what possibilities they might have. We just told them, please know that we, for next year, we're farming 25 acres, we're going to have a lot more crops. Please let us know if there's any opportunity presents itself. And we get a call like three, four months later, well, there's a producer in Union Square who is actually was hiring. And there's a spot that's opening up for an organic farm. If you would like to join us, please come.

Speaker 9:
[41:48] Wow.

Speaker 6:
[41:49] I heard like people have been, people usually wait and like, there's a waiting list for six to seven years so that you can get into some of these markets. But I felt like we were definitely blessed that things happened at the right time.

Speaker 9:
[42:01] Yeah, we were already part of the green market system for a few years by then. It wasn't like we started the market and went straight there. We were at green market. We were at 96th Street and then we had done Staten Island at the time. Then I think Astor Place. No, Astor Place is not there. But we were part of the green market I think four years by then.

Speaker 7:
[42:20] No, it makes sense. Obviously, it didn't happen for you overnight, but also how beautiful that when you were ready to take that next step, that something was open and available to you.

Speaker 9:
[42:28] Yeah.

Speaker 6:
[42:29] We took it as a sign that Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la, God is really helping us grow and expand.

Speaker 7:
[42:36] Yeah. So when you had the opportunity and you started selling at the Union Square Greenmarket, how did you approach setting up the stand, building relationships with people? How did you build the reputation for Halal Pastures that exists today?

Speaker 9:
[42:54] It wasn't a conscious thing. We were in a sit-down, like, okay, how are we going to do this? But we were just having fun and really connecting with people. And we both have a love of food and we have a love of quality food. And I think the people that end up at Union Square, like I said, have the same kind of excitement over vegetables that you would and over dishes. And so I think there's like a similar, there's like a bond that's there. So for us, just kind of keeping your respect for the customer, making things easy, I think, as much as possible. Try to be easygoing with people. I think people come to the stand, I think they want something new, but then they're also looking for some kind of reprieve, like they're coming, like you said, you look forward to going to the market. So just making it a pleasant experience. But it's just fun for me. Today we saw, I saw a group of chefs from a restaurant that came to our stand and my family was really excited. And I told them, I was like, I love my job. I'm cooler than you.

Speaker 3:
[43:58] What was the restaurant?

Speaker 9:
[44:01] I don't know if I'm at Liberty to say.

Speaker 7:
[44:03] Oh, okay.

Speaker 9:
[44:05] But it was something that they were like really excited about.

Speaker 7:
[44:08] Is it like a new restaurant?

Speaker 9:
[44:10] Is that why you can't say?

Speaker 7:
[44:11] Or it's just?

Speaker 9:
[44:12] I don't know. They were just like hanging out at the stand.

Speaker 7:
[44:14] Yeah.

Speaker 6:
[44:15] So we work with a lot of the restaurants in the city. All the large names, they all come to the stand. Over the years, we've developed a good relationship with all of them. It's just aside from your day to day hard work, it's always good to build that personal relationship and connect with them on a personal level. So it's always nice. I share some of my diving stories. I like scuba diving. So I share some of my scuba diving stories with a lot of them and they do the same. I feel like you're building community.

Speaker 7:
[44:43] Yeah. Something that I like about the stand is the signs that you have around the tent. They feel very handmade and heartfelt, and they're always encouraging people to try different pieces of produce. I feel like that's an element that just feels special in its own way.

Speaker 9:
[45:00] Yeah. People seem to really like the signs that we do, because part of what we do also at the stand is to educate people about the produce and educate people about our farming practices. For me personally, what I love the most about having a farm is learning the story behind the seed. And I love telling the story of each seed, because the seed is, the crop itself came from somewhere, and it's meaningful to somebody which then made it here. And I think I try to really highlight that one, because we love it so much. And we do also, we're also home schoolers, so I do use the, I try to involve our children inside the actual creating of the signs, and creating of, it's a research project for them also, and we kind of do it together so everyone benefits. I get to home school my children, and we also get to educate people at the stand about the crop.

Speaker 7:
[45:58] Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Are there any like spring or summer crops that are coming up that you particularly like the story of the seed?

Speaker 6:
[46:07] Like, I'll give you an example. We planted something called a lemon cucumber. It's a cucumber that actually looks like a lemon. And if you read the story behind this seed back in the early 1800s, one seed used to sell for a dollar. That's how special it was. One dollar back then was like a lot of money. And it's, you know, we saw it, we liked it, we wanted to introduce it to the market. Many other stories like that, like Chapon de Milanelco.

Speaker 9:
[46:37] Yeah, that's another one. It's a tomatillo, it's a pointy tomatillo, it's yellow. It's named after a city in Mexico. Tastes like a fruit, you know. So it's really nice. You know, you think about a tomatillo, you're thinking about it from, okay, you know, like whatever you see in the supermarkets, right? Or in the, not to knock down bodegas, like I grew up in one, but you know, there's just the vegetables from there don't taste the same, so I would shed away from it. So here you have like this seed that produced this crop that came from this village in Mexico, so that I like to talk about that.

Speaker 7:
[47:11] Also tomatillos, like they look so much like husk cherries to me.

Speaker 9:
[47:15] It's related to the husk cherry.

Speaker 7:
[47:16] Oh, so they are kind of like, are they a fruit, like technically?

Speaker 6:
[47:20] It's a fruit, yeah.

Speaker 9:
[47:21] This variety, yeah, they're related to the husk cherry. When they tell, I'll send you an email, or like I'll text you so you can come try it, you know.

Speaker 7:
[47:31] What was the winter squash story that you like so much?

Speaker 9:
[47:34] The North Georgia candy roaster. The North Georgia candy roaster is a Native American variety. It's also, it has another name. Sometimes people call it a banana boat, but it's an heirloom Native American variety. It's a long pumpkin, and it has roots in Native American history. It goes back centuries. So, it's really nice to grow that. And then there's another one called the Thelma sander squash, which is a type of potato squash. It came from, it's an heirloom variety out of Missouri. Named after a family in Missouri that's kind of preserved their seeds for generations and then has now made it commercially available. You know? So, you look at this vegetable, oh, this is just a squash. No, actually, there's more to the story. It's not just that.

Speaker 7:
[48:14] Yeah, I think it's so beautiful to get to learn about all of those stories and just connect more to the diversity of food that exists out there beyond what you can see in the average grocery store or bodega. And now that you're further along and you know how to grow these things and you know what works for your farm, how do you decide when you want to introduce a new varietal? Do chefs ever come to you and ask for you to grow something specifically or to try to impact the kind of thing that you're growing?

Speaker 6:
[48:43] Chefs, definitely. We have conversations with them, especially toward the end of the year, on what they would like to see at the stand if there's a new variety that they have cooked before and we didn't grow, that maybe we can work with them in buying the seeds and grow it. But also, Diane and I love to shop for seeds at the end of the year and see what's new, what's exciting, what's different. For example, last year I found this beautiful looking summer squash that looks like a very long neck winter squash. But it's actually a summer squash. It's very tender and nice. It's from Italy. So we bought it this year and we're going to try it out to see if it works in our markets. We're always looking for things that are interesting that would do well in our land. We do a lot of testing. We try a lot of different things every year. Some of them work, some of them don't.

Speaker 9:
[49:34] We're going to grow Fokous this year. It's a Palestinian variety of cucumbers. I'm really excited for that. We did a trial run with it last year and it did very well. Like it worked with our land because there's certain, like Samer said, there's certain varieties that you're so excited that you want to grow. And it's just, you can try different ways, but it just doesn't work. So this one works, so hopefully that's going to be coming down the pike too. So I'm excited for that one.

Speaker 7:
[49:56] That's exciting. And the land that you grow on, you have this kind of super rich, like black dirt kind of soil in that part of New York. Like what is so special about that soil and how do you kind of have to work with it or understand it?

Speaker 6:
[50:08] So again, I feel like we're so blessed in a way because we do two different types of lands. We farm black dirt, but we also farm what's called upland, the regular dirt. And we always test and we see what works when and where. Earlier in the season, I feel like the black dirt does not release a lot of nutrients until the weather heats up a lot. So we find that some of the greens tend to be yellow in color and they're not very rich, dark green or blue almost. So we grow these in our upland earlier in the season. And then later in the season when the weather heats up from June forward, like pretty much anything that you put in the black dirt just takes off and does very well. So we work both. We work both of them.

Speaker 7:
[50:54] Yeah. It's nice to be able to think about those two different ones and how they work together. I think like sometimes you hear people talk about the black dirt. Like it's like, you know, built-in compost. Like it's so special. That's correct. It is like that?

Speaker 9:
[51:07] Yeah, it is. You don't need to amend it. It really is built-in compost.

Speaker 7:
[51:10] Wow.

Speaker 6:
[51:11] 60 percent organic matter. Think about that for a second. 60 percent organic matter in the soil. It looks like a bowl of compost. Dark, dark black.

Speaker 9:
[51:20] Beautiful.

Speaker 6:
[51:21] Rich with organic matter. You put something in there, it just takes off.

Speaker 7:
[51:25] Do we know like how that happened from a biological perspective? Yeah.

Speaker 9:
[51:29] So actually, the story goes, was that the black dirt is actually the bottom of a lake. So there was like a glacier, there was an ice age glacier, slid down, melted, became a lake. The lake kind of started draining. And then, this is where the story diverges. People say either at some point when settlers came here to the United States, they recognized the value of the black dirt and they said maybe they said they tried to dig trenches and then at some point later on, the National Guard came in and dug trenches to kind of drain the land. But it's very, very fertile land.

Speaker 6:
[52:05] And it's very rare, like I'm not aware of any other places in the US that have black dirt aside from here in New York, Goshen, Chester and Pine Island.

Speaker 7:
[52:14] Yeah.

Speaker 9:
[52:14] I think the Pacific Northwest might have some.

Speaker 6:
[52:16] Maybe, yeah.

Speaker 7:
[52:17] Maybe. I feel like I'm being homeschooled right now. This is awesome.

Speaker 9:
[52:20] I can't help it. Constantly speaking.

Speaker 7:
[52:23] That's like what a podcast is, hopefully, right, is that you're like, you know, speaking knowledge to people and that they can take it in. So maybe you could just turn your homeschooling sessions into a podcast. I bet people would be down to listen.

Speaker 9:
[52:34] Only if you ask the questions.

Speaker 7:
[52:36] Yeah. I'll come drive up. I would love to do that. We've been speaking about how you have really passionate home cooks that come to the market and that you have chefs that come to the market. Do you find that they're interested in the same things? Because I think one of the privileges of being like a diner eating in New York City is that you can go to a restaurant, you can see a chef that's really highlighting like Jimmy Nardello peppers, for example, and then go seek that out at the market. Do you see those kinds of waves of interests where maybe a chef starts cooking with something and then people at the market are more interested in it or is it kind of separate?

Speaker 9:
[53:11] You know, it's more of like influencers. Like one year an influencer did something with the honey nut squash and I swear like there was like a mob of people one day just like buying honey nut squash and I'm like, what happened? I was like, you're like, why are we, what is going on? You know, and I was like, did I miss out on something? Is there a shortage at Whole Foods? Like what happened? And they said, oh no, there's this influencer who did a post about honey nut squash.

Speaker 4:
[53:39] I think I know which one you're talking about.

Speaker 9:
[53:40] And then like that was it. And I was like, wow, it's just like that, huh? So influencers, the food influencers have a lot of sway this year. And then, then there's different things. So this year apparently, I don't know who called it, called it the year of the cabbage. So it's the year of the cabbage. So cabbage has been selling out. Right, I called my husband in January, Samer, it's the year of the cabbage. He's like, don't worry, I got you covered.

Speaker 7:
[54:07] You gotta like try to coordinate, see if they can make something else, like the year of the lemon cucumber or something.

Speaker 9:
[54:14] Yeah, by the time, they have to call it early, so the farmers have a chance to buy the seed and plant it and prepare it. You can't call the year of the cucumber in June, so there's no cucumbers.

Speaker 7:
[54:22] Yeah, that is the difference between if Dubai chocolate becomes popular and then a bakery can buy pistachios tomorrow and put it on the menu, but you guys have to plan years in advance to get the things ready.

Speaker 6:
[54:33] Absolutely. It's not widgets. You have to really give it time and wait for it to grow and harvest and all that.

Speaker 9:
[54:39] Yeah, that's one thing when people ask me, do you know when you'll have this? I'm like, yeah, three months. They're like, what? It's like three months.

Speaker 6:
[54:49] We do work also with some of the breeders like Row 7. We do grow some of their varieties. One of the things that the variety that I personally like a lot is a cooking squash.

Speaker 9:
[54:58] Yeah, I love the cooking squash.

Speaker 6:
[54:59] And we grow it in abundance. We sell it in our markets. But what we find is that a lot of the home chefs or home cooks don't know much about these varieties. So there's a lot of one-on-one conversations that we have with them to suggest which ones is good, which one is not, how you cook it, etc. We found that a lot of the home chefs come with premeditated ideas and they only look for certain things like the honey nut or the delicata squash. But rarely that you find a home chef that comes and asks for things like delicata, for example.

Speaker 9:
[55:32] Like the coconut.

Speaker 6:
[55:33] The coconut, yes.

Speaker 9:
[55:34] Yeah, so that's the thing. So the home chefs are, I mean, I think all the chefs that come in are pretty open in terms of learning something new. But that's the beautiful thing about, one thing I really like about our farm, and that is that we grow hundreds of varieties of vegetables, right? And we grow varieties that you're not going to see in the supermarkets necessarily, and that you're going to, because you can't have a good shelf life for them, or you can't grow them for volume, right? So we grow these varieties that we bring back, and then people get to try them, and then get to experience something new and different. So we get to talk to them, so we'll talk to them about the cooking, and we'll talk to them about the Thelma Sanders, and they're like, okay, and then we also, we cook a lot, I cook a lot at home. And so I try almost everything that we grow, I've cooked at home. You know, so that I'm also, one, I want to see what it tastes like, and I want to try different things. I also want to be able to suggest, I mean, I'm not a Michelin star chef, I'm a home chef, but to try to find simple ways of making food that's going to be nutritious for yourself or for your family.

Speaker 7:
[56:34] I think that's so beautiful, because I think some people are used to going to a butcher and saying, I'm making meat balls for dinner, like what blend of ground meat do I need? Or you go to the fishmonger and you say, I want to roast a fish, what do you suggest? But maybe people aren't as used to going to a farmer and saying, I want to make this kind of thing, what vegetables do you recommend? But just being able to have that kind of conversation with people and making them feel comfortable that they can ask you those kinds of questions and get thoughtful responses.

Speaker 9:
[57:02] There's a woman that came by today and she said, I'm looking for horseradish. We didn't have horseradish and she said, is there an equivalent to that? And I was like, well, I think there's a black radish if you wanted to try that and see how that would fit. So we kind of thought about what the flavor profile is of the horseradish and kind of found something in the stand that would fit her meal and that worked for her.

Speaker 7:
[57:24] Yeah, was it for her Passover Seder?

Speaker 9:
[57:26] Yeah, it was for Seder, yeah, exactly. She's like, I'm shopping for a Seder. And I was like, okay, well, I'm learning something new too. And she goes, I need a horseradish. And I was like, hmm, I think I've tasted one in my lifetime. It was pretty spicy.

Speaker 7:
[57:37] Yeah, she just needed something bitter. But that's so New York to me also is like going to the like Halal certified farmer's market stand to get your like horseradish for Seder.

Speaker 9:
[57:47] That's beautiful.

Speaker 6:
[57:48] Welcome to New York.

Speaker 9:
[57:48] Welcome to New York.

Speaker 7:
[57:49] Yeah, that's what I love about it.

Speaker 9:
[57:51] Just trying to go through everything to see what fit. I was like, what is she goes, I think it's supposed to be bitter. I was like, well, this is not really bitter. So I was like learning in the process too. It was fun.

Speaker 7:
[57:59] Yeah, oh, I love that. You know, I think we've talked a lot about like the beginnings of Halal Pastures and how you guys have grown. It seems like Trial by Error was maybe a good thing for you, but I'm curious if you were going to go back and talk to your earlier selves if there was a piece of advice that you would give.

Speaker 6:
[58:17] From a farming perspective, a lot. Don't fret over all the small stuff. Make sure you have a very good schedule for your plans, so you don't miss certain timelines. Research a lot of the different varieties early on in the season to make sure that the varieties you want or the varieties that you're seeking are the proper one for your soil and for your environment. Those are some of the advices that I would give if someone is starting new. Really, don't worry about the details. Just do it. Just go and do it and put your heart into it. God will put blessings in your effort.

Speaker 9:
[58:53] Yeah. I have to echo the same. I think everything we do, we take so seriously. When we went to the market, the first time we went to Greenmarket, we had that back in 2018, and we had that one table. I went to Home Goods. I got the right decor for it. We harvested a certain amount. We made sure everything was pristine. It was the most important thing we could have done in our lifetime at that moment even though we just had the baby. It's like bring the baby to the market. And so this is how we've always approached everything. Even the smallest thing always felt like the Union Square stand is such a big deal to us. We're always like taking care of it. Who knows what our future will hold, but we take care of the Union Square stand just the way we took care of that little table that we had on 92nd Street the same exact way. There was like the same amount of effort, the same amount of care, the same amount of stress. And I think it would have been nice to just be like, you know, it's gonna be okay. I love that.

Speaker 8:
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Speaker 3:
[61:01] The Saja Boys Breakfast Meal and the Huntrix Meal from K-Pop Demon Hunters have arrived at McDonald's. They're calling it the Battle for the Fans. What do you think, Rumi? It's not a battle. We're glad that our young people, the Saja Boys, were able to have breakfast and we had the rest of the day's meal.

Speaker 7:
[61:18] It's an honor to be able to share with you.

Speaker 3:
[61:20] Oh no, the honor is ours. The greatest honor is ours. Oh, a lot of respect in this battle. Choose a meal to choose your group at McDonald's.

Speaker 5:
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Speaker 7:
[62:02] I want to play a rapid fire game with you both to close. So I'm going to make you play some favorites and we'll just run through the questions. Your favorite season at the farm?

Speaker 9:
[62:11] Spring.

Speaker 6:
[62:12] Summer for sure because there's a lot of different things that we see coming out in the summer. The colors, the shapes, the taste, there's nothing like it. Summer time.

Speaker 7:
[62:23] Your favorite vegetable to grow?

Speaker 9:
[62:26] My favorite vegetable to grow? Cucumber.

Speaker 6:
[62:31] I love honey nut and delicata.

Speaker 7:
[62:34] Your least favorite piece of produce to grow?

Speaker 9:
[62:37] I couldn't wait for that question. Zucchini.

Speaker 7:
[62:40] Why?

Speaker 9:
[62:40] This is such an overrated vegetable. It's easy to grow but it grows in abundance and you have to figure out what to do with it. Everybody has zucchini. It doesn't taste that great. But I understand it's, you know, I just, I just, we grow it.

Speaker 6:
[62:57] We eat it too. I love stuffed zucchini.

Speaker 9:
[62:59] Yeah, I know you love stuffed zucchini. I don't like stuffed zucchini. I like stuffed gousa, you know, different variety but the zucchini. Every time I see it, I'm like, you know, I have to be thankful. Okay, what about you?

Speaker 6:
[63:12] Radishes. We literally grow thousands of pounds of radishes, but I didn't grow up eating them. And I just don't like the taste.

Speaker 7:
[63:21] You know, when I wrote this question, I thought the answer would be like, this is the most difficult crop to tend to, but you both just picked ones that seem like they're pretty easy but that you personally don't like them, which honestly tracks from me based on my impression of you both after this. Like, you don't shy away from the hard work, but if you don't personally like the thing, then that's the one you dislike the most.

Speaker 6:
[63:41] Yep.

Speaker 7:
[63:41] Yeah.

Speaker 9:
[63:42] That's fair.

Speaker 3:
[63:43] Okay.

Speaker 7:
[63:44] An underrated piece of produce that you grow that you think more people should love.

Speaker 9:
[63:49] To Mattheo.

Speaker 3:
[63:51] For sure.

Speaker 6:
[63:52] To Mattheo. That's a tough question for me. What's an underrated piece of produce? I have to think about that. Let me think. Lettuce. The varieties of lettuce that we do.

Speaker 9:
[64:04] I was going to say lettuce is the next one.

Speaker 6:
[64:07] It's just such a very easy thing to cook. You can make a quick salad with it, and it's awesome. But the colors, the varieties, I feel like it never gets enough appreciation.

Speaker 9:
[64:17] I was looking at it today at the stand, and I was like, gosh, it's so beautiful. Chef is asking me. I'll tell you, this one's the chef from ABC Kitchen. They're asking me. She has an idea for where she wanted to put the lettuce, and she needed something that's going to look beautiful, hold the salad dressing, sit in the dressing, and be personal size. So that was fun.

Speaker 7:
[64:35] What did you recommend to her?

Speaker 9:
[64:38] She wanted something that we grow called magenta lettuce. Kind of looks like Lolo Rosa, but it's magenta lettuce that she wanted. I also recommended to her a variety that we grow called Rooks Eye, almost looks like seaweed, like red seaweed. It's just so beautiful looking. I don't know how well it's going to hold the salad dressing, so she's going to try both because it's a very tender leaf. But she liked the first one, the magenta is a beautiful like red and green hues to it.

Speaker 7:
[65:01] I really like little gem lettuce.

Speaker 9:
[65:03] Little gem, yeah.

Speaker 7:
[65:04] The really tiny leaves of it also. It's so good, and I feel like it's harder to find here. I don't know why.

Speaker 6:
[65:11] It's one of my favorites, too.

Speaker 7:
[65:12] Yeah?

Speaker 6:
[65:13] Yeah.

Speaker 7:
[65:13] Oh, okay. The fact that you like one of my favorite pieces of lettuce means a lot to me. A favorite restaurant upstate?

Speaker 6:
[65:22] Upstate.

Speaker 7:
[65:23] Or you could do in the city.

Speaker 9:
[65:26] So if it's upstate, we like Zaytoon, which is a Palisade restaurant in Beacon, New York. So it was a place that we'd go there and like cropland and have food. So we kind of like that.

Speaker 6:
[65:40] What's the name of the restaurant? Downtown Brooklyn? That we went to. ABC?

Speaker 9:
[65:44] Oh yeah, ABC Dumbo.

Speaker 6:
[65:46] ABC Dumbo.

Speaker 9:
[65:46] It's beautiful.

Speaker 6:
[65:47] Just opened up. It was really amazing. Like the details that they pay attention to all the details in there, whether it's the environment, the dishes, everything.

Speaker 9:
[65:58] The food was excellent.

Speaker 6:
[66:00] And the food was amazing.

Speaker 9:
[66:01] Chef Ayaka did a great job there.

Speaker 7:
[66:03] Okay, your go-to breakfast.

Speaker 9:
[66:07] I know his go-to breakfast. I make it for him.

Speaker 7:
[66:10] Both of your go-to breakfast.

Speaker 9:
[66:11] My go-to breakfast is basically cheese and bread. I love cheese. And if there's any greens, like if there's arugula or lettuce, like I'll just make a quick, you know, I like to take my pita bread, warm it on a hot stove, and then just put a piece of cheese in there. And like that's for me. That's like quick lunch. I love, I mean, quick go-to breakfast. He likes something called ful, which is a very like Egyptian. Fava beans. Fava beans. But you know, it has to be dressed a certain way. So he can live on ful. Like he has no problems living on that. And so he's like just make me ful.

Speaker 7:
[66:40] It is like a perfect food to me though.

Speaker 6:
[66:42] It's perfect. There's a lot of protein.

Speaker 7:
[66:44] Protein is really comforting. It's like not that heavy.

Speaker 6:
[66:47] I love it.

Speaker 9:
[66:47] He loves ful for sure.

Speaker 7:
[66:49] Your favorite ice cream flavor?

Speaker 9:
[66:53] Vanilla.

Speaker 6:
[66:55] Chocolate.

Speaker 7:
[66:56] Okay. Final question that I like to ask my guests is always if there's a fictional food scene like from a book or a movie or something made up that you wish you could somehow eat in real life.

Speaker 9:
[67:07] Fictional food scene?

Speaker 7:
[67:08] Could be from a children's book or TV show or anything really.

Speaker 9:
[67:15] I would say fictional but there was a, do you remember Serendipity? I don't know if they're still around but they had this like ice cream. It's not really fiction.

Speaker 7:
[67:24] Oh, the frozen hot chocolate?

Speaker 9:
[67:25] Well, they had an ice cream that was made out of gold. It was like a $1,000 ice cream.

Speaker 7:
[67:32] It's basically fictional.

Speaker 9:
[67:34] Yeah, it's fictional, right? Apparently, there are people who ate it but I was just like, man, what would that be like? So, I thought that was kind of interesting but. Yeah, I'll take it. You'll take it? Okay. I've never tried it. I don't think I will but it was definitely something to think about.

Speaker 7:
[67:50] It's fictional to us.

Speaker 9:
[67:50] It's fictional to me for sure.

Speaker 6:
[67:53] I don't know if we're the one kind of chocolate factory would that fit? Sure. I just love chocolate.

Speaker 7:
[67:57] Yeah. You want to drink the chocolate river?

Speaker 6:
[67:59] Yes, 100 percent. Anything chocolate is just like up my alley.

Speaker 7:
[68:04] Yeah. Oh, I love that and talking with you guys has made me just so excited to come back to the stand and see all of the spring and summer crops that are coming. So, thank you both so much for coming into the studio and on the show.

Speaker 9:
[68:15] Thanks for inviting us.

Speaker 6:
[68:16] Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 7:
[68:22] This Is TASTE is hosted and produced by Matt Rodbard and me, Aliza Abarbanel. The show is edited by lead producer Clayton Gumber and supervised by Pat Stango, Director of Media Production and Development at Penguin Random House. Thanks to Shalia Harris and the production team at Penguin Random House. Theme music by Steve Rydell, episode portraits by Louise Zerging-Palmeroy, logo design by Ellie Skirzat and Ian Dingham. Visit TASTE online at tastecooking.com and make sure to subscribe to our newsletter to keep updated on all cool things in the world of taste.

Speaker 10:
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