An assortment of new urban farms, farmers' markets and skyscraping vertical gardens have sprung up across the land, pleasing both residents and tourists in search of authenticity, a quality often seen as lacking in a city lamented by some as too sterile.
A day spent roaming the hills and enjoying the final fall foliage along the way yielded an assortment of cakes, cookies, candies, farm cheeses, jams and marmalades, smoked ham, bacon and pork loins, smoked cheeses, chickens and sausages, found in small farm shops that also do a mail order business.
To start: the rainbow assortment of roasted baby beets with fresh (the farm is just down the street) Catapano goat cheese, salted pistachios and sherry-shallot dressing.
As a C.S.A. subscriber, each week you'll receive a large box containing an ever-changing assortment of high-quality, organic produce from our regional member farms.
There was a particularly happy assortment of human kids playing with exuberantly friendly goat kids at Redwood Hill Farm, a certified humane farm where all 350 goats have names.
Many of the farms are part of what is known as the Fruit Loop, an assortment of Hood River Valley fruit orchards, roadside fruit stands, country markets, wineries and even an alpaca farm that open their operations to visitors.
The writer went with a friend to Talbots' Herb and Perennial Farm, in Hartland, Vermont, and bought an assortment of plants.
Instead, as befits a region that is an epicenter of farming and food processing, it generates energy from a motley assortment of ingredients like potato peels, manure, used cooking oil, stale cookies and pig intestines.
Like other upscale farm markets, it has expanded to include an assortment of handmade baskets, candles, condiments, pottery and toys, making a quick trip to the market almost impossible.
Drawing inspiration from their home -- a functioning farm in Pennsylvania with three cows, chickens and an assortment of pets -- Jane and Robert dubbed their model a CSG, a takeoff on the CSA model.
