Photo courtesy of The L Magazine

Summers are great in New York City, well if you don’t mind the humidity or stinky subways. Summers here are filled with all sort of free outdoor events like free outdoor movies! SummerScreen, hosted by The L Magazine, is in it’s 5th year over at McCarren Park. This year they’re bringing movies with “a nod to our adolescent idols and crushes: Cusack, Bowie, Danes, Depp, Richards and Reeves” and ALSO few of your favorite food vendors from the Brooklyn Flea! Lobster, tacos, cupcakes, dogs, pizza, pork OH MY!

Nick Burry, publisher for The L Magazine, was nice enough to answer few questions for us regarding the food vendors.

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“There are so many people out there with their own missions and causes. I’ve been lucky enough to have met some of them, virtually, through Twitter. But it’s so hard to keep track of all the tweets on Twitter that some things just get lost in the interweb of stuff. So this is my own little way of filtering all that tweets and get to know the people behind the virtual wall. To get to know what they’re passionate about and what sort of topics they’re trying to voice out.”

As we gain more knowledge and support for our local farmers we also gain more knowledge about the many struggles they are facing. Ulla Kjarval of Goldilocks finds Manhattan is super passionate about the farming community and knows everything there is to know about the issues farmers are facing. Why? Because she grew up on a farm so she knows first-hand how tough it is to be a farmer. I’m pretty excited that she agreed to let me interview her as I am getting more interested in this topic.

Q. I know you support farmers and grass-fed beef but can you talk a little bit more about what you’re advocating?
A. My family raises grass-fed beef and lamb. We have seen a big rise in demand. Sadly, we have lost a lot of our traditional pasture-based dairies in Upstate New York. As it stands now, we have almost 3 million acres of unused pasture land in New York State alone. This is good grassland too, and we make excellent beef on it. In my mind grass-fed beef is good for the cow but it is also good for producers like my father who can escape the commodity system which gives producers very little freedom to be creative.

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Well sorta back. They’re back in answer form. Last time I saw these guys was at their season end party. If you’re following them on Twitter, I’m sure you know what they have been up to. But I was curious as to what they thought about their first time on the road and maybe get some spoilers for 2010! Argh I can’t wait till Spring comes. Thanks Doug and Bryan for answering my questions!

So now that the season is over, what did you think of the whole experience? Was it everything you wished for?
We had no expectations. We hoped to get through the summer and maybe have a few laughs or stories along the way.

Did you ever think this would become so popular? So popular that you ended up at the Vendy Awards.
Not in the least! Full disclosure – we’d never heard of the Vendy Awards until July!
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