764: Halal Pastures Is Your Favorite NYC Chef’s Favorite Farm

6:06Diane Aboushi Saleh: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. So 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 Jampel 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?

6:35Samer Saleh:You also want to see how, right, a whole cookie, how it like, how you feel after it in some ways.

6:40Diane Aboushi Saleh:I felt crazy, to be honest.

6:42Samer Saleh:You felt crazy.

6:43Diane Aboushi Saleh:But then at the end of the night, I was texting with Macarena and I was looking at the photos and I was like, you know what, maybe I would have another cookie right now.

6:49Samer Saleh: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.

6:57Diane Aboushi Saleh:Your body adjusts.

6:58Samer Saleh:It adjusts. Happy birthday, Marine. I know. Absolutely. This is great. Great idea. I love this spirit there.

7:04Diane Aboushi Saleh: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.

7:12Samer Saleh:So cool.

7:13Diane Aboushi Saleh:What was your first thing?

7:14Samer Saleh: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?

7:22Diane Aboushi Saleh:No, but I've been hearing whispers. This is the new pub from the King.

7:26Samer Saleh:The King Crew, Jess Shadbolt and Annie Shee, it's their new, I would say, a full-fledged pub. You know, a style of dining that we know. You know, this is the first time in a while that like a pub has opened where food is the focus. They used to call them gastropubs back in the day.

7:44Diane Aboushi Saleh:Back in the day. That's 2019.

7:46Samer Saleh:2019 is gastropub for sure. And, you know, 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 like a little bit below where you're waiting for the bathroom so you can like 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 like standing around it in kind of that post work vibe They seem to have an outdoor license.

8:26Samer Saleh: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. I mean, the food is really, really good. I had, you know, 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 is 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.

9:06Samer Saleh:And there's this curried coronation salad, like a creamy dressing, raisins and almonds. I loved it. It was probably my favorite dish of the night. Mushy peas are just like jumping out. Like spring is here and they're doing mushy peas so well. I mean, are you a mushy peas fan?

9:21Diane Aboushi Saleh: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.

9:32Samer Saleh:So good. I tried the stargazy pie, which I love, like little mackerels sticking out of the pie.

9:37Diane Aboushi Saleh:This is like a pie with the fish sticking up out of, yeah.

9:40Samer Saleh: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 pretty unique and uh i really think this the energy there is is super right and the music was quite loud which i loved um to be honest i don't love that music but it was really working well and a really cool um soundtrack when i was there uh 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 it to be a public house for New York City and I love it.

10:17Diane Aboushi Saleh:Well, I'm excited to go and eat the stargazy pie.

10:19Samer Saleh:It's really cool. What's your next thing?

10:21Diane Aboushi Saleh:My next thing is I want to talk about the Katie Weaver free bread story in the Atlantic. Have you read this piece?

10:27Samer Saleh:Started to, hit the paywall, didn't do my thing where I need to pay for the paywall.

10:32Diane Aboushi Saleh:Okay, well.

10:33Samer Saleh:I wish because Katie Weaver's great.

10:35Diane Aboushi Saleh:I won't give any spoilers but if anyone is listening and they're a fan of free bread or of Katie 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, is one of my favorite pieces. The photos are exceptional and her kind of wild questions are always so great. And 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 the point. It's so funny and weird and heartfelt, and it goes to, like, so many places.

11:13Diane Aboushi Saleh:I was going to maybe read, like, a line from it to get the point across, but I also don't want to give spoilers for you. Read the line.

11:19Samer Saleh:I'm going to pay the Atlantic some money.

11:21Diane Aboushi Saleh:Okay. So 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.

11:56Diane Aboushi Saleh: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. And what she does, which I think most people would be afraid to do, is she really does say this is the best free bread. And you have to read the piece to get there. But I love free bread and I love the story.

12:23Samer Saleh:Does she get into like bread bread, like making bread and the like fascination with naturally fermented breads and into that world?

12:33Diane Aboushi Saleh: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 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. And there are some like 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.

13:06Diane Aboushi Saleh: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.

13:12Samer Saleh:I love it. It's great. That's my second thing. So cool. I'm going to read that.

13:16Diane Aboushi Saleh:What's your next thing?

13:17Samer Saleh:The next thing is I made it to Kabawa for the first time for a proper meal. How was it? I mean, I love Paul Carmichael. I was with some friends, Max and Jordan, in from L.A., 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.

13:38Diane Aboushi Saleh:He needed to get out.

13:39Samer Saleh: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 cocktails of Caribbean origins and 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. menu, you know, it's a three course prefix for$145.

14:18Samer Saleh: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 an 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, you know, he was born in Barbados and he worked under Wiley Dufresne, Marcus Samuelson and David Chang, where he worked at Siebo in Sydney for years.

14:56Samer Saleh:I loved his cooking at Ma Pesh back in the day in Midtown. I love that restaurant, his food there. And the meal really unfolded with that roti course, like two types of breads with all sorts of spreads. And 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 uh 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 the full leg on the bird presentation the meat was so delicious we like picked it apart right at the bone uh i loved the the the pepper shrimp, which is like a lightly cooked shrimp with scotch bonnet.

15:43Samer Saleh:Really beautiful pepper. Yeah. 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 uh i could go on about this meal but i know we get to more things that is kabawa also named by food and wine is the best restaurant in america recently like low-key like crazy uh paul was like wow um but i love it and you should you should go i have been dying to go so this is a good reminder it's very good what's your next thing my last thing is a restaurant

16:32Diane Aboushi Saleh:I just went to Bar Fernandino, which is the reopening of Fernando's Focaccia Ria, a very legendary Carol Gardens restaurant. I'm sure you know it well.

16:42Samer Saleh:I did when I used to live there. I used to go there quite a bit. So cool that they made it.

16:46Diane Aboushi Saleh:It's so nice that it's been reopened. 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 are working on the waterfront. This is very close to the water in South Brooklyn.

17:11Samer Saleh:Is it South Brooklyn? I call it Red Hook Columbia Waterfront is what the technical Columbia Waterfront is.

17:15Diane Aboushi Saleh: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 Cafe Spaghetti. Swoony's Salt 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 their kind of buttery, lemony juices all over the top of it.

17:56Diane Aboushi Saleh:Arrancini with bolognese, super delicious. Cool. Olives, just perfect little marinated olives. And they're doing a pinel sandwich, which when I ordered this on the menu, I thought I was just getting the pinel as in like a fried chickpea pancake, but instead it comes on kind of like focaccia bread.

18:14Samer Saleh:Double carbs.

18:15Diane Aboushi Saleh:Ricotta. And if I was hungover, this would be like the perfect thing to eat. You know, very hefty, solid sandwich. Complimentary, but, you know, kind of like made me catch my breath after I was done eating that. And then I had a really good house-made strawberry campari soda as well.

18:31Samer Saleh:Oh, cool.

18:32Diane Aboushi Saleh: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.

18:40Samer Saleh: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 restaurateur. And love seeing an old restaurant not be totally gutted after it goes away.

18:53Diane Aboushi Saleh:it well done there totally what's your last thing last thing is i just want to shout out

18:58Samer Saleh:this cool collaboration two of my favorite brands zob's hot sauce and taco bell whoa yeah right whoa my friend miles runs zob'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 and to remind folks zabs is a uh hot sauce that uses the uh datil pepper which i think in in the form of the sauce there's two different bottlings one is like spicer than the other one is a little more barbecuey but neither are too spicy and there's a really distinctive flavor that hues more sweet with the heat um and i love i love that so they collaborated on this chicken ranch nacho fry menu item.

19:42Samer Saleh: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 bit 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.

20:16Diane Aboushi Saleh:I mean, I feel like the Taco Bell fandom runs deep. Yeah, it does. And the car review is like the preeminent food review of our era, for better or for worse.

20:23Samer Saleh: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 like all Taco Bells. I 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.

20:45Diane Aboushi Saleh: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.

20:51Samer Saleh:Props to those guys. Well, thanks for sharing your three things.

20:54Diane Aboushi Saleh:You too.

20:56Samer Saleh: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.

21:38Samer Saleh: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's available.

22:15Samer Saleh: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 slash taste to get started. That's R-U-L-A dot com slash taste. You deserve mental health care that works for you, not against your budget.

22:37Diane Aboushi Saleh:Samir Sala and Diana Bushisala, this is Taste. Thank you for coming on the podcast. Thank you for having us. 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. Of course. Thank you. We feel very honored to be here. We're on the mic. We're like in the official studio. It's really fun. And it's the most beautiful time of year at the green market. I think like new things are just starting to come up.

23:10Diane Aboushi Saleh:So I'm curious, how was it today? Did you get to bring any new crops to the market? Yeah, today was a really beautiful day. The weather helps. You know, 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. But 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 it's just, you know, the green is popping out more and more for the next coming week. So it was really nice today to see that.

23:43Diane Aboushi Saleh:Do you have any strategy with, do you put the new crops at a specific place in the stand? Like, how do you let people know that, like, a new thing has kind of come in for the season?

23:53Samer Saleh: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, you know, 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.

24:10Diane Aboushi Saleh:It'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 like the kind of like frenzy for spring produce?

24:27Samer Saleh: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. It's like, hey, listen, we just have the green garlic that just came out. They're amazing. It's just such an exciting time.

24:43Diane Aboushi Saleh:Yeah, and then to see everyone's reaction when they come to the stand. Oh, you have this? How long are you going to have this? Oh, you have that? It's always really fun. And it's also nice to talk to people who are equally excited with you, you know, who can feel the first beginning of spring, you know. And then people always tell us they get excited when, like, Sam 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. And when we're back at the market, you know, one chef told me, he's like, I'm so excited to see you.

25:14Diane Aboushi Saleh:This means that the bounty is coming in. You know, you wouldn't be here if there's, like, not a ton of stuff coming with you. So it's nice to just feel that excitement. I love that. 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?

25:41Samer Saleh: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 Deanne is really the expert with that. She's like the chef master. She talks to all the chefs, has a good relationship with them.

26:03Diane Aboushi Saleh:Yeah, it's just a conversation. 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 you think we can harvest? And let everybody know, hey, we have green garlic. Now's your chance. You have 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.

26:37Diane Aboushi Saleh:Yeah, do you have to ever tell somebody, you're asking for too much, I need to save more for other people?

26:43Samer Saleh:All the time. all the time it just you know you think you are growing enough but it's never enough yeah i mean

26:53Diane Aboushi Saleh:it depends if someone comes to the stand and they're going to take the entire product i would let them take it right i'm not gonna i'm not gonna say no you know but we know that means for next time to bring more you know yeah that's funny i'm always like a late riser at the market relatively speaking which is hard and when you know the first strawberries hit like 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.

27:25Diane Aboushi Saleh:You know, I had a woman who first started Union Square. She really wanted our strawberries. So she and she was coming all the way from like far Rockaway, somewhere deep in Brooklyn, maybe even, you know, the Midwood area. And she said, oh, she's 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 8.30. Just hold these strawberries for me. I was like, yes, I will hold the strawberries for you. No problem. 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.

27:56Diane Aboushi Saleh:And 8.30 is pretty early still. I feel like if she didn't show up by nine, you could still give them to someone else. Yes, that's exactly right. But that's exactly right. But we really try hard to, if someone really wants a vegetable at the stand, like they really want it, then I'll put some to the side and save it to them for them. I'll hold on to it. It's no problem. 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 the beginnings of halal pastures. And I was wondering if you would tell me about how the farm came to be and what those early stages looked like for you.

28:32Samer Saleh:When we first got married, Dan 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.

29:09Samer Saleh: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.

29:45Diane Aboushi Saleh:One of the things I just want to build upon what he said, you know, 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. You know, I had read Fast Food Nation, you know, back in the day And like it just like I went into a panic mode after reading Fast Food Nation. And 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.

30:13Diane Aboushi Saleh:There was a GMO wars that was happening amongst countries. And so, you know, 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? Right. 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 reinforced our decision to grow our own food. Like you just can't trust the labels, you know? 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.

30:57Diane Aboushi Saleh:And at that period in time, you were both working like kind of very like professional jobs, right? 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.

31:11Samer Saleh:And I work in finance. I help manage a pension fund for retirees of a church.

31:18Diane Aboushi Saleh: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 into the fabric of your lives? 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 I'm like, man, it'd be so cool to be here. I never thought that this would be for us, that we would be at the green market and that we'd have a farm.

31:58Diane Aboushi Saleh:It just was not part of our life plan. But I think the steps that we took, I think God took us in that direction. Yeah. When did you reach the point when you decided that you really wanted to kind of double down on the farm and make it a bigger part of your lives and a bigger project in general?

32:16Samer Saleh: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.

32:39Diane Aboushi Saleh:Yeah, I think especially knowing that you didn't have this 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?

32:51Samer Saleh: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 Farmers Conferences in Stormborn. Oh, yeah. 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. And 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.

33:31Samer Saleh:I've never farmed before. So, you know, we had to, our curve was very steep. We had to really learn everything from scratch and make all the mistakes. And Ben can tell you our mistake with winter squash, for example.

33:43Diane Aboushi Saleh:I know. It's like the first time we played. So this mistake was over 10 years ago, just, you know, we don't make these mistakes anymore. But, you know, I remember being like, oh, my gosh, like I really like pumpkin. I want butternut squash. Well, it's a fall crop, right? So I'd like plant the seed in September. No, you plant the seed in June and you harvest it in August.

33:59Samer Saleh:We plant it in September. We planted in September, like by September 30th, it was all dead because the fuzzbite came in. Right. We thought it's winter squash. So you actually planted close to the winter.

34:11Diane Aboushi Saleh:You know, and there's like, even though someone today, I can laugh at this at the time, it was not funny. But, you know, we when we bought our house, we bought the land. Like, you know, when you buy property, you buy land like you're basically broke. Right. At least we were like we put all all our resources into this property. Right. And but we were we wanted to start farming. right away and we wanted to be part of our local farmers market so we worked with this um another farm that was selling like organic transplants and even though at the time we were not certified i wanted organic transplants and i wanted to make sure everything we did was according to organic standards so we bought like two thousand dollars worth of transplants at the time and uh we planted them and we're so i was like so happy we planted them in the morning and then i went to like home depot to get something i came back they were gone i look and there's a groundhog with his head up lesson number one fence plot you have you have like the book of things that you learned the

35:10Samer Saleh:hard way basically yep make sure you have a fence around your transplants

35:16Diane Aboushi Saleh:no we have 100 acres we fenced the entire 100 acres from the deer and

35:21Samer Saleh:last year we just had like the deers decimated our 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 in our cabbage.

35:39Diane Aboushi Saleh:Did they just jump the fence?

35:41Samer Saleh:No, that was before we found the fence. And then we're like, you know what?

35:44Diane Aboushi Saleh: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 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 hapashas was great.

36:03Samer Saleh: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. Yeah.

36:15Diane Aboushi Saleh: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 or doing things in the right way?

36:26Samer Saleh:we've always had amazing success with our tomatoes from day one like we you know all the research i did and and all the things that uh relates to how you terrellist them and how you plant them and how you harvest them um our cherry tomatoes from day one were just excellent and they continue to be um 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.

36:54Diane Aboushi Saleh:Yeah, like the Socorro cherry tomatoes. We started the green market actually, not at Union Square. We were on 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 market. You can go to 92nd Street. And I remember, like, harvesting the cherry tomatoes at that time. And we took, we were telling Sam, you know, we took everything so seriously. We had, like, one table, by the way. Nothing. Like, one small table. We'd have people, you know, sample the cherry tomatoes.

37:27Diane Aboushi Saleh:And people would just, I would come with crates and people would just take the crates. People, like, wait online for them. 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 desired crop, I think, to have. You mentioned being certified organic. I know that can be a really difficult process. Why did you want to go for that certification instead of just saying that you do organic style farming or something like that?

38:04Samer Saleh: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. and 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 and I felt like, okay, we have the practices. We should also have the label for our business to grow. And yeah, we delved into it. We did all the paperwork.

38:32Diane Aboushi Saleh:That's a lot of paperwork.

38:33Samer Saleh:Got it done.

38:34Diane Aboushi Saleh:Luckily, you're a lawyer, I guess. My husband handles the paperwork. I just get involved. sometimes. That seems like a better setup maybe. I would not want to do the paperwork. I don't like doing the paperwork. But we have, I mean, the thing about, the good thing is, is it's a lot of paperwork, but we're already doing the paperwork, you know, so we already keep track of our harvest. We keep track of our seeds. We keep track of a lot of stuff anyway. So it was not a, it's, 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.

39:06Diane Aboushi Saleh:And for the Halal certification, is that like a similar kind of process?

39:10Samer Saleh:The halal certification was easy because that's what we, you know, 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.

39:39Diane Aboushi Saleh: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. I don't know. 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 I was thinking about is, like, we were a consumer before we became a producer, right?

40:16Diane Aboushi Saleh: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. Yeah. The labels are replacing for the conversation, too, for a certain degree. So I think we were able to do it. Yeah. And on the consumer side of things, the first time that I got to have your produce was at the Union Square Green Market.

40:44Diane Aboushi Saleh:How did you get involved with being at that green market? Because I know that it can be also like a long process to get at one of those stands. They're very coveted.

40:53Samer Saleh: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 green market and we told them our intention, not knowing what possibilities they might have. We just told them, you know, please know that we, for next year, we're doing, 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 retiring, and there's a spot that's opening up for an organic farm.

41:31Samer Saleh:If you would like to join us, please come.

41:33Diane Aboushi Saleh:Wow.

41:34Samer Saleh:I heard people usually wait, and 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.

41:47Diane Aboushi Saleh: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 97th Street and then we had Dunstan Island at the time and then I think Astor Place no Astor Place is not there but we were part of we were part of Green Market I think four years by then no it makes sense obviously like it didn't happen for you overnight but also how beautiful that like when you were ready to take that next step that something was open and available to you yeah

42:14Samer Saleh:we took it as a sign that you know Allah subhanahu wa ta 'ala God is helping us grow and expand yeah

42:22Diane Aboushi Saleh:Yeah. So when you had the opportunity and you started selling at the Union Square Green Market, like how did you approach like setting up the stand, building relationships with people? Like how did you kind of build the reputation for halal pastures that exist today? So I it wasn't a conscious thing. We didn't like sit down, but OK, how are we going to do this? But we were just having fun and really connecting with 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.

43:03Diane Aboushi Saleh: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. You know, people come to the stand, I think they want something new, but then, you know, they're also looking for some kind of reprieve, you know, like they're coming. Like you said, you know, like you look forward to going to the market, you know, so just making it a pleasant experience. But it's just fun for me. You know, today we saw a group of chefs from a restaurant that came to our stand and my family was really excited.

43:40Diane Aboushi Saleh:And I told them, I was like, I love my job. I'm cooler than you. What was the restaurant? I don't know if I'm at liberty to say Oh, okay But it was something that they were really excited about Is it like a new restaurant? Is that why you can't say? I don't know, they were just like hanging out at the stand Yeah

44:01Samer Saleh: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 Aside from your day-to-day hard work it's always good to build that personal relationship and connects with them on a personal level. So it's always nice. Like I share some of my diving stories, you know, I like scuba diving. So I share some of my scuba diving stories of, you know, with a lot of them and they do the same. And I feel like you're building community.

44:28Diane Aboushi Saleh:Yeah. Yeah. Something that I like about the stand is the signs that you have like around the tent, like they feel very like handmade and like heartfelt and always like encouraging people to like try different pieces of produce. Like I feel like that's an element that just feels special in its own way. Yeah, we take – 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. And for me personally, what I love the most about having the farm is learning the story behind the seed.

45:05Diane Aboushi Saleh: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 because we love it so much. And we do also, we're also homeschoolers. So I do use the, I try to involve our children inside the actual creating of the signs and creating of, of, it's a research project for them also, and we kind of do it together so everyone benefits. I get to homeschool my children, and we also get to educate people at the stand about the crop. 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?

45:52Samer Saleh: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. Yeah, that's another one.

46:24Diane Aboushi Saleh:Like, it's a tomatillo. It's a pointy tomatillo. It's yellow. It's named after a city in Mexico. It 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 shite away from it. So here you have like this seed that produced this crop that came from this village in Mexico. So I'd like to talk about that. But also tomatillos, like, they look so much like husk cherries to me.

47:00Diane Aboushi Saleh:It's related to the husk cherry. Oh, so they are kind of like, are they a fruit, like, technically? It's a fruit, yeah. It's a fruit, yeah. 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. What was the winter squash story that you like so much? 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 an Native American history that goes back centuries.

47:36Diane Aboushi Saleh:So it's really nice to grow that. And then there's another one called the Thelma Sandra squash, which is a type of potato squash, and 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 know, you look at this vegetable, oh, this is just a squash. No, actually, there's more to the story. It's not just that. Yeah, I think it's so beautiful to get to learn about all of those stories and just like connect more to like the diversity of food that exists out there beyond like what you can see in like the average grocery store or bodega.

48:13Diane Aboushi Saleh:And now that you're further along and you know how to grow these things and you know what works for your farm, like how do you decide like 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 like impact the kind of thing that you're growing?

48:28Samer Saleh: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 it's you know we didn't grow that maybe we can work with them and buying the seeds and grow it but also they and I love to shop for seeds at the end of the year and see what's new what's exciting what's different like 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.

49:05Samer Saleh:So we bought it this year and we tried it out to see if it works in our markets. We're always looking for things that are interesting that we 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.

49:19Diane Aboushi Saleh:We're going to grow fokus 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 Samra said, there's certain varieties that you're so excited that you want to grow and it's just, you know, you can try different ways, but it just doesn't work. So this one works. Hopefully that's going to be coming down the pike too. So I'm excited for that one. 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.

49:48Diane Aboushi Saleh:Like what is so special about that soil and how do you kind of have to work with it or understand it?

49:53Samer Saleh: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 um so we work both we work both of them

50:39Diane Aboushi Saleh: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. Yeah, it is. You don't need to amend it. It really is built in compost. Wow. 60 % organic matter.

50:58Samer Saleh:Think about that for a second. 60 % organic matter in the soil. It looks like a bowl of compost. Dark, dark black. Beautiful. Rich with organic matter. You put something in there, it just takes off.

51:11Diane Aboushi Saleh:Do we know like how that happened from a biological perspective? Yeah, so actually the story goes was that the black dirt is actually the bottom of a lake. So there was like a glacier, you know, during the United States, glacier, you know, 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 sent, you know, they tried to drink trenches. And then at some point later on, the National Guard came in and dug trenches to kind of drain the land.

51:48Diane Aboushi Saleh:But it's very, very fertile land.

51:50Samer Saleh:And it's very rare. Like, I'm not aware of any other places in the U.S. that have black dirt aside from here in New York, Goshen, Chester, and Pine Island.

51:59Diane Aboushi Saleh:Yeah. I think the Pacific Northwest might have some. Maybe. Maybe. I feel like I'm being homeschooled right now. This is awesome. I can't help it. It's like we're constantly speaking. 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. Only if you ask the questions. Yeah, I'll come drive up. I would love to do that. We've been speaking about, you know, how you have really passionate home cooks that come to the market and that you have chefs that come to the market.

52:31Diane Aboushi Saleh: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 like go seek that out at the market? Like, do you see those kinds of waves of interest 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? You know, it's more of like influencers. Like one year, an influencer did something with the honey nut squash.

53:02Diane Aboushi Saleh:And I swear, like there was like a mob of people one day just like buying honey nut squash. 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 and that I know which one you're talking about and then like that was it and I was like wow it's just like that huh so um influences the food influencers have a lot of 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.

53:41Diane Aboushi Saleh:So it's the year of the cabbage. So cabbage has been selling out. Right. I call my husband, Sam, it's the year of the cabbage. He's like, don't worry, I got you covered. You got to like try to coordinate and see if they can like make something else like, like the year of the lemon cucumber or something, you know? Yeah. By the time, you know, they have to call it early. So farmers have a chance to buy the seed and plant it and prepare, you know, you can't call it the year of the cucumber in June. So there's no cucumbers. 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.

54:15Diane Aboushi Saleh:But you guys have to plan years in advance to get the things ready.

54:19Samer Saleh:Absolutely. It's not widgets. You have to really give it time and wait for it to grow and harvest and all that.

54:25Diane Aboushi Saleh:Yeah, that's one thing. 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. They're like, okay.

54:34Samer Saleh:We do work also with some of the breeders. Row 7, we do grow some of their varieties. One of the things that the variety that I personally like a lot is a cookie nut squash. Yeah, I love the cookie nut. 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. 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.

55:11Samer Saleh:But rarely that you find a home chef that comes and asks for things like delicata, for example. Like the coconut.

55:19Diane Aboushi Saleh: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, alhamdulillah, is that, you know, 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, it's because either 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.

55:50Diane Aboushi Saleh:So we get to talk to them. So we'll talk to them about the Kogi now, 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. I think that's so beautiful because I think some people are used to going to a butcher and saying, I'm making meatballs for dinner.

56:26Diane Aboushi Saleh: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. There was a woman that came by today and she said, I'm looking for horseradish. and we didn't have horseradish. And she said, you know, is there an equivalent to that?

56:56Diane Aboushi Saleh:And I was like, well, I think there's a black radish if you wanted to try that and see how that would, you 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. Yeah, was it for her like Passover Seder? Yeah, it was for Seder. Yeah, exactly. It was for a Seder. 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. It's like, I think I've tasted one in my lifetime. It was pretty spicy.

57:23Diane Aboushi Saleh: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.

57:33Samer Saleh:Welcome to New York.

57:34Diane Aboushi Saleh:Welcome to New York. Yeah, that's what I love about it. I was 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. 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. And 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.

58:02Samer Saleh:From a farming perspective, a lot. Don't fret over all the small stuff. Make sure you have a very good schedule for your plants so you don't miss certain timelines. and 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. And really, don't worry about the details. Just do it. Just go and do it and put your heart into it. And, you know, God will put blessings in your effort.

58:38Diane Aboushi Saleh:Yeah. I have to echo Samak. Like I think, you know, everything we do, we take so seriously. Like that, you know, when we went to the market, the first time we went to the green market, and we had that, you know, back in like 2018, and we had that one table. I went to HomeGoods. I got like the right decor for it. We harvested a certain amount. We made sure everything was pristine. It was like the most important thing we could have done in our lifetime at that moment, even though we just had the baby, right? It's like bring the baby to the market. And so this is how we've always approached everything.

59:09Even the smallest thing always felt like, you know, the Union Square stand is such a big deal to us.

59:13Diane Aboushi Saleh: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, you know. And I think it would have been nice to just be like, you know, it's going to be okay. I love that.

59:34Samer Saleh:This episode is brought to you by Wayfair. I talk to chefs and restaurateurs for a living, people who are obsessive about every detail of a space. That thinking doesn't stop at the restaurant door, and I'm always looking for ways I can upgrade my kitchen, dining room, and really all the aesthetics in my home. And Wayday at Wayfair is the moment I've been waiting for to make that happen. From April 25th through the 27th, you can score up to 80 % off with fast and free shipping on everything. Furniture, outdoor, decor, home improvement, all of it. What makes Wayfair work is how easy it is to find exactly what fits your style and your budget.

1:00:16Samer Saleh:And with Wayfair verified, their team of product specialists vets everything through a 10-point quality inspection. So what you see is what you get. Wayday is the sale to shop the best deals in home, up to 80 % off with fast and free shipping on everything. Head to Wayfair.com April 25th through the 27th to shop Wayday. That's W-A-Y-F-A-I-R.com. Wayfair. Every style, every home. Membership means more with American Express Business Gold.

1:00:51Diane Aboushi Saleh:Earn four times membership rewards points in your top two eligible spending categories every month, including eligible U.S. advertising purchases and select media, and U.S. purchases at restaurants, including takeout and delivery. What are you waiting for? Get the card that flexes with your spending every month. Terms and points cap apply.

1:01:09Samer Saleh:Learn more at AmericanExpress.com slash business dash gold. MX Business Gold Card, built for business by American Express. You tell yourself, no one wants your college-era band tees. But on Depop, people are searching for exactly what you've got. You once paid a small fortune for them at merch stands. Now, a teenager who calls them vintage will offer that same small fortune back. Sell them easily on Depop. Just snap a few photos and we'll take care of the rest. Who knew your questionable music taste would be a money-making machine? Your style can make you cash. Start selling on Depop, where taste recognizes taste.

1:01:47Diane Aboushi Saleh:Okay, 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 kind of run through the questions. Your favorite season at the farm? Spring.

1:01:57Samer Saleh: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. Summertime.

1:02:08Diane Aboushi Saleh:Your favorite vegetable to grow? My favorite vegetable to grow? Cucumber.

1:02:16Samer Saleh:I love honey nut and alakata. Yeah.

1:02:19Diane Aboushi Saleh:Your least favorite piece of produce to grow? I can't wait for that question. Zucchini. Why? 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.

1:02:43Samer Saleh:We eat it too. I love stuffed zucchini. Yeah, I know you love stuffed zucchini.

1:02:46Diane Aboushi Saleh:I don't like stuffed zucchini. I like stuffed gusa, you know, different variety. but the zucchini. Every time I see it, I'm like, you know, I have to be thankful.

1:02:57Diane Aboushi Saleh:Okay, what about you?

1:02:58Samer Saleh:Radishes. We literally grow thousands of pounds of radishes, but I didn't grow up eating them, and I just don't have the, I don't like the taste.

1:03:06Diane Aboushi Saleh: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 for 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.

1:03:26Samer Saleh:Yep.

1:03:27Diane Aboushi Saleh:Yeah. That's fair. Okay. An underrated piece of produce that you grow that you think more people should love? To Matteo. For sure.

1:03:37Samer Saleh:To Matteo, 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.

1:03:50Diane Aboushi Saleh:I was going to say lettuce is the next one.

1:03:52Samer Saleh:It's just such a very easy thing to cook. You can make a quick salad with it and it's awesome. But like the colors, the varieties, I feel like it never gets enough appreciation.

1:04:02Diane Aboushi Saleh:And I was looking at it today at the stand. I was just like, wow, it's just so beautiful. Chef is asking me. I'll tell you, this one's the chef from ABC Kitchen. They're asking me like she has an idea for where she wanted to put the lettuce and she needed something that's going to like look beautiful, hold the salad dressing, sit in the dressing, and be personal size. So that was fun. What did you recommend to her? She wanted something that we grow called magenta lettuce. Kind of looks like Lola Rosa, but it's magenta lettuce that she wanted. I also recommended to her a variety that we grow called Rooksai.

1:04:33Diane Aboushi Saleh:It 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 red and green. hues to it. I really like little gem lettuce. Little gem, yeah. 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.

1:04:56Samer Saleh:It's one of my favorites too.

1:04:58Diane Aboushi Saleh:Yeah? Oh, okay. The fact that you like one of my favorite pieces of lettuce means a lot to me. A favorite restaurant upstate?

1:05:08Samer Saleh:Upstate.

1:05:08Diane Aboushi Saleh:Or you could do in the city. So if it's upstate, we like Zaytun, which is a, it's a Palestinian 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 liked that.

1:05:25Samer Saleh:What's the name of the restaurant? Downtown Brooklyn? That we went to ABC?

1:05:30Diane Aboushi Saleh:Oh, yeah, ABC Dumbo.

1:05:32Samer Saleh:It's beautiful. Just opened up. It was really amazing. Like, the details that they, they pay attention to all the details in there, whether it's the environment, the dishes, is everything.

1:05:43Diane Aboushi Saleh:The food was excellent. Yeah. And the food was amazing. Chef Ayaka did a great job there.

1:05:48Samer Saleh:Yeah.

1:05:49Diane Aboushi Saleh:Okay, your go-to breakfast. I know his go-to breakfast because I make it for him. Both of your go-to breakfasts. 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 mean, go to breakfast. He likes something called ful, which is a very like Egyptian.

1:06:17Samer Saleh:Fava beans.

1:06:18Diane Aboushi Saleh: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. It is like a perfect food to me, though. It's perfect.

1:06:28Samer Saleh:There's a lot of protein. Protein is really comforting.

1:06:30Diane Aboushi Saleh:It's like not that heavy.

1:06:32Samer Saleh:I love it. He loves ful, for sure.

1:06:35Diane Aboushi Saleh:Your favorite ice cream flavor? Vanilla.

1:06:40Samer Saleh:Chocolate.

1:06:42Diane Aboushi Saleh: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. Fictional food scene? Could be from a children's book or TV show or anything really. I would say fictional, but there was a—do you remember Serendipity? Mm-hmm. I don't know if they're still around, but they had this like ice cream. It's not really fiction. Oh, the frozen hot chocolate? Well, they had an ice cream that was made out of gold. Oh. It was like$1 ice cream. It's basically fictional, yeah. It's fictional, right?

1:07:20Diane Aboushi Saleh:Apparently there were people who ate it. But I was just like, man, you know, what would that be like? So I thought that was kind of interesting. Yeah, I'll take it. You'll take it? Yeah. I've never tried it. I don't think I will, but it was definitely something to think about. It's fictional to us. It's fictional to me for sure.

1:07:38Samer Saleh:I don't know. Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, would that fit? Sure. I just love chocolate.

1:07:42Diane Aboushi Saleh:Yeah. You want to like drink the chocolate river? Yes, 100%.

1:07:47Samer Saleh:Anything chocolate is just like up my alley.

1:07:49Diane Aboushi Saleh: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. Thanks for inviting us. Thank you for having us.

1:08:02Samer Saleh:Yeah, absolutely.

1:08:08Diane Aboushi Saleh:This is Taste. is hosted and produced by Matt Rodbard and me, Eliza Abarbanel. The show is edited by lead producer Clayton Gumbert 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 Zergang Pomeroy. Logo design by Ellie Skurzat 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.

1:08:43Samer Saleh:Spring isn't just about clearing clutter. It's about changing the air. Pura makes it easy to refresh your space, your mindset,

1:08:49Diane Aboushi Saleh:and how your home feels with transportive fragrances inspired by a terrace in Santorini, a French lavender field, and more. Get started with a free Pura Plus diffuser when you subscribe to 2 Cents monthly for a year. Shop now at Pura.com.