Foods of New York Tour, Chelsea Market

This past weekend, some of the Gingham Apron gals visited New York City. We had an absolutely marvelous time visiting Ellis Island, The Statue of Liberty, Central Park, and Times Square.

Of course these landmark sites were amazing to see, but the highlight of our short NYC trip was our Foods of New York Tour. This tour came highly recommended, and being that we love food, and history, and New York, we thought we’d give it a whirl. We were absolutely not disappointed.

We chose the Chelsea Market tour. Chelsea Market, an indoor market market with thirty-five vendors,  is an entire block long and a block wide! We opened the main doors and were immediately blown away by the beautiful architecture and shop decor.

Soon we met up with our tour group, and it was then that we met Cindy, our phenomenal tour guide. Everyone, meet Cindy.

Cindy was a NYC expert… genius… wiz…aficionado.  She was delightfully funny and witty and made the tour a blast! She shared so, so much interesting information, beginning with the historical background of the Chelsea Market building. We learned this was the original building of the Nabisco company, and that the OREO cookie was invented in this very place (we were standing hallowed ground).

Nabisco outgrew this location and relocated to New Jersey, leaving the building empty only to fill up with PIGEONS (!) for more than forty years. Cindy then shared with us how a real estate developer decided to purchase the market and revitalized not only the building, but also the entire neighborhood.

Cindy then led us from shop to shop, giving us the history of the bakers, meat mongers, and cheese purveyors in the individual shops of the market. So many fascinating, compelling people and stories!

Along the way, we sampled nine different food items including red velvet cupcakes from Eleni’s , beef from Dickson’s, and biscuits and jam from Sarabeth’s. My personal favorite was a grilled cheese and fig sandwich from Lucy’s Whey. I was delighted to find out that the cheese used in the sandwich was the Prairie Breeze Cheddar Cheese made right here in Iowa at Milton Creamery! Yay, Iowa Farmers!

All this to say, if you are ever in New York, go on a Foods of New York Tour. You’ll learn so much and enjoy such great food and have a wonderful time!

P.S. We ended the tour with two fascinating historical sites: The High Line ( a 1.45-mile-long New York City linear park on an elevated section of a disused New York Central Railroad)

and Pier 54 (Where the Titanic should have landed-heartbreaking!).