Daily Fresh

World Flavors: India

March 23, 2023 By marketeditor

By Andrea Grom

Preparing and sharing delicious, wholesome vegetarian Indian food is a labor of love for Sneha Narayanan and Sathya Raghavan of Daily Fresh.

Sneha and Sathya came from Chennai, South India, and began their cooking journey while living in Atlanta, Georgia, where Sathya studied. Because Sneha couldn’t work or study then, she developed her passion for cooking, inspired by her parents, brother, books, blogs, and travels. Eventually, Sneha compiled over 150 tasty, tried-and-true recipes on her cooking blog, Cook with Sneha (https://www.cookwithsneha.com).

The vibrant international student community at Georgia Tech was the first to fall in love with Sneha’s cooking. During festive weekends, the couple held informal gatherings at their home and cooked for as many as 50 people, with home-style Indian dishes frequently taking center stage. These events fostered community and connection.

In 2014, they moved to the Albany area, and in 2018 Sneha and Sathya began their cooking and catering business, Daily Fresh. They joined the Saratoga Farmers’ Market in 2019. Sathya also works full-time as an engineer, and they are raising three young children.

Sneha prepares all her dishes from scratch, using fresh, preservative-free ingredients. Her sauces are homemade, and she grinds her spices by hand.

Daily Fresh offers specialties from both North and South India. North Indian food has dynamic flavors, including onions, tomatoes, cloves, cinnamon, ginger, and garlic. South Indian dishes stand out in different ways, highlighting vegetable stews, lentils, rice, and flavors like coconut, fenugreek, curry leaves, and tamarind. For example, dosas, flat savory flourless/eggless crepes made of rice and black lentils (urad daal), are 100% South Indian. This summer, Daily Fresh will again offer their fresh dosas and rotis (whole wheat flatbreads) at the market.

Recently, Sneha and Sathya moved to a new commercial kitchen, which has inspired them to expand their business. They will attend four markets this year! Sneha and Sathya are excited to share more of their food with the community and are grateful for everyone’s encouragement and support. Find Daily Fresh online at https://www.dailyfreshfood.online/.

Let’s connect to our history, traditions, and community with flavorful food! On Saturday, March 25, from 9:30 am to 1:30 pm, celebrate world foods at the Saratoga Farmers’ Market’s International Flavor Fest at the Wilton Mall food court. Our friends at the World Awareness Children’s Museum invite children to make paper fortune cookies, and families and market-goers may pick up a passport for a “journey around the world,” earning a prize when filling it with stamps from vendors. Learn more at www.saratogafarmersmarket.org and follow us on Facebook and Instagram @SaratogaFarmersMarket.

Food and Cooking: A Bridge to Cultural Understanding

March 16, 2023 By marketeditor

By Julia Howard

Have you eaten something that transports you back in time or to a different place? That sense of nostalgia may be found in a soup your mother cooked or a special dessert your family shared on a religious holiday.

Preparing, sharing, and eating cultural foods is an act that links us to many things; family history, community, traditions, and even local and seasonal ingredients.

A unique blend of cultural foods at the Saratoga Farmers’ Market has inspired a celebration of world flavors on Saturday, March 25, from 9:30 am to 1:30 pm, at the Wilton Mall food court.

The farmers’ market’s International Flavor Fest will highlight offerings from around the globe.

Your tastebuds will backpack across Europe with Sweet Prophecy’s frgál cakes from the Wallachia region of the eastern Czech Republic. Explore flavors from Scandinavia with Parchement’s Julekaker and Rugbrød, bread inspired by Scandinavian family traditions. Visit the Eastern Mediterranean with Euro Delicacies’ savory burek and classic dolma. Just to name a few stops.

Catch a flight of flavors to the Caribbean (with a touch of Trinidad and Tobago) with prepared food from Vashti’s Kitchen Delights, where herbs like cilantro and spices like cumin and cinnamon sing in dishes of pork and chicken.

Take a culinary shortcut to Asia, where warm scents of turmeric, cardamom, and chili fill the air. Daily Fresh brings curries, samosas, and mango lassies for a delicious experience from India. Bangladesh is inviting with a flavorful chicken and rice dish at Irin Wellness.

You can find many more flavorful foods from across the globe at the farmers’ market every Saturday, with special highlights and activities at the market’s International Flavor Fest on March 25.

Also, joining us for this celebration, the World Awareness Children’s Museum will bring activities and invite children to make paper fortune cookies. Families and market-goers may pick up a passport for their journey around the world at the farmers’ market, earning a prize when filling their passport with stamps from market vendors.

Reconnecting with food traditions, eating food prepared with nourishing ingredients, and slowing down to savor and experience food, creates a culture that we at the farmers’ market love sharing with the community

The Saratoga Farmers’ Market is open on Saturdays from 9:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m. in the Wilton Mall Food Court. Find us online at www.saratogafarmersmarket.org, where you can sign up for our weekly newsletter, and follow us on Facebook and Instagram @SaratogaFarmersMarket.

What the Farmers’ Market Chefs Themselves Eat for the Holidays

December 16, 2021 By marketeditor

By Emily Meagher

The Saratoga Farmers’ Market’s prepared food vendors offer a diverse range of cuisines: choose from Eastern European, Mediterranean, Middle Eastern, Indian, or Caribbean foods. We asked our international group of vendors the traditional foods they, the chefs, actually make and eat with their families during this time of year.

Stuffed cabbage at Slavonian European Cafe, photo provided

At Slavonian European Cafe, husband and wife duo Aladin (originally from Egypt) and Nataliya (from Ukraine) primarily bring offerings to the market that reflect her homeland, with a sprinkling of Egyptian and Italian-inspired (after the couple’s long residency in Milan) dishes. Although Aladin’s family doesn’t traditionally celebrate Christmas, it’s a big holiday for the Ukrainian Nataliya, who fondly points out their stuffed cabbage as a must-have holiday dish. Pick up some ready-made ones at their stand, or to give it your own spin, find cabbage and ground beef at our farm vendors and add your preferred seasonings.

Baklava at Euro Delicacies, photo by Pattie Garrett

Euro Delicacies, the market’s longtime Mediterranean food vendor, brings meals to the market that reflect the Hrelja family’s Croatian upbringing. Their classic dishes like moussaka, grape leaves, burek, and baklava are usually part of their holiday spread. Lamb shanks are also a traditional festive dish for the Croatians, which you can find at Elihu Farm.

Petra Pocket Pies, photo by Pattie Garrett

For Sabreen Samman, owner of Petra Pocket Pies, her childhood holidays in Jordan would start with traditional holiday cookies: shortbread cookies filled with dates, walnuts, or pistachios. For the main meal, the family would gather over Mansaf, a lamb dish cooked in a yogurt sauce and served with rice or bulgur – considered the national dish of Jordan – or Msakhan, made of roasted chicken with onions, sumac, allspice, saffron, and fried pine nuts served over taboon flatbread. Find lamb, yogurt, chicken, and onions at our farm vendors and try creating these Jordanian dishes for yourself.

Daily Fresh owners Sneha and Sathya hail from Chennai in India and have brought their curries and dosas to the market for the past three years. Sathya fondly thinks of sweets, including rum-soaked fruit cake and Indian chocolates, as a major part of their families’ holiday gatherings.

Vashti’s Kitchen Delights, photo by Pattie Garrett

Vashti and Leon from Vashti’s Kitchen Delights enjoy a big glass of sorrel, a spiced hibiscus drink that is usually topped off with some rum to round out their Caribbean holiday meal. The couple quarrels about whose recipe is best, as Leon’s Jamaican family makes it with a ginger kick, and Vashti’s Trinidadian roots stick to the warmer spices like cinnamon and cloves. Other favorite drinks include fresh ginger beer and ponche-a-creme, a creamy, rich Trinidadian blend similar to eggnog. Fresh pigeon peas are an important part of the main holiday meal, and a rum-soaked fruit cake (or “black cake”) is a favorite at the end.

If you want to incorporate some new dishes in your Christmas and New Year’s lineup, try some of the items above to get you an internationally flavored meal. There are two more markets for you to stock up on ingredients, including Saturday the 18th from 9:30am-1:30pm and Wednesday the 22nd from 1:30pm-5:30pm, both at the Wilton Mall food court.

This week’s recipe: Stuffing

Shop Local at the Farmers’ Market this Holiday Season

November 30, 2020 By marketeditor

Supporting small businesses is always a must in our eyes, but this year it’s more important than ever. Not only does it give our local economy a boost, but you’re more likely to find unique gifts for your loved ones.

The Saratoga Farmers’ Market offers a spacious shopping environment featuring 50+ local businesses, with some attending exclusively for the holiday season. These holiday season vendors will rekindle your excitement for shopping and finding the perfect gift.

Sweetbrier Farms makes small-batch, plant-infused wellness and beauty products. They offer hand-made soaps, tinctures and glycerites, herb-infused raw honey, salves and balms, and teas. Sweetbrier’s products are made from “responsibly wildcrafted ingredients” – many from their farm in Salem.

With seasonal favorites like eggnog and hot cocoa, Grandma Apple’s Cheesecakes make great gifts for any “sweet tooth”. Grandma’s handcrafted, artisanal cheesecakes come in various flavors and sizes that make the perfect cake easy to find.

For the spirits connoisseur on your list, Springbrook Hollow Farm Distillery, nestled in the foothills of the Adirondacks, produces hand-crafted, high-quality spirits in a natural and innovative process. They make award-winning vodka, gin, rye whiskey, moonshine, Limoncello, Orangecello, and Cowboy Coffee.

Scotch Ridge Berry & Tree Farm, photo by Emily Meagher

Scotch Ridge Berry & Tree Farm has handmade wreaths, kissing balls, holiday swag, and tabletop Christmas trees all this month. Gorgeous greenery makes a memorable and personal gift, and even more so when it’s locally made.

Saratoga Suds ‘n’ Stuff makes soap the “old fashioned” way – “by hand, in small batches, using fat and lye and some essential oils to scent it.” For the holidays, find soaps in the shape of gingerbread men, Christmas trees, and other fun seasonal shapes alongside their traditional soaps.

Goodway Bakery has been baking cookies, cakes, pies, and brownies in Troy for over 40 years. Their rum cakes, in particular, have an excellent shelf life for 2-3 weeks at room temperature, making them perfect gifts.

For the farmers’ market enthusiast in your life, Owl Wood Farm has freshly-harvested, Certified Naturally Grown produce every Saturday in December. Assemble a gift basket of produce, purchase a gift certificate, or buy a 2021 CSA subscription for a friend or family member.

Amazing authentic Indian food for Christmas? Why not! Daily Fresh Food makes to-go curries, vegan samosas, soups, and other specialty dishes that make a great gift and offer a break from cooking.

Many holiday season vendors offer pre-order for easy pickup as well as online ordering. Find their website or like them on social media to stay up to day on their products and specials.

This week’s recipe: Shaved Brussels Sprouts Salad

‘Curry couple’ brings fresh Indian dishes to Saratoga Farmers’ Market

August 12, 2019 By marketeditor

Warm scents of turmeric, cardamom, and chili draw visitors to the Daily Fresh tent at the Saratoga Farmers’ Market. Sneha Narayanan and Sathya Raghavan await with smiles, answers to questions, and recommendations as to what to order. They are immigrants from India who share the foods of their homeland via “the lunchbox.”

Daily Fresh is the market’s newest vendor. Narayanan and Raghavan joined June 2. It did not take them long to attract a crowd.

Their “lunchbox” includes a vegetarian protein, pulao (rice cooked with spices and vegetables), a vegetable, and a flatbread known as chapati. For an extra dollar, they’ll add a fruit custard made with a mango puree.

“We are known on Instagram as ‘the curry couple,’ ” says Raghavan.

*Sneha Narayanan and Sathya Raghavan, photo courtesy of Pattie Garrett*

Narayanan and Raghavan come from the south Indian city of Chennai. They grew up in vegetarian households and promote Daily Fresh as an opportunity to enjoy a fully balanced vegetarian and/or vegan Indian food experience.

Daily Fresh began with Narayanan’s passion for cooking. While her husband was pursuing a doctorate in mechanical engineering, she began experimenting with family recipes and foods she found through blogs and her travels around different parts of India. In 2012, she started her own blog called Cooking with Sneha. Friends and her husband encouraged her to share not just recipes but also the actual food from the kitchen.

*Daily Fresh, photo courtesy of Pattie Garrett*

In late spring, Narayan proposed bringing Daily Fresh to the Saratoga Farmers’ Market. Emily Meagher, market manager, realized that freshly prepared vegetarian and vegan foods would fill a need for many market-goers, and encouraged them to join the Saturday market.

While the business stemmed from Narayanan’s passion, Daily Fresh has been a team effort. Narayanan procures ingredients, cooks, and writes. Raghavan manages the business’s website, organizes licensing permits, and takes pictures. Together, the couple plan menus and care for their two children. Sathya works full time during the week. Sneha wakes up at 2:30 a.m. to get to the commercial kitchen where she prepares their foods fresh for their office deliveries and the Saturday market.

This might sound exhausting, but for Narayanan and Raghavan it is fuel for passion.

Daily Fresh

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