Last Chance Foods

Red berry alert: The season for local strawberries is almost over. The last harvest for strawberries grown in the New York area is usually the beginning of July, but with this year's warmer weather, the season will likely be over in the next few weeks. So get out there and get picking.

"Here we go 'round the mulberry bush," is a children's song. Turns out, mulberries don't grow on bushes at all. They grow on trees — many of which can be found throughout the city. The berry has a short season, running from late May to the end of June, making for a month of ripe, free fruit. If you can find it.

While the BP oil spill continues to harm the livelihood of Louisiana's Gulf Coast fisherman, the toxic slick likely won't reach the inland freshwater swamps where crawfish thrive. The alien-looking critters are still safe to eat — and now is the time to eat then, since the season concludes soon. 

Queens boasts a culinary landscape that includes everything from the German pilsners at Astoria's Bohemian Hall to bubble tea found in Flushing. Now, Queens County Farm Museum is bringing a new beverage to the borough: wine made from grapes grown right in Floral Park.

For those who love asparagus, now is the time to eat locally grown varieties. Farmers are harvesting asparagus weeks earlier than usual because of the warm weather this spring. And since crops can really only be cut for about eight weeks without damaging the plant, that means there's now only four weeks before asparagus season is over.

Here's a little known food fact: Like fruits and vegetables, cheese is also seasonal. While industrially produced products like individually wrapped American cheese singles could likely withstand the blast of an atom bomb, artisanal cheeses are affected by the seasons.

There are three types of prosciutto on Danny Meyer's new Roman-style restaurant, Maialino. Two are from Italy. The last one is from Norwalk, Iowa.

Foraging may seem like a foreign skill to urbanites, but that's not the case for some intrepid cooks. Foodies Marc Matsumoto and Jonathan Landau are leading a small group of New Yorkers up to a Bronx park this weekend to forage for tender young fiddlehead ferns, stinging nettles, and ramps, the popular spring onion.

For Stephanie and Alex Villani, love came in the form of the Grand Army Plaza greenmarket. The two met there in 1990, when Stephanie sold apples at the stand next to Alex's. Twenty years later, the two are the driving force behind Blue Moon Fish.

Warm temperatures have many of us dusting off our outdoor grills. But the mild spring weather is bad news for maple syrup producers. Maple trees need below freezing nights in addition to warm days for the sap to run well, according to M&M Maple Farm's Mike Broadwell. That fluctuation is what gets the sugary sap to rise up and, in a tapped tree, drain out.