#citizen pruner

I am so excited to be taking the Citizen Pruner Course through Trees NY. Once completed, I will receive a license from the NYC Department of Parks & Recreation to legally prune and help care for street trees! 

The trees need us more than ever, especially because there are so many newly planted trees (thanks to the MillionTreesNYC Initiative) that need extra attention in their formative years. 

Why are street trees essential and beneficial for a big city, you ask? Trees enhance the quality of urban life. How?

- Trees add beauty and character - Trees soften the harsh and angular look of city streets - Trees, like all green plants, use carbon dioxide and release life-giving oxygen - Trees help clean air by trapping dirt, grit and dust, and by absorbing other pollutants  - Trees act as sound barriers - Trees reduce stormwater runoff from city streets, reducing the pollution of our local waterways - Trees screen unpleasant views - Carefully located, trees deciduous trees can save energy by cooling buildings in the summer and allowing solar heating in the winter - Trees increase community pride - Tees are important representatives of nature to city dwellers - Trees are home to wildlife  - Trees can increase the attractiveness of a home and studies have shown that trees can increase property values by up to 20%

(from Citizen Pruner Manual)

Tasting: Citizen Pruner

It goes without saying that booze and cheese go great together, whether consumed as a pairing or with the liquids being used as a wash during aging. You can read about some of my favorite booze-washed cheeses in my Edible Booklyn piece here. When it comes to washed rind cheeses, there's usually only one tipple involved, but Citizen Pruner, from Crown Finish Caves in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, steps up the game, using two (to be clear, they're not technically both washes), and creating a unique experiment in multi-participant local collaboration in the process, from Upstate NY to Maryland and points in between.

The sheep's milk cheese comes to Crown Finish as a green (new) wheel from Old Chatham Sheepherding Company, in Old Chatham, NY. Fig leaves, from local trees, are then macerated in Due North Rum from Van Brunt Stillhouse in Red Hook, Brooklyn, and wrapped around the wheels. During the aging they recieve regular washes with Farmgate Cider from Millstone Cellars, a farmhouse cidery located in Monkton, MD. I've seen cheeses washed with a wide variety of spirits, from Absinthe to Moonshine, but as far as I can recall this is the first time I've seen Rum used. I was skeptical about how that would work (never having tried this particular rum, mind you), but didn't notice a distinct rummy flavor in the final product.

Cutting through the fig leaf shell reveals a pale yellow interior, with a texture and consistency like vanilla pudding, oozing and lightly pungent. Flavors are complex, buttery, fruity and yeasty, with a bit of fried onion and hay and the lanolin hints of a sheep's milk cheese. The wheel I tasted was quite ripe, another few days would have put it over the top, but I caught it at a great moment. I hope Crown Finish keeps this particular experiment going!

I was curious about the name, and delighted to learn that “citizen pruner” is a term for people who take responsibility for the care of the trees in their community by, of course, pruning them as needed, as well as monitoring for disease, performing annual counts, clearing invasive species, and more. You can learn about citizen pruner training programs, such as the one available at the Brooklyn Botanical Garden, here.