Union Square Market With Molly!

This past week finally felt like spring, so we linked up with our friend Molly Bloom, a New York–based private chef, and spent the morning with her at Union Square Greenmarket, gathering ingredients for her upcoming pop-up this Monday.

Molly slipped on our Brown Cow Collection and took us along to visit some of her favorite vendors, moving through the market with an instinctive, thoughtful approach. Her way of shopping is rooted in color, seasonality, and a sense of play — often leaning into unexpected combinations and forms, like the edible bouquet she’s currently creating for the pop-up.

Afterward, we sat down with Molly to talk about her story, what inspires her, her approach to shopping with intention, and how she transforms everyday ingredients into something expressive.

Read on for a Q&A with Molly: her market picks and tips, plus a recipe using the ingredients we gathered. Enjoy!

Tell us about yourself and what you do.

I'm a creator of many things these days... and definitely always have been! Lately, I've been private cheffing, designing a restaurant with the team from Taqueria Ramirez, keeping a few clients in the fashion industry (where I've been working within the past 15 years) and can't stop baking cakes for fun (with a few cake commissions in between!). 

Tell us about your upcoming pop-up—what are you creating?

I'm super excited to co-host my first pop-up dinner with 3 other excellent chefs, Andrea Belfiore, Diego Rivera, and Carolina Santos-Neves. We'll be cooking 8 courses for 30 lucky guests at Ciao Evento on April 20th. I'm making a seasonal market bouquet with a smoked oyster tonnato and a crouton crumble, both for dipping. Think colorful salad with edible flowers, arranged and tied into a bouquet, to be picked up with one hand and eaten because how fun is that? It should be a fun send off after a spectacular multi-course meal! 

We love your approach to food. Where does that perspective come from?

I grew up in farmland — apple orchards were my yard!! So I’ve always felt connected to homegrown ingredients. Senek Farms, Tom Towers Farm Market, Becker Farms, Rich Tilyou — all part of an ecosystem of hard-working people providing slow, local food with a whole lot of love. My parents and grandparents kept vegetable gardens too.

I was especially inspired by my Situ (Lebanese grandmother) and Uncle — their meals were/are always out of this world. Turning grocery shopping into a science, days of food prep, then setting the table is a love language I share with them. I think I’m taking that language to new places, and it’s been really fun sharing it with my family, friends, and now private clients!

How would you define your style of cooking?

Colorful and nourishing! No matter the cuisine, color is always a huge priority to me.. And if the colors are all the same, texture is next on the priority list. I think flavor follows naturally when color and texture come first -- prove me wrong! But I eat super clean and keep processed foods to roadtrips, exclusively. 

What are your go-to vendors at Union Market that you love visiting?

Oooof I have shiny object syndrome, but standouts include Bread Alone - they always have incredible batard loaf flavors. But, She Wolf Bakery has my baguette heart and all things sourdough. Willow Wisp and Norwich Meadows Farm has all of the best produce.. Mushroom Queens (from Queens!) has a rainbow of beautiful mushroom options (worth planning your Union Square Market trip for Fridays!) and they're just rad. 

Do you have any recommendations for other farmers' markets or stores you love to get your ingredients from?

As small as the down to Earth Park Slope market is, it’s a great option for weekend shopping. I go to Eataly right when they open for specific ingredients and cheese, Greenpoint Fish Market for seafood, and lately I’m obsessed with Ten Ichi Mart in Williamsburg and browsing dried ingredients in Chinatown (Snow Fungus is my new fave).

You mentioned cooking with the seasons — what does that look like for you in practice?

Right now, every meal is some combination of peas, asparagus, ramps, rabe. Prepping things like ramp pesto, poaching asparagus in bulk, slicing radishes with EVO and salt so I can quickly whip up something fresh. Pulling prepped ingredients from the fridge for a soft boiled egg or quick rice noodle is easier than it sounds, I promise. My fridge is basically stacks of translucent deli containers full of prepped ingredients. I also stole some magnolia blossoms from Fort Greene Park and will be making a cake from them soon — some ingredients are around in such small windows, it makes for a fun chase and challenge.

A snap of the dish Molly made with the farmer's market haul. It's a whipped ricotta topped with flowering rapini, chestnut mushroom, wild enoki, black fennel fronds, snap peas and a ramp and spring onion pesto. 

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