TFF and Dan Lipow in the Press

"Dan Lipow is not only a unique entrepreneur with an incredible story, but he is Garden State Kitchen’s first full-time tenant! Dan recently set up his business The Foraged Feast, in one of the front spaces in our building. Keep reading to find out more about the newest addition to the GSK family..."

“When you cook [Japanese knotweed] the right way you get a tart, lemon-y, delicious asparagus kind of thing,” said Lipow, 49, the founder and sole proprietor of The Foraged Feast, a company that sells wild plants foraged from the forests of New Jersey to farmers markets and fancy restaurants. “Or you sweeten it, and it’s almost indistinguishable from rhubarb.”

"Hanging out with Lipow at one of the farmer's markets where he sells his found-food items under the brand name "The Foraged Feast," it's obvious that he's as much an educator as he is a forager and retailer."

"Lipow knows these woods well and we find plenty of ramps in no time: first small patches of them along the trail, then after bushwacking through the thorny underbrush, a wide sloping field of green ramps galore."

10 weeds you could be eating

 Dan Lipow, founder of The Foraged Feast harvests ramps in the woods of northern New Jersey. (Brian Donohue | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com)

"The Foraged Feast, the enterprise Dan founded more than a year ago, currently supplies foraged foods to five seasonal farmers markets, from Millburn to Denville, Montclair, Summit and Sparta. The Foraged Feast also does a thriving year-round business, keeping foragers from the Pacific Northwest to Maine busy serving local restaurants and a few winter-time farmers markets."