http://ruralintelligence.com/index.php/parties_section/index/ Your guide to Rural Living en MarilynBethany@aol.com Copyright 2012 2012-05-14T20:24:09+00:00 http://www.ruralintelligence.com/index.php/parties_section/parties_articles_parties/a_tour_more_spencertown_academys_hidden_gardens/ http://www.ruralintelligence.com/index.php/parties_section/parties_articles_parties/a_tour_more_spencertown_academys_hidden_gardens/ Spring is in the air region-wide but at the Spencertown Academy, which is celebrating its 40th this year, it is also busting out all over the gallery walls. The Academy’s current exhibition, Artworks Inspired by the Garden, features Cristobal Morales’ blossom-like assemblages (also currently on exhibit at TK Home and Garden in Hudson) and a large collection of drawings, watercolors, botanical prints, textile and wallpaper designs—all manner of floral and garden-themed art, collected by Richard Eagen, co-owner of Gris, an antiques shop in Hudson.  “Decades ago, I often visited a friend in Aix-en-Provence, where I would find these charming things at outdoor markets, little shops, bookstalls.”  The proceeds from the art sale, which acts as a prelude to the “Hidden Gardens” tour on June 16, benefit the Academy.  At left, this year’s tour co-chairs Madaline Sparks, contributing garden editor of Real Simple magazine, and Lydia Kukoff, each standing behind a Wave Hill chair, an adaptation of 1918 Rietveld design that has long been a signature of the renowned public garden in the Bronx.  Unpainted facsimiles will be among the items sold at the Garden Market on the Green in Spencertown the day of the tour.    Academy president Nick Van Alstine and interior designer Michael Krieger, who installed the exhibition; Jack Krauskopf, Academy board v. p. and former chair of the garden tour Marian Krauskopf and this year’s tour co-chair Madaline Sparks Shawn Hancock and Jan Moseman; James Raimes, Ann Raimes and Academy executive director Mary Anne Lee Stair Galleries auctioneer Rupert Fennell and artist Cris Morales; Robert Gilson, director of the 92nd Street Y School of the Arts, Rae Gilson and Cris Morales Ardal Powell and Melanie Hegge; Steve Isoz and Cynthia Lathrop Lee Magadini and Keith Galluzzo; Dan Tucker and Bob Newman Lydia Kukoff, Bella Meyer and Cathy Kaplan; Debby Byrum, Robert Leo and Catherine Schubert Richard Eagan and Lydia Kukoff Parties 2012-05-14T20:24:09+00:00 http://www.ruralintelligence.com/index.php/parties_section/parties_articles_parties/catas_annual_performance_and_gala_2012_2/ http://www.ruralintelligence.com/index.php/parties_section/parties_articles_parties/catas_annual_performance_and_gala_2012_2/ Parties 2012-05-14T02:08:29+00:00 http://www.ruralintelligence.com/index.php/blog_section/blog_articles_AgriCulture/agriculture_the_fine_art_of_herding_without_hurt/ http://www.ruralintelligence.com/index.php/blog_section/blog_articles_AgriCulture/agriculture_the_fine_art_of_herding_without_hurt/ AgriCulture bloggers Peter Davies and Mark Scherzer are the owners of Turkana Farms in Germantown, NY. This week, Mark writes: For a number of unfortunate reasons, I’ve heard the 23rd Psalm a great deal lately, most recently last Friday morning at a cousin’s funeral. I have nothing against this beautiful work of poetry, but it seems to be called upon most often for comfort in times of sorrow, and I’d be happy not to hear it again for a while. Friday morning, I was struck by one line in the Psalm: “Thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.” It has a lovely cadence in a syntax we would never use, but what was most striking was how it conveys an odd kind of paradox –that one can derive comfort not only from gentle guidance, of the sort provided by a shepherd's staff, but also from the pain of strict discipline, as meted out by the punitive rod. As Peter pointed out to me, the rod represents the harsh justice of the Old Testament's God. This imagery from the pastoral society of the Bible made me think about whether we, in raising our flocks, also strike a reasonable balance between strict rules and nurturing. Do our animals have a sense that we've created a safe space for them, and is part of their concept of that safe space derived from the strict rules we sometimes make them live by? It does seem that the flock for its well-being depends on both our strict discipline and our loving care. It should not be surprising that animals can derive comfort both from nurturing indulgence and from strict discipline, because humans do so as well. Two weekends ago, I attended the 80th birthday party of Wyatt MacGaffey, my college advisor, an anthropology professor who was my mentor and who I feel deserves the credit for teaching me to think analytically. I had a long period, when I initially began taking courses with him, characterized by abject terror at the consequences of not doing things to his standards. But once I became comfortable with the rules, my education really flowered. I'm not sure I would have achieved the benefits of the relationship without the initial fear. Only by learning to live up to a strict and at times not entirely comprehensible standard was I able to have the confidence to take full advantage of the nurturing insights and guidance this professor gave me. I think we can tell when we’ve struck the right balance between discipline and nurturing on the farm when our animals interact with us in an atmosphere of calm cooperation. Do they do what we’d like them to do without our having to resort to force? Take, for example, the process of managing our turkeys and geese. One important tool in that management is neither a rod nor a staff, but rather long bamboo or wood garden stakes which we use as wands to herd these sometimes unruly birds. We didn’t see them advertised as poultry handling instruments in any catalogue. We might have hit upon their value had we thought back to the illustrations in children’s books of young farm girls in pleated bonnets herding their geese and carrying large wands, or if Peter had understood fully how the peasants he saw herding turkeys along the roadsides were using the wands. But we didn’t. Instead, the use of these wands was something that Peter developed, organically, over time. He reinvented a time-honored tool. The challenge we faced was to move the turkeys and geese from the pasture into secure pens every night where they would be free of the threat of predators. This practice became imperative when, several years ago, while indulging the turkeys' instinctive inclination to roost in trees, we lost a total of 19 turkeys over two successive nights, probably to a horned owl which took off their heads (it is the brain they eat) and left us just the carcasses. At first we tried simply shooing them into a secured sleeping porch we had constructed for the purpose. But shooing them in a couple at a time can lead to chaos. Peter found he could do much better if he took advantage of their flock instinct and their keen sensitivity to our every movement. It's something he picked up from kinetic theatre, in which actors move responsively to one another. Peter found that if we used slow-motion, gentle, nonthreatening movements to gather the birds together as a flock, we could play on the inclination of the flock to move as unit. By setting up a kind of harmony between us and the flock, in which we through the cues of small bodily movements indicated the direction in which they should go, they would respond as a group. Extended arms, we found, increased our field of control, and using the sticks as wands increased the field of control even further. Once the group got the message to move in a particular direction, they would carry the rest of the flock along, flowing like a river into a recently opened channel. Geese tend to move like a disciplined squadron, very military in style. Turkeys are considerably more chaotic and individualistic in their style. Nonetheless, once they are disciplined into the steps of this dance – and it is like a dance – they tend to cooperate. Last summer, a visitor who was touring the farm as I was herding the turkeys in from one field to another and then into their sleeping porch, commented that the whole process seemed like a ballet. I don’t think he was referring to my graceful movements, but rather to their movement as a flock. I recall a few years back when the fellow we had hired to carry our 100-plus turkeys to market asked how we would get them into the trailer. He scoffed when Peter said he would walk them in, but walk them in he did, in the space of less than ten minutes, to the amazement of the trucker. All sorts of conditions, including our emotional states, to which the turkeys are exquisitely sensitive, can affect the process. If I am I frantically rushed and reveal my desperation, they won’t cooperate. The angle of the sunlight and atmospheric conditions can also affect the process. But because it’s a strict and unvarying routine, the turkeys do expect it, and mostly go along. I’m always surprised that on some days when chores are running late to find that some of the turkeys have gone in of their own accord, and the rest have often assembled, waiting to be guided in. I think it helps that once inside the turkeys know what they will find – comfortable perches where they have the sense of being beyond reach of most of their predators. If the sleeping porch did not offer them a commodious place for the night, they would undoubtedly resist. They find security in being high up, unlike most of our other animals who find security indoors, in cozy safe places. Wands are not universally useful tools. Sheep, cows, and pigs don’t have the same extremely fine sensitivity to our movements as turkeys do and one cannot get the same level of kinetic action. We did for a while have a shepherd's crook, which Peter used until it was destroyed. But we found that the larger mammals respond much better to following favored food, like grain or apples. Attract Orhan, our 10-year-old whether, with a bucket of grain, and the rest of the sheep herd will fall cooperatively into a single file and follow you into the barn. Among these animals, too, there is a group instinct that leads them to go where the other members of their herd are going. You can herd them a bit by walking slightly behind them, sufficiently to one side that they see you in their peripheral vision. But if they realize you are guiding them into an area that they would prefer not to be in, they will pretty readily circle ahead of you and run behind you, leading to great frustration. Staffs or wands have some uses with these animals. Sometimes a light prod from behind can guide the animal’s direction, and in any event a stick of any kind can serve as a protective weapon to buy one some time to run out of the zone of danger, in the event a sticky situation arises, such as an unexpectedly enraged bull upset by some unanticipated stimulus. But a 400-pound boar or 1500-pound bull is hardly going to be intimidated by any stick we could conveniently carry. As with the turkeys, it helps if you are leading the larger animals somewhere they want to go. The sheep are so attached to the barn, as home space, that they will run there for safety from any corner of the fields if something spooks them. When we had a barn fire a few years back, it was all the local firemen could do to keep the sheep from trying to run into the burning barn for security from the chaotic scene. Their feeling of security may end up betraying them. The most powerful influence on the ability to guide these animals to where you want them seems to be that the action takes place as part of a set routine into which they are disciplined, rules that create the structure in which they feel comfortable. The sheep, like the turkeys, line up near the barn to go “home,” as it were, as dusk approaches each evening. There are other types of comfort and security important to our animals. They have a keen sense of the arrangement of things, and of what constitutes a safe space. But our peaceful kingdom depends mightily on the calm discipline of routine and order, into which we need only coax, not prod, its members to do what’s expected of them. —Mark Scherzer AgriCulture 2012-05-13T18:24:51+00:00 http://www.ruralintelligence.com/index.php/food_section/food_articles_recipes/rhubarb_cinnamon_polenta_cake/ http://www.ruralintelligence.com/index.php/food_section/food_articles_recipes/rhubarb_cinnamon_polenta_cake/ Berkshire native Alana Chernila, local politician, mother of two, and author of the new cookbook, The Homemade Pantry: 101 Foods You Can Stop Buying & Start Making (Clarkson Potter), dispenses change and peak-of-the-season cooking ideas at the Great Barrington Farmers' Market. Lately she has been devouring Nigel Slater's latest book, Ripe: A Cook in the Orchard, from which she adapted this recipe for rhubarb, which is cropping up like wild in our region. There are only a few plants growing in my garden right now. I’ve been trying to get out there to get my seeds in, but still, it patiently waits. But now, there are chives, and sorrel, and mint. And then, of course, there is rhubarb. Years ago, I was driving down Tyringham Road. This is a beautiful stretch of road between Lee and Tyringham in our corner of Western Massachusetts, with a valley and mountains and enticing winding roads coming off of it every which way. I was in the car with my friend Molly’s mother Lin, although I can’t remember why. She is a true urban gardener, and for decades now, she has maintained a one or two wonderful little plots of land filled with food and flowers. We drove by a small ranch house on that street, and right by the driveway, there were a few potted rhubarb plants and a handwritten sign–rhubarb $5. Lin pulled over, claiming that this was the rhubarb for me. “I can tell. These plants are going to do well.” She’s a scientist, and she knows these kinds of things. So I bought my plant, and I took it home, and I put it in the ground. Now, when it comes to gardening, I often feel like I’m groping around in the dark. I am surrounded by gardeners and friends who are usually happy to answer even my simplest questions, but still, I feel like I have to plant and water and see something grow in my yard in order to know how it works. (That is, if it works–otherwise there are different lessons to be learned!) I am looking forward to some time decades from now when I can say I really know how to garden, and when the success doesn’t shock and amaze me every time. But this rhubarb and I–we started a relationship then and there. And every year it comes back, poking out of the ground with its prehistoric and ungraceful looking foliage, and I cheer and I feel like a queen (even though it comes back without an ounce of help from me). Then I greet it with a torrent of new rhubarb recipes. The plant always produces deep into the summer, and by then I have other things to bake, and so every visitor has to wait as they’re walking out to their car while I holler, “Hold on! Let me send you home with some rhubarb!” True story. Ask anyone. This a good and upstanding rhubarb cake, full of complexity and self respect. The batter involves uncooked polenta, which gives the whole shebang a bit of crunch. It’s a perfect tea snack and is even better on the second day. Around here, it also served quite nicely as a breakfast. I don’t know anyone who would say no to a piece of this with a cup of dark coffee. It’s adapted from a recipe by British gardener and food writer Nigel Slater; I feel like he would be happy that I have altered it to my own tastes. This cake also doubles beautifully. Rhubarb Cinnamon Polenta Cake
 Adapted from Ripe: A Cook in the Orchard (serves 8) For the filling 1 pound rhubarb
 1/4 cup superfine sugar
 4 tablespoons water For the crust 
3/4 cup coarse polenta
 1 1/2 cups plus 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
 1 teaspoon baking powder 
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon (he calls for “a pinch”)
 1/2 cup superfine sugar (he calls for 3/4 cup)
 Grated zest of a small orange
 10 tablespoons cold butter, cut into 1-inch pieces 
1 large egg 
2 to 4 tablespoons milk 
1 tablespoon demerara sugar (granulated will do here if that is what you have) 1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Put a baking sheet in the oven. (You want it to get hot, you’ll use it later in the recipe.) Butter an 8-inch springform cake pan, then line the bottom with parchment. 2. Cut the rhubarb into into 2 to 3-inch pieces. Put them into a baking dish, scatter them with the sugar and water, and bake for about 30 minutes, or until soft. Drain the fruit in a colander and reserve all of the cooking liquid to serve with the cake later. 3. Meanwhile, put the polenta, flour, baking powder, cinnamon, and sugar into the bowl of a food processor and give it a quick pulse to mix. Add the orange zest and butter and pulse again several more times until the mixture is uniform and the butter is the size of small peas. Beat the egg with 2 tablespoons of milk, and add that mixture to the batter while pulsing again, stopping as soon as you have a soft, sticky batter. Add a bit more milk if it’s not sticky. 4. Press about two-thirds of the batter into the cake pan with a wooden spoon or your fingers, taking care not to have any holes. Cover with the drained rhubarb–then put lumps of the remaining batter over the rhubarb, leaving holes for the fruit to poke through. Scatter the demerara sugar over top.Place on the hot baking sheet in the oven and bake for 45 to 55 minutes, or until slightly golden. Allow to cool for at least 20 minutes before removing from the pan. Serve with the cooking liquid drizzled over top, with something creamy on the side (creme fraiche, ice cream, or Greek yogurt). —Alana Chernila Recipes 2012-05-12T17:16:38+00:00 http://www.ruralintelligence.com/index.php/style_section/style_articles_shopping/the_art_of_shopping_working_warren_with_a_pair_of_pros/ http://www.ruralintelligence.com/index.php/style_section/style_articles_shopping/the_art_of_shopping_working_warren_with_a_pair_of_pros/ We all shop, but shopping with someone who actually makes a living buying stuff is an entirely different game. For one thing, the pros notice subtleties we pikers would be likely to overlook, such as the fine print on the $900 price tag dangling from a ‘50s floor lamp that’s shoved into the corner of a cramped and dusty shop on Warren Street in Hudson. Faced with such seemingly irrefutable evidence, many would conclude that $900 is the asking price. Not Paul Siskin, of Siskin Valls, an interior design firm in New York City.  “How much?,” he asks.  Mark of Mark’s (612 Warren) replies, “$150. And, as you can see, the price tag from [he names a chic store in the neighborhood that recently closed] is still on it.”  Sold.                     Mark with his “$900” lamp; $150 later, the lamp chez Siskin.   A recent foray on Warren Street with Siskin and his friend and frequent collaborator, the architect , was a lesson in the close reading of price tags, among other occult arts. In Larry’s Back Room at the same address, Chan spots a pile of industrial artifacts, each with a red SOLD sign attached. She says to Siskin, “I see Restoration Hardware got here first.” That chain, which specializes in mass-produced knock-offs of the very sort of off-beat, unique pieces designers pride themselves on unearthing, is a source of considerable irritation to the pair. Larry points to an iron bed and assures them that its finish isn’t faux: “This is genuine rust.”   At Red Chair (608 Warren), a New Hampshire antiques shop transplanted to Hudson last fall, Siskin makes his first pronouncement of the day: “This is the biggest bargain in town.”  He is pointing to a French bistro garden table and a pair of benches (right), with their original green and brilliant yellow paint. At $495 for all three pieces, it’s hard to imagine a chicer, cheaper way to furnish a casual dining area, indoors or out.  Even more remarkable: Siskin’s palpable excitement. Despite having trudged from shop to shop, showroom to showroom, for the last thirty plus years, his love of the chase is undiminished.    As we cross Warren, he points to where we’re headed, Bavier Brook (621 Warren), specialists in antique and vintage jewelry, and says sotto voce, “Joan keeps this place in business.” She hears and counters,  “My mother taught my five sisters and me that if a woman doesn’t own jewelry and real estate, she isn’t Chinese.”   Chan especially likes this shop, she says, because, “They have great taste, and they are affordable.”  A few weeks ago, she purchased a beautifully crafted amethyst ring here.  “The stone is cabochon cut, so it’s a little more discreet than your average cocktail ring,” she says.  “And I love the 1960s setting.  It makes me feel like Twiggy.”    Note this salient difference between professionals and the average tire kicker: Instead of dithering endlessly, pros actually buy stuff; lots of it, both for their clients and themselves. Siskin is still in the process of furnishing his own just-completed house a little south of Hudson City proper on Mt. Merino, a long, low modernist design on which he collaborated with Chan. The decor consists of things he’s long had in storage (some of them client rejects) combined with new (to him, at least) Warren Street finds.  The sole exception, so far, is a large sofa from a chain store that shall go nameless. (Suffice to say, it’s notorious for its designer-find knock-offs.)  However, there’s still one major piece missing—some sort of storage piece for the dining area. Today, Siskin will revisit some leading contenders, while continuing to cast his net for new possibilities.   At Gris (514 Warren), where months earlier Siskin bagged a brilliant ‘50s French canape with original leather upholstery (right, in his house), he considers a Chinese cabinet. A raised eyebrow from Chan lays that to rest.  At Vince Mulford (417 - 419 Warren), he looks once again at an overscale chest of drawers (below) that he’s been circling for weeks. Like nearly all the objects in Mulford’s monumental space, this one would make a fantastic accent piece in a vast modern room, precisely what Siskin has. But drawer space is not his top priority; dish storage is the more urgent need. At Skalar (438 1/2 Warren), he examines a French ‘50s oak sideboard (top photo), but rules it out because of its shape—horizontal whereas his space cries out for a vertical.  At Foley & Cox Home (317 Warren), when store manager Nancie Shelhamer notices Siskin hovering around a tall 19th-century dark wood cupboard with shelves, she casually mentions that the piece is on sale.  As it happens, the price beats all other contenders so far.    Even so, Siskin hesitates.  He can’t yet see the piece in his place. Chan tells of once seeing some tiles at the aforementioned Mark’s. Though she loved them, “I couldn’t figure out what to do with them.” Weeks later, in a taxi on her way to the airport to board a plane for Malaysia, inspiration struck. “I’m renovating my own apartment, and, I thought, they’d be wonderful as a mantel surround.” She called Mark from the car and asked him to hold them for her.    Perhaps this propensity for ultimately closing deals is what earns the pros a more animated reception at the shops of Warren than one may be accustomed to. At every store we enter, they are greeted warmly, as if they and the store owners were the oldest and dearest of friends. And indeed, they practically are. As checks change hands, promises of free home delivery that very afternoon are met with cries of, “Stay for a drink!”   Such is the case at Theron Ware, Works of Art (548 Warren).  While Chan buzzes from blossom to blossom, hovering over a perfect square mirror here (right), an exquisite Queen Anne table there, Siskin closes the deal on an oval silverleaf-framed mirror he’s had on hold for a client. “I get a lot of mirrors here,” he says. Chan adds, “Antique mirrors are better than the ones made today.  They have thicker glass and the mercury backing isn’t so perfect.”   “Shopping here is so different from a place like Vince Mulford,” Siskin says. Mulford’s shop is large and sparely filled with one showstopper after another, whereas Theron is small and packed to the rafters with exquisite things. “Here you really have to look.”   Yet different as they are, the two stores apparently have more in common with each other than they do with most of the antiques shops in the city.  “The rarefied air of some of the New York shops can be suffocating,” Siskin says.  “Most Hudson dealers specialize in pieces that are decorative and stylish but not too serious—neither the pieces, nor the prices.”   Passing Hudson City Books (533 Warren), a mix of expensive rare books, first editions, and more affordable used books where, they tell me, Chan recently got her daughter’s graduation gift—a vintage leather-bound set of Jane Austen—Siskin slips back into pronouncement mode: “This is the best bookstore in the world.”  An hour later, after stopping in all-too-briefly at Chris Lehrecke (415 Warren) so Siskin could check on the progress of a daybed (similar to the one above) he’s having made for a client in the Hamptons, we enter 12 (318 Warren), a wonderland of exquisite things, including vintage couture, and antique jewelry, furniture, art, and accessories. While some in our party are detained up front, mesmerized by a pair of 18th-century diamond-drop earrings, Siskin calls from a back room, “Come look! This is the most beautiful chandelier in the world!”  —Marilyn Bethany Shopping 2012-05-09T22:44:56+00:00 http://www.ruralintelligence.com/index.php/food_section/food_articles_news/cross_roads_food_shop_is_hillsdales_new_hot_spot/ http://www.ruralintelligence.com/index.php/food_section/food_articles_news/cross_roads_food_shop_is_hillsdales_new_hot_spot/ Chef David Wurth has been living and cooking long enough in the Berkshires and Hudson Valley to know that a successful business must have crossover appeal. With the Cross Roads Food Shop, he has created the quintessential rural restaurant—a neighborhood hangout by day, destination dining by night—that attracts locals and weekenders alike. In the morning, you can linger over coffee and cornmeal pancakes ($5) or grab an egg sandwich ($5) to go. After noon, there are locally sourced salads such as Brussels sprouts, grated goat cheese, walnuts and wheatberries ($7), grass-fed burgers with fries ($10), and gentrified sandwiches like roasted pork with leeks and chile sauce ($8.50). On weekend evenings, the candles are lit, and Wurth serves deceptively simple but extraordinarily delicious plates such as steamed fish with tapenade, turnips and poached butter lettuce ($22) and spaghetti with spinach, mustard butter and baked tomatoes ($13/$18). A charmingly neurotic and self-deprecating chef, Wurth has put his three decades of experience into Cross Roads, and his refined sensibility is evident in every bite.  Originally from Rochester, NY, he started cooking professionally as a teenager on Martha’s Vineyard. After studying film at NYU and attending culinary school in Philadelphia, he landed a job at Savoy, a new restaurant in SoHo that was one of the first Manhattan restaurants to espouse a farm-to-table philosophy.  As he got to know the farmers from the Hudson Valley who supplied the restaurant, he dreamed of living and cooking in close proximity to where his meat and vegetables were raised.  In 2006, he was hired to be the first chef at Local 111, which serves locavore cuisine in an improbably chic former gas station in the heart of scruffy Philmont, NY. After three years at Local 111, he was ready to have his own place, but he did not have a plan until his friend Cathy Grier (aka NYC Subway Girl) introduced him to Matthew White, a New York interior designer and Hillsdale weekender who had bought (with David Reude) a rundown building on Route 23, near the intersection of Route 22, which he wanted to renovate and turn into a general store and other retail spaces. “The initial idea was that I would have a small soup and sandwich concession in the general store,” says Wurth. “But logistically it wasn’t going to work and Matthew encouraged me to take on a bigger space and offered to design it, too.”  The airy L-shpaed room has a partially-open kitchen, a communal table in one section, and a wall-size map of Hillsdale that has become a conversation piece. “The local folk love that they can find the street where they live,” says Wurth. The renovation took much longer than anticipated, so while Wurth was waiting for his space to be ready he went to work for Bjorn Somlo at Nudel in Lenox. “Bjorn had worked for me briefly at Local 111 so I was happy to return the favor and help him open Nudel and see it take off,” says Wurth, who explains that his food is somewhat different than Somlo’s pyrotechnic cooking. “We both start with the same ingredients but my approach is more Alice Waters,” says Wurth. His roast chicken breast on a bed of wilted greens is simplicity at its most sublime—exceptionally juicy and flavorful. When asked why it’s so delicious, the waitress says, “I think they sear it in duck fat.” Wurth won’t confirm or deny, but it’s clear that he has more than few epicurean secrets up his sleeve. On a recent Friday night, the dining room was buzzing, filled with familiar faces from Austerlitz to the north, Great Barrington to the east, Hudson to the west, and Millerton to the South. “This is exactly why I called it the Cross Roads Food Shop,” says Wurth. “I am glad it is living up to its name.” —Dan Shaw 642 Route 23, Hillsdale, NY 12529 518.325.1461 Breakfast:  Wednesday - Sunday  9 - 2:30 Lunch:  Wednesday - Sunday  noon - 2:30 Dinner:  Friday & Satuday  5:30 - 9:30; Sunday 5:30 - 9   News 2012-05-09T14:26:45+00:00 http://www.ruralintelligence.com/index.php/style_section/style_articles_garden/garden_view_are_green_thumbs_inherited/ http://www.ruralintelligence.com/index.php/style_section/style_articles_garden/garden_view_are_green_thumbs_inherited/ Liza Gyllenhaal is the author of the novels “Local Knowledge,” “So Near,” and the forthcoming “A Place for Us,” all set in the Rural Intelligence region. She and her husband divide their time between Manhattan and West Stockbridge, MA where she writes — and putters around in her garden. We’re pleased to share her periodic musings on gardening and other topics with RI readers. I think there must be a gardening gene, yet to be discovered in some secret strand of our DNA. My paternal grandmother created one of the most beautiful and extensive rose gardens I’ve ever seen (and I’m a devoted rosarian) in the small Pennsylvania town where I grew up. In the midst of the Depression, newly widowed and with six children to raise, she began what was to become a horticultural heaven on earth that remains to this day — in the hands of a first cousin — a lovely, edenic refuge. I first heard the call — and it really did feel like an almost audible cry from somewhere outside — at a place we were renting in the Berkshires over 20 years ago. It was a somewhat ramshackle, brown shingled Cape that had once been surrounded by traditional perennial beds. After several decades of neglect, however, the gardens had become grassy and weed-choked. On weekends when I’d planned to relax and recoup from a hectic life in the city, I found myself on my hands and knees, pulling up bishops weeds, digging out a border, and plugging the holes with begonias, geraniums, impatiens — all the usual, generic suspects from the local garden center.  At that point I didn’t know the difference between an annual and a perennial — or that there even was one. I just felt the thrill of a new infatuation — the yearning to know more and go deeper. I couldn’t wait to get up to the house on Friday nights — jumping out of the car as soon we arrived to check on my plants, often in the dark, by flashlight.  What I came to realize that summer was that — unrealized for many years and quite unexpectedly — I’d found a calling. I was in my mid-thirties, a late bloomer, but I felt a kinship with my grandmother that I never had as a child. That reserved, proper matron and I shared a wild and unquenchable love. We were both gardeners. I’ve learned a lot since then. Though the observation is hardly original, I’ve come to understand firsthand that, at its heart, gardening is the urge to add order and context to the landscape, to somehow harness and humanize the wild. In that sense, mother nature herself is the wisest and most patient of teachers. Now remember, dear, you can almost hear her say as you take in the sad little heap of shriveled stems and leaves, never plant your basil before Memorial Day. I’ve also come to believe that being out in nature and learning how to listen to its secret harmonies is one of the great joys and privileges life has on offer.  I hope you enjoy these photos of my gardens which, as all gardeners will understand, remain a work in progress. Joe Eck and Wayne Winterrowd — master gardeners and authors of some of the most delightful books on gardening I’ve ever read — have written that you know you’re a true gardener when, in the midst of weeding or planting, you’ll look across your flower beds and say, “Next year, I’m going to prune back the spirea.” Or, “Next summer, I’m going to plant some dahlias.” In other words, gardening is a life-long passion. One that you’re never too old to discover for yourself. This month you might want to: •  Visit the Berkshire Botanical Garden on Friday, May 11 and Saturday, May 12 for the 35th Annual Plant Sale. I’ve found some of the most interesting and successful plants there over the years — and I always pick up my annual herbs at the Monkshead Nursery booth. They have the best cherry tomato selection in the area! •  Plant early vegetable seeds. Ward’s Nursery & Garden Center carries Renee’s seeds, which always do very well for me, as does everything from The Cook’s Garden. I have raised beds in a fenced-in area (we’re in ground hog territory) and have already put in radicchio, escarole, arugula, rainbow chard, cut and come again mesclun, and oak leaf lettuces. Memorial Day weekend, if the warm weather continues to hold, I’ll put in seeds for tri-colored green beans, cucumbers (for pickling in August), nasturiums, zinnias and cosmos — and plant the cherry tomatoes and annual herbs (see above). •  Sign up for lectures and workshops at the Berkshire Botanical Garden. Or take a one-day seminar on container gardening with Bob Hyland, owner of the late (and lamented) Loomis Creek Nursery, and local author and gardener extraordinaire Margaret Roach in Copake Falls, NY. •  Mark your calendar for the wonderful Open Days sponsored by the Garden Conservancy and visit some of the most exclusive and amazing private gardens in your area. This weekend, on Saturday, May 12th, you can visit Margaret Roach’s fabulous garden in Copake Falls as well as Mead Farm House Garden and Maxine Paetro’s Broccoli Hall, both in Amenia, NY. —Liza Gyllenhaal Garden 2012-05-07T16:29:17+00:00 http://www.ruralintelligence.com/index.php/parties_section/parties_articles_parties/ramping_up_in_hudson/ http://www.ruralintelligence.com/index.php/parties_section/parties_articles_parties/ramping_up_in_hudson/ Dale Stewart reports from Hudson. There was a palpable buzz in advance of the second annual Ramp Fest Hudson, and by all accounts (and palates) the event — held on Saturday, May 5 at the Basilica Hudson —  surpassed expectations. Produced by Jeff Gimmel of Swoon Kitchenbar (pictured left, with gallerist Karen Davis) and stationery provocateur Alison Riley, Ramp Fest — a benefit for Glynwood — brought together Hudson Valley chefs and their NYC counterparts in a culinary homage to the beloved wild leek, and to spring itself. Foodies sampled a surfeit of inspired dishes such as slow-roasted beef brisket with ramp salsa verde from The Farmer’s Wife in Ancramdale; chilled ramp bisque and ramp popovers from Café Le Perche; and a tangy ramp and lime sorbet from DA|BA. For food news hounds, Ramp Fest also served up dish of another kind; according to sources close to Zak Pelaccio (the restaurateur behind NYC hot spots Fatty ‘Cue and Fatty Crab, and author of Eat with Your Hands), he and his wife/collaborator Jori Jayne Emde (aka Lady Jayne), who have a home in Old Chatham, are planning to open a yet-to-be-named spot off Warren Street later this year. Mitchell, Hudson Alderman and attorney John Friedman, and Columbia-Greene Hospital Foundation’s Betsy Gramkow; Myrto Daisy Schwab and Fest co-producer Alison Riley. Music producer/musician Steve Durand, Dan McCabe, and musician Elvis Perkins; artist Carrie Waldman with Basilica co-owner, artist Bill Stone, and Waldman’s son, Lucas. Jeanne Taylor, Daniela Rapp, Michael Bradham, and Jonathan Poplack; Martin Kenner with Life Coach Nicole Vidor. Attorney Ed Reisner, artist David Franck, and art consultant/food blogger Manda Weintraub; Casson Kennedy and Loaf’s Sissy Onet. Artist Abel Ramirez with Alderman/Hudson inn owner Chris Wagoner; Nicholas Nicoletti, Michael Williamson, Dan Renehan, and Lick Ice Cream’s Christopher Haupert. Brad and Amy Barr with sculptor Monica Mechling and graphic designer Robert Mechling; Peggy Anderson and Hudson Wine Merchant’s Michael Albin. Handpicked Nation‘s Tomiko Peirano and Katey Parker; Gabrielle and Robert Wile from Bergen County, NJ, planned their Hudson weekend around Ramp Fest. Parties 2012-05-07T12:52:37+00:00 http://www.ruralintelligence.com/index.php/parties_section/parties_articles_parties/frank_langella_book_signing/ http://www.ruralintelligence.com/index.php/parties_section/parties_articles_parties/frank_langella_book_signing/ Tara Kelly reports from Millerton. The literati turned out to ogle the glitterati when the stylish antiques store Hunter Bee hosted a book signing for Frank Langella (pictured at left) on Saturday, May 5. Langella has been a busy man. He’s criss-crossing the country to promote two pet projects: his new memoir, Dropped Names Famous Men and Women as I Knew Them; and the movie Robot and Frank, to be released in August. Earlier in the day, The Moviehouse screened a special preview of the film, after which Langella, a Millerton resident, answered questions about the movie, his life, and his past roles, holding the audience in his thrall. Then everyone trooped over to the store to get a little face time with the man some know as Dracula, some as Nixon, and some as a neighbor. Hunter Bee owners Kent Hunter (at left) and Jonathan Bee with their friend, author and actor Langella; The Moviehouse co-owner Bob Sadlon (photo on right) hosted the screening of Langella’s movie Robot and Frank. Gwenn Evitts and her mother, Marion Evitts, came from Great Barrington; Cheryl Zellman and Marc Gordon. Jonathan Bee with Judith Singelis of Argazzi Art in Lakeville and Murray Zimiles; literary agent Linda Michaels and writer Lynne Bragonier. Millerton shop owner Kate Carty and her twin sister, Kelly Carty; Langella with his high school classmate, Anna Mae Kupferer, advertising manager at The Lakeville Journal Co. Parties 2012-05-06T16:38:27+00:00 http://www.ruralintelligence.com/index.php/arts_section/arts_articles_movies/movie_intelligence5/ http://www.ruralintelligence.com/index.php/arts_section/arts_articles_movies/movie_intelligence5/   Following are the films currently showing in our region, listed in order of their Metacritic score.*  For a synopsis of the film and excerpts from the reviews that led to the score, click on the Metascore next to the film title. For show times, click on the theater name in the Movie Theaters directory at right.         Metascore/film title/(theaters) 89 The Artist (Gilson, Regal Berkshire) 87 The Kid with a Bike (Images, Triplex) 83 Monsieur Lazhar (Triplex, Upstate) 82 Footnote (Bantam, Spectrum, Triplex) 82 Marley (Spectrum, TSL) 82 The Deep Blue Sea (Spectrum, Triplex) 81 Marwencol (Clark) 74 Bully (Fairview, Spectrum) 73 The Pirates! Band of Misfits(Beacon, Cinerom, Hudson Movieplex, Lyceum, Regal Berkshire, Roosevelt) 72 The Cabin in the Woods (Hudson Movieplex) 69 The Avengers (Bank Street, Beacon, Cinerom, Crandell, Hudson Movieplex, Lyceum, Moviehouse, Regal Berkshire, Roosevelt, Triplex) 67 Damsels in Distress (Spectrum, Triplex) 67 The Hunger Games (Beacon, Hudson Movieplex, Regal Berkshire) 64 We Have a Pope (Bantam) 62 The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (Upstate) 61 The Five Year Engagement (Bank Street, Hudson Movieplex, Lyceum, Spectrum) 60 Jeff Who Lives at Home (Spectrum) 58 Salmon Fishing in the Yemen (Gilson, Spectrum, Triplex) 56 Dark Shadows (Bank St., Beacon, Cinerom, Hudson Movieplex, Lyceum, Moviehouse, Regal Berkshire, Roosevelt, Spectrum, Triplex) 56 The Three Stooges (Fairview, Regal Berkshire) 55 Safe (Regal Berkshire) 51 Think Like a Man (Hudson Movieplex) 47 Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax (Regal Berkshire) 44 The Raven (Hudson Movieplex, Regal Berkshire, Roosevelt, Spectrum) 40 The Beat Hotel (TSL) 40 Small, Beautifully Moving Parts (Little Cinema) 39 The Lucky One (Beacon, Cinerom, Fairview, Lyceum, Regal Berkshire, Roosevelt)   *Metacritic is a site that weighs film reviews from dozens of sources, averaging the results to achieve a score—the closer to 100, the more positive the reviews.   Unscored International Documentary Film Festival (Upstate) Wagner’s Dream (Mahaiwe, TSL) Metropolitan Opera On HD: Wagner’s Ring Cycle (Clark, Mahaiwe, TSL) The Dictator (Cinerom, Spectrum, Triplex) To Kill a Mockingbird (Mahaiwe) Movies 2012-05-04T11:30:15+00:00 http://www.ruralintelligence.com/index.php/blog_section/blog_articles_AgriCulture/the_secret_language_of_farmers/ http://www.ruralintelligence.com/index.php/blog_section/blog_articles_AgriCulture/the_secret_language_of_farmers/ AgriCulture bloggers Peter Davies and Mark Scherzer are the owners of Turkana Farms in Germantown, NY. This week, Peter writes: We have discovered that the farm world has a language all its own. Before starting the farm more than 11 years ago we were not much further along in farm language than the “duckie, goosie, piggie” terms we had learned as infants gazing intently at the fascinating images in our little cloth books. True, by the time of our farm incarnation we had evolved to the point where we had dropped the “ie” endings and had more of a sense of what these animals were —as well as the horrible realization that they were intended for eating. But not much more than that. For instance, in a vague way I associated “steer” with cowboys and the West, assuming it was just a cowboy term for beef cattle. But, of course, now that we have not only learned the meaning of the term but actually participated in the process of creating steers we know a steer is a castrated bovine, one usually raised for beef. The steer’s equivalent in the sheep world is a “whether,” a castrated male whose role (if he is not sent to market —which most are) usually becomes a bell-wearing leader of the flock, hence our term “bell whether.”   We have learned that the practice of castration evolved in part because having more than one bull or ram to a herd usually leads to fighting, as well as posing certain dangers—and that a castrated animal grows and puts on more weight faster, and, importantly, has meat with a more pleasing flavor. I vaguely sensed before owning one that a “heifer” was a young female cow but I now know “heifer” refers to a cow under three years of age that has not produced a calf, hence one that is probably a virgin. We have also learned, to our dismay, that bulls are extremely fascinated by heifers. And, consequently have learned that “to freshen,” which means “to give birth to a calf“ (and hence to become a milk producer) signals the end of heifer status. And we have learned that baby turkeys are poults (as an aside, we just received our 120 poults destined for Thanksgiving tables yesterday). The question of why a turkey, a relatively recent addition to the European/American farmyard, should have its young referred to as “poults,” a term obviously related to “poultry” (the generic term for most barnyard fowl), remains something of a mystery. As, for that matter, so does the name “turkey” itself—an odd name for a Europeanized bird that originated in Mexico and Central America.  Now “ducklings” for baby ducks and “goslings” for baby geese make sense. But “poults” for turkeys? And then there is the moniker “keets” for baby guinea fowl. But one of the richest farm vocabularies for some reason seems to have to do with pigs. What, I began to wonder, when confronted with these critters, is one to make of “pig,” ”hog,” or “swine?” I was surprised to learn that “pig,” which I thought was the generic term for the species, actually refers to a swine of either sex weighing under 120 pounds, while “hog” refers to a swine weighing over 120 pounds, destined for market. It came as quite a revelation to me that “swine” is actually the generic term for what in common usage is a domestic pig, that is, the genus sus scrofa domestica, regardless of weight or destiny. So, I learned, after all these years, that my little cloth book was wrong: it should have read “swinie,” not “piggie.” And that one should restrict the term “hog” when applied to greedy, objectionable people, as in “oh you big hog,” to those weighing over 120 pounds. You probably know the difference between a “boar” and a “sow.”  But there is more. What, for instance is a “barrow” or a “gilt” or a “shoat,” or for that matter “farrowing,” you may ask. With “barrow” we return to an earlier subject, for a “barrow” is a castrated male—the pig version of a steer. “Gilt” also takes us back to an earlier subject, for a “gilt” is a female swine that has not yet produced piglets or is not evidently pregnant—the pig counterpart of a heifer. A “shoat,” a strange term deriving from the Flemish ”shote,” is a weanling piglet, that is, a piglet that has just stopped taking milk from its mother (and is, therefore, no longer a “suckling pig”). “Farrow” which can serve as both noun and verb, also strikes me as a strange term. It can refer both to a litter of piglets, a “farrow,” and to the process of giving birth to a litter of piglets,”to farrow.” And this takes us back to the cattle term “freshen.” The oddness of “farrow” is explained by its descent from the Old English term “feahr,” giving this farm term a very long history. However, “farrow” is, perhaps, now in competition with “to pig,” as with “to calve” for cows and “to lamb” for ewes. Apparently what we neophytes refer to as piglets were once called “piglings” as in ramlings and ewelings. Remember the term “pigling bland?” To my surprise, “piglets,” I have lately learned, is not really a legitimate farm language term at all, but instead an expression used by newcomers to farming like us—a sure sign to established farmers in the know that we are not to the pigpen born. Strangely, farm language, despite its richness of vocabulary, has—with the mysterious disappearance of “piglings”—left today’s pigherds (as in shepherds or cowherds) with just the mundane terms “little pigs” or “baby pigs.” But maybe we newcomers are on the way to changing all of that by introducing into this ancient farm language “piglets” or at least resuscitating the equally attractive term: “piglings.” To which a momma sow might raise her head from the trough and, turning her mind to Shakespeare, ask “What’s in a name?” —Peter Davies AgriCulture 2012-05-02T12:15:50+00:00 http://www.ruralintelligence.com/index.php/parties_section/parties_articles_parties/berkshire_botanical_garden_gimme_shelter_opening_reception/ http://www.ruralintelligence.com/index.php/parties_section/parties_articles_parties/berkshire_botanical_garden_gimme_shelter_opening_reception/ Fiona Breslin reports from Stockbridge. The chilly spring evening had everyone bundled up April 28 when the Berkshire Botanical Garden held its 2012 season-opening party, but as all wise gardeners know, the full heat of summer will soon be upon us. In anticipation of that inevitable change in the weather, the BBG opened its new exhibition, Gimme Shelter: Architects Design for Shade. The show features four sheltering structures designed by Jamie Odegaard and Peter Murkett of New England Modern; Millbrook’s Jimmy Crisp; Lenox’s Kristine Sprague; and Williamstown’s Burr & McCallum Architects, whose inviting bench, suspended under a sky-lit shelter (demonstrated by Kevin Sprague and his son Matt, above), ensured the party was a swinging affair. Executive director Molly Boxer and chairman Matthew Larkin; architect Jimmy Crisp and Alicia Crisp in front of his light-filled shelter. Jen and Jamie Odegaard in front his shelter; contractor Mike Shiels with building supplier Rich Herrington and builder Lou Boxer. Kenzie Fields and her son Odie with Ned and Rebecca Odegaard; furniture maker Peter Murkett and Nathaniel Bossi. Cookiehead Lisa Newmann and Robert Dow; Garden members Ian Hooper, Joy Howe, Bill Howe, and Madeline Hooper. Gray Davis, designer Chase Booth, Aaron Dunn of Grant Larkin, and Catherine Delphia; artist Shawn Fields with his children Peter and Honey. Sally Bainbridge and Phillip Bainbridge with Gary Scheft and Cheryl Heller; the Garden’s communications manager Silka Glanzman with Anastasia Stanmeyer and photographer John Stanmeyer. Patrons Elise and Carl Hartman; Dan Rayhill and Garden trustee Judith Owens with Frank Quesada, Scott King and Randy Conti. Liza and Nik Koblov stopped by the gardens after biking past with their children Slava and Lara Koblov; Portuguese poet Tarcísio Ramos hitched a ride with the Garden’s youth educational coordinator Jamie Samowitz. Parties 2012-05-01T12:26:08+00:00 http://www.ruralintelligence.com/index.php/parties_section/parties_articles_parties/biffs_seventh_season_announced_at_haven_._._/ http://www.ruralintelligence.com/index.php/parties_section/parties_articles_parties/biffs_seventh_season_announced_at_haven_._._/ Fiona Breslin reports from Lenox. Berkshire International Film Festival founder Kelley Vickery, speaking before a jam-packed crowd at Haven Café on Tuesday, April 24, announced a blockbuster lineup for the BIFF’s seventh season, including the opening night documentary Ethel, a feature-length portrait of Ethel Kennedy directed by her Emmy Award-winning daughter Rory Kennedy. Vickery (at left with her son Andrew and marketing consultant Kevin Sprague) noted that members of the Kennedy clan will be in attendance for the screening and Q&A on May 31. The next night BIFF presents the documentary Marina Abramović: The Artist is Present—and indeed, she will be. The June 1 event (which will be preceded by an exclusive pass holder party and followed by a Q&A) is one of only two screenings that Abramović, whose Center for the Preservation of Performing Arts is under construction in Hudson, will attend. (The other is the film’s premiere at New York’s Museum of Modern Art.) Completing this compelling trifecta is the closing night screening of Gregory Crewdson: Brief Encounters, a documentary focused on the photographer’s decade-long work in the Berkshires producing his acclaimed cinematic photographic series, Beneath the Roses. Both Crewdson and director Ben Shapiro have strong local ties and will also participate in the post-screening Q&A. In all, the festival includes more than 70 films representing 16 countries, and a plethora of special events, including a filmmakers’ summit, free family film screenings, and a new narrative series of work by emerging directors. The BIFF runs from May 31 - June 3 in Great Barrington and Pittsfield. All-access passes have already sold out, but other passes are still available. Casting director Elissa Myers with BIFF executive assistant Lauren Ferin and Lauren Zivyak; actor Elizabeth Aspenlieder and Pine Cone Hill’s Annie Selke, responsible for the evening’s festive decorations. Producer Tim Speidel, filmmaker Cynthia Wade, and Sarah Patrick Morgese, coordinator of BIFF’s Filmmakers Summit; Red Barn Communication’s Sylvia Cancela and attorney Glenn Powell. Paul Kopperl with VIM’s Matthew Mandel and Catherine Mandel; photographer Gregory Crewdson and Pittsfield police sergent Matt Hill. Designer Anne Fredericks, Annie Selke, and screenwriter Maria Nation; screenwriter Stephen Glantz and Great Barrington town manager Kevin O’Donnell.  BIFF supporters Gordon Simmering, Gretchen Court, Mary Mott, and John Court share a toast; festival programmer Lillian Lennox and advisory board member Bill Nappo. Berkshire Museum’s Jenn Gomez with Robert Gentile and Melissa Lanoue; the Berkshire Bank crew: graphic designer Mark Tomasi; Peter Lafayette; and Mark Pedrotti.  Garden writer Honey Sharp, Pier Boutin, MD, and David Lippman, MD; BIFF advisory board member Seth Nash, Berkshire Film and Media Commission’s Diane Pearlman, and education consultant Mary Nash. IS183’s Amy Butterworth and Benjamin Evans flank Pine Cone Hill’s Jessica Fitzgerald; Kelley Vickery and soul sister Karen Lee. Parties 2012-04-30T16:38:26+00:00 http://www.ruralintelligence.com/index.php/parties_section/parties_articles_parties/in_hudson_McDaris_Opens_Habitat_for_Humanity_Celebrates/ http://www.ruralintelligence.com/index.php/parties_section/parties_articles_parties/in_hudson_McDaris_Opens_Habitat_for_Humanity_Celebrates/ Dale Stewart reports from Hudson. Hudson was hopping on Saturday, April 21 as several galleries held opening receptions, including Warren Street’s latest venue, Wendy McDaris Fine Art, where the inaugural exhibit featured a solo show of new work by Germantown artist Dawn Breeze (pictured with McDaris, left). Breeze’s paintings, works on paper, and video were completed at Baer, the world-renowned artist residency in Iceland. Lively events continued all the way down Warren and over to Basilica Hudson, where Columbia County Habitat for Humanity held its Builder of the Year Gala, celebrating local honorees Christine Chale of Rapport Meyers LLP, attorneys at law, and the Sidney and Beatrice Albert Foundation. Bob Bruyr, Peter Bergman, executive director of the Millay Society, and RI contributor Scott Baldinger; designer Giovanni Iacono with writer Hallie Goodman. At the Habitat for Humanity gala: Janis Smyth, Columbia County Habitat board president, with Steve Baum; Michael Keegan and Jennifer Houle, operations manager at Cafe Le Perche. Communications consultant Kimberly Rawson, Michael Zaccaro of Central Berkshire Habitat for Humanity, and Cheryl Zaccaro; Jodi Hills and Andrea Colby. Christine Chale, pictured with her husband Dan Freedman, has provided hundreds of hours of legal services pro bono for Columbia County Habitat; Isadore Cassuto (second from right), who accepted the award on behalf of the Sidney and Beatrice Albert Foundation, attended with his family, from left, grandson Jesse, daughter-in-law Elizabeth, wife Thalia, and son David. Basilica co-owner Nancy Barber with Ellen Thurston; Hudson Common Council President Don Moore with Basilica co-owners, filmmaker Tony Stone and musican Melissa Auf der Maur.  Isabelle Bosquet-Morra, Katie Raziano, and Angela Patterson; executive director of Central Berkshire Habitat Carolyn Valli with her Columbia County counterpart, Brenda Adams. Hudson City officials Judge Richard Koweek and Treasurer Eileen Halloran; James Cantele and Kristen Wahl. Parties 2012-04-30T02:48:01+00:00 http://www.ruralintelligence.com/index.php/food_section/food_restaurant_listing/st._andrews_cafe/ http://www.ruralintelligence.com/index.php/food_section/food_restaurant_listing/st._andrews_cafe/ It may look as if time has stood still at St. Andrew’s Café at the Culinary Institute of America (CIA), with its carpeted floors, white-clothed tables, and traditionally garbed servers, but rest assured; the restaurant’s menu and sustainability practices are thoroughly modern. In 2009, the restaurant was certified by the Green Restaurant Association, thanks to its commitments to source local and regional ingredients and to reduce water consumption and waste. In late 2010, Dwayne LiPuma, an assistant professor of Culinary Arts, took over as executive chef and developed a sophisticated, upscale farm-to-table menu designed to appeal to a broad range of diners. Meals start with bread baked that day by CIA students. On a springtime visit, frisee and watercress salad with a Cabot cheddar dressing arrived artfully stacked on endive, garnished with toasted hazelnuts and house-made bacon lardons. Spring salad featured local greens dressed with a mustard-shallot vinaigrette, mounded on asparagus spears and encircled by roasted red baby beets and delicate chunks of nutty-flavored Toma Celena from Cooperstown Cheese Company. Sautéed sea bass was paired with house-made sausage, fava beans, and artichokes in a Chardonnay broth. The pan-roasted Stone Church Farm duck, the Café‘s top-selling dish (in photo), features tender, pink duck breast atop a curry-spiked grain salad of barley, wild rice and couscous, all from Wild Hive Farm in Clinton. Old favorites remain, including pizza Margherita with house-made tomato sauce, basil, mozzarella and ricotta, and, yes, even meatloaf, which now comes with an herb and Bulich Farm mushroom gravy and roasted-garlic whipped RSK Farm potatoes. Save room for dessert, especially in in spring, when you can get pound cake with strawberry compote, strawberry ice cream, and a dollop of crème fraiche. —Kathryn Matthews 1946 Campus Drive, Hyde Park Open Monday - Friday only when classes are in session. Please check the website for closures. Lunch: 11:30 a.m. - 1 p.m. Dinner: 6 - 8:30 p.m. through May 23 Reservations required:  845.471.6608 Hyde Park, New York 2012-04-30T01:42:21+00:00 http://www.ruralintelligence.com/index.php/ruralroadtrips_section/ruralroadtrips_articles_excursions/whose_omi_is_it_anyway/ http://www.ruralintelligence.com/index.php/ruralroadtrips_section/ruralroadtrips_articles_excursions/whose_omi_is_it_anyway/ Omi International Arts Center in Ghent has serious ivory-tower cred. Among the most selective artists’ retreats in this country, Omi stands out for its reach beyond U.S. borders for applicants. Perhaps that’s because its founder, Francis Greenburger, son of Sanford J. Greenburger, the legendary literary agent who, starting in the 30s, brought the likes of Kafka, Camus, and Sartre to this country, inherited his father’s global perspective on the arts.  No question, Omi has earned the right to be a high-minded cocoon.  Instead, as Marilyn Bethany reports, it doesn’t so much “reach out” to the community as leap over split-rail fences to embrace it with its free 80-acre sculpture park, recently enhanced with a high tech architectural component. There’s also a sophisticated cafe, miles from the nearest town, shimmering like a mirage in the wilderness, and events such as this Saturday’s nature/art walk-and-talk plus lunch.  And then there was that time when one of the residents, a dancer from Baltimore, turned the local town meeting into a scene right out of—think: Mayberry RFD meets Glee.    No, Omi is not some obscure form of sushi, though it is, as its administrative director Ruth Adams ruefully admits, “an octopus.”  Which part of the Omi International Arts Center in Ghent contains the cephalopod’s heart and which are its tangential tentacles depends entirely on who’s looking.  To thousands of annual visitors, the “300 acres and growing” property is perceived as a free sculpture park, called The Fields, where they may hike or cross-country ski on groomed trails through 80 acres of rolling hills dotted with an ever-refreshed assortment of monumental cutting-edge artworks.  To local parents, Omi is a community center where their kids can go to summer day camp and to year ‘round Saturday morning workshops in such worthy pursuits as making sunprint photographs.  To the lucky professional dancers, musicians, writers, translators and artists from around the world who make the cut, Omi is a prestigious residential retreat, where they can work all day, then fraternize at night, not just with their fellow artists but also with top gallerists, curators, critics, agents, and editors brought in from New York, the sort of dream network that could make all the difference to a career. (“Lives have been completely changed,” Adams says.) And finally, to those of us who spend our weekends ricocheting around Columbia County doing errands, the Café at Omi is a secret oasis of calm and sustenance.  Housed in a stunning piece of architecture, with equally stunning “framed” views from its light-washed interior, the cafe may be as popular for its design, done by Omi’s Architectural director Peter Franck and his wife Kathleen Triem, as for its delicious food crafted by a rotating team of enlightened chefs, using ingredients from the surrounding farms. Explaining the multi-limbed beast that is Omi is a constant challenge Adams says, recalling some unexpected help with this she once got. She had mentioned to Vincent Thomas, a visiting dancer from Baltimore, that she was heading into the village of Ghent for a town meeting.  He begged to go along.  Mystified, Adams nonetheless agreed.  As the meeting wound down, Thomas stood and introduced himself.  He then repeated some phrases he’d heard the various speakers say, accompanied by the body language they’d used to help express themselves.  He asked all assembled to do the gestures with him.  Amused, everyone went along.  Once he had them moving in unison, he said, “That’s dance,” and sat down.  Says Adams, “Our audience doubled after that.”    This Saturday, Omi extends yet another tentacle to the community by hosting a nature/art walk-and-talk on its grounds with Fields Sculpture Park director Bill Maynes, naturalist Sheldon Evans, and expert birder Joe Novick.  The walk will be followed by a box-lunch reception in the visitors’ center/cafe to celebrate publication of Columbia County Outdoors: A Guide to Recreational Areas, written by Evans under the auspices of the Columbia Land Conservancy.  This comprehensive and beautifully organized book makes clear where it’s okay for bikers, birders, boaters, hikers, even the wheelchair bound, to trespass within the county’s lightly populated 635 square miles of rolling woodlands, wetlands, meadows, lakes, rivers and creeks. Saturday’s is but one of the upcoming programs at Omi that the public is invited to attend.  On Saturday May 12, the current class at Writers Omi will host a free reading of their original fiction, poetry and translation, followed by a barbecue.  On June 2, the sculptor Alice Aycock (recently in the news for bringing suit against JFK airport’s management over their plan to remove a work by her that has hung from the ceiling of Terminal 1 since the building opened fourteen years ago) will be at Omi to celebrate the reconstruction of her 1975 piece, “A Simple Network of Underground Wells and Tunnels” sited in Omi’s latest wrinkle, its Architecture Park. That park also contains some “virtual” structures that appear only when cellphone screens are pointed toward specific “building sites,” once the required app has been downloaded.  Wild and crazy?  No, just ahead of the pack; perfectly normal for the kind of octopus Omi is.  —Marilyn Bethany       Omi International Arts Center 1405 County Road 22,  Ghent Free guided nature and art walk Saturday, May 5, noon Post walk box lunch: $10/reserved; $12/day-of Columbia County Outdoors: A Guide to Recreational Areas, $21.95 518.392.4747 Excursions 2012-04-29T17:16:13+00:00 http://www.ruralintelligence.com/index.php/food_section/food_restaurant_listing/smoked/ http://www.ruralintelligence.com/index.php/food_section/food_restaurant_listing/smoked/ Food labeled “southern comfort” — deep-fried and swimming-in-sauce — often leaves the diner seeking consolation in the medicine cabinet. Remedies won’t be necessary after a meal at Smoked, an unfussy hideaway just off the town green, which offers downhome cookin’ with uptown flair. “We’re not a traditional roadside BBQ joint,” says Andrew Hayes, who opened this hot spot with Elizabeth Owens, whom he first met in the kitchen of Manhattan’s Gramercy Tavern. “We both come from a fine-dining background.” Smoked starts with whole pigs, locally raised by Mike Meiller in Pine Plains, and butchered in-house. In addition to pulled pork shoulder, there’s also belly, glazed in a sweet mustard sauce and served with vegetables from Marble Valley Farm. Fried green tomatoes show up on both a trout BLT and on Beth’s Burger, which is also topped with homemade pimento cheese. Hayes puts a unique spin on classic shrimp and grits, adding sea urchin, lobster, and basil. “We love seasonal food: tomatoes and corn in the summer; pumpkins, apples, and pears in the fall,” says Hayes, which is evident even in Beth’s seasonally influenced desserts, such an olive oil cake with a hint of rosemary, or a simple but sumptuous fresh-from-the-fields fruity shortcake. Small, welcome touches such as these abound on the brief but enticing menu. — Jacque Lynn Schiller 1 Landmark Lane 860.927.7141 Wednesday: 5 -  9 p.m. Thursday: noon - 3 p.m. & 5 -  9 p.m. Friday: noon -  3 p.m. & 5 - 10 p.m. Saturday: 9 a.m. - 3 p.m. & 5 - 10 p.m. Sunday: brunch, 9 a.m. - 3 p.m.; lunch & dinner, noon - 9 p.m. Kent, Connecticut 2012-04-28T13:10:57+00:00 http://www.ruralintelligence.com/index.php/food_section/food_articles_recipes/asparagus_ramp_fritatta/ http://www.ruralintelligence.com/index.php/food_section/food_articles_recipes/asparagus_ramp_fritatta/ Berkshire native Alana Chernila, local politician, mother of two, and author of the new cookbook, The Homemade Pantry: 101 Foods You Can Stop Buying & Start Making (Clarkson Potter), dispenses change and cooking ideas at the Great Barrington Farmers’ Market. She shares her peak-of-the-season recipes, like this frittata that captures the essence of spring, with Rural Intelligence to help us make the most of what’s growing in the region’s farms, fields, and gardens.     Before we get into it–an apology. I’m just a little bit sorry for including ramps in this recipe. I’m sorry this recipe includes a food for which you might have to forage, most likely with someone who either 1) despite living in Brooklyn, seems to know her way around the woods better than any of the Boxcar children; or 2) is some old reclusive friend of your great uncle who offers to show you his “ramp spot.” Although I do come into a little bunch of ramps now and then, most of the time, I see beautiful recipes with ramps, and I feel that they are out of my reach. It is not a particularly inclusive ingredient. And with all that, how did I manage to find these ramps to scatter and roast with asparagus? The short answer is–they were a gift. In April, we had a little book party at The Chef’s Shop, hosted both by them and The Bookloft. The promise was snacks, book signing, and demonstrations, and we got most of that accomplished. My mother and I had been cooking for two days straight working on the snacks. I signed lots of books, and one demonstration happened, but I learned that cooking and signing are not complementary activities. At one point my friend Christina walked in with her mother, and after I squeezed out from behind the table to give her a hug, she presented me with a bunch of ramps that she had foraged from the farmers’ market in far away Saratoga Springs. Over the next few hours, those ramps sat on the table, and their perfume made me drunk. I was hungry, and just a little preoccupied by those ramps and what I would do with them. Toward the end of the afternoon I started squeezing lemons for ricotta. By the time it was ready there were just a few stragglers patiently waiting for their dixie cup of ricotta. I passed out the ricotta, happy, tired, and looking forward to a big glass of water (then a big glass of wine), and there they were, side by side on the table, warm ricotta and ramps. It was all I could do not to pull a cast iron pan off the display shelf and make this frittata right there. Like I said, I was hungry. Ramp, Asparagus, and Ricotta Frittata This might be my favorite in a long line of frittatas. It’s heavy on the ricotta, and the result is a bit denser and more substantial than a typical frittata. If you don’t have access to the ramps, no need to worry. As ramps are wild leeks, regular old leeks will do. Scallions or chives would also make a fitting replacement, but I’d recommend that you reduce the quantity by about half. (serves 6) One large bunch asparagus, trimmed of the tough stalk area (11-12 ounces after trimming), cleaned and dry 
1 bunch ramps (4 to 6 ounces)
 olive oil 
7 large eggs 
1/2 cup whole milk 
1 1/2 cups ricotta cheese 
1 1/4 teaspoons salt (use less if your ricotta is salted)
 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
 a few grinds of fresh-ground pepper
 2 tablespoons butter 1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Lightly grease a baking sheet with olive oil, and lay the asparagus on it. Drizzle with a bit more olive oil, and roast for 10 minutes. 2. Meanwhile, prepare the ramps. Cut off the root, and remove the loose outer skin around the bulb. Cut off the leaves, rinse, roughly chop, and set aside. Clean the bulbs of any excess dirt. Then, add the bulbs to the roasting asparagus and roast for another 5 minutes. Allow to cool for a few minutes, then roughly chop the asparagus and ramp bulbs. 3. In a blender, combine the eggs, milk, ricotta, salt, flour, and pepper. Blend until smooth. 4. Heat a 12-inch cast iron skillet over medium heat. Add the butter, and as it melts, spread it around the sides of the pan as well as the bottom. Add the ramp leaves and cook, stirring often, until the they wilt, about 1 minute. Then add the asparagus and ramp bulbs, then the egg mixture. Do not stir! 5. Preheat the broiler setting on your oven to a medium heat (if you have that option). While it heats, let the frittata cook on the stove top under your watchful eye. It will start to barely bubble and firm up, but what you’re really watching for is that moment when it starts to separate from the sides of the pan. If you smell any hint of burning, remove it from heat. Transfer to the oven, and watch carefully. Within a few minutes (or quicker- some broilers are fast!), the frittata will be golden and firm all the way through. Let cool for a few minutes before serving. This is also great cold, and excellent picnic fare. —Alana Chernila Recipes 2012-04-27T17:33:47+00:00 http://www.ruralintelligence.com/index.php/ruralroadtrips_section/ruralroadtrips_articles_lodgings/At_Chesterwood_Meadowlark_Gets_a_Hammertown-Style_Makeover/ http://www.ruralintelligence.com/index.php/ruralroadtrips_section/ruralroadtrips_articles_lodgings/At_Chesterwood_Meadowlark_Gets_a_Hammertown-Style_Makeover/ When sculptor Daniel Chester French, he of Lincoln Memorial and Minute Man fame, needed to escape the friends, family members, clients, models, assistants, and assorted others who disrupted the serenity of the home, studio, and gardens of his Stockbridge, Massachusetts estate, Chesterwood, he would steal away to his “Little Studio,” a rustic pavilion tucked off in the woods. There, in this secluded atelier, he could concentrate and work in peace. These days, the fact that French’s sylvan studio retreat (dubbed Meadowlark and converted into a summer house after the artist’s death in 1931) offers haven to other world-weary souls is one of this region’s best hidden-in-plain-sight secrets. In a unique arrangement between Chesterwood – now a National Trust Historic Site — and the Red Lion Inn, you can spend the night (or several of them) at Meadowlark, with free rein to wander throughout French’s estate, even under the starlit skies, after all the day guests have been ushered off the property, or at sunrise, before they arrive. Even better: this year, Meadowlark has a fresh, new look, thanks to Joan Osofsky of Hammertown. Donna Hassler, Director of Chesterwood, was already a Hammertown Great Barrington customer when a friend noted that Meadowlark’s décor could use an update and suggested that Osofsky might be of help. When asked, Osofsky recalls, “I thought: This is how I can help something that is great. This is a way that business can help the community.” Osofsky donated design services and material goods, some from Hammertown and some purchased from local suppliers and national companies – furniture, rugs, lighting, kitchenware, and linens – to give Meadowlark a makeover. “The beds were there, but we did everything else,” she says. Of her fresh take on Meadlowlark, which she characterizes as “modern country,” Osofsky says, “We wanted to keep things clean and simple with furnishings that would not take away from the beauty of the setting and the studio itself.” In keeping with Meadowlark’s history as part of an upscale, 122-acre country estate, Hammertown’s staff selected low-key, high-end finishes and furnishings: upholstered furniture by Mitchell Gold; top-quality items from local merchants; and ultraluxe Farrow & Ball paint for the walls. The result: a relaxed ambiance with a soothing, neutral palette of soft ivories, woody browns, and quiet taupes that suits Meadowlark’s natural setting and lets the structure sing.   While it’s awe-inspiring to be able to book a getaway in the very space where French worked on some of his most celebrated sculptures – including the iconic seated figure central to the Lincoln Memorial – anyone walking into Meadowlark will be equally awestuck by the cottage’s most prominent feature: a soaring, north-facing skylight/window that fills the living room with the ample natural light so prized by artists. “Joan really respected the bones of the building and the lightness and openness of the architecture,” says Hassler. “Now you walk in and your eyes go right to the skylight.” French’s former casting room is now a cozy country kitchen.     Two bedrooms —one upstairs and one down – offer comfort, privacy and the promise of a magical midsummer night’s dream. “For six months of the year, I am in heaven,” French once remarked of his time at Chesterwood. Given its seclusion and serene surroundings, Meadowlark’s guests might share the sentiment, especially those who need to steal away from the diversions of summer, if only to rejuvenate before braving the scene again the next day. Then again, given Meadowlark’s newly heightened allure, they may just decide to stay put. Reservations for overnight accommodations at Meadowlark can be made through the Red Lion Inn, which provides sumptuous breakfast baskets along with daily housekeeping services. Room rates range from $315 to $424 per night, depending upon the day of the week and the season. —Gladys Montgomery Lodgings 2012-04-27T02:17:53+00:00