The Sublime Taste of Columbia County Bounty
Since the food one gets at the Columbia County Fairgrounds during the county fair has the Ridiculous category well covered (if it can’t be deep fried, forget it), the sophisticated locavore fare that will comprise next Tuesday’s gala Columbia County Bounty dinner at that same charming venue has Sublime all to itself. As every Food Network watcher knows, chefs are a competitive bunch, particularly when they know their fellow chefs are watching. Hence, for the several dozen participating in this year’s event, things may be a little tense. For the rest of us? We get to sit back, relax, and enjoy the fruits (as well as the vegetables, meats, dairy products, baked goods—in short, the bounty) of this incredible place we call home.
The dinner, a fundraiser for Columbia County Bounty to which the general public is invited, features “tastes” of over 40 different offerings, including several from kids cooking contingents. The chefs will mingle, meet and greet. The point is to get the word out about the county’s great agrarian economy and to introduce the public to the players and products from our farms, dairies, wineries, orchards, bakeries, and restaurants.
The Taste of Columbia County Bounty
Fairhouse at the Columbia County Fairgrounds
Route 66
Chatham, NY
August 2; 5 - 8 p.m.
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Posted by Marilyn Bethany on 07/28/10 at 12:28 PM • Permalink
A Farm Fresh Ice Cream Parlour in Pine Plains
You scream, I scream, we all scream for . . . Osofsky? When it comes to ice cream in Pine Plains, it’s all in the family: Nina Osofsky (left) whose husband and father-in-law—Peter and Rick Osofsky—work at family-owned Ronnybrook Farm Dairy, opened an old fashioned, fresh-smelling ice cream parlour called The Scoop Creamery on Route 199 a few weeks ago. It features hand-packed Ronnybrook ice cream (such as Toasted Hazelnut Crunch, Ginger Crème Brûlée, Columbia County Coffee) which is made on the farm a few miles away in Ancramdale. “This is as local as it gets!” says Nina.
Ironically, city people seem to know Ronnybrook better than many locals. “New Yorkers and weekenders know Ronnybrook from the Greemarkets and love that the milk comes in glass bottles with the cream on top,” she says. “Some people mistakenly think it’s a huge company like Horizon Organic, but it’s not that big. Everything is made in small batches.”
A tea expert by training who had business dealings with Harney Tea in Millerton and who worked for Sebastian Beckwith’s In Pursuit of Tea company in Cornwall, she has already experimented with making tea-flavored soft-serve ice cream. “I also make frozen yogurt using the Ronnybrook Drinkable Yogurts.” She is also selling cakes, tarts and pies by local baker Jennifer Blackburn of Telu Confections. “There was no place to buy a nice cake around here,” she says. Sundaes and banana splits come topped with freshly made Ronnybrook whipped cream, but the most popular items right now seems to be the old-fashioned floats such as the Purple Cow (vanilla ice cream with grape soda) and the extra thick milkshakes.
Nina’s goal is to make her ice-cream shop a hangout where everyone in town will feel welcome, especially families with young children. “The need for someplace like this came to me when i had my daughter fourteen months ago,” she says, noting that her brother-in-law Charlie Norman owns the next door Mountain Cow Cafe so there is synergy between the two eateries. Though Nina is selling high end ice cream, she has deliberately priced her cones to compete with the Stewart’s Shops convenience store in town (which happens to have a friendly staff that hand-scoops ice cream, too.) “A kiddie cone here is just $1.25, and it’s not that small, and a regular cone is $2.50,” she says. “The locals love it, and they’re making coming here after dinner a ritual. It’s becoming a happening place.”
The Scoop Creamery
2981 Church Street, Pine Plains; 508.277.1465
Monday - Thursday 1 p.m. 8 p.m.
Friday - Sunday 11 a.m. - 8 p.m.
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Posted by Dan Shaw on 07/21/10 at 11:35 AM • Permalink
Gypsy Joynt: A Boho Family Restaurant in Great Barrington
Fiona Breslin, a student at the New School University, reports from Great Barrington:
“We’re not gypsies,” says Caitlyn Stafford, 24, whose family owns the six-month-old Gypsy Joynt on Route 7. “We’re here to stay.” The name Gypsy Joynt was inspired by her family’s move last fall from Goldsboro, North Carolina, to the Berkshires, when Keith and Lori Weller and their five children—Caitlyn, Merry Milling, 22, Jordan, 20, Haley, 17, and Braedan, 14—their two grandchildren, two sons-in-law, and a sister-in-law decided to relocate their established restaurant, Ya’lls Joynt. Caitlyn chose the Berkshires, where the family had come on vacations. “Mom said to everybody, if one person doesn’t want to move than we don’t,” recalls Haley. “In November, we packed up and pulled up here.” In January they opened Gypsy Joynt.
The family works as a team, managing the restaurant side-by-side. “Some people don’t understand family working together,” says Caitlyn. “For us, it’s not just a job— it’s a way of life.” Decorated with collaged rock and roll posters, Christmas lights, piñatas, a sticker advocating nude beaches, a mural portrait resembling Keith, a pirate flag, and an American flag, Gypsy Joynt has humor and individuality. To the left of the entrance, there’s a large, elevated, stage for music. To the right, family photos hang on a purple wall. It’s reminiscent of a long ago time in the Berkshires, evoking the spirit of flower power. But “this idea didn’t suit Goldsboro,” says Merry, who, like her parents and siblings, speaks tersely. “It was good timing for a change,” says Lori.
Most every dish served is organic, prepared from scratch, and dreamt up in the Gypsy kitchen, where only four people can work together at a time. The delectable menu includes oven-baked pizzas on fresh dough, rich pastas like ziti or lasagna with homemade sauce, salads with grilled vegetables and homemade dressings like a raspberry vinaigrette. There’s an oven-baked burger (named the Mort Rainey, after a Johnny Depp character), with mushroom, melted provolone, and homemade pesto that is highly recommended. “We don’t get complaints often,” says Haley with humility and honesty.
Lori Weller sets the pace for the family. “My wife is a tremendous cook, always has been,” says Keith. “She’s Gypsy Joynt.” Lori grew up in Galveston Island, Texas, and learned to cook from her own mother and grandmother who also ran restaurants. She taught her children to cook, passing the proficiency on to them. “So we would all be able to eat well outside the house,” says Haley. Still, the children have chosen to remain together. “She’s the creativity,” says Keith. And then Laurie adds: “The children expound on it.”
Haley describes the bond among her family to be like that of a pack of wolves. And like a tribe, they are all tattooed. The word “family” is inked on their forearms in Hebrew, French, English, and Hawaiian. Each member of the family has it in a different language. Braedan will have “family” tattooed in Gaelic when he gets a little older. “Ink in and blood out,” they say.
And music is as integral to Gypsy Joynt as food. Jordan, a musician and composer, books the Wednesday Open Mic Night and Friday night performances. “We have some pretty big acts coming in,” he says, citing groups like Tao Seegar Band, Guy Davis, and The SweetBack Sisters. In July, they will start having Saturday night shows, too. My brother picks who’s good,” says Haley, with an unalterable trust in him. “He’s the music man.”
On a recent Saturday afternoon, the restaurant was alive: a young woman sat having lunch with her daughter, two women met for a midday bite, and a party of four conversed in the corner. People rotated in and out, picking up pizzas to go. “We’re much more received here,” says Merry. While tourist season has been good for business, relationships with locals and regulars are “first and foremost,” says Keith. For care of the community and of each other, they put love and passion into their cooking, “We eat here,” he says.
Gypsy Joynt
398 Stockbridge Road, Great Barrington; 413.664.8811
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Posted by Dan Shaw on 06/23/10 at 11:42 AM • Permalink
Hudson Caterer Marianna Vadukul to Appear on Bobby Flay
“I met Nitin on his first day in New York,” says Marianna Vadukul, of her husband, the photographer Nitin Vadukul. At the time, Marianna, the daughter of a Venezuelan diplomat, had not long been in the States herself. In due course, the couple married, and Marianna found herself taking instruction from Nitin’s mother and sister in the art of being a good Indian wife. “Food is an important part of their culture,” she says. So they honored her with a gift, Nitin’s grandmother’s spices, and taught her how to cook with them.
Already an avid cook, she proved to be an apt pupil. These days, from her Hudson-based Indian delivery/catering kitchen, Saffron at Hudson, Marianna turns out steaming tikkas and vindaloos for, among others, the Chatham Real Food Coop, where they are available to eat in or take out. Marianna’s Indian food, while authentic tasting, strays from some of the traditional ingredients and techniques her in-laws taught her. “I’m more likely to bake than fry, and I’ll often substitute a healthier ingredient—olive oil or yogurt—for a less healthy one, such as ghee,” she says, referring to the long-simmered, strained liquid butter that is a staple of Indian cuisine. “Moving up to the Hudson Valley and being surrounded by so many local farmers has also enriched my food,” she says, “pushing it in a much more natural way.”
Several months ago, Marianna went to New York City to audition for the Food Network. “They told me they were doing a whole series on new, ethnic chefs,” she says. Not surprisingly, the Venezuelan beauty passed muster, “so they came to Hudson and tried my food,” she says. Thus convinced, when it came to actually shoot the show, the folks at the network sent in the big guns. “Suddenly Bobby Flay came through the door, and I felt this energy, as if it were coming through the floor,” she says. “I was totally surprised.”
Thirty million people watch his Food Network show, “Throwdown with Bobby Flay.” Unfortunately, next week, when her episode airs for the first time, Marianna will not be one of them. Presently in Portugal for her sister’s wedding, she is planning to hold an event at the Chatham Real Food Coop sometime in August [when her plans firm, Rural Intelligence will report them]. “I’ll play the tape of the show, then I’ll do a demo,” she says. And then, just as her mother- and sister-in-law did for her, “I’ll give everyone a gift of Indian spices.”
Marianna Vadukul on Throwdown with Bobby Flay
June 23; 9 p.m.
Jun 24; Noon
July 3, 2010, 7 p.m.
Saffron at Hudson
Hudson, NY
The Chatham Real Food Coop
Route 203, just west of Route 66
Chatham, NY
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Posted by Marilyn Bethany on 06/15/10 at 09:19 AM • Permalink
Mezze Bistro + Bar Makes Its Move in Williamstown
Photographs by Jason Houston
When Nancy Thomas opened Mezze fourteen years ago on Water Street, she was behind the stove. Her restaurant had 50 seats and served mostly mezze—small plates of exoctically spiced food inspired by her Moroccan mother. It quickly became the hangout for academics and the dot.com crowd (led by Bo Peabody of Tripod.com) that was working and partying hard in Williamstown. Eventually, she moved the restaurant up the street, expanded to 100 seats, partnered with Peabody, and refocused the menu by hiring chefs who were as excited as she was about local farm-to-table cuisine. She then opened Café Latino at MASS MoCA (now closed) and Allium in Great Barrington while Mezze and its catering division became as integral to the community as The Clark, MASS MoCA, and Williamstown Theatre Festival.
Now, Thomas is wearing high heels and dresses at Mezze’s new, airy home just south of town on Cold Spring Road (aka Route 7.) “My bankers said I should really own my locations,” says Thomas, an Oklahoma native, who purchased the old Jae’s Inn (previously Le Jardin) at auction. “I really wasn’t expecting to get it, but it allowed us to own our catering kitchen, too, which really made sense though we were sad to leave MASS MoCA [where her catering operation as based].” Located in a park-like setting next door to Sheep Hill (50 acres proteced by the Williamstown Rual Lands Foundation), Mezze is surrounded by a newly planted native, edible landscape that will develop over three to five years. “I am not planning to farm here,” she says. “But I am trying to tell my story in a new way and express a real connection to the land.”
As a farm-to-table advocate, she believes in supporting local farmers and celebrating native foods. “My chef, Joji Sumi, goes to Mighty Food Farm almost every day,” says Thomas, whose current menu credits Cricket Creek Farm, Peace Valley Farm, Berle Farm, Northeast Family Farms. Although most of these farms are within 15 minutes of the restaurant, she believes that the Berkshires is best suited to raising animals, and that the adjacent Hudson and Pioneer Valleys can grow vegetables more efficiently on a larger scale. “Part of my outreach to young talent is to explain what incredible animals people are raising here,” she says. “Young chefs like to butcher their own meat and make charcuterie.” She loves Sumi’s “American Charcuterie Plate” ($10) that pays homage to his midwestern roots by remaking middlebrow classics with local ingredients: beef jerky, summer sausage, and a walnut cheese ball that is a riff on a women’s magazine favorite from the 1960s. But most of the menu is totally contemporary: local radishes served with minted English pea butter ($7), warm asparagus salad with morels & Mighty Food Farm egg ($12), fried organic tofu with mushroom miso broth and Mighty Food Farm bok choy ($12); fettucine with Cricket Creek Farm pork & veal Bologonese ($21); grilled bistro steak with mizuna & arugula salad ($20).
The new Mezze, which opened to the public on June 6, has a lovely graciousness. “I think I have gotten more feminine in my taste,” says Thomas, who had the walls painted a stylish pale gray and the ceiling a vibrant peacock blue. “I did funky things like have all the built ins painted a hot-pink beet color, and used 1960s chairs from the old Taconic Restaurant. I recycled the marble tops from the sushi bar that was here before and brought the bar that I saved from Verdura where Allium is now. I had been storing it in a barn. And the outdoor furniture on the deck is recycled from Café Latino. I wanted this restaurant to have a sense of our history.” The bar, which stays open most nights until 1 a.m., is designed for dining earlier in the evening. “We have a lot of mature diners who want to eat casually at the bar,” she says. “I always have lamps on the bar. They make it cozy.”
Although she’s a very hand’s on boss, she defers to North Adams gallery owner Kurt Kolok about what contemporary art to show on her walls. “I love working with Kurt,” she says. “This is such a serious art community with so many scholars. I could never choose art myself.” There are guest rooms upstairs but she hasn’t yet decided what to do with them. “I don’t want to be an innkeeper,” she says. “But I wouldn’t mind having chefs and farmers spend the night.”
Mezze
777 Cold Spring Road, Williamstown; 413.458.0123
Sunday & Monday 5 - 9 p.m.
Tuesday - Thursday 5 - 10 p.m.
Friday & Saturday 5 - 11 p.m. (summer)
Bar open most nights until 1 a.m.
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Posted by Dan Shaw on 06/09/10 at 04:05 AM • Permalink
Taste, Where Mexican Mexican is Not Called Mexican
“I don’t call it Mexican,” says Chris Hebert, the proprietor of Taste, a (so far) lunch-only café within the Hudson Supermarket.
Though Hebert’s menu features the likes of carnitas con tomatilla, puerco en barbacoa, rice and beans, this food is not Mexican?
True, some things are not always what they seem. The Hudson Supermarket, for example, is not a place to buy groceries, though the building it occupies on Hudson’s Warren Street once was. Now it’s more like a mini lifestyle department store, where an eclectic group of stylish (mostly) vintage and antiques dealers conduct business as one. Among them is Chris Hebert and his former partners in Toad Hall, a once-upon-a-time boutique within the fashion-forward ABC Carpet & Home in New York.
Taste, the café at the back of this entertaining enterprise, recently came under Hebert’s direction. And it serves (hate to contradict the guy) Mexican food. “Everybody has some strange idea of what Mexican food is, and they often ‘hate it,’ based on a bad experience with Tex-Mex or they ‘love it’ based on a good experience with Tex-Mex,” Hebert explains. “Either way, they probably have never tasted real Mexican food.”
Hebert has. A mostly self-taught cook from a foodie family (his dad, a goat farmer, created the incredible Nettle Meadow chèvre, which Hebert sells at the café), he had always “loved Mexican food,” Tex-Mex and otherwise. Twelve years ago, to learn more about the real deal, he traveled to the Michaocan state of Mexico to take an intensive cooking course with the legendary Diana Kennedy. Kennedy, the widow of a New York Times correspondent who had been assigned to Mexico in the 1950s and ‘60s, has spent more than half a century researching, documenting, and disseminating through some eight cookbooks Mexico’s regional cuisines, traditions many authorities believe might have been lost otherwise. As an expression of their gratitude, the Mexican government has granted her their equivalent of a knighthood.
It is this food, Mexican Mexican, that Hebert serves at the café, which he admits is his “low risk way of getting into the restaurant business.” Though he continues to sell home furnishings (including the tables and chairs at Taste) and does most of the display throughout the store, his dreams these days center on developing Taste into something more than a lunch spot. With a wife and daughter at home across the river in Greene County, Hebert now confines his night shift duty to occasional private parties for between eight and 40 at the store. But there’s a large curtained off corner adjacent to Taste that tickles his imagination. He can see a supper club, perhaps with guest chefs serving other, obscure cuisines.
Meanwhile, customers at Taste can’t believe their good fortune. Neighborhood people such as Timothy Dunleavy, owner of Rural Residence down the block, nip in almost daily for their Hebert fix. “All this for ten bucks?,” Dunleavy marvels as he whisks his steaming lunch back to his store. Quite right. An arugula salad with a peppery citrus dressing and a garnish of toasted pecans and coarsely chopped, locally-grown apples and radishes; pork marinated in an ancho chili sauce then slow cooked with banana and avocado leaves; fish for tacos that first has been sautéed with chili d’arbol and garlic, then dressed in a lime juice, lemongrass, and serrano chili vinaigrette—for a sawbuck, no one has a right to expect such finesse.
Extraordinary food at a fraction of its potential price? Now that is a fragile construct. Better come and get it while it lasts.
Taste
The Café at Hudson Supermarket
310 Warren Street
Hudson; 518.822.0028
Thursday, Friday, Sunday & Monday, noon - 5 p.m.
Saturday, noon - 6 p.m.
Closed Tuesday & Wednesday
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Posted by Marilyn Bethany on 05/26/10 at 06:55 AM • Permalink
Restaurants: Spring Pickings at Mercato
by Kathryn Matthews, a lifestyles writer based in New York City and Red Hook, Dutchess County, who frequently writes about travel, health, food and leisure for the New York Times, Town & Country and O Magazine.
You know the eating is good if Italians are in the house. And at Mercato Osteria and Enoteca in Red Hook, they’re a discreet but constant presence. See over there: the red pony-tailed, clog-wearing chef, Mario Batali, has popped in for a visit. That raucous laughter in the back room? That’s Frances Coppola celebrating his granddaughter Gia’s graduation from Bard with a happy clutch of family and friends. On another night, we spot comedian and actor Mario Cantone, best known as “Anthony”, Charlotte’s high-strung wedding planner in Sex and the City, who was mellow—and all smiles—as he and several friends finished their meal.
Another glance around the jam-packed room—a diverse mix of Bard faculty, students, weekenders, locavore foodies and Italianophiles—and it’s obvious from bits of conversation drifting our way: the food and the excellent all-Italian wine list (with 12 to16 wines available by the glass) are the main draws.
Mercato’s menu changes weekly, highlighting seasonal, farm-grown produce and locally raised meats. Right now, spring flavors bloom on your plate in myriad, delicious ways: a lovely pea shoot and frisee salad, flecked with shaved fennel, artichoke and parmesan in a truffle-emulsion vinaigrette ($11); braised artichoke hearts flavored with olive oil, garlic and mint ($9); silken pillows of handmade ravioli filled with Coach Farm ricotta and spinach with brown sage butter ($13), and whole roasted branzino, draped in garlic-studded escarole, resting upon black beluga lentils ($25).
In Italy, a traditional osteria, often found in the countryside, is usually a family-run restaurant, a casual and inexpensive place to enjoy a good glass of wine and simply prepared, home-style dishes. It was in this spirit, in 2006, that Francesco Buitoni and his wife-and-partner, Michele Platt, transformed the space that once housed the vegetarian restaurant Luna 61 into an osteria that is as close to authentic as you can get. Right down to the couple’s two eager helpers—their sons—Luca Matteo, 5, and Giacomo Ardemio, 3, who want to make pasta with “Papa”. (Yes, Buitoni makes fresh pastas, such as the tagliatelle and ravioli, daily).
Weekends here are always busy, so make a reservation if you don’t want to wait. Over several consecutive weekends, we chose to dine at the sleek Carrara marble-top bar (built by a Tivoli artisan), which gave us a bird’s eye view of the rustic-chic space, featuring cheery yellow walls, bare wooden tabletops and an open kitchen. In the corner of the main dining room, specials are scrawled on a large red chalkboard. The pasta shop in the back room is often the site of large celebratory parties. And, with the first hint of warm weather, the modest porch becomes a hotspot.
“What is THAT?” I asked our server, drooling into my Prosecco as I pointed to a vertically stacked antipasti en route to its recipient.
“That” turned out to be a generous mess of sautéed Wiltbank Farm mushrooms, layered with fresh Coach Farm goat curd and a soft, warm wedge of polenta, on a bed of arugula and sweet roasted beets ($10). On an unseasonably cold spring evening, it was the perfect starter—as comforting as it was delicious. My raging hunger dulled, I savored the tagliatelle bolognese—handmade tagliatelle tossed in a long-simmered ragu of local veal, beef and pork and dusted with Grana Padano ($18). Sipping a glass of Gavi (Stefano Massone, $9), my husband set to work on a “chopped kale salad”, ribbons of kale mingled with black currants, pine nuts and pecorino shavings, dressed in a Champagne vinaigrette ($10). He then proceeded onto a glass of Chianti Colli Senesi (Cerro, $10) and a saffron-tinged risotto, a creamy medley of prosciutto, leeks and plump wild Gulf shrimp ($23).
Portions are just right—not Olive Garden-sized entrees, but not trendy, overpriced “small plates” either. And the enthusiastic staff is professional, accommodating and knowledgeable about the food they’re serving and the wines they’re pouring.
If you think that Buitoni’s cooking tastes like he had a little help in his kitchen from a secret Nonna, you wouldn’t be wrong.
Growing up in Rome and New York, he comes by his love of good food honestly. His father’s family started Buitoni Pasta in 1827 and later purchased Perugina. His beloved Nonna (on his mother’s side), who was originally from Bologna, had a wheat farm, just north of Rome, where Buitoni spent much of his childhood. Nonna Sandra’s influence was profound, he says: “My grandmother taught me that if I wanted to eat well, I would have to learn how to cook.”
Luckily for us, he did.
He spent years working at various New York City restaurants, like San Domenico and Teodora, with stints as a wine rep and as a sommelier at Mario Batali’s Otto. He also made the rounds upstate, cooking at Stoney Creek (now closed) in Tivoli, Gigi’s in Rhinebeck, and Ca’ Mea in Hudson. When it came to opening his own restaurant, the allure of the Hudson Valley proved stronger than Manhattan. “I wanted to be in a beautiful country setting, close to farms and green markets,” he said, “because the quality of ingredients is very important to me.”
Spoken like a true Italian.
Mercato Osteria and Enoteca
61 East Market Street (Route 199)
Red Hook; 845.758.5879
Wednesday - Thursday, 5:30 p.m. - 9:30 p.m.
Friday - Saturday, 5:30 p.m. - 10 p.m.
Sunday, 5 p.m. - 9 p.m.
Closed Monday & Tuesday
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Posted by Marilyn Bethany on 05/16/10 at 06:20 AM • Permalink
Farmed & Foraged: Restaurants Where the Wild Things Are
There was a time not so long ago when a locally grown item might have been a novelty on a menu hereabouts, but for years now in this bastion of enlightenment we call the Rural Intelligence Region, locally grown and produced food is what good restaurants routinely serve. Nonetheless, this weekend, not just in Berkshire County, but in the Pioneer Valley and in the city of Hudson as well, chefs will dig deeper into their own imaginations and into the storehouse of locally-grown food to show their support for Berkshire Grown‘s annual Farmed & Foraged event.
In addition to putting special emphasis on the locally grown produce, cheeses, meats and breads they always feature, some participating venues also will be offering wild edibles. Just as she did last year, Chef Katherine Miller of EnlightenNext, a spiritual retreat center in Lenox, will go whole hog (not to slur her scrupulously vegetarian menu) with the forage, serving up such exotica as cattails, the ubiquitous wetlands plants. Michael Ballon, the owner-chef of Castle Street Cafe in Great Barrington had hoped to enrich his usual locavore menu with shad roe, but nature (or Global Warming) intervened. There was no shad on the Hudson River this spring or last, so instead, on Sunday from noon - 2 p.m., Ballon will showcase the new brunch menu he will be introducing this summer, when the restaurant adds an outdoor serving area. To compensate for the absence of the shad roe, Ballon is offering a special brew. “A friend who lives on Mt. Washington is gathering birch branches for me, so we can make birch tea,” he says.
The Red Lion Inn is another shining example of the triumph of the locavore movement. The Inn’s dining room, once famous for its New England clam chowder and Yankee pot roast, has been transformed, especially since Brian Alberg took over as executive chef in 2004. “Everybody knows I routinely buy from local farmers and foragers,” Alberg says. “But an event like this makes me be more creative, boosts my energy and keeps me interested.” One dish on his prix fixe menu this weekend—a McEnroe Farm Organic Tomato Soup with a swirl of arugula puree and a generous garnish of chopped ramps and bacon from pigs Alberg raised himself. “It’s my version of a BLT,” he says.
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Even Baba Louie’s is getting in on the act. This weekend, when you chomp on that slice of pizza, the green stuff may not be basil, it could be wild ramps.
Berkshire Grown’s website offers sketches of some two dozen restaurants’ Farmed and Foraged offerings (some prix fixe, others a la carte, some all weekend; others just Saturday night) but strongly encourages diners to contact their chosen venue directly for updates and reservations.
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Posted by Marilyn Bethany on 05/15/10 at 04:01 PM • Permalink
The Amazing Real Live Stars of the Farmers’ Market
Locavorism begins with geography, but it’s essentially about community: knowing, trusting and liking the people who produce your food. Rory Chase and Peter Destler, the very likable Pine Plains natives who started The Amazing Real Live Food Co. two years ago, work the farmers market circuit—in Kingston, Millbrook, Rhinebeck and Woodstock—to forge personal relationships with their customers, schmoozing while offering samples of their rich Camembert, queso blancos, and freshly herbed farmer’s cheeses.
Indeed, longtime relationships are the foundation of their business. Chase and Dessler have been best buddies since childhood, and it was their Pine Plains friend Dan Osofsky who made it possible for them to first make cheese at his family’s Ronnybrook Farm Dairy and his cousin Gregg Osofsky who helped design their graphics (and whose mother, Joan, of Hammertown Barn, is their biggest fan.) 
“Rory was a farm kid, and I lived in town which was only a few miles away, and I was glad that I didn’t have to get up at 4 a.m. to milk cows like he did,” says Destler, who spent enough time with the Chase family to develop farm cred. After high school, Chase went to Tufts University and Destler went to the Culinary Institute of America. They reunited after graduation and impulsively moved together to California (after an epic cross-country road trip), and they pursued separate careers for eight years until Chase announced he wanted to move back to Pine Plains. “He said, ‘Petey, I need you to come home to make cheese,” recalls Destler. “I thought, That’s crazy, but he’s my best friend so I said, Yes.”
When RI first discovered the Amazing Real Live Camembert 18 months ago, the guys were still working out of Ronnybrook Dairy (and, in fact, they make some cheeses that Ronnybrook sells under its own label at New York City farmers’ markets.) Two months ago, the Amazing Real Live Food Co. moved into its own cheese-making facility in a renovated chicken coop at Chaseholm Farm, a 350 acre dairy farm on the Pine Plains/Ancram border that has been in the Chase family for generations. “Our production has grown from 250 gallons of milk a week to 500,” says Destler. “We make 650 Camemberts a week.” They are working on developing a Gruyère, a Tomme, and a “Camembozola” that will be a cross between a camembert and Gorgonzola. Matt Rubiner, the hard-to-please Great Barrington cheesemonger, now sells their Camembert. “It looks like a real Camembert, with it’s off grey-white velvet rind tinged with tans, even reds, says Rubiner. “Not the fluffy bone white rinds of industrial Camemberts. And it behaves and misbehaves like a Camembert, going in the right hands from firm and bright, to supple and mushroomy to liquid and edgy. Good to have it around.”
Hitting the farmers’ markets provides the guys an opportunity not only for direct marketing but also for market research. “People have flipped for our Camembert noir which has a black rind and is aged for five to six months,” says Destler. Although offering local “farmstead cheeses” is a good selling point within a 100-mile radius of Pine Plains, it will not be the reason why customers outside the Hudson Valley and Berkshires buy their cheeses, which have a clean, fresh-from-the-farm taste. Fortunately, Chase and Destler have another angle. “Our farmers cheeses, queso blancos and ice cream are probiotic,” Destler says as if you surely know what he’s talking about. When queried, he offers up his farmers’ market spiel: “Probiotics are good live bacteria, like acidophilus in yogurt,” he says enthusiastically. “They work with the enzymes in your body. They’re good for your digestion and immune system. Hence our name: The Amazing Real Live Food Company.”
What’s more amazing is that two childhood friends have returned to their agricultural hometown with the goal of building a national business with a rural soul. “We’re back in Pine Plains to stay,” says Chase, who hopes to offer tours of his cheee-making facility soon. “We plan to open a wine bar in town, a place to hang out with our friends, and perhaps have a cheese cave in the basement.” Adds Destler: “Pine Plains is a bastion of rural authenticity in Dutchess County. We had to go away to be able to appreciate just how special it is.”
The Amazing Real Live Food Co.
96 Chase Road, Pine Plains, NY; 581.398.0368
Saturdays at the Millbrook Farmers’ Market (beginning May 29)
Sundays at the Rhinebeck Farmers’ Market (beginning May 9)
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Posted by Dan Shaw on 05/05/10 at 07:29 PM • Permalink
Food News: Take Home a Taste of Swoon
Swoon Kitchenbar owners Jeff and Nina Gimmel have made their mark on Columbia County’s culinary scene with their simply prepared local food. Now they are marketing their own sausage and paté so we can have a taste of Swoon at home. This Saturday, the Hudson-Chatham Winery, whose tasting room will be one of the places to buy Swoon’s new products, help the Gimmels launch their project by hosting a barbecue. Jeff Gimmel will be there grilling sausages and offering samples from the terrines.
Hudson Catham Winery
1900 Route 66; Ghent
Saturday, April 24; noon - 2 p.m.
Swoon Kitchenbar
340 Warren Street; Hudson
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Posted by Marilyn Bethany on 04/21/10 at 09:28 AM • Permalink
