Food

Discover the best food, farms, and dining in the Hudson Valley, Berkshires, and Litchfield Hills. Rural Intelligence shares local restaurant reviews, seasonal recipes, and stories celebrating regional flavor.

Food

A BBQ Pitmaster Rustles Up Some World Class Chow

Taghkanic resident John Markus is an expert at BBQ. What man isn't?, one might well ask. But, as it happens, Markus is the real deal. An Emmy-award winning TV writer (The Cosby Show, The Larry Sanders Show, among others) and the creator and executive producer of The Learning

By Editor

Food

Food News: Locavore Hero Award Nominees Announced

Eleven nominees have been announced for the new Victoria A. Simons Locavore Award, a prize established by Ms. Simons just weeks before her death last March following a brief battle with cancer. "I contacted Vicki and asked, 'Is there some kind of local legacy you'd like

By Editor

Food

AgriCulture: My Life in Tomatoes

Rural Intelligence bloggers Peter Davies and Mark Scherzer are the owners of Turkana Farms in Germantown, NY. This week Peter writes: As you may have already sensed, I am at an age when everything has a history. So when I think of tomatoes, my mind goes back to my first

By Editor

Food

AgriCulture: What Do Livestock Think?

Rural Intelligence bloggers Peter Davies and Mark Scherzer are the owners of Turkana Farms in Germantown, NY. This week Mark writes: Last week Peter wrote about animal learning, and whether domestic animals like farm animals might actually learn by observing humans. This week what's on my mind is

By Editor

Food

AgriCulture: Our Three Sadder-But-Wiser Sheep

Rural Intelligence bloggers Peter Davies and Mark Scherzer are the owners of Turkana Farms in Germantown, NY. This week Peter writes: We are not in any way experts on animal behavior, by no means, but we have had lots of opportunities these past ten years for keen observation. We are

By Editor

Food

The Menschy Milkmen of Ronnybrook Farm Dairy

Twenty years ago, the Osofsky Brothers went back to the future. They started bottling milk at the dairy farm that their parents started in 1941 on hundreds of rolling acres that straddle Pine Plains and Ancramdale (which makes them both Dutchess and Columbia County farmers.) By 1991, a glass milk

By Editor

Food

Guido's Fresh Melon Sorbet & Granita

Although commercial honeydew and cantaloupe have become readily available year round in most areas, they don't taste anything like sweet summer melons. (A cantaloupe in the middle of January can taste like, well, crispy water) This is the prime time for melons when we start seeing Crenshaw, Golden

By Editor

Food

AgriCulture: The Sensuous Farm, Adults Only

Rural Intelligence bloggers Peter Davies and Mark Scherzer are the owners of Turkana Farms in Germantown, NY. This week Mark writes: I’ve read that one of the most popular uses of the internet is to gain access to pornography. If small farm agriculture is going to compete in the

By Editor

Food

Bizen Gourmet Japanese Cuisine

The Dinner Specials alone fill seven pages

By Lisa Green

Food

Amy Cotler's Tuscan Tomato Bread Soup

My husband may be the love of my life, but soup is my culinary ballast, reliably providing a hug, asking little in return, only a bowl to hold it and a spoon to consume it. And this soup is summer’s embrace—a trip to Tuscany-in-a-bowl. Make Poppa al Pomadoro

By Editor

Food

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

By Editor

Food

AgriCulture: The Sanctity of Leeks

Peter Davies and Mark Scherzer are the owners of Turkana Farms in Germantown, NY. This week Peter writes: At last, rain. If only in helpful little increments. The ground at last feels soft underfoot, and the pastures are rapidly greening. What a difference rain water, as opposed to well water,

By Editor