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

Mezze Bistro + Bar Makes Its Move in Williamstown

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

By Editor

Food

About That Vineyard…

Christopher Matthews, a wine and spirits writer and educator, divides his time between Manhattan and Red Hook, Dutchess County. He has been the wine and spirits columnist for New York Law Journal Magazine since 2004, and has written about food and drink for Epicurious.com and the Culinary Institute of

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Food

AgriCulture: Sex and the Barnyard

Peter Davies and Mark Scherzer are the owners of Turkana Farms in Germantown, NY. This week Peter writes: He was displaying already in early April, a brilliant, luminous arc of blue and green, virtually enfolding in his vibrating tail feathers the sole object of his desire—our dainty white pea

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Food

Canapés for Locavores: Seasonal Bruschetta

Now that all sorts of goodies are popping out of the ground in rapid succession, it’s time to lather toasted baguettes with everything local. Go ahead and play with your food. I made these three tasty variations with what was on hand here — sweet radishes and young arugula from

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Food

AgriCulture: How to Fatten a Goose

Peter Davies and Mark Scherzer are the owners of Turkana Farms in Germantown, NY. This week Mark writes: I'm skating onto thin ice here (as befits such a warm May day) by even mentioning a highly controversial product: foie gras. I can readily imagine a deep split in

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Food

AgriCulture: Separating the Bad Seeds from the Good

Peter Davies and Mark Scherzer are the owners of Turkana Farms in Germantown, NY. This week Peter writes: Seeds have been very much on my mind of late. Largely, it would seem, because of the hours recently spent in the greenhouse painstakingly inserting them into peat pots and flats of

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Food

Spring Pizza with the Toppings of the Moment

Asparagus and ramps have a natural affinity. "There's an expression that chefs use, What grows together goes together," explains Jim Gop, the in-house chef at Guido's Fresh Marketplace, who has been making this spring pizza for the past few weeks. Although he grew up

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Food

Restaurants: Spring Pickings at Mercato

You know the eating is good if Italians are in the house.

By Lisa Green

Food

AgriCulture: Non-contributing Members of Farm Society

Peter Davies and Mark Scherzer are the owners of Turkana Farms in Germantown, NY. This week Mark writes: Perhaps it's advancing age, but sometimes these days I find myself focused on ideas or phrases I learned in the distant past. Most recently, I've been dwelling on

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Food

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,

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Food

AgriCulture: May Day! Turkana Farms Goes to Pot

Peter Davies and Mark Scherzer are the owners of Turkana Farms in Germantown, NY. This week Mark writes: Our turkey poults, Bourbon Reds, Spanish Blacks and Naragansetts, have arrived from the hatchery and are in the hayloft of the sheep barn under heat lamps until they feather out. What Peter

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Food

A Forager's Favorite: Ramp Pesto

In the Berkshires and Hudson Valley, foraging for ramps has become a fetish of sort. I bumped into two fellow foragers gathering ramps two miles from my house. Even from my car, I could see the woods were lousy with ramps as well as the red flowers topping endangered trillium.

By Editor