Yesterday some Rhinebeck parents cut up a bunch of apples to serve to kids at Chancellor Livingston Elementary School, part of a statewide project focusing on the harvest this week.
Metta Callahan, Sarah Derbyshire, and Sandra Arias cut up pound after pound of apples to show kids how good and good for you local produce can be.
Local orchards Mead, Wonderland, and Montgomery Place generously gave many, many pounds of luscious, crispy, sweet-tart fruits. Offered to the kids grades K-5 yesterday were gala, cortland, and honeycrisp. Every bite was well-received, especially by some especially ravenous fifth-graders–you know who you are!!
These apple-cutters–along with parents Yunhee McCarty, Catherine Shih, Anne McGrath, and Elizabeth Spinzia, as well as yours truly–had a ball feeding and educating the enthusiastic kids, with a few games thrown in for fun! Thanks to the participating parents, the accommodating Chancellor staff, and the wonderful local orchards who donated so much bounty!
Metta, Sarah, and Sandra cut it up!
I’ve only missed one or two Hudson Valley Garlic Fests since 1997. Rain or shine, it’s a wonderful celebration of all things Garlic, along with varied and foot-tapping music on several stages, creative crafts, lectures and demos, kid-friendly fun, and great food. Arm of the Sea Theater is always a highlight, even in the driving rain:
Native Americans plant seeds thanks to the stupendous puppets of Arm of the Sea Theater.
One of our first stops is always Gary’s Pickles, killer and not to be missed. We can never decide between sour and half-sour; both are crunchy and wonderful. So we buy a bucket of each. Here my daughter discovers a hybrid to please those who can’t decide, like us:
How do they make a pickle that's half sour and half half-sour?
Some of the most scrumptious, sweet-tangy, pulled pork I’ve had north of North Carolina is from Tim’s, a bit tricky to find but worth the search, available on a bun or a plate, with sauce or without, with coleslaw or without, for seven bucks. It’s truly heavenly even on a stomach already full of pierogies, soft pretzels, and a less wonderful pulled pork specimen; trust me. It is ecstacy-making stuff. We go for the bun, the sauce and coleslaw, all stellar.
Tim's pulled pork is the only thing they sell, and what more could you want in life? Perfect balance of sweet and tang, moist and tender and smoky--heaven on a bun.
In spite of a rainy day and a relatively short visit, we left satisfied with having found everything we sought, which included many heads of garlic in varied varieties: Spanish roja (my personal fave), German red and white, and Italian purple skin. Tasting it raw, whether minced, chunked, or sliced, is de rigeur before making your choices. And soon you feel thoroughly and happily infused with it. Some folks go for other purification or detoxification strategies, whether medical or spiritual, but for me there’s is nothing as cleansing, and pleasing, as tasting crunchy, spicy, bold, raw garlic and having it run through your veins.
A quick visit to Bubby’s, on Rt. 9G in Red Hook, adjacent to Montgomery Place farm stand,
Tiny but mighty Bubby's Burritos
sufficed for a satisfying snack for two little ones. The burritos are giant and fresh but on this particular day the cheesy quesadilla was just the ticket.
Don’t hesitate to eat lots of good local food while you’re in Rhinebeck, because putting on a pound or two from overindulgence is apparently the latest thing in body styles. Forget skinny, forget buff, bring on those beautiful pot bellies. See http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/13/fashion/13POTBELLY.html?_r=1
The big city takes notice of our delightful farmers markets. Witness today’s travel section article in The New York Times.
Lately I’ve stumbled on a few good reads on local food. Don’t miss Megan Labrise’s column Small Potatoes this week, when in “An organic experience” she writes about local produce and taking a wonderful cooking class with Holly Anne Shelowitz of Nourishing Wisdom. Grab a copy of The Woodstock Times, Kingston Times or Saugerties Times to find it, or just click here.
Especially entertaining and well done for a newspaper supplement is The Poughkeepsie Journal’s summer issue of Cuisine of the Hudson Valley. I clipped out recipes for Red Plum Lemonade and Mojo-Marinated Chicken Grilled Under a Brick. The issue covers cutting costs in the kitchen, how to make sumptuous ravioli with gorgonzola and walnuts, beer pairing, and mushrooms. Look for free copies at local retailers.
The summer issue of Edible Hudson Valley is out now, too, with stories on the Woodstock food culture, life as an army chef, and local restaurant waiters’ secrets.
The June-August issue of The Valley Table covers farm camp for kids, an interview with Bruce Kazan of Main Course in New Paltz, and a close-up look at Richard and Russell Biezynski of Northwind Farms in Tivoli.
It’s summer time! Chill out, relax, grab an iced tea and curl up with some good reading on local food.
The Rhinebeck Gourmandizer is on hiatus until the very beginning of August, while its host is necessarily away, sampling the cuisine of another place. She promises not to forget about Rhinebeck, which she almost regrets leaving at this gorgeous time of year, and she hopes her blog visitors will stop back here soon for more tastes of the good food of Rhinebeck and environs.
For seafood-loving cooks this far from an ocean, it’s always a challenge to find good products to cook. For me there are memories of fish fresh out of the Adriatic, the Atlantic, the Mediterranean, with kitchens to cook it in, that send me headfirst into sublime memories that often fall flat these days when the fish craving kicks in.
At Sea Deli in Kingston: Li'l red snappers, .75 lbs each, and chubby sea basses, waiting to be ravished
But here, around Rhinebeck, it’s not so easy to find good fish to cook. Good sources go sour; after getting burnt twice or thrice with bad fish, I stop shopping at a place, and good fishmongers have, sadly, come and gone during my tenure in the Hudson Valley.
These days, it still ain’t easy. But I’ve had good luck lately at Hannaford’s in Red Hook (but shop carefully–look for moist fish flesh, not dried out, go for what looks good that day, not what you happen to be in the mood for), and the seafood booth at the Rhinebeck Farmers Market on Sundays, which I’m told is run by the Le Petit Bistro folks. Great stuff! Have had amazing scallops and oysters from there, and have lusted after other fishes that looked fresh and piscinely pristine.
When I’m really jonesing for good fish, though, I often rely on Sea Deli on Broadway in Kingston, not trendy or chic but divine in its piscatorial wondrousness: lots to choose from and there’s always something good.
From left to right: Sea Deli's organic salmon, fresh rainbow trout, and soft-shell crabs
Today the fresh sliced halibut, burbling soft-shell crabs, and fresh rainbow trout all called out to me, but I settled on a dozen sweet littlenecks ($4.50) for steaming and dipping in broth and butter, and a couple of nice little clear-eyed red snappers that I cooked into a luscious Veracruz with tomato, olives, and capers–divine…
I’m not big on leftovers, generally, but Snapper Veracruz cold out of the fridge in its gelatinous, olivey, slightly garlicky goodness, is just the best thing ever. Can’t wait ’til tomorrow.
Sat. night dins at Starr Place: sumptuous mussel pot with Calvados, bacon, and a kiss of cream. Ooh baby, addictively good. Don’t forget the side of crisp frites.
And if you don’t dunk your bread in the broth and suck it up, you are truly lame.
Normandy Mussel Pot
We also had killer Tuscan chicken liver crostini (don’t like liver but I looove this stuff), sweet clams in zesty chorizo broth, tender lamb chops cooked perfectly, fluffy wheat bread with good unsalted butter (gratis), and tuna tartare atop avocado (or was it the other way around?).
Love that Starr seems to have mastered weaving Mediterranean goodness (next time have to try the baby octopus risotto!) with the kind of stuff everybody likes, like buffalo wings, calamari, and carefully chosen beers, wines, and cocktails. Check out the menu at http://www.starrplace.com.
Service was perfect, too, just the right amount of attentiveness, and not only can you sit outside on sultry nights and watch all of Rhinebeck go by, but there’s some great music downstairs, too. I can’t wait to go back for more.
Starr Place hosts Elizabeth Smyth and Larry Bank
Jennifer