Flavors 518

A couple weeks ago I was at The Berry Patch in Stephentown looking at produce. They had 18 different kinds of delicious looking squash, and the nice farmer lady, Dale, told me I should try them all and blog about my comparisons between all the different types. Well, that was a great idea, but I have to say I'm not sure I can eat enough to keep up. I bought this beautiful Blue Hubbard from them at the farm store and then went on to buy an acorn and a butternut from them at the Troy Farmer's Market a couple weeks later, and just this first one alone created 10 portions of soup. Isn't it a beautiful squash? I had never really heard of a Blue Hubbard before, and it is so delicious. It has a really unique flavor - not too sweet like some other ones. It took me like an entire Saturday night to carve it on up. I was talking on the phone to my mom for a very long time and at the end she said "That must be a whole lot of squash!" It was. I measured it - 6 po...

It's officially summer, and on the weekends I can't seem to get up off my chaise lounge. For this, I made up a great cocktail (pictured above - you can also tell I mean business by my Ryan Gosling Hey Girl notebook ). The consists of a lot of lemon juice, some honey, and a good amount of water, stirred and then topped with some gin and Lillet. I love Lillet, especially the back of the label, which when you read it out loud sounds like pure class (something about being meant to be enjoyed at the moment when evening becomes night). This drink also needs a ton of ice so it will stay cold long enough for you to sip it and get a lot of reading done. Recently, I read a very interesting book called Inside Christie's by John Herbert about the auction house. What I really enjoyed about it was reading about all these stories which would start out with the person from the auction house starting up a relationship with someone, some long winding plot ensues with colorful charact...

We had my husband's friend from grad school in from Ohio for Thanksgiving last week, and we really showed him a tour of the area. We took him to Bennington, Cooperstown, and down to the Poughkeepsie train station - all in a three day period. On our way down the the train station, we passed the Harvest Spirits Farm Distillery , and I was so excited to see where that was I actually did a U turn. The Harvest Farm Distillery seems most famous in this area for making applejack. The applejack is very tasty, and for a dollar per taste you can try that or any of their other products: grappa, rare pear brandy, peach applejack (which we liked a lot more than we thought we would), or Core vodka. If you return your empty bottle from any of their products to them you receive a free shot glass. If you return two empty bottles, you receive a very cool looking brandy glass. If you return three empty bottles you get a surprise (I think you get nothing). Here's a look at inside their ...

Today at lunch time I was lucky enough to see a talk given by Kathleen Merrigan entitled "Growing Communities through Local Foods" sponsored by the Williams College Center for Environmental Studies . Deputy secretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the author of the Organic Foods Production Act of 1990, Merrigan is widely regarded as the moving force behind the development of federal organic standards. She is an outspoken advocate of moving federal farm policies toward conservation and sustainable land use. After receiving a Fulbright fellowship to study pesticide use in Poland, Merrigan joined the staff of the U.S. Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee in 1987. She then earned her Ph.D. at MIT, where she also worked as a senior analyst for the Henry A. Wallace Institute for Alternative Agriculture. From there she was appointed to the National Organics Standards Board. In 1999, Bill Clinton appointed Merrigan to head the USDA’s Marketing S...

I went on a farm tour and did a guest post on From Scratch Club. Check it out!

I went to the Bennington, VT Farmer's Market today. They are open on Saturdays and Tuesdays. You may remember when I tried to go in November and it didn't work out .  I love Vermont so much. I went to the anti-hydrofracking concert at The Egg a few months back, and they mentioned how Vermont had a ban on hydrofracking. That's a good thing, since it seems like easily one of the most beautiful places on earth. It would absolutely break my heart if anything were to ever happen to that state to diminish its natural beauty (also there doesn't seem to be any gas deep down there, so it wouldn't seem likely hydrofracking would occur, but its nice their priorities are in the right place). Oh, Vermont, doughnuts , cheese , and produce! How can you not love it completely? My former coworker has a farm, it is actually called the True Love Farm , and she posted on facebook about the Tuesday Farmer's Market which reminded me about it. It was small and adorable, but I did ...

My friend at work was telling me about the baby animals at Hancock Shaker Village . She also said the cafe was amazing, so I really wanted to go. I loved seeing the baby animals in past years at Indian Ladder Farms , but my husband was not as impressed (though he may deny it now - in his defense it was a cold and rainy day that I wanted him to stand around and listen to me say "look how cute the little baby ducks are!!"). So it was good my friend Elizabeth agreed to go with me. Here is the part where I say to you "Look how cute the animals are!!" Here is the Round Stone Barn that holds the animals:  Then we went to the Village Harvest Cafe. My friend really recommended it, and they grow their own vegetables so it sounded like a great choice. Here is the menu . I had the "Open Faced Roast Beef on Grilled Farmers Bread with Shaker Mushroom Sauce, and Crispy Shallots", and lots of hazelnut coffee that I really enjoyed. The mushroom sauce was ...

This week I am dogsitting in North Adams, MA. ( Last time I was dogsitting I took myself out to breakfast at the Blue Benn in VT. )  I love the Berkshires, and it is not just because three different museums out here have employed me, compared to none in Albany. I love the Berkshires for a lot of the same reasons I love the Napa Valley . Sure it is very rural, and you often feel like you are in the middle of nowhere, but it is still relatively culturally sophisticated. James Taylor lives here. What is often ranked as the number one liberal arts school in the country is here . Emily Dickinson, W.E.B. Du Bois, and Herman Melville are all from western Massachusetts. The scenery is incredibly beautiful, and yet the one movie playing in town is likely the same artsy movie you saw at the Spectrum last week. Our friends who live in Seattle and Boston talk about how they want to go to MassMoca . People who hear about me having an hour commute always feel really bad for me, but it is ver...

We've recently signed up for a CSA share at the Shaker Mountain Canning Co . in New Lebanon, NY. I totally underestimated how much fun this would be. Not only is it healthy to have a large basket of vegetables to be forced to figure out what to do with, and is it good economics to support local farms, but it forces the kind of brainstorming of recipes that is really a good time. Instead of looking up a recipe and then going to the store to buy the ingredients, it is quite literally what is in season and what can we figure out what to do with these things? Last week we got okra, collard greens, herbs, green beans, lettuce, onions, beats, summer squash, zucchini and cucumbers. We made a variety of foods including summer squash soup, stir fry, cold beet soup, roasted okra with the green beans, and jambalaya, among other things. It is so fun, and I can't wait to see what we get today. Getting ingredients you weren't planning on is a great way to force yourself to try new prepar...

 We just got back from our honeymoon this weekend. We did sort of a west coast tour which included a lot of winery visits. In Napa, we visited the Elyse winery where we tasted some really amazing wines , and a port that really impressed us. Previously, we had worried about tasting wines that seemed too expensive for us to purchase, but looking back it doesn't matter if you buy a bottle or not, you still get to enjoy your tasting (many places the tasty fee is waived with purchase of a bottle though so might as well if you really like it). The Elyse winery visits are by appointment only, partially they said to avoid drunken bachelorette parties and rowdy people in limos, but you can actually call that day and still get an appointment. Then, we visited Domaine Carneros which had some really nice sparkling wines. The tasting area is a bit of an over the top ostentatiously French looking set up, which is actually a very nice spot to enjoy some flights of bubbly.  In Sonoma, w...

Today we went for brunch at the Yellow Rock Cafe at Indian Ladder Farms . I loved the decor (kitschy signs, fresh-cut lilacs) and the tablecloths (mismatched and vintage looking prints). I had only really been to Indian Ladder Farms before in the fall, but it turns out in the spring and summer they have berry picking, and also still have their cafe and shop open. It is great because the ingredients in the dishes served at the cafe are all from local farms. Everything is really fresh, and very tasty. Scott had the Guilderville, and the menu describes it as: "Our garlic herb wrap stuffed with thinly sliced deli ham, Swiss cheese, sliced ILF apples, and Zaz mustard, and then grilled to perfection." And I had the Helderburger:"Truly an unforgettable hamburger made with all local ingredients. Six ounces of freshly ground, all-natural beef from Morning Fog Farms of Berne, NY, topped with leaf lettuce, locally grown sweet onion, and ripe tomato served on a fresh grilled ...