Flavors 518

The best food adventures are ones in which your navigation devices do nothing for you. When I went to the Bears' Steakhouse for my birthday a couple years ago, you knew it was going to be good because the GPS, the iphone, and the Onstar were all wrong. The universe was making us work really hard for our pile of meat, and it tasted all the better because of it. When I first saw Berle Farm yogurt at the Honest Weight Co-op , I was surprised to see there was something from Hoosick I hadn't heard of since I've now worked out there for 7 months. My coworker and I decided it was a good lunch time activity to go show up over there and buy some yogurt. We phoned the exceedingly sweet lady for directions, got incredibly lost on unmarked beautiful country roads (GPS and smartphone acting useless), and were promptly greeted by the laziest of golden retrievers. We put our $6 in the cash can, and took with us the smoothest, tastiest of yogurts. Its not sweet (although you could a...

Yesterday I left work and my summer intern on his last day said "Thanks for everything this summer. Its been real." Then, I decided to stop in at Grafton Lakes on the way home. I waded in the water and called a former coworker who has a whole new position at my old job. Her boyfriend wants to go to grad school, I'm going to do some work in NYC  - so many new things.  Then the loud speaker announced "Everyone out of the water, this is the end of the day and the end of the summer. Please come back next year!". I squeezed my toes in my sand and felt ok leaving. There have been times in past years I tried so hard to pretend summer wasn't ending - trying to convince my husband to go on a last minute humid, hazy Labor Day trip to the Finger Lakes. But this time it  feels like something different. People say spring is a season of newness, but we spend our school years starting anew in September. We spend much of our lives having to pretend to be so many differ...

Yesterday I asked my intern if we are yuppies, and he looked up from his laptop and the poetry book he was working with, glanced out at the hay bales in the field and said "No, we're yrppies, young rural upwardly mobile professionals." To which I stuck my hand in the air and said, "What? I live in the capital of New York state!"  For the last six months now I've been working out in Hoosick Falls, NY. At its peak in 1900 it had around 7,000 people, and according to the 2010 census its now at half that and continues to decline. Its quite the experience being out there - not like Williamstown, MA which felt like a slice of the Upper West Side of Manhattan magically transplanted to bucolic New England - but rather authentically rural. People raise chickens not because its trendy, and they want to make some sort of fetish out of it, but because thats what their families have always done. Similar to my mother-in-law who grew up with homemade bread not because so...

I was going to write a whole post about all the stuff I bought at the flea market at the Washington County fairgrounds last weekend, but taking the advice of the above sign I bought at Francesca's in Crossgates (ironic I know), maybe I'll tell you what I've been up to this summer instead (by the way, I love that store and I want to cover my body and walls with everything in it - but why so talkative, staff members? I'll tell you what I want in a clothing store - everything costs $20, no one talks to me, and Rihanna is playing in the background. That's it, when you try to be my best friend or make me into your career counselor for your Arts Administration degree I'm doing that instead of deciding on necklaces). This summer I: Went swimming . We did all kinds of wine tasting in the Finger Lakes. I wanted to go swimming at the Seneca Lake State Park and the lifeguard never showed up. We went all over, including antiquing in Hammondsport ( America's Cooles...

We used to take the Amtrak or drive to Poughkeepsie to take the Metro-North to visit NYC. In more recent times though, we've discovered the charm of driving. Insane Manhattan traffic you say? Take the BQE. Expensive parking you say? My mother-in-law spotted a place in Brooklyn that costs $7 a day. And there are benefits too - flexibility of timing, being able to buy stuff there and cart it back (no one wants to crush their pretty Paper Source loot or One Girl whoopie pies in a backpack), and in the case of my job being able to move artwork around. The Taconic State Parkway is also beautiful and incredibly civilized to drive on. You feel a bit like Don Draper dropping Sally off at boarding school. You can imagine all the old timey road trips taken on that very strip of asphalt. I drove down for work a little while ago, fought through traffic in the Bronx, got to a spot near Hudson on the Taconic and experienced the most beautiful view. It was all fresh air, arm-stretching space, ...

I'm feeling really hopeful about the future of Troy nowadays. Back last year when the Pioneer Co-op closed, I wasn't feeling as hopeful. I have a friend who used to shop there who now walks across the bridge to use the Watervliet Price Chopper (its not their best location). I really feel that things are looking up though, and not in a way like realtors have been saying that Long Island City in Queens has been looking up for the last ten years - where they build luxury condos assuming other businesses will follow, and they never seem to (unless you want to count the gentlemen's clubs under the subway tracks). The Troy Farmer's Market is great. Next week is the first week they are going to be outside, and as a bonus they are also going to keep things going an hour later (untill 2). They are also adding a twilight market on Friday nights. Some of our favorites at the market include: Danascara Cheese , Pika's Farm Table (I really like to throw a couple of their quic...

 The week before last week, we went to the Magnetic Fields show at Club Helsinki in Hudson. I hadn't really been to Hudson before outside of an Amtrak car, and I'd always heard great things about it. You can just get tickets to see the music, but it is way classier to get a table and eat dinner while you watch the show. Also, the menu is great . It is Southern inspired and makes use of local, seasonal ingredients. I got their first and ordered a glass of Pinor Noir which was very tasty, and some of the fried okra with a Cajun remoulade to start. I happen to love okra done right, and this dish had a nice corn meal crust which wasn't greasy at all. I took in the surroundings, like what I imagine the Copacabana to have been like in some far off past decade. Scott showed up and we got some of the delicious beers from nearby Chatham Brewing . For dinner, I got the Helsinki burger, which was really juicy and "topped with applewood smoked bacon,  roasted portobel...

You know I love the Whistling Kettle . I once wrote about the tea and another time about the whole experience . Well, I checked it out again today, and it was a lovely lovely lunch. It was quite possibly a little celebratory lunch, so I decided to treat my self. You know how I love the Berkshire s, but if all goes well there could be a lot more buckets of fried chicken in my future. So I say, treat yo self! I got a pot of the lavender Earl Grey because I absolutely love it. This tea is just so elegant. The subtlety of the lavender and the Bergamot oil mix so beautifully with the high quality tea. It is the kind of delicious food item that makes you stop and think. It slows you down, and forces you to just live in the moment. Also, they have reconfigured their seating since last time I was there. Look at these cool, tall, comfortable booths: I ordered a curry chicken salad sandwich with pecans and a side salad. I got the ginger dressing which was amazing. They ...

Today I got a real tour of outer Troy from my lovely new friend and professional cake decorator, Sandy. When I first found out she was a professional cake baker I am pretty sure I mumbled something like "livin' the dream!" even though I worked really hard for and am really lucky to have the job I have. Hoping to learn a thing or two from her, I suggested we check out the Confectionery House in Brunswick. It was way cool. You could make any kind of candy or decorate any kind of cake with the supplies from here. I had fantasies of buying all the candy bar making supplies and coming up with a cool combination called "The Emily Bar" to show up to the food swap with and give as Christmas presents, but I couldn't think of what that bar would be so I gave up on the idea. I bought a cool angled frosting spreader type of tool, brioche molds. and this awesome bear pan. Watch out, everyone I know, I am going to start showing up everywhere with bear shaped cakes! ...

Where does summer go? When you are a kid, it stretches on with no end in sight.  Below is a photo from my teenage lifeguarding days. Is that Sun-in ? You mean like the disgusting comb-in hair lightener/fryer? Why, yes it is! Just awful! But as an adult with brunches, BBQs, business trips, and countless hours spent working in an office in front of a computer screen (not sunbathing while reading a book), it seems like you eat a few amazing tomatoes and it is gone. Its hot. It can be sticky. You can forget why you are doing what you are doing, and why you were so enthusiastic about it in the first place. (As a side note - if you lose your faith in food blogging , this post alone can restore it almost completely .) A day can end with a coworker calling you, you both recalling something so frustrating that you both just end up laughing until you are almost crying out of crazy satire. Then, when you think of it later while walking down the street, you crack up laughing again becau...

I'm off dogsitting in North Adams, MA again, and my husband was sweet enough to send me off with some tasty items from All Good Bakers . It is a loaf of sourdough and some cold cucumber soup. Now I am a huge cold soup fan. But this cucumber soup is something else. I think what makes it so unique is the possible presence of hot peppers. I would guess it also has black pepper, carrots (?), and scallions. This soup is amazing, like a mouthful of how it feels to walk into a cold movie theater from a sweltering, dusty asphalt parking lot. It is completely refreshing, and yet a bit unexpected with the scallions and peppers. The bread is great too. It is moist on the inside, with a fabulous crust, and a fully developed sourdough flavor. I liked their wheat loaf too. They are just so talented, and we are lucky to have them around in our community. As a side note, we went on vacation to the Finger Lakes a couple weeks ago. We drove through a lot of upstate NY towns, and had some good ...