Food Trip

With respect for the holiday and its celebrants, gratitude for school administrators who deemed to give us the day off, and absolute pity for those in our family who were forced to remain slave to their computer, My Girl and I ventured North yesterday in search of edible delights.

Our first stop was apple picking in Red Hook, in Dutchess County. We found a new place by browsing the Chowhound website, one that was not too big, not too commercial, and not too faraway: The Grieg Farm. We loaded up our bag with Empires, Macouns, and Macintoshes for eating; Jonagold’s for a pie. By the time we got our bag weighed and chose two small pumpkins from their patch (a real patch too, where the pumpkins were still connected to their actual vines—not just a patch of dirt where the cut pumpkins had been dumped), we were hungry.

We stumbled on Gigi Market by making a wrong turn. It’s the kind of place that wouldn’t have existed that far north five years ago. It specializes in local food from the Hudson River Valley (they list 34 farms that their restaurant supports on their menu), and does rather sumptuous things with what they get. We had a bowl of Minestrone that was delicious and filling. I had to work hard to persuade My Girl that we would be passing on the cookies and brownies there because another opportunity for dessert was yet to come.

We took a pit stop in Rhinebeck, which also seemed to be a bit more interesting than on previous visits. They have an old Five and Dime where I got a nice crochet hook, clasps to keep My Girl's mittens on her jacket sleeves, and old fashioned autumn leaf stickers. We spent far too much at the local independent bookstore (Oblong Books), but it’s hard to feel too bad about that. Plus, I found two new YA books for school: Hate That Cat (follow up to Creech’s lovely Love That Dog), and Gibson’s new Moxie Maxwell Does Not Love Writing Thank You Notes (a follow-up to the earlier Moxie Maxwell Does Not Love Stuart Little).

It was getting late, and since I always seem to end up getting lost on the way home from these parts, we hit the road. Our next stop, Hyde Park, wasn’t far at all. Dessert was to be had at the Apple Pie Bakery Café at the Culinary Institute of America.

I have wanted to go to this place for years, and it was, in fact, on my Summer To Do List, but since it was combined with going to a drive in movie (and the movie never showed anything the whole family could enjoy) it got passed up for The Amazing Tour of Miniature Golf Courses. What a mistake! This place warrants its own trip.

We had an impossible time deciding what to order. The mousse served in a little eggshell? An amazing tiramisu? Marzipan gelato?

My Girl finally chose the lemon meringue “pie,” a little tumbler with zingy lemon curd with some crust somewhere inside (it was eaten so quickly that I barely got a look at it) and a little browned meringue hat on top. I had a little tumbler with butternut squash (cooked way down with butter and some sugar into it’s most delectable essence), a round of gingerbread sponge cake, caramel/mascarpone custard, and then a little French macaroon as top. I had never tasted anything so surprising or scrumptious. I was sad when I had finished it but took delight in the strong coffee.

Our evening was bound to be a disappointment, as nothing could cap our day better than the meringue and macaroon. Still, we have today off too, and who can complain about that?

I took all those photos, so nobody can get mad at me.

Back on the Farm

It’s time for Farm Camp again. My Girl, her best friend, and a gaggle of other local kids get the chance to frolic on the farm at Stone Barns (collecting eggs, herding sheep, picking berries, pulling weeds, harvesting veggies, making healthy snacks, and weaving lanyards). Yesterday was especially wonderful, according to My Girl, because they climbed up the compost heap and then slid down. She was the dirtiest she had ever been in her life, so beautiful I wanted to capture her grimy shins on film.

Stone Barns is exactly where she needs to be. Even though we moved to the suburbs three years ago, she’s a city girl at heart. Yes, she has come to love playing on the grass, can spot poison ivy from a good distance, and knows the names of most of the local songbirds. But what’s wonderful about Stone Barns is that just being there teaches us to consider where our food comes from. It’s different to see the chickens at Stone Barns than the ones in the Children’s Zoo in the Bronx Zoo. The chickens at the farm are just cute and funny as those at the zoo, but fact remains that they’re going to be food. This is an important lesson if you eat meat because it reminds us of our connection and perhaps makes us a bit more grateful for what we have.

Stone Barns grows wonderful fruits and vegetables, teaching about the patience and care it takes to sow, nurture, and harvest plants—that food is seasonal, and that fresh food is a joy. When the kids pick pea pods off the vine and pop them into their mouths it teaches them that the Earth provides for us and that we, in turn have a responsibility to it.

Yes, it’s terrific to have these lessons literally “farmed out” for my daughter, but I have to ask myself how well I am modeling these principals for her. We celebrate food, but until recently when prices began to go up noticeably, I took the full grocery cart for granted. Evan and I have a kind of running joke with some leftovers. We put them in the fridge almost ironically, and then a couple of days later we clean it out asking, “Is this done?” Tonight I threw out two slices of steak, a little bit of broccoli rabe, the remains of a delish strawberry tart, and some mozzarella cheese—and that was a low night.

Perhaps I need to go to farm camp for a couple of weeks too.

The Best Camp in the World

Last summer my dear little one and I went scouting around Westchester looking for things to do that did not involve netflix or having tea. We fell upon a farm built by the Rockefeller's in 1930. We felt so far away from the noise and hustle of the city (and suburbs) and were transported to a bucolic wonderland of flowers, bunnies, trees, chickens, sheep, and a gorgeous barn complex made of stone. We could pretend that we were in another time, hiking in the shady hills, checking on the lambs, trying to name the flowers. "I want to go to camp here," my girl announced.

And so it is that we have been traveling to Stone Barns every day the past week. The girl is addicted to weaving lanyards, but she has also learned to make hummus, zucchini sticks, and artichoke/spinach dip! How cool is that? The campers feed pigs, collect eggs, dig for potatoes, play games, and (of course) make lanyards. I get to buy farm fresh eggs and vegetables when I go to pick her up—and have an iced coffee. Everybody's happy.

The camp is run by the Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture, and they hold workshops, have family work days (harvesting and braiding garlic!), cooking classes, and tours to promote their mission (raising public awareness about farm and food issues). They also have a highly rated restaurant (Blue Hill), which is supposed to be so popular that it's difficult to make a reservation. I haven't tried and have been happy with the iced coffee and egg salad at the cafe.