Black-market milk
By admin at October 11, 2010 | 4:39 am | 1 Comment
by Jessica Alfreds It used to be that if the feds showed up with weapons drawn and raided a storefront, you could assume it was for selling drugs or guns. Not so any more. With increasing regularity all across the country, the hottest illegal commodity is raw, as in unhomogenized and unpasteurized, milk. Here in the Hudson Valley, legal raw milk is readily
For sake’s sake
By admin at October 19, 2010 | 2:29 am | 0 Comments
by Jennifer Brizzi - There are few better ways to while away a Sunday afternoon than sipping good rice wine. Before I attended a sake tasting/food pairing seminar at Gomen-Kudasai at 215 Main Street in New Paltz the other day, I knew that warm sake and miso soup were wondrously warming on wintry days, but I didn’t know anything about sake as a refined and complex
Kitchen cookware
By admin at October 24, 2010 | 3:29 am | 1 Comment
by Jessica Alfreds - As terms like grass-fed, organic, locally grown, and sustainable become household words, eco-conscious cooks and manufacturers focus on the next frontier. After you get your pasture-raised chicken home, what are you cooking it in? After dinner, how are you packaging your leftovers? This article does not deal with the question of maximizing
Good-hearted, good-tasting cheese
By admin at November 3, 2010 | 6:22 am | 0 Comments
by Jennifer Brizzi Cheese is the perfect food, unless you’re vegan or lactose-intolerant. Providing protein and pure pleasure, well-made cheeses also boast nuances of flavor — thanks to their own terroir and methods of production — that are as refined as any fine wine’s. I’ve long said that after butter and garlic cheese is my favorite food. And I’ve
Lidia Bastianich’s Italian Christmas
By admin at November 12, 2010 | 3:14 am | 1 Comment
by Megan Labrise - Lidia Bastianich’s earliest Christmases are distinguished by luxuries few, simple and sweet: juniper bushes, figs, bay leaves and a warm familial welcome at her grandparents’ home in Istria, a peninsula on the Adriatic Sea. This year, Bastianich celebrates the season with the release of Nonna Tell Me a Story: Lidia’s Christmas Kitchen
New York New York bagel bagel
By admin at November 16, 2010 | 3:04 am | 0 Comments
by Jennifer Brizzi - ‘The bagel [is] an unsweetened doughnut with rigor mortis.’ — Beatrice and Ira Freeman, “About Bagels,” The New York Times, May 22, 1960 The über-popular, ubiquitous bagel, now on every street corner, wasn’t always so well known. An article in the December 17, 1951, New York Times had to define the item and offer the spelling
Holiday dinner 911
By admin at November 24, 2010 | 10:35 pm | 1 Comment
by Megan Labrise - Hosting any major holiday meal can be a stressful proposition. You’ve got a house full of relatives, friends and relatives’ friends not necessarily from compatible demographics, making alcohol-fueled small talk in the foyer. They have one thing in common: waiting for you to produce a banquet par excellence. The kitchen is a sauna, peas have
Talking Tony
By admin at December 3, 2010 | 2:11 am | 0 Comments
by Jennifer Brizzi - Although I admire the talents of many of them, I’ve never been one to have crushes on movie stars or musicians. (Well, okay, there was Donny Osmond, but that doesn’t count.) Celebrities just seem fake as holographs to me, like they consist of 95 percent our own ideas of them, and only five percent flesh and blood. But a certain current food
Multi-culti holiday feast
By admin at December 14, 2010 | 5:56 pm | 0 Comments
by Jessica Alfreds - If your family is anything like mine, there are people of all faiths and shapes sitting around the dinner table. Each of the winter holidays is so beautiful (and so delicious), I like to make everyone feel at home by incorporating all of them. This is my Greatest Hits Holiday Menu, touching on all the major year-ending celebrations: Potato Latkes
Bittersweet leaves of winter
By admin at December 22, 2010 | 10:58 am | 0 Comments
by Jennifer Brizzi - Unassuming endive is a pale, cream-colored, torpedo-shaped thing that you’ll find with the lettuces, although it doesn’t look a lot like lettuce. Sort of underrated and overrated both, endive is a relatively undiscovered yet pricey delicacy that is delicious whether raw or cooked — one of many tasty salad greens and kin to chicory, escarole and
Keep on wokking in the free world
By admin at December 29, 2010 | 5:06 pm | 1 Comment
by Megan Labrise - Any cooking course can teach you how to prepare a steak medium rare, but rare is the one that gives you a stake in another culture through the medium of cuisine. Norma Chang served up a trio of quick-fix Chinese dishes at the Kingston Library on Saturday, December 18. Chang, the “Travelling Gourmet,” grew up in Jamaica and mainland China and
Food words
By admin at January 3, 2011 | 6:43 pm | 0 Comments
by Jennifer Brizzi - Conveying the character of food to friends and readers is a perennial challenge of my personal and professional life. Words like “yummy” and “delicious” just don’t cut it. I’m always seeking more ways to describe what I eat in ways that are not too clichéd or annoying.Many restaurant reviewers and food writers have adapted terms like
Something in Commons
By admin at January 7, 2011 | 1:56 pm | 2 Comments
by Megan Labrise - If you weren’t born before this date in 1949, you won’t get a room at Vineyard Commons — but you can still get a table at its restaurant. Though The Bistro at Vineyard Commons serves residents of the luxury assisted-living complex on Routes 44-55 in Highland, a notable majority of diners are from the general public. Fine dining takes on
Choosing the battle
By admin at January 13, 2011 | 7:43 pm | 2 Comments
by Alysa Wishingrad - In what’s definitely a step in the right direction, president Barack Obama on December 13 signed the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act, making subsidized school meals available to more children and setting new nutritional standards. But the new law does nothing to change the fact that highly processed foods devoid of nutritional value have become the
Food trends of 2011
By admin at January 21, 2011 | 5:50 pm | 0 Comments
by Jennifer Brizzi - In the fashion world, pink might be the new black. But in the food world, pie is the new cupcake and hot dog is the new burger. And this year you just might see more moonshine, grits and powders as sauce than you ever have before. As in the worlds of fashion and celebrity, edible items take their turns in the spotlight, coming and going according
In for the mill
By admin at January 28, 2011 | 11:25 pm | 2 Comments
by Megan Labrise - Places that were sacred to us as children often change as much as we do. “Going back to the old neighborhood” is a well-worn trope (recently employed by 60 Minutes to humanize new House speaker John Boehner). For a girl who grew up in rural New York, it’s not so much the neighborhood as a constellation of significant places throughout the
School for love
By admin at February 3, 2011 | 11:04 pm | 0 Comments
by Jennifer Brizzi - Valentine’s Day celebrates romantic love, a time to pamper or to be pampered, or both. There are greetings cards festooned with flowers, fragrant red roses, boxes of chocolates and such clichés of the day. But the surest way to a lover’s heart may be via the stomach, when good food is made with care and shared with the object of one’s
Food of love, play on
By admin at February 11, 2011 | 6:07 pm | 0 Comments
By Jennifer Brizzi - “Every night should have its own menu.” -- Balzac Like air and water, two of life’s necessities are food and sex, which also go together better than a horse and carriage, or rather Cool Whip and skin, as the case may be. On Valentine’s Day some foods set a mood when lovers or future lovers treat each other with 30-pound boxes of chocolate
Locavore lore
By julie at February 16, 2011 | 11:29 pm | 0 Comments
Food, Inc. farmer Joel Salatin keynotes Woodstock Land Conservancy symposium on regional food this Saturday The greater Hudson Valley region is rapidly becoming a veritable, if not still small-scale, breadbasket for citizens here – and in the New York metropolitan area as well. Small vegetable and grain farms, dairies and various meat producers are offering
How to keep your hive alive
By julie at February 17, 2011 | 1:30 am | 0 Comments
Workshops on organic beekeeping for beginners offered in Rosendale What the heck is going on with the bees? Among the many environmental mysteries that have surfaced in recent years, one of the most alarming has been the sudden appearance of Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) in the US in 2006 and its subsequent rapid spread around the world. Whole hives of
Serve mine with salsa
By julie at February 17, 2011 | 1:39 am | 1 Comment
Music is on the menu at Cafe Mezzaluna in Saugerties Mery Rosado celebrates her bicultural heritage – she’s a Puerto Rican born in New York City – in living color at her eatery outside Saugerties on Route 212, a spot that has become a Zagat-rated destination for people from both north and south of town. Just a mile off the Thruway, Cafe Mezzaluna used to lean
Feed your head
By admin at February 18, 2011 | 11:21 pm | 0 Comments
Hudson Valley Food Network presents Seed & Sow Skill Share workshops in Walden this Sunday Those of us who love to putter around the kitchen or yard are always eager to learn new things, fancying ourselves Renaissance men and women of small-scale food production. I have made my own sausages; once tried to grow shiitakes on a log (harvest: one mushroom); and would
Thai one on
By admin at February 23, 2011 | 4:46 pm | 1 Comment
by Megan Labrise - Judging world cuisines is a challenge for a local food writer. Dining in a Japanese restaurant here in the Hudson Valley, I can tell you how the food tastes and whether the ingredients are fresh and skillfully prepared; I can’t say with absolute certainty that it’s authentic. I can read books, interview proprietors and occasionally dine with expats
What is the sound of one tail wagging?
By admin at February 23, 2011 | 7:00 pm | 1 Comment
Zen Dog Café serves up great food & drink in an artsy environment in Rhinebeck What makes Zen Dog Café the “coolest place in the Hudson Valley” – besides, that is, the great coffee, eclectic books, excellent wines and beers, organic menu items from the CSA-stocked kitchen, artworks covering a spectrum from funky to world-class, author readings and
Crossing the Finnish line
By admin at February 23, 2011 | 8:06 pm | 1 Comment
Club Helsinki’s move from Great Barrington to Hudson Bigger isn’t always better, but the maxim does seem to apply to Helsinki Hudson, the reincarnation of the celebrated music venue and eatery that entertained audiences and patrons in Great Barrington for 15 years. Originally called “Helsinki Tea Company,” the establishment was founded in 1995 by Deborah
Crops in the city
By admin at February 24, 2011 | 1:23 pm | 0 Comments
Jesica Clark seeks help to start “urban farm” in Kingston Jesica Clark is not your typical farmer. Instead of spending a rustic life on a bucolic family farm, the 31-year-old Kingston resident grew up in the Bronx. And when she decided to start up her own agricultural venture, she didn’t look to the rolling farmland of southern Ulster County, but a vacant lot on
Agriculture by design
By admin at February 25, 2011 | 7:08 am | 0 Comments
Hudson Valley Seed Library packs designed by local artists The small, exquisite images that adorn the Hudson Valley Seed Library’s line of seed packets bring a delightful imagining to the likes of patty pan squash, salad greens, zinnias, chard and carrots. The original artworks were selected by seed library owners Ken Greene and Doug Muller from more than 70
Guerilla Tactics for Getting Into the Restaurant Biz
By admin at March 7, 2011 | 4:59 pm | 0 Comments
by Chef Joe Bruno - You have always wanted to open a restaurant. In the event some fate more to be wished doesn’t stop you, like a train wreck or sudden onset amnesia, here’s a list of things that this chef/owner considers critical to success. Obviously, if you are the top chef at some darling restaurant in one of our big cities and are already being pursued by a
Fortuitous fortnight
By admin at March 7, 2011 | 11:07 pm | 1 Comment
by Megan Labrise - It’s a magical time of year for Hudson Valley food enthusiasts: A three-course lunch is $20, a three-course dinner is $28 and a week is 14 days. Hudson Valley Restaurant Week returns from March 14 through 27, boasting bargain prix-fixe meals at more than 150 area restaurants from Columbia County all the way down to Greenwich, Connecticut. This
Thyme of the season
By admin at March 21, 2011 | 3:44 pm | 0 Comments
Versatile culinary herb is celebrated in lore, legend and recipes the world over During the Renaissance, it was said that a thyme-infused potion would let you see fairies and protect you from their impish antics. Earlier still, in medieval England, fairies frolicked in beds of thyme, it was thought, and thyme was burned at Midsummer as offerings to the
Bringing fresh produce to the vulnerable
By admin at March 23, 2011 | 5:31 pm | 1 Comment
by Megan Labrise - Help yourself to a multi-course meal prepared by one of the area’s finest chefs – and help Ulster County’s needy families receive fresh fruits, vegetables and nutritional education all season long. The sixth Farm to Families Benefit Dinner will be held on Thursday, March 31 at Robibero Family Vineyards on Albany Post Road in New Paltz. Created by
Caveat emptor when it comes to buying versatile but costly saffron
By admin at March 30, 2011 | 11:57 am | 0 Comments
by Jennifer Brizzi - This time of year, crocuses cheer me. One of the first flowers to bloom in the yard after a long cold winter, their cute exuberance evokes hope. But it’s the autumn-blooming crocus that brings us the mysterious saffron: a spice that is the stuff of myth and lore and a conduit to deceit and death. Throughout history, saffron has been used for
Culinary crawl
By admin at April 1, 2011 | 9:29 pm | 0 Comments
Taste of Rhinebeck on April 12 to benefit Northern Dutchess Hospital Foundation Mark your calendars for the seventh annual Taste of Rhinebeck, to be held on Tuesday, April 12 from 6 to 9 p.m. to benefit the Northern Dutchess Hospital Foundation (NDHF). At this movable feast that takes place within a four-block radius of the Village center,
Inter-nosh-ional Twisted Soul in Poughkeepsie
By admin at April 8, 2011 | 10:51 am | 2 Comments
by Megan Labrise - My table is a mini-United Nations. Representatives of Malaysia, Korea and Colombia have assembled in the form of coconut/curry tofu, sesame wings and arepas, their colors as vibrant and varied as the flags that line First Avenue. There are greens, yellow and orange, and bright sriracha red. The food is so fresh that I feel entitled to a few new stamps
Savory Seder: CIA instructor Phillip Crispo’s tribute to the ritual meal
By admin at April 14, 2011 | 10:17 am | 0 Comments
by Jennifer Brizzi - The Passover Seder meal is steeped in ancient tradition but accepting of innovation. While some rules are strict, such as bans on leavened bread and other grains, the main entrée is at the whim of the cook; there’s no “you have to have turkey and stuffing” like at Thanksgiving. While turkey is fine for a Seder – or another kind of roast bird,
Can do!
By admin at April 21, 2011 | 12:47 pm | 0 Comments
“Canstruction” on view at NYS Museum in Albany to raise funds for food banks “Canstruction,” up for another week on the fourth floor of the New York State Museum in Albany (where the carousel is located), charms as much via its intentions as its visuals. Started in 1992 as a means of spurring on food donations for those going hungry,
Smells Like Easter
By admin at April 22, 2011 | 4:48 pm | 0 Comments
Delicious Easter recipes you can make at home I appreciate a designated time for new beginnings and second chances, and Easter is the ultimate occasion for making a fresh start. In so many other areas of our lives, we have gotten away from following the seasons; a universal celebration of new life serves as a spiritual spring-cleaning for all. Birds are
Get your hops up
By admin at April 27, 2011 | 11:24 pm | 0 Comments
TAP New York Craft Beer & Fine Food Festival at Hunter Mountain this weekend Beer sure has come a long way in the past couple of decades, and you can see it for yourself at this weekend’s TAP New York Craft Beer & Fine Food Festival at Hunter Mountain this Saturday and Sunday, April 30 and May 1. Started 14 years ago at the Culinary
Spice is the variety of life
By admin at April 28, 2011 | 5:22 pm | 1 Comment
By Megan Labrise - A seasonal catalogue of seasonings has redeemed my repast. For the last two months, I’ve been on a ridiculous diet consisting of beans, chicken breast, green vegetables and more beans. On the seventh day I rest, never quite getting around to inhaling that dozen doughnuts to which I am entitled. Before you can say “Krispy Kreme,” it’s back to
Trout symphony
By admin at May 6, 2011 | 2:20 pm | 0 Comments
by Lynn Woods - Pair it with white wine at Whitecliff Vineyard next weekend to benefit tsunami victims Hudson Valley wineries are improving all the time. In fact, some of their wines are measuring up to those produced anywhere in the world and attaining world-class stature. The proof is the Best White in Show awarded to Whitecliff Vineyard & Winery’s
Trial by CIA
By admin at May 11, 2011 | 7:24 pm | 1 Comment
by Megan Labrise - Jonathan Dixon dishes on life at Hyde Park’s formidable culinary school in new book Beaten, Seared and Sauced Nanny, apartment-cleaner, inspector of nurses’ shoes, coffin-factory janitor, staff writer at Martha Stewart Living, newspaper book and music critic, Creative Writing professor: Jonathan Dixon tried them all. While the path may have
Extrasensory delectations
By admin at May 18, 2011 | 1:47 pm | 0 Comments
Prepackaged umami and kokumi are pushing back the boundaries of flavor As if sweet, salty, sour and bitter flavors weren’t enough, there are now a fifth and sixth taste as well: umami and kokumi, both credited to the Japanese. They’re not quite flavors, but gustatory reactions to foods. The former was discovered in Japan in 1908 by chemist Dr.
Grape expectations
By admin at May 27, 2011 | 1:07 am | 1 Comment
by Megan Labrise - Fine Wine + Fine Art auction with Kevin Zraly to benefit Dorsky Museum Oenophiles blest with a cup that runneth over may do well – and good – next month. On Wednesday, June 1, the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art at SUNY-New Paltz presents its third annual “Fine Wine + Fine Art” benefit auction, from 6:30 to 9 p.m. at the Twenty-Four Fifth
A little kelp from my friends
By admin at May 27, 2011 | 1:20 am | 0 Comments
Or, the myriad culinary delights of seaweed You would never eat slimy seaweed – the gross stuff that snakes around your ankles when you wade in the ocean. “Few Americans ever think of a seaweed as something to eat,” wrote Euell Gibbons in Stalking the Blue-Eyed Scallop (David McKay, 1964), “and yet you have probably eaten seaweed during the past
Mac attack
By admin at June 2, 2011 | 7:01 pm | 0 Comments
by Jennifer Brizzi - Try this basic recipe for classic cheesy comfort food – then adapt to your own tastes Food has the power to nourish and please us, and certain dishes have a way of soothing us when nothing else will do. During a current time of turmoil and much stress in my life, when a family situation is turning my world on end, I find myself craving that
