The Foodie's Guide to the 2010 Ramble

For three weekends in September each year, the Hudson River Valley Ramble puts together over 200 events to get residents and visitors out into the beautiful landscape of the Hudson River Valley.

I've combed through the guide to this year's ramble, here is my round up of the foodie adventures in the great outdoors on offer.

Lower Hudson Valley

• Wild Edibles Workshop, Harriman State Park; September 11, 11 AM. Identify edible plants, their uses, history and legends. Where possible, collect samples and taste edible plants.
• Organic Farming and Renewable Energy, Hook Mountain Growers, Nyack; September 12, 10 AM. Hook Mountain Growers is a working micro-farm located directly outside the Nyack home of Charles Paolino and Pamela Yee. Come learn more about organic farming and gardening and Hook Mountain Growers' sustainable energy practices.

Mid-Hudson Valley

• Crailo Harvest Faire, Rensselaer; September 11 & 12. This event recalls the agricultural fairs of the 17th and early 18th centuried, held in the area around Crailo, a Van Rensselaer family farmstead. 17th c re-enactors, an oxen team, crafts for children such as pumpkin painting and wooden shoe painting make this a great family event.
• Meet Me in Marlborough Agri-Cultural Bounty, Marlborough. Multiple dates. Pick up a MMiM brochure map and guide yourself through a tour of the areas bounty — including several orchards, wineries and farms.
• Hudson Valley Bounty Dinner Fundraiser for Bannerman Island, Bannerman Island. September 11, 1:30 PM. $75-125. Enjoy an exclusive five course dinner for 40 people crafted with the freshest and highest quality local ingredients that the Hudson Valley has to offer. The dinner also includes a guided tour of Bannerman Island.
• Mushroom Walk, Locust Grove, Poughkeepsie. September 18, 9 AM. $10. Presented by the Mid-Hudson Mycological Association.
• Farmland Cycling Tour, Red Hook. September 25, 9 AM. Pedal from Poets' Walk Park through the beautiful, rolling countryside of Dutchess and Columbia counties. Besides catching occasional glimpses of the Hudson River, you'll pass farm stands offering fresh produce. Choose the length of your ride—7, 15, 30 or 50 miles—and pick up a map at the start. Cost: $15 donation (payable on day of event) will help Scenic Hudson protect more open space and working farms.
• Apple Cider Ramble, Poughkeepsie. September 26, 1 PM. Suggested donation of $3. Take a short ramble into an old apple orchard at the Town of Poughkeepsie's Peach Hill Park. Along the way you will have the chance to collect apples and press your own apple cider.

Upper Hudson Valley

• Garden of Eating Tour, various locations. September 24-October 3. Self-driven 'tours' feature delicious, creative and sustainable local food and products highlighting the best independent local farms and restaurants that Albany, Columbia, Dutchess and Rensselaer Counties have to offer.

Catch-all Veggie Gratin, for summer's bounty.

It happens to us all. The week goes by in a blink, a string of nights out with friends or working late. Suddenly, your CSA pickup is tomorrow and your fridge is still brimming with summer's bounty and leftovers.

There's hope! I invented what I call my "CSA casserole" or "catch-all veggie gratin" a month ago when company was coming and I had an abundance of kohlrabi, bok choy, parsley and all of those CSA staples. It just seemed natural to throw them all in a baking dish, toss with some onions, cheese and cream and bake. The result wass unexpectedly delightful — a summer veggie hash.

I know, baking is not everyone's favorite activity in this 90+ degree heat. But once a week, suffer through the hour of hot kitchen time so you can enjoy this dish all week. The steps are simple and the ingredients infinitely variable.

Catch-all Veggie Gratin

Start with a large baking dish that holds 4-6 cups, preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

Veggies: Anything will do, even if they're cooked leftovers. I've used kohlrabi, bok choy, turnips, potatoes, kale and cauliflower, feel free to experiment. If you're cutting up larger veggies, cut into equal-sized slices or chunks. Onions, shallots or garlic to taste. I chop one or two onions to layer with the veggies and cheese.

Herbs. Parsley is great, the more the better. Any fresh herb should work. I also add dried thyme to the milk when I'm heating it.

Milk or cream. Heat two cups on the stove but do not boil. I tossed in some leftover ricotta for added richness.

Cheese. Any cheese you have lying around that can be grated is fine. Softer cheeses, like goat cheese or ricotta, can be melted into the milk when you heat it. You'll want about 1 1/2 cups.

• Layer the veggies and cheese, alternating so the cheese is the final, top layer.
• Pour in the hot milk or cream until it comes about 3/4 of the way up the baking dish.
• Bake for 45 minutes until golden on top.

When it's done you'll have lunches for a week, or a ready side dish to any dinner. Or, serve as the centerpiece accompanied by a green salad with a tangy vinaigrette.

Frozen Delights at Hester Street Fair, NYC

Hello again, Hudson Grown fans!

Forgive us for our long silence, it's been a roller coaster of a year. Here we are in mid-harvest season and the farmer's markets are overflowing, canning and freezing are under way. I trust that there's enough time left in the summer to celebrate the cornucopia of produce from Hudson Valley farms. In the meantime, I just had to share our recent field trip to Manhattan and the discovery of a new outdoor market with vendors that you won't find anywhere else.

Eating the Hester Street Fair

[Mango con chile paleta from La Newyorkina] Tucked away in a sliver of Seward Park on the lower Lower East Side is a new marketplace filled with funky jewelry, vintage hats and food, glorious food. The newly formed Hester Street Fair, just over two months old, is an homage to the pushcart markets of long ago. It is also a food-lover's treasure trove of international edibles with contemporary twists, from candied bacon French macarons to homemade kimchee and cheddar-truffle pretzels.

Paul and I found ourselves there on a humid July Saturday to meet our friend Fany, the proprietress of La Newyorkina paletas and the author of My Sweet Mexico (out in September). Newyorkina's paletas (Mexican popsicles) were selling fast — flavors of horchata (cinnamon rice milk), hibiscus and mango con chile were favorites.

After brunching on a delicious omelette from Too Good Traders filled with zuchini, peas, bacon, leeks and ricotta, we were compelled to try more of the market's sweet offerings, among them a red velvet macaron from Macaron Parlour Patisserie filled with a tangy cream cheese frosting (we took a candied bacon one for later). We were tempted by the empanadas at La Sonrisa (especially the smoked kielbasa one and their cucumber mint lemonade) but just didn't have room.

Revolutionary Flavors

["Velvet Revolution" from Guerilla Ice Cream] We tasted several samples proffered by the young men behind the Guerilla Ice Cream table, and it didn't take long to see that their cleverly-named concoctions (Velvet Revolution, 8888 Uprising) were a nod to the 5-week-old non-profit's focus: 100% of proceeds go towards helping "marginalized populations" in NYC and around the world. Ethan, the pastry-chef of the duo (Ori's the business mastermind), will begin his Master's degree in conflict studies in the fall. He assured me that Guerilla Ice Cream will stay alive during his summers off. This was comforting because I was already addicted to the "Velvet Revolution" — lemon poppy seed ice cream topped with lemon zest and crumbled spice cookies, it tasted like a frozen muffin. It was a tough call, though — the chocolate-port wine ice cream and the mango-lemongrass-palm sugar sorbet were both amazing, delicately sweet and complex. It only left us with one choice – we'll have to go back again before the summer's gone.

Click here for more scenes from the Hester Street Fair.

Unemployment & The Fruits of Our Labor

Hugh hard at work putting tomatoes through a food mill.

Thanks to blankets of water falling from the sky — the fallout of some hurricane brushing past the east coast — we almost never found the house. I was ready to give up — wired and anxious. Two days prior, I’d found myself without a 9 to 5 job for the first time in my adult life and was feeling like I’d washed up from a shipwreck, confused and grieving. Paul and I had driven an hour up the Taconic to find a farm — the dark was falling as fast as the rain. Cell phones weren’t working, directions seemed suddenly too vague. And then we saw the Volkswagen, s buttercream-colored house and our friend Anne smiling in the driveway.

Hugh Williams and Hanna Bail of Threshold Farm live in the village of Philmont, less than a mile from the acreage where they have a barn, cows on pasture and a 600-tree pear and apple orchard.  Our mutual friend, Anne Dailey, invited us up to the orchard so Paul could take pictures of heirloom apple varieties for her Edible Hudson Valley article, but also just to come experience a slice of Columbia County farm life.

Anne, left, and a new arrival at the barn, right.

Hugh and Hanna had just come in from the evening milking.  The last glow of sun was leaving the cloudy sky and the kitchen beckoned. After picking out onions and peppers from crates of produce in the garage, Anne and I began chopping. The simple rhythm, the comforting smells, soothed my nerves, as did a glass of biodynamic red.

It was a Saturday night, the work was lighter than other days, but the work still had to be done. After dinner of Threshold beef sausage, onions and peppers, gradually, the kitchen became a hum of conversation, laughter and labor: the four of us were joined by their two young children, a couple young men who help work the Threshold land as well as Hanna’s cousins visiting from Germany. 

Everyone had something to do: hard winter wheat to be ground for a batch sourdough bread, crates of tomatoes stacked high in the foyer waiting to be turned into sauce.  It became a kind of ballet of chopping, grinding, sifting, weighing, cranking the food mill. With every hour I became more grounded, less stunned by the seemingly cataclysmic change in my life. What was in my hands right now was all that mattered: chop, grind, sift.

The countertop grain mill.

There isn’t a lot that is Martha Stewart pretty about a small farmer’s life, though there is a lot of richness that is quite beautiful. The 1800’s farmhouse kitchen looked nothing like the romanticized magazine-version you so often see. It smelled faintly of fermenting sauerkraut and the scrap bucket kept for the pigs under the sink. Most of the mud and muck are missing from our popular imagery of farmers and what they do. It was the perfect antidote to my desk job in Manhattan, up to my elbows in imperfect tomatoes and compost scraps.

After falling asleep happily exhausted, we breakfasted on homemade sourdough toast, raw milk cheese and homemade strawberry preserves.  Sunday was a blur of pizza making (sourdough crust) using the wood-fired oven Hugh and Hanna recently built, and making several apple pies — Hanna’s German cousins wanted to try real American apple pie. Using heirloom cox orange pippins, hand ground wheat flour and sweetened with cider syrup, those pies were the most American I’ve ever made.

We left Threshold Sunday evening with milk straight from the morning milk run, a belly full of wood-oven pizza and a freshly baked sourdough boule and mini apple pie to go. These were tangible fruits of our labor. I felt like I had rejoined the human race. 

Hudson Valley Fall Food Festival Lineup

September brings with it a respite from constant harvest, a time to step back and appreciate the bounty. Here are the next couple months' worth of celebrations — from fall's staple, the glorious apple to heavenly, pungent hardneck garlic. Note: not all festivals are both days, please check the respective websites.

September 12 & 13

Friends' Annual Crabfest, Piermont: Hudson River blue claw crabs, corn on the cob and a jug band.

Harvest Festival at the Farmers' Museum, Cooperstown: The old-time agricultural fair is revived, including horse-drawn wagon rides through the museum's 19th century village.

The Garden of Eating Tour (through Sept. 21.): A self-guided driving tour of the best farms and restaurants in Albany, Columbia, Dutchess and Rensselaer counties. Dozens of restaurants in the four counties will celebrate the fabulous local bounty by creating specialty dishes.

September 26 & 27

21st Annual Hudson Valley Garlic Festival, Saugerties: Absolute must, everything from garlic ice cream (of course) to more than you ever thought you could know about different varieties. You can smell it a mile away. 

Cauliflower Festival, Margaretville 

October 3 & 4

Heart of the Hudson Valley Bounty Festival, Milton: A day long family event showcasing the bounty of the valley and supporting agriculture. CIA judged Agri-Culinary Restaurant Competition, arts and crafts vendors, recreational demonstrations, music, kids activities.

Grape Harvest Festival, Washingtonville: Brotherhood Winery hosts over 100 vendors, live bands, food of all kinds and much more.

Apple Fest, Cantine Field, Saugerties: Apple cider pressing, demonstrations, apple bobbing, food vendors, apple trees and apples for sale, book store, Jane's Ice Cream, and much more. (518) 965-3929

October 18 & 19

Johnny Appleseed Cider Festival, Prospect Hill Orchard, Milton: Old-fashioned hand crank cider pressing with free tasting, antique farm equipment display and parade, make your own scarecrows, apple and pumpkin picking, hayrides. Free admission.