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HUDSON VALLEY DINING & CAN’T MISS ART EXHIBITS THROUGHOUT THE CORRIDOR ® !"#$"%&"'/()$(&"' *++, ROCCA the VOTE Rumor! Travel Hot spots Scandal! of the Baby-kissing! Caribbean Mo Rocca’s Arts & magical Entertainment history tour of Happy birthday, presidential New York campaigns Comedy Festival Anchor Business Away How Charlie Gibson on corporate his home away execs are from home helping the world !"# $%&%'()# *+, )+,!"#%-! ./-()#-- & L#(-/,# !,%0#1#,- FdAA0908_01_cover.indd 1 8/14/08 8:20:47 AM Café Chatter Garden of Eating the time, but he was quietly playing a The Hudson role that would help give the region a Valley is one of new identity. the preeminent Today in the Hudson Valley, you’ll find the most prestigious cooking food regions in I pull up a wooden bar stool. We order a school in the country; a culinary and the world duck confi t terrine with dried cherries, agricultural policy center; nationally a watercress salad with a locally made celebrated artisanal cheese makers and BY LIZ JOHNSON artisanal blue cheese, grilled leeks with bread bakers; world-class distilleries PHOTOGRAPHY BY STEVEN VOTE smoked tongue and local fi ngerling and wineries; organic farms that supply potato chips, and two delicious entrees: produce and meat to the best restau- isteak made from locally raised Angus rants in New York City; and some of the beef and duck with the fi rst-of-the- best chefs in America. spring artichokes. And, more and more, there are We drink a simple local red wine and farmers markets, local wine shops and fi nish with a plate of cheese. neighborhood places like Swoon bring- This wasn’t some fancy-pants ing delicious food to everyone. Even Manhattan-chic restaurant. Nor was it early food pioneers are making changes a humble hillside café in Europe. I was to keep up with the new demand. The eating at Swoon Kitchenbar, a neighbor- Hudson Valley is no longer a region hood restaurant in the Hudson Valley known just for apples and antiques. It of upstate New York. has become a culinary destination. The owners—Jeff rey Gimmel and Nina Bachinsky-Gimmel—make it a A Long Time Coming point to use local, seasonal ingredients. It hasn’t happened overnight. Farm- On the back of the menu you’ll fi nd the ers have been working the land since provenance of everything from the beef before the American Revolution. Chefs (North Wind Farm in Tivoli) to the fl ow- have been towing the natural-organic ers on the table (Artworks in Saugerties). line since its nascent days in the hippie It’s almost a given these days that 1960s. In the ’90s, boutique farms and chefs will cite their sources. But when food artisans started setting up shop. Travel guide chef Peter X. Kelly opened his fi rst Hud- But think of a thermometer, and put to the Hudson son Valley restaurant in 1983, the only Manhattan at the bulb: The Hudson Valley at arrive magazine.com way he could get fresh local produce was Valley food scene is reaching its boiling to buy it out of the back of a farmer’s sta- point. Some would say it’s bubbling over. tion wagon. “I’m so glad that it’s fi nally percolated “They used to drive down,” he says. up,” says Janet Crawshaw, the publisher “They had apples, squashes, herbs. The of The Valley Table, a magazine that fea- fi shermen used to bring me shad roe.” tures the food, farms and restaurants By cooking locally in season, Kelly —who now owns four restaurants— began to build his reputation as a Hud- son Valley chef. He didn’t know it at 68 !rrıve • September/October 2008 • !"#$!%.&'" FdAA0908_68-74_Cafe_TK.indd 68 8/13/08 2:24:39 PM Opposite page: Jessica Applestone of Fleisher’s Grass-Fed and Organic Meats. This page: Joshua Applestone in their modern country- inspired store. !"#$!%.&'" • September/October 2008 • !rrıve 69 FdAA0908_68-74_Cafe_TK.indd 69 8/13/08 2:25:29 PM of the region. She and her partner, Jerry in Poughkeepsie. The food-obsessed Novesky, started the magazine 10 years tourist could organize a week’s worth of ago as a modest 32-page black-and- activities, from a cooking course at the white quarterly. Now they publish fi ve Culinary Institute of America in Hyde full-color issues a year, 96-plus pages Park to a tour of the region’s farms, each. “Over the past 10 years, we’ve restaurants and shops. seen [the region] grow and mature into Why not start with Fleisher’s? a food destination,” she says. Take the Hudson Valley Wine & Food The Ultimate Destination Fest, for example. It was held in a fi eld Fleisher’s Grass-Fed and Organic Meats, on a farm its fi rst year (2001), and barely a modern country butcher shop with 2,000 people showed up, says Jennifer outposts in Rhinebeck and Kingston, is Cristaldi, an organizer. This year, the like a microcosm of the Hudson Valley festival—Sept. 6 and 7—is taking over itself. Since it opened four years ago it the 168-acre Dutchess County Fair- has exploded in popularity because of grounds and 12,000 people are expected its great-tasting, local food. Left to right: John Novi, chef at to attend. Gourmet magazine is a spon- Joshua and Jessica Applestone—he a Dupuy Canal House; Dupuy Canal House; Je! rey Gimmel, Swoon sor. The Hudson Valley Garlic Festival in former vegan, she a former vegetarian— Kitchenbar; fare at Swoon. Saugerties (Sept. 27 and 28), is expected opened the Kingston shop because Jessi- to draw more than 50,000 people. ca wanted to venture off her vegetarian “The food aspect really has come of diet, but the couple couldn’t fi nd a way age,” says Cristaldi. to buy raised-right meat without order- That sentiment is echoed through- ing a whole animal. out the valley—no matter what aspect “Since we couldn’t fi nd that, we of the food scene people are exploring. fi gured there must be other people like The casual gourmet might grab a picnic me in the world,” she says. lunch from Mint, the eclectic gourmet Now they source pork, beef, lamb shop in Tarrytown, and kick back on and poultry from “open pastures of the grassy hills of Brotherhood Winery small farms in New York,” including for a concert. The curious adventurer Sir William Farm in Craryville and could spend the morning foraging for Meiller Farm in Pine Plains, and sell it wild mushrooms in the forested parks of retail and to restaurants such as Mario Westchester, and the afternoon learning Batali’s Casa Mono in Manhattan, and to make cheese at Sprout Creek Farm Dan Barber’s Blue Hill in Manhattan 70 !rrıve • September/October 2008 • !"#$!%.&'" FdAA0908_68-74_Cafe_TK.indd 70 8/13/08 2:26:55 PM The Tavern in Garrison. Inset: Joe Seranto, sous chef at Tavern in Garrison. !"#$!%.&'" • September/October 2008 • !rrıve 71 FdAA0908_68-74_Cafe_TK.indd 71 8/13/08 2:28:22 PM DINE OUT, new york! Left to right: Chef Kenneth Breiman, executive chef at X20 Xaviars; appetizer of lobster crepe with mascarpone and chives and Blue Hill at Stone Barns in Bring in this ad for priority Pocantico Hills. “People come from all over because seating and enjoy a 15% nobody does what we do,” says Jes- savings at any of the following sica. “Everything in our shop comes landmark restaurants… from no more than three hours away— cheese, eggs, milk, beef, lamb, pork. Madison Square Garden U 33rd St. & 8th Ave. People who are trying to eat local, Nick & Stef’s Steakhouse (L+D*) U 212-563-4444 organic, sustainable—we are the Voted one of the Top 10 Best Steakhouses in NYC ultimate destination.” (*Starting at 8 pm) Even four years ago, however, it was a struggle to explain the concept. Macy’s U 34th St. between Broadway & 7th Ave. “We were ahead of our time,” she Macy’s Cellar Bar & Grill (L+D) U 212-868-3001 says. “People were getting it, but they Delectable American Cuisine weren’t getting it the way they get it now. MetLife Building U 45th St. & Park Ave. [Author] Michael Pollan, the mad cow scares, [nutrition expert] Marion Nestle Café Centro (B+D) U 212-818-1222 Classic Parisian Brasserie have made a real diff erence in the way Naples 45 (B+D) U 212-972-7001 people are thinking about their food.” Authentic Neapolitan Pizza, Pasta & Seafood When it comes to Hudson Valley Westchester. In 1989, he became the Cucina & Co. (B+L+D) U 212-682-2700 food, there are heroes, too. Certainly the chef at the Hudson River Club in lower Gourmet Café and Marketplace Manhattan chefs who have been shop- Manhattan and insisted on using Hud- ping at the Union Square Greenmarket son Valley meats and produce—a radical West 57th St. between 6th Ave. & 7th Ave. give Hudson Valley farmers a reason to move at a time when people wanted their Brasserie 8 ½ (D) U 212-829-0812 stay small. Larry Forgione, a Culinary food to come via airplane from exotic “Nouvelle” French Cuisine Institute of America graduate, sourced locations so they could have raspberries from the Hudson Valley much of his in January. East 53rd St. between Park Ave. & Lexington Ave. food for An American Place, a Manhat- In 1994, Malouf published The Brasserie (D) U 212-751-4840 Contemporary French Fare tan restaurant that celebrated regional Hudson River Valley Cookbook with cooking. He even opened his own Molly Finn. Malouf thinks he and a few chicken farm in Warwick and is said to other chefs—like Forgione, Novi, Ric have coined the phrase “free range.” Orlando of New World Home Cooking But John Novi may have planted the in Saugerties, and Peter Kelly, whose seed.

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