Hello all! Sorry to keep you hanging for so long, but I have been starting posts and then getting busy…very busy. Who knew that being unemployed and motivated would create so many projects?! So…I have taken a new job. After some really awesome job offers that just didn’t fit me right, (thanks and good luck to all of those) I have taken the position of executive chef of Murray’s in Tivoli. A small little cafe serving breakfast and lunch, with dinner to follow this spring, I will be serving a simple, clean menu with some cool and funky specials. The menu I have designed is very seasonal, and I am very lucky to have been able to access root storage crops and fine local meats, cheeses, veggies, and more. Come on by, as we are currently open 7 days, for breakfast and lunch. Check out the website, www.murraystivoli.com and if you are looking for me, I will most likely be there. I will soon update this site to have the menu, too. The only slight downfall here is that the local foods processing/catering kitchen that I have been working on has been put off to the side at least for the year, but I am still working on sourcing for that, too. Equipment first. Anyhow, what is time…Hope to see you out there!
Brisket on the Woodstove
So, to celebrate having a couple of branches of fresh Hudson Valley bay leaves, and the arrival of my years worth of beef, I am making a brisket for some friends. It looks like rain tomorrow, so I just took the brisket out of the freezer, and I am thawing it for tomorrow nights dinner. I got the bay leaves by trading some soup I made for yesterday’s international food day event put on at Bard College. Thank you to everyone for coming out and experiencing a little fall flavor from me and Ethel, with our colorful display of fresh ginger, hot sauces, garlic, and carrot soup. I will be writing up a recipe for the brisket as I go, and you will be able to access it on my recipes link.
Also in my recent travels, I had a sad time, when I went to check out a maitake mushroom that I have stalked for years, and have harvested it each year for the past four, and when I arrived at that mushroom this year, it was a specimen over 35lbs, along with it’s 5 close, large friends and I was just a few days too late. My personal apologies to all the folks that I would have fed with it, and it simply proves that, gosh darn it, I just can’t be everywhere all the time! I was kicking myself for quite awhile there, as a similar situation happened with an entire log filled with bear’s head mushrooms about a week ago…Now I have my eyes peeled for oysters, and I am moving on to dried mushrooms for the winter.
mushroom update and meat education
So, it looks like the maitakes fruited a bit early this year…not that you shouldn’t keep your eye out for them, but I was hunting over the weekend and I mostly came across past due ones. I guess it is all about time and place, with just a bit of background knowledge. This fall and winter, I am studying trees, and how to identify by bark alone. Let me know if there are any tree geeks out there that want to make an education trade.
As far as meat education, I attended a class at Johnson and Wales University about charcuterie, smoking and curing meats. Taught by Chef Peter Cooper, it was a great class. There were some great student volunteers and chefs on hand to answer questions, and demonstrate the recipes, and we all got wrist deep in pork, making and smoking sausages, bacon and pates, and cooking up terrines and curing pancetta. I made a bacon wrapped pork terrine with tenderloin inlay. Delish! I now have my sights set on smoking some pork belly from the pig that I just got from Poole Hill Farm. Now that I am not out every day hunting mushrooms, expect to see some recipe updates here on the site, including one for sunchokes and horseradish, since that is what Ethel and Tom are digging up at the farm now…
Beacon Community Gardens Fundraiser
All right folks…listen to this:
Myself and Matt (formerly of the Birdsall House, in Peekskill, NY) are coonking this fundraiser this Saturday. $30.00 at the door, you will get a beautiful meal prepared with local foods of the following:
whole pig roast
cabbage, apple, celeriac slaw
honey, wheatberry and chickpea salad
pumpkin and ginger soup
stout braised beef liver
creamy pheasant
marscapone polenta
green salad
nettles and potato salad
grilled end of summer veggies
All of this and beers from Captain Lawerence. $25.00 ahead, $35.00 at the door. I can not even believe it! We were out today picking up ingredients for Saturday’s meal, and as we were headed back to prep up the meal, there they were…My exact words were WAIT! STOP!! WE HAVE TO GO BACK!! And there they were. 5 perfect, beautiful maitakes, just waiting for us to find them. Be prepared to eat some delicious maitake mushrooms in http://www.sdgardens.com/2011/09/friends-of-sargent-downing-barnyard.html Beacon on Saturday. Hope to see you out there.
Salty Mushrooms
So, there I was, on Block Island, visiting friends and attending my good friend’s wedding, and I got the urge…the foraging urge. Off I went to a spot that I have hiked hundreds of times in the past, and there they were…a tree surrounded by giant maitakes! I don’t recall ever seeing these mushrooms in the years that I lived on the island in the past, but, lo and behold, they were there now. I cut and I yanked and I grunted, and then it was mine. A perfect, beautiful, 17lb (I weighed it the next day) maitake. I grinned like a pig in shit, and I have set about drying it. Long process! Just remember, mushrooms are everywhere, and you should always look both ways to find them.
Chili Saturday!
So, it looks to me that this Saturday is THE chili cook off weekend of the Hudson Valley…There seems to me one every 10 miles. Currently, I am cooking a tomatillo and beef chili up at the Hometown Foods headquarters, in Kinderhook, the closest Harvest Kitchen to my house, with Leigh Skidmore’s grass fed and finished top sirloin roasts, Migloirelli farms tomatillos, Tom Leone from Poole Hill farm’s onions, Tom and Ethel’s Red Hook garlic, jalepenos, cilantro, and leeks, and Anna Dawson’s lovely kitchen. I will be represented at the Hudson Chili Contest by a friend, as I will be cooking at a fundraiser in Beacon to support the community gardens of Beacon…If you are in the Hudson neck of the woods, come out to the contest on the waterfront and try my chili. I promise to have a spicy and a mild topping to keep everyone happy!
So Much Pie!
So, it is become the season for baking. I have been baking pies. Thanks to Elena, who is a cook at Wild Hive, my crusts have been perfect. You can buy pre-made pie crusts at the Hive for a very reasonable price, and all I have to do is roll them out and fill them with some delicious ingredients. In the winter, when it is not mushroom season, I will make my own crust, but for now, I simply do not allot the time, and I am in a constant struggle to keep the mold from sporing out here in my cabin in the woods. Aside from the mold, the mosquitoes have been the biggest problem here this fall. Ethel sent me a very interesting article from the NY Times this morning and I am giving it a shot to keep them at bay, although while foraging, I don’t think I have much of a chance for that.
- pie crust, ready for it’s journey
- blueberry pie with maple lemon sour cream
- whiskey custard pie with fresh Hudson Valley figs
Tonight I will be having a dinner with my regular Tuesday night community dinner group, but our regular cooking duties will be traded for separating all of the seed garlic for this falls planting. Like they say, many hands…and for us, many voices, too. We hatch a lot of ideas over Tuesday night dinners, and the meals are such a cooperative effort! Tomorrow morning I am heading back out into the forests to seek more fungi, and try to preserve some of my blood from the mosquitoes, anyone have any suggestions that I have not tries, besides that toxic chemical shit from Johnson&Johnson that warns that if you breathe in the fumes from the fan, to seek medical attention? For goodness sakes, it is a fan, of course you will breathe in the fumes! I have tried just about everything else. Well, off to garlic land I go, and keep tuned in for photos and updates.
Mushroom Education
Hi all,
I just attended Bill Bakaitis’ mushroom lecture, put on by the Slow Foods CIA group at the Culinary institute. Awesome. I just enjoy being in the presence of this man. On my way out of the house today, I found two more huge maitakes, and then I went to Ethel and Tom’s house to commence in making 36 jars of habanero hot sauce, that we are offering up to the public. Let me know if you, too are a hot addict, and we will make sure to reserve one for you. After enjoying my day coughing and sneezing and choking, I then headed over to the culinary institute to hear what Bill had to say. Very inspiring, and also reassuring of my own personal knowledge. I am planning a prix fixe dinner cheffed by myself and Matt Hutchins, formerly of the Birdsall House, with a mushroom tasting menu, paired with regional beers, at Hopheads Cafe, in High Falls, NY coming up in October. Stay tuned for a firm date, or just join my mailing list. Tomorrow looks rainy, but nonetheless, I will be out foraging, and Saturday morning there is a public mushroom walk at Locust Grove in Poughkeepsie, led by the mid-Hudson mycological society. I wish I could attend, but I will be attending another walk led by Bill for the folks who were at the lecture tonight. Still trying to figure out how to split myself in half! If you keep an eye on my calander, or read my newsletter, you will see that I am planning a mushroom and wild foods forage next week, which will include dinner, fun, community, education, and camaraderie, and will only cost you $40.00. Delicious local foraged wines $12.00 extra. Date will be solidified by Sunday. Next Saturday seems most likely. Capacity is 12 people, so let me know if you are interested. Vegetarians are more than welcomed! All ages are welcome, but there can be no discounts for eaters this time…in the future, with larger events, kids prices, and student discounts will be available. To sum it all up, the mushrooms are fruiting, fall is upon us, the garlic needs planting, and we need to make connections before winter separates us all!
Oh, Maitake!
Well, in the past three weeks, I have had at least 4 people tell me, (about finding mushrooms) that it is like finding gold in the woods. It’s not. Foraging for mushrooms and other wild edibles has much more value to me. You can’t eat gold…Well, you can, but you shouldn’t. The camaraderie, the community building, and the delicious meals that have been shared at my table this mushroom season are unparalleled by any past experience. I have spent every possible day out in the woods this summer and fall, and for the last two weeks, that has amounted to all day, every day, coming home with baskets and bags of black trumpets, trumpet chanterelles, cinnabars, milkies, maitakes, bears comb tooth, lobsters, hedgehogs, honey mushrooms, bloetes galore, smooth chanterelles, chaga, oysters, and more. So, in addition to all of this bounty, I have increased my community by introducing more people to the wild foods that can sustain us, and introduced those people to each other. Building strength in community through food, farms, and foraging. Working together to learn, teach, and feed each other. This is the basis of this site, to introduce each other to new foods and recipes, and to network how we can explore the world of wild foods together. There will be updated events such as potlucks, (with guidelines!…eg: a list of foods that people can check off, such as appetizer, salad, protein, dessert, etc…) theme meals, open meals, prix fixe restaurant dinners, community picnics, forage walks/hikes, and more. Stay tuned to the calendar.
