Farm to Table Review: Restaurant North in Armonk, New York

This season is in full swing.  We have never been so thoroughly exhausted as we are this year even with the help of four new fabulous farm interns.  Today was a celebration of sorts: my birthday, the beginnings of the edible forest garden we got under way last week and the welcome warm spring weather.  It's been many moons since we dined like we did tonight.  In our area, 25 miles north of Manhattan, farm to table restaurants are surprisingly rare.  Aside from our much loved Blue Hill at Stone Barns, "farm-to-table" is starting to become a term tossed around without much meaning.  This is what happened to the words "organic" and lately, "artisinal."  When Kraft foods starts using the word artisinal as a marketing tool for Wheat Thins, we know the word has taken a meaning far from its intended defintion.  We have seen this in Rockland county where the term is used loosly, but when you inspect closely for the restaurant's definition, all it means is the food came from some farm somewhere likely far away and conventionally grown.  So, sure they aren't lying by saying this food came form some FARM somewhere and ended up on this TABLE.  But the true definition lies in a restaurant that supports local small farms and cooks seasonally.

Restaurant North is a new Hudson Valley restaurant in Westchester which describes itself as "refined farm to table new American fare".  Many of the farms they support are listed on the menu including Blooming Hill Farms in Blooming Grove, New York.  Guy Jones' famous phrase, "Don't buy food from strangers" is one of their "loves" listed on their website.  Also prominent are Ronnybrook and Rainbeau Ridge Farms in nearby Bedford, New York.

Our first course consisted of three amazing appetizers both in taste and presentation.  We ordered a beef carpaccio, grain mustard, fried shallots and capers.  The thinly sliced beef looked pink orange just like lox and the crispy capers with a hint of mustard solidified the dish.  Yum!

The second appetizer was a whimsical looking heirloom beet and arugula salad under a smear of soft Rainbeau Ridge goat cheese.  The arugula is the same that we grow at HMG: wild Sylvetta arugula: bold, spice and peppery and the beets were a mix of chioggia, gold and red beets.  Top notch in flavor and presentation.  So colorful, you probably can get any kid to eat this.

The third appetizer was the classic Hudson Valley Foie Gras in two ways.  The peanut-butter and jelly foie gras was original: crushed sweet peanuts made the foundation for a seared foie gras with a mild tasting Sambal oelek jelly.  Really incredible.  It's twin was a root beer and pickeled shallot foie gras.  We didn't taste the root beer component but enjoyed it as a counterpoint to the peanut butter and jelly foie gras.  Sure to become a classic at this establishment.

Dinner was a beautiful soft shelled crab with purple potatoes and roasted carrots.  Crabs were cooked to perfection and I was mesmorized by the vibrant purple color of the potatoes.  I wonder how they kept it looking so bright.  The roasted carrots were dry, however, putting that aside, I would easily order this again.

What was interesting was the presence of gluten-free pasta at such a high-end establishment.  HMG's other half did not go for gluten-free but had the Rigatoni with peasant ragu, spring greens and ricotta salata.  Hearty but not overly filling, this was a solid flavorful pasta dish.

To top it off: dessert.  This one you HAVE to order: A chocolate chip cookie baked in a mini cast-iron skillet known as "super awesome" with Ronnybrook vanilla ice cream.  It tasted like homemade chocolate chip cookies that just came out of the oven and you ate anyway before they cooled down.  Super awesome indeed.  A little less sugar in the cookie would have made me even happier.

I had a light beautiful panna cotta made with Ronnybrook yogurt, granola and blood oranges.  I never had panna cotta made with yogurt before and I know that doing so not only is more healthful but is lighter and tastes just as decadent as the real thing.  So good!

We spoke with our waitress about our micro-farm operation.  Everyone here was truly interested in the local farm movement which made the experience even better. We were actually shocked when we got our bill and the waitress said dessert was on the house because the restaurant supported and believed in what we at Hook Mountain Growers were doing. Restaurant North is a true farm to table restaurant which serves absolutely beautiful food in a relaxed hip setting!

An Auspicious Earth Day: Permaculture Planting for the Future

Ten Grape vines from St. Lawrence Nursery in New YorkThis Earth Day was auspicious in so many ways.  This was the first day we went to ground with our edible forest garden after years of permaculture planning...all under the guidance of Ethan and Dyami of Appleseed Permaculture.  It was also a day our four part-time hardworking interns were here: Alison, Eileen, Pippa and Rissa.  Another auspicious aspect: it was fruit day on the biodynamic calendar and we somehow dodged the rain in the forecast. 

Permaculture is about "permanent agriculture" and there are dense but great textbooks written on the subject.  It is a nice complement to our annual vegetables because it provides food and medicine and is low maintence.  Something we very much welcome.

We started the day organizing plants and digging holes.  Then came the actual planting and sheet mulching with cardboard we've been saving for years.  Woodchips from our locust trees topped off the cardboard and pathways.

Ground prepped and ready for work: "Before" 

We planted too many things to mention but on the partial list: apples, peaches, blueberries, yellow raspberries, elderberry, quince, goumi among other perennials with specifics functions like comfrey as a dynamic accumulator, licorice and New Jersey tea as nitrogen fixers, beneficial insectary plants, aromatic pest confusers and many many more.

 Alison, Pippa, Rissa, Eileen and Dyami learning the fine points of sheet mulching

All of us were spent after a long but satisfying day of work with new found knowledge, inspiration and the comraderie of being together, collaborating and tending the earth.  This is what earth day is all about isn't it?

 Dyami and Ethan pondering over a fruit tree

As Charlie and I sit down to feast on dinner, we reflect on the day's events, incredible accomplishments, on friendships forged, French Bulldogs coddled...... and as we do all this we stray away from the present moment for a bit to imagine the future of these fruit and berry trees that will feed us until we grow quite old.  A beautiful ending thought on this Earth Day, 2011.  Now off to watch Fringe...

 Henry, the most coddled French Bulldog with Aunt Rissa

"After" : We'll keep you updated as things grow and bloom

Fava Beans: Benefits of Pre-sprouting, Nurse Cropping and Companion Planting

Last year's harvest of fava and yellow wax beansFava Beans, or broad beans as they are known in the UK, are the ubiquitous spring crop at farmer's markets.  Actually, they really show up in late May or June.  Here, at HMG, they are just being planted.  As a crop, they don't yield much when you take into account their spacing and the final weight before it makes it into your mouth.  Somewhat labor intensive, you have to remove both the thick pods and also the skins of the larger beans.  So a pound of beans gives you about a cup to a cup and a half of usable product. It is worth it?  Yes!  The taste, in my opinion, is sublime.  One of my favorite things to make is a fava bean and mint puree or just lightly steamed favas sauteed in a little butter with a light grating of parmesan cheese.  Of medicinal interest, favas may be helpful for those with Parkinson's disease as the bean, leaves and roots contain naturally occuring levo-dopamine, the medicine that is used to treat Parkinson's disease.  Also, individuals with G6PD deficiency (usually of Mediterranean descent) will develop a hemolytic anemia (lysis of red blood cells) if favas are consumed.

GROWING.  Direct seeding vs Sprouting

Planting these are easy.  You can directly seed these whopper-sized seeds and they germinate quickly.  I started them in 2" soil blocks weeks ago in hopes of getting an earlier crop.  They do root vigorously in soil blocks so don't wait too long to plant them out.  They are sown 6-8" apart in rows 18-36" apart.  Being greedy for space, I decided this year to be more bio-intensive about the planting and used John Jeavon's  guide to every 8" with smaller rows.  As they grow, there are a few issues to look out for.  The stems will need a light support, whether it be small bamboo stakes or creating a nest of twigs around the plants and rows.  Watch out for the black bean aphid or blackfly.  You can reduce the problem by pinching out the top 4" when the plant is in full flower and your first bean is forming at the base.  Don't throw these away; they can be lightly cooked and thrown into a pasta dish.  This is "nose-to-tail" growing!

 Pre-sprouted favas planted and cilantro directly seeded in between.

COMPANION PLANTING AND NURSE CROPPING

Companion planting is a method of plant grouping so that each plant benefits from the proximity of the other.  Supposedly tomatoes are helped by basil and strawberries by borage, for example.  Conversely, there are things that should not be planted together, most notably fennel.  Supposedly nothing grows well when planted next to fennel.  From what I can tell, much of this is anecdotal through the collective decades of growing and observations people have made.  It would be interesting to see some science behind this.  It is rumoured that fava's enjoy the company of the herb savory and eggplant.  However, it is many weeks before I put eggplant in the ground and savory is nicely situated in the perennial herb area.  So I'm going to take a gamble and plant cilantro in between.  I am sick and tired of purchasing cilantro only to see it quickly go brown in the fridge days later.  It is an herb I use all the time and finding areas that I can succession grow these is sparse in a bio-intensive mini-farm.  This will be an experiment and I'll be sure to report back.

 Last year, I planted cabbage as a companion plant to favas.

Nurse cropping is another version of companion planting where by you can quickly grow a crop in an unused area next to another crop that has a longer growing cycle.  I do this with broccoli and lettuce.  By the time broccoli gets large enough, the lettuce below will benefit from the shading of the large waxy leaves.  This extends the growing season of lettuce and prevents bolting.  It's just another way of space efficiency and symbiosis.  Fava beans can be a nurse crop for potatoes.  As a legume, they'll fix nitrogen into the soil for the enlarging and hungry potato crop and they will be conveniently harvested well before the potato leaves take over in growth.  We'll also try this method for the first time this year and see what happens!

Hungry for a recipe?  Check out our friends at Grapes and Greens.  Deborah Soffel created this recipe of Artichoke Hearts, Spinach and Fava Beans Braised in White Wine that I hope to try once fava beans are ready in our farm.  Or maybe Hannibal Lecter's favorite: liver, fava beans and a nice chianti...



Prep Work for Chickens at the Micro-Farm

This weekend, our friend Jen who writes the Nyack Backyard blog, told us about a tailgate chicken and goat sale in the Hudson Valley.  This was truly a tailgate sale, meaning there were pick-up trucks lined up selling their wares.  The wares were chicks, chickens, goats, peacocks, doves and pigeons.  We showed up to scout out what was available since we first have to plan out a chicken coop.

We have a large area that could theoretically accomodate at least 20 chickens.  The area needs to be fenced, permits need to be gotten and all sorts of things need to be learned about chicken raising.  We're relying on a few sources: our friends Joy and Rebecca at Bluefield farm whom we currently buy our eggs from and the old reliable: books.  We've chosen the highly rated and recommended Storey's Guide to Raising Chickens, 3rd Edition.

We want to find chickens that lay a variety of eggs: blue, green, white, brown and these interesting "black" penedescenca eggs.

 There were little chicks under heat lamps all around.  I wanted this little gal, an Araucana that lays blue eggs.

Now, we're off to explore chicken coops.  We'll start at 6 this summer but will add on another 6 next spring.  I mean, I assume taking care of 12 is no harder than taking care of 6, right?

And then there are the goats we want....

 

What will our crazy Frenchie Archie do with this guy around?

The Man That Went Up A Hill And Came Down A Terraced Growing Area

The slope in transitionIf you stand on your property and find that you have hills, slopes, mountains or just plain bumps in the ground and if you have tried to grow on these areas, you may have realized that Newton’s Law of Gravity was right....all things do go down. Especially the beautiful organic top soil you placed on the hill to grow on. Unless you have perennials growing with a nice root ball holding everything in place, all your good intentioned soil will be found on the bottom of the hill come spring planting time. Here at HMG we too have a little bit of a hill problem. For the past few years we have just dealt with it and once the plantings rooted everything was fine. However the tremendous amount of rain this late winter has once again led to the discovery of a pile of beautiful top soil....at the bottom of the hill. But alas....I will be foiled by this hill no more.

This blog entry will describe a fairly simple terracing system which should allow for hill growing with no erosion of soil. We will utilize raised beds to create steps in the slope with small walkways between each bed.

One can find many formulas on the internet for calculating the slope/rise/run/square root of pi=mc squared.....to calculate how many beds are necessary to make to overcome your slope. I prefer the common sense method. I typically look at the slope, use an old stake....and then try to make it so the front of each bed will be equal to the back of the bed downhill from it.

This job will require the construction of standard cedar raised beds. We have described their construction somewhere else. In summary, you are building a square bed with 2 x 12 inch cedar.

The hardest work in this job will be digging out the back of each bed to sit your raised bed into the earth. The back part of the raised bed may be almost entirely covered with soil depending on the grade of your slope.

What also is important is adding a system to prevent your raised bed from sinking or sliding forward over time. You can either hammer stakes into the ground in front of the front part of the bed or inside the raised bed in front of the back part of the bed. I like to affix the raised bed to the stakes using some outdoor decking screws.

After you have your raised beds set into the ground it is imperative to place a level on the top of it to make sure it is level front to back and side to side. If you skip this step it is almost guaranteed that you will suffer the pained look of your in laws as they question: “Is that crooked?”.



Thats all for now. Good luck with that hill!