Two Locavores on Vacation

I haven't been posting for the last couple of weeks because we were traveling to New York state to visit my son Eric and his wife Aileen. This is part belated-holiday visit (it's cheaper and easier to travel AFTER Christmas), and part house-hunting trip for them in the Catskills.

This is the first travel away from home that we have done since starting our 100-mile diet in November. Our rules were that we would try to find local food at our destination, but not be rigid about it; the main point of the trip is the visiting and being with our loved family, rather than what we eat. I expanded this slightly to say that I can bring back a few small items with me that were produced within a 100-mile circle of our destination.

That said, my sweet DIL had put in some work in finding stores selling local foods. They rented a house for the week, with a fully equipped kitchen. We shopped locally and cooked all but one of our meals.

The crowning locavore glory was a locally raised roasting chicken, eight pounds. We roasted it one night, with local potatoes. Then I took the meat off the bones, and we used it in lunches the rest of the week, along with other items. I cooked the carcass, making a rich chicken soup from the broth and meat, with the vegetables that we had on hand (including canned peas).

The first full day we were there in the Catskills, we went to the Adams natural food market in Saugerties, which had lots of local foods. We got New York state apples, Grafton Valley 2 yr old cheddar, Russell Farms buckwheat flour, New York potatoes, local onions, Kim chee. This was the source of the fabulous roasting chicken.

We also got fresh local ricotta, an absolutely superb product. We used it for lasagna and breakfast crepes, as well as an occasional dip with the spoon. Miles ahead of any commercial product I’ve ever had. If I can’t find real fresh ricotta, I’ll have to learn to make it. We also got local eggs and milk (regular commercial pasteurized) but it was good. Local for Woodstock New York includes Pennsylvania, Vermont, and New Jersey, since it is in the south of the state.

We shopped at the local German market and got local bacon, really superlative. German potato salad, smoked gruyere, European chocolate, German herring and sardines, local venison salami were among our other purchases. I expect the bacon had sodium nitrite in it, but oh well, once a year won’t hurt. We also got local maple syrup there. And we stopped at the Sunflower market in Woodstock, a natural foods store, for local cheese, milk, and eggs.

I saw linden flower tea for sale in the German market, which was imported, but I bought some. I have wanted to try out this tea for a while. It was delicious, with a honey-like fragrance, and very soothing. We have many linden trees in our area as landscape trees, so collecting linden flowers should be easy enough to do. You collect them just as the flowers fall, and dry them gently so that they will keep. I am definitely doing this next spring in linden blossom time. BTW linden is also known as tilia (tilleul, tiglio) and lime flower (though it has nothing to do with the citrus lime).

Aileen had also bought us American Classic tea, blended with tea from the South Carolina tea plantation, the only tea plantation in the U.S., and the closest to local black tea that we can get. It has a very nice flavor. Bigelow owns the plantation.

The New York weather was cold, with a damp chill that just goes through you, compared to our drier cold. But we had only two very small snow flurries. The area is a mecca for locally-produced food, especially in the warmer periods of the year. The land is fertile and harbors a large number of CSAs, small local farms, dairy farms, and so forth. Maple syrup is produced locally. The New York apples are wonderful. The area has a strong tradition of locally-produced artisanal cheeses.

We stopped at Lucky's, the local chocolate shop, and got some treats, locally made from non-local ingredients, but delicious.
We ate brunch at Sweet Sue's in Phoenicia, NY. The food was delicious, and the servings very generous. Aileen made a fabulous brown-rice noodle lasagne, with local cheeses, spinach, and pesto.

I made gluten-free pizza the next evening using flours she had brought, local mozzarella and sausage, and more of that delicious pesto (the brand name was Buddhapesto). Pesto goes a long way. I'm happy I have many small jars of it in my freezer from last summer's basil extravaganza from Cresset Farm.

What I brought back: a bag of buckwheat flour produced less than 30 miles from where we were, and some New York cheese.