Farmers Brent Ridge and Josh Kilmer-Purcell. Photo: Michael Hnatov.

Brent Ridge and Josh Kilmer-Purcell are the farmers and innovators behind Beekman 1802, a 200-year-old estate and farm in upstate New York. We'll be running recipes, gorgeous photos and tales from the farm as their crops come into season. Here's how they got their start!

One evening last winter we sat down to dinner in a little pied-a-terre on the Upper East Side of Manhattan: Beef roast braised with rosemary and onions; pureed celery root and parsnips; crackling-fresh sautéed green beans. For dessert it was goat milk cheesecake with elderberry coulis. We washed the whole thing down with bottles of hard apple cider.

Had we ordered in -- stereotypical Manhattanites -- from the overpriced local gourmet grocery? Nope. Everything we consumed we had raised, herded, grown, plucked, cultivated, canned and cooked all by ourselves.

Could any other of the millions of inhabitants of New York City make that same claim that night? How about anyone else in the United States? OK, probably a couple, but for us, this was a meal just about 40 years in the making.

A photo of the farm and the rest of the introduction, after the jump.


How did we get here?

Brent grew up in rural North Carolina watching his grandparents coax corn, onions, tomatoes and cucumbers out of red clay far better suited to bricklaying than gardening. He raised his first successful crop from a forgotten packet of radish seeds at the age of 6. Josh learned to garden in upstate New York from his grandfather Poppy, who grew spring peas right up on top of his 1950s pink-and-black mobile home.

Of course, we eventually left the fields of our childhoods for the bright lights of the big city (Josh to work in advertising, Brent as a physician). When we met, we realized we were both committed to eating beautiful food. For years we sampled the best cuisine and creations from some of the most celebrated chefs in the world with the best ingredients at their disposal.

In a neverending quest to replicate these culinary experiences, we were always trying to get our hands on these "best ingredients" for our own kitchen. In the middle of summer not too long ago, tired of the winter selection of tomatoes that had been picked too soon and shipped thousands of miles for our convenience, we rushed to the Union Square Greenmarket and hastily assembled a small flat of tomatoes. Twelve deep purple Black Cherokees -- "$80, please." While they were worth every penny, our appetite outmatched our budget.

The next summer, we used the rooftop of our apartment building to start growing our own tomatoes along with several varieties of peppers and a full complement of fresh herbs. Two short years later we were full-fledged farmers on a 60-acre historic farm in upstate New York with a herd of goats, cows, chickens, turkeys, rabbits, a goat-herding llama and a half-acre vegetable garden with 52 hand-built raised beds.

Beekman 1802 farm. Photo: Brent Ridge.

Our nascent interest in heirloom vegetables was fertilized by our next door neighbors, who just happened to be the owners of D. Landreth Seed Company, the oldest seed company in America, and we now grow more than 100 varieties of unmodified, historically authentic vegetables in our garden using their seeds. Heirlooms have sentimental or intrinsic value greater than monetary value, and are treasured and passed down from one generation to the next.

When Brent was 7 years old, his grandmother would have him practice his penmanship for hours. (To see his doctor's scrawl now, you'd never believe it.) He carefully transcribed her recipes into a wirebound notebook. Looking at these notebooks now brings back a wealth of memories not just about rainy summer afternoons spent at Mamaw's house but about the foods themselves and the occasions on which they were served. Memorial Day always meant butterscotch pie, and Thanksgiving would not be complete without succotash made from lima beans and white corn.

When we started working with our friend Sandra Gluck, the former food editor for Martha Stewart's Everyday Food magazine, our goal was to create recipes that were simple and delicious, using ingredients the minute they came out of the garden – recipes worthy of everyday use and on special occasions.

The sales of heirloom seeds are up more than 80 percent this year, and about 43 million American households plan gardens for the coming year (up 18 percent). So we know we're not alone in our quest for finding the best and most economical ingredients right in our own backyard.

Each week this summer, we'll introduce a new recipe... fresh from our garden to yours.

Vegetables fresh from the farm. Photo: Brent Ridge.