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, photos and tales from the farm as their crops come into season. Catch them on the Farm to Table episode of 'Rachael's Vacation' on the Food Network.
We had a bounty crop of carrots this year. We sliced them and diced them every which way we knew how and still they kept coming. It seems like you can open almost any refrigerator in America and find a neglected bag of carrots. You use one or two in a salad and then get stumped as to what to do with the rest.
We turned to our friend Sandy Gluck who always helps us out with our overstock. The result is a sweet and spicy carrot dish that will definitely clear up crisper space in refrigerators across the nation.
Find the recipe for Sicilian Glazed Carrots after the jump...
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, photos and tales from the farm as their crops come into season.
Last month we concluded America's Oldest, Largest Garden Party by asking all of you to submit the best recipe you've concocted from ingredients from your own garden.
We were overwhelmed with all of the culinary talent out there, and we had to turn to our friend, celebrity chef and gardener Alice Waters, to help us choose the best of the best.
The recipe that emerged victorious was a succulent (and some might even say sexy) lamb stew that's just perfect for chilly autumn weekends.
Tomatillos and hot peppers. Photo: Brent Ridge, Beekman 1802.
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, photos and tales from the farm as their crops come into season.
Earlier this summer, when a friend gave us a few small tomatillo plants, we weren't really that interested in them. Nevertheless, we found a spot in the heirloom garden and pushed them into the dirt.
Three short months later, as we watched every blight-bitten tomato turn brown and drop from the vine, we were thrilled to have those tomatillo plants.
Oddities in the garden, we've been asked more than once what they were. One visitor even exclaimed, "I didn't know you could eat Japanese Lanterns!"
An autumnal feast. Photo: Brent Ridge, Beekman 1802.
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, photos and tales from the farm as their crops come into season.
One of the true pleasures of life on the farm is walking out to the heirloom vegetable garden to decide what looks good for dinner. All summer, we've been sharing some of our own recipes, but we're not the only ones out there with a backyard garden and a little creativity. There are thousands of you!
We decided to hold a contest to see who came up with the best impromptu recipe from their garden this year.
And guess what? One of the most influential gardening chefs in the world, Alice Waters, is going to help us choose the winner. We'll even prepare the winning recipe and put it right here. You and your recipe could be famous!
To get you started on the right track, we're giving you one of our favorites this season.
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, photos and tales from the farm as their crops come into season.
When we first moved to the Beekman Farm, we knew really nothing about farming. Most of what we now know we learned from talking to our neighbors, local farmers with years worth of experience. We felt it was time to say "thank you," so the Beekman Farm is hosting a Harvest Festival in historic Sharon Springs, N.Y., to celebrate local farmers. The festivities will conclude with a five-course meal at the American Hotel , with primary ingredients (from the butter to the bourbon) that are all locally sourced.
While the festival was a year in the planning, there are some very worthwhile things that you can do to say "thanks" to your own local farmers. Here are a few ways to get started:
• Didn't even know there were farmers in your neck of the woods? Then a good place to start is at localharvest.org. Plug in your ZIP code and in an instant see what's growing near you.
Cool and creamy broccoli soup. Photo: Brent Ridge, Beekman 1802.
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, photos and tales from the farm as their crops come into season.
When we were younger, our moms had to work really hard to get us to eat broccoli. First they became magical, miniature trees. Then once we wised up to that, it had to be camouflaged with something like melted Velveeta or ranch dressing.
Now we don't think broccoli needs much adornment at all. In fact, we are so prone to picking and eating it right in the garden that it often never actually makes it to the kitchen.
Our heirloom broccoli and an amazing recipe after the jump.
Like many people who love food (and watching cooking shows on TV), I plopped myself down in a cool theater during last week's heat wave to watch Meryl Streep expertly channel Julia Child.
What stuck with me after leaving the theater was not Streep's pitch-perfect accent, but the very brief mention of a recipe for braised cucumbers.
It is quite possible that my brain latched onto this because at the very moment I was having a conundrum with what to do with all the cucumbers we've been blessed with from the heirloom garden this year (after a disastrous beetle infestation in 2008).
Our heirloom cukes and an amazing recipe after the jump.
Even as a little boy I was a champion of diversity. I didn't care if the onion was white, yellow or red. I liked them all. My favorite meal at grandma's house was her onion sandwich: thin slices of onion, two slices of bread and a generous layer of Duke's mayonnaise.
Fortunately for all of you, my tastes are a little more sophisticated now, though sophisticated and simple are not mutually exclusive when it comes to good recipes. Have you ever thought about combining savory caramelized onions, tangy blue cheese and sweet, juicy slices of apple? I hadn't either, until our friend (and former Martha Stewart Everyday Food editor Sandy Gluck) made the suggestion. The result was a delicious and decadent onion tart that will impress every single person at your table.
Why is it that everyone plants zucchini, even though it is blatantly obvious that one plant is enough to feed an entire village? (At Beekman 1802, we count ourselves among the guilty.)
Anyone who has ever grown one knows that this prolific plant produces far more zucchini than one could ever want. You never know what to do with it all, which is probably why zucchini bread was invented, and our neighbors pass it around like Secret Santa gifts: Someone is bound to come to your doorstep with zucchini right as you're ready to give some away.
Rumor has it that folks keep planting it because of our fabulous recipe for grilled summer squash. We dare you to find a recipe that beats this melange of fresh herbs and creamy squash for embodying pure summer.
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.
We can almost taste the sugary goodness of our sweet corn already. Those poor non-gardeners have no idea what true corn should taste like. Even when purchased in a farmers' market, it's never at its peak. Sweet corn begins converting its sugars to starch from the moment it's picked. Some estimate that 80 percent of its sugar is converted within the first four hours.
So only we gardeners can truly sing the praises of our ears. While it's hard to improve upon the near-perfect taste of corn on the cob with a little salt and butter, we think we've come pretty darn close with this "corn chowder" salad.
Recipe and a bit about our heirloom corn, after the jump.
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.
Native daughterRachael Ray has a profound appreciation for the farmlands of upstate New York, and just paid a visit to Beekman 1802 to learn more about our farm-to-table project with The American Hotel.
What does one make when Rachael Ray comes to dinner? We knew it had to be 1) delicious, 2) simple, and 3) easy. So we traipsed out to the garden for inspiration and found a few tender new green beans just ready for the picking. These are sometimes referred to by their French name, haricot vert, which translates to, you guessed it, "green bean."
Our "yummo" recipe and a bit about our hills of heirloom beans, after the jump.
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.
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