"beekman 1802" news and stories

'Corn chowder' salad. 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, 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.

Heirloom beans. 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, gorgeous photos and tales from the farm as their crops come into season.

Native daughter Rachael 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.