Hudson Valley Wine & Cheese Tasting, Aroma Thyme Bistro

Hudson Valley Wine & Cheese Event

It is $25 per person for wine tasting, cheese & seasonal bites

Sunday, Nov 1^st at 5pm

RSVP 845 647 3000

The Cheese guys:

Twin Maple Farms, Matt the owner & cheese maker will be here

Sprout Creek

Coach Farm

Old Chatam Sheepherding

Great Hills Blue

Harpersfield Cheese

Adirondack Cheese

Nettle Meadow

Hawthorn Valley

These are the amazing award winning cheeses that we will have. If you love one or more we will have them available for take home.

Wines

Whitecliff Vineyard

Yancey from Whitecliff will be pouring her award winning wines.

Whitecliff Vineyard sits on 70 acres opposite the Shawangunk Mountain chain located west of the Hudson River (near New Paltz) and 80 miles north of New York City. It is one of ten wineries of the famed Shawangunk Wine Trail and is following in the tradition of French Huguenot settlers who brought wine making to this scenic valley over three centuries ago.

Today, we're using the latest techniques in vineyard management and enology to bring the best in European wine grape varieties back to this historic area. Whitecliff is working with European vinifera varietals such as Chardonnay, Cabernet Franc and Riesling, and quality hybrids like Seyval Blanc and Vignoles, including a significant planting of Pinot Noir. And we are pioneering use of Gamay Noir grape in the Hudson Valley for a Beaujolais Villages and a true Beaujolais-style Nouveau.

2008 AWOSTING WHITE

Light, clean, fruity and refreshing with plenty of peach in the aroma. Awosting is a blend of Seyval Blanc and Vignoles grapes. This is the taste of the Hudson Valley!...and it won a Gold medal and best in class from the Hudson Valley Wine Competition

2007 RESERVE CHARDONNAY

Barrel fermentation in American Oak developed complex flavors and a beautiful balance between oak and fruit, including melon, pear, vanilla and tropical fruit notes

2007 RIDGEWINE RED A 5 grape blend with an earthy aroma and a color like black velvet. Light bodied with soft, chewy tannins in the finish.

Suggested foods to accompany this wine: barbecue or pasta

2007 MERLOT Rich, complex flavors make this is a beautiful New York Merlot. It offers black cherry and anise, combined with a fine tannic structure and a long finish.

2007 CABERNET FRANC Great depth of flavor and a medium body characterize this delicious estate bottled vinifera

REDTAIL This soft blend of Noiret, DeChaunac, and Merlot is smooth and fruity

Other wines could be added to the list. We have some other interesting local and NY State wines that could possibly find their way to the tasting.


Cheeses

Old Chatam Sheepherding
Ewe’s Blue

Artisinal American Blue Cheese made on our farm in the Roquefort style with 100% sheep’s milk. It’s creamy texture and subtle blue overtone scintillates the palate. Wine & Spirits magazine’s judging team selected Ewe’s Blue “Best” among American cheeses in its wine pairings.

Harpersfield Cheese is aged naturally and crafted by using milk from our cow dairy located in the northern Catskills of Delaware County. Our herd has been bred over the past thirty years to provide a proper balance of natural nutrients to make our unique cheese.

Each step in the cheese making process is carefully crafted by the cheese maker. The cheese is aged in an underground area where the temperature and humidity are controlled until the full flavor is developed. During the aging period, each wheel is washed and examined with care.

Adirondack Cheese Company

Our award winning New York State Cheddar wheels are always a winner. Aged more than 1-year, our waxed cheddar wheels are tangy and are wrapped in a flavor-sealing coat of old-fashioned black wax. Made with all natural ingredients, Adirondack NYS Cheddar Wheels provide the "Good Old-Fashioned" quality taste you would expect.

Spout Creek

Ouray


An earthy buttery cheese with a sweet floral flavor, Ouray has a firm creamy paste with a crisp edible natural rind.

Barat


This Assertively nutty cheese with a pronounced caramel flavor is dense and dry. A lingering sweetness compliments its granular texture and earthy rind.

Batch 35


A crisp coppery rind sheaths a straw colored interior of this smear-ripened cheese. Smooth, with an open texture and a scattering of eyes, this cheese is meaty, pungent, and earthy.

Sprout Creek Farm is a 200 acre working farm in Dutchess County, New York that provides an integrated context for educational and spiritual development programs for young people and adults.

Great Hills Blue

Unlike many blue cheese varites, the milk is not homogenized. This results in a fully flavored and smooth tasting cheese

Coach Farm

Faithful to the traditional methods of the French farmstead cheesemaker, we at the Coach Farm are turning out authentic, artisanal goat cheeses that were once found only in the remote villages of France.

Our farm is located in a small Hudson Valley village, just two hours outside of New York City. We have, at present count over 900 French Alpine dairy goats, born and raised on our farm. The small, white-tiled creamery where we make our cheeses connects directly to the milking parlor.

Since they were first introduced almost twenty years ago, Coach Farm cheeses have won many competitions and awards and have gained wide recognition and a large, loyal following.

Nettle Meadow

Kunik is a unique and voluptuous triple cream cheese only made in Thurman, New York in the Warrensburg area at our small family farm. It is a white mold-ripened wheel made from goat's milk and jersey cow cream. The blend makes Kunik far richer and more flavorful than a brie-type cheese yet more subtle and sumptuous than similarly ripened goat cheeses.

Here is what critics are saying:

"Kunik is dreamy mild-ripened cheese made from a mix of goat's milk and fresh Jersey cream. It ranges from earthy, grassy and slightly firm to supple and unctuous and pungent, depending on its level of maturity. Kunik is delicious at any age and deserves a much coveted place in your belly." Anne Saxelby's Selections, Saxelby Cheesemonger, Essex Market, NYC, 2006.

"Kunik, a soft, bloomy Jersey cow and goat's milk cheese from Warrensburg New York was killing me softly with its smooth, creamy, flavorful but not at all stinky song. Jersey cows are known for their high milk-fat output and it comes through brilliantly in the Kunik." Grocery Guy, Chuck Klosterman's blog. June 12, 2006.

"...this tart tangy triple creme made of pasteurized goat milk, but enriched with fatty jersey cow cream. The blend makes for a sumptuous, thick buttery taste that retains the kick of fresh chevre." Murray's Cheese, NYC, 2006.

Frankly……..We Are Puzzled

We have been planning a great local Hudson Valley Cheese & Wine event at Aroma Thyme Bistro. And we have no reservations yet. Many of you have said it was an awesome idea. So that is why we are puzzled.

If you like great cheese then you won’t want to miss this event

The Hudson Valley is home to some great artisanal & homestead cheesemakers. We have rounded these producers up and offer many of these cheeses at Aroma Thyme. Most of these cheeses have national and international awards & recognition. Yes, cheese from our valley is being honored internationally. This event is a great chance to learn more about cheese that is produced in our backyard. Learn first hand from the owner & cheesemaker, Matthew from Twin Maple Farms. He will be your cheese guide for the event. Learn what makes our cheeses so different and famous.

Do you enjoy wine?

The Hudson Valley is the oldest wine region in the United States. And wow are there some great producers in our back yard. We are the Napa Valley of the East Coast. And we are pairing these wines at our Hudson Valley event. Yancey from Whitecliff Vineyards will be your wine guide for the event. We have been amazed at the high quality wines in our valley and can guarantee you will be as well.

Are you concerned about our economy?

Did you know that buying local makes a huge impact for everyone. And the Hudson Valley has an incredible reputation for agriculture. Our Hudson Valley Wine & Cheese event will showcase the best of the best. When you go to a restaurant or market you can increase demand for our local bounty by asking for local. With so many wines & cheeses this event will familiarize you with the names. You will ask yourself is there any reason to ship cheese from Italy and use valuable resources. We are not saying that Italian cheese should not be eaten, but it is best enjoyed while touring the Tuscan countryside.

World famous restaurants in NYC and beyond are taking advantage of Hudson Valley agriculture. You name them, the big chefs all agree!

With 400 years of history our valley is world famous.

Take advantage of this great offer

Call 845 647 3000 to RSVP (that’s French for let us know your coming so we have enough wine)

Sunday November 1^st at 5pm

$25 per person

Includes Wine, Cheese and Seasonal Local Bites (which means you will get your money’s worth)

Stop Organic Body Care Fraud

PRESS RELEASE: Buycott Certified Organic Products and Boycott the Cheaters

ACTION ALERT: Stop Organic Body Care Fraud

This November, the USDA National Organic Standards Board (NOSB) will consider a recommendation for "Solving the Problem of Mislabeled Organic Personal Care Products." The recommendation urges the USDA National Organic Program (NOP) to make sure that any use of the word "organic" on a personal care product is backed up by third-party certification to USDA organic standards.

Currently, as the recommendation describes, "at a given retailer, one may find personal care products such as shampoos and lotions labeled as 'organic' with no clear standards or regulatory underpinning for the organic claim - and unless the product is specifically labeled as 'USDA Organic,' the word 'organic' may be used with impunity. Manufacturers of personal care products that contain organic ingredients are hindered by a thicket of competing private standards and confusion regarding the applicability of the NOP to their products. Transactions lack the regulatory clarity that applies under the NOP to food products that contain organic ingredients."

The Organic Consumers Association sees this recommendation as a preliminary victory for its Coming Clean campaign to rid store shelves of products that are falsely advertised as "organic." The USDA has long resisted policing the market for organic personal care products. Even President Obama's USDA Deputy Secretary Kathleen Merrigan, an advocate for organic agriculture, has expressed reluctance. In response to an OCA letter-writing campaign urging her to go after personal care products that are falsely advertised as organic she wrote, "The USDA regulates organic personal care products only if they are made up of agricultural ingredients. We have no standards for personal care products and have no plans to develop standards at this time."

Her statement is at once confusing and disappointing. Organic personal care products that are made up of agricultural ingredients are the ones that are most likely to be genuine USDA-certified products. It's the personal care products that are made from synthetic, petroleum-based ingredients that are falsely advertised as "organic" that we need her to regulate.

Furthermore, OCA doesn't want the USDA to create standards for organic personal care products. We just want them to enforce the current agricultural standards in personal care, like they do when conventional foods are mislabeled as organic.

If the USDA delays enforcement of organic standards in personal care, the OCA will be forced to back up its grassroots lobbying with market pressure in the form of a boycott of "cheater brands" and a "buycott" or promotion of brands that are genuinely organic. Before OCA launches a boycott of brands that are falsely marketing themselves as organic, it will give producers an opportunity to come clean. Beginning September 24, 2009, at the Natural Products Expo East in Boston, OCA will meet with personal care products companies engaged in organic fraud to urge them to sign a contract making a pledge to consumers that they will either meet organic standards or stop making false organic claims.

The Organic Consumers Association expects a long fight for USDA enforcement of organic standards in personal care. The first step is getting the NOSB to adopt the recommendation for "Solving the Problem of Mislabeled Organic Personal Care Products." The deadline for sending public comments to the NOSB in advance of their November 3-5 meeting is October 19, 2009. Please take action today.

• Action Alert: Stop Organic Body Care Fraud

• USDA NOSB Recommendation: "Solving the Problem of Mislabeled Organic Personal Care Products"

• Press Release: This Holiday Season: Boycott of "Organic Cheater" Brands, "Buycott" of Certified Organic Personal Care Products

• Buycott "USDA Organic" Body Care Products

• OCA's Contract for Personal Care Brands: Meet Organic Standards or Stop Making False Organic Claims

• News Coverage: Organic Consumers Group Preparing Boycott of Non-USDA-Certified 'Organic' Personal Care Products

Campaigning for Organic Integrity in Bodycare Products

The Organic Consumers Association's "Coming Clean Campaign" has been working to clean up the 'natural' and 'organic' personal care industry since 2004. Unlike organic foods, many personal care products are falsely labeled as "organic".

OCA's Coming Clean Campaign is focused on cleaning up the organic personal care industry by ridding of fraudulent labeling that is misleading consumers. The OCA believes that organic bodycare standards should mirror organic food standard.

This means that:

• Certified organic agricultural feedstocks are utilized in the manufacture of the key basic cleansing and conditioning ingredients, versus petroleum or conventional feedstocks.
• Manufacture of such ingredients is ecological.
• The toxicity of each ingredient is minimal
• Non-agricultural water is not counted in any shape or form as contributing to organic content.

Over 600 organic businesses have signed on to support this campaign (see a list of supporting businesses here or sign your business on to be a supporter here).

If you are a personal care producer or retailer and would like to support OCA's Coming Clean Campaign, click here.

The word "organic" is not properly regulated on personal care products (example: toothpaste, shampoo, lotion, etc.) as it is on food products, unless the product is certified by the USDA National Organic Program.

Due to this lax regulation, many personal care products have the word "organic" in their brand name or otherwise on their product label, but unless they are USDA certified, the main cleansing ingredients and preservatives are usually made with synthetic and petrochemical compounds.

This is why the Organic Consumers Association recommends consumers look for the USDA organic seal on personal care products that claim to be organic. Although there are multiple "organic" standards all around the world, each with its own varying criteria, the USDA Organic Standards are the "gold standard" for personal care products.

If you are looking to purchase a product that is totally organic, look for the USDA organic seal. If it doesn't have the seal, read the ingredient label to find out how many ingredients are truly organic and how many are synthetic.

Identifying Toxic Contamination in Personal Care Products

Stop Bogus "Organic" Misbranding or Certification

To help remove some of this misleading organic labeling from the market, in late March 2008, the OCA and Dr. Bronner's filed Cease and Desist Letters to many of the bogus "organic" brands who utilize conventional and/or petrochemical material instead of organic material in making their main cleansing ingredients, some of whom even tested positive for the carcinogen 1,4-Dioxane in this study. Read the press release here and the Cease and Desist letter here.

Many companies misbrand "Organics" on their labels but consumers should look for products certified under the USDA (see recommended list here), because there are other weak so-called "organic" standards that a product can become "certified" under, which do not allow ethoxylation and 1,4-Dioxane, but allow hydrogenation and sulfation of conventional, not organic material, to make cleansing ingredients preserved with synthetic preservatives.

Two of these weak standards consumers should look out for are the Ecocert and OASIS standards; Ecocert actually allows certain petrochemicals in cleansing ingredients.

Learn more here.

Surveys clearly indicate that when a product labels itself as "Organic" or is sold by a company with the word "Organic" in its brand name, consumers are willing to pay extra, because they believe that product does not contain cleansing ingredients made with conventional and/or petrochemical material, that may be contaminated with carcinogenic compounds like 1,4-Dioxane.

See survey results here.

sourced from Consumer Organic Association, www.organicconsumers.org

Hudson Valley Wine & Cheese Event

We are having a great local wine & cheese event at Aroma Thyme, Sunday November 1st.
$25 per person 5pm
We were so inspired by the great local wine & cheese in Tuscany. But we also have incredible wine and cheese in our Hudson Valley. So we are doing this event to showcase those producers.
We will have a cheese and winemaker on hand for this event.
RSVP 845 647 3000

click on images to make larger

Italian Tasting Menu $29.99

There is no better time to be in Tuscany in October. So we have decided to bring Tuscany to you. We're offering our incredible Italian three-course menu for $29.99 per person. We will also be offering bottles of Italian wine starting at $20. All the food is influenced from Tuscany and just beyond. These incredible specials run from Sunday, October 4 through Thursday, October 15, 2009.

Please no other promos, offers or rewards are valid for these specials.

Here is a sample of our Italian Tasting Menu. Items will change based upon availability.

Appetizers

White Bean, Lemon & Olive Oil Bruschetta

Chickpea and Black Olive Tapenade Rosemary

Walnut Herbed Goat Cheese, Roasted Yellow Beets

Entrees

Polenta cake, Sun-dried Tomatoes and Roasted Cauliflower

Calamari, Spaghetti with Roasted Tomatoes

Slow Braised Lamb Shanks, Tomatoes and Pasta

Dessert

Sweetcorn Crema with Berries

Lemon Goat Cheese Cake

Please no other promotions, awards, offers or discounts of any kind with our Italian Menu promotion.

Plan Your Holiday Party!!!

We are planning a party for you and your staff. It is that simple we do all the work, clean-up and entertaining for an incredible low price.

Have a party for your staff for as little as $15.00 per person!!!

It’s our Big Party for small business. At Aroma Thyme we appreciate small independent owned local business. And we have made it super easy for you to have your big holiday staff party at Aroma Thyme.

Here is how it works. We have four specially priced packages for your party. They start at $15.00 per person for a small bites party at our bar. Our full dinner package starts at $29.99 per person and includes a complete sit-down, not a buffet, dinner and live Jazz.

Call Jamie today, 845-647-3000, to reserve your date, as these will surely sell out in December. We can also arrange specially priced wine and drinks for your event.

~~~~~~~~~

$29.99 per person, Any Thursday in December

Appetizer choices

Puree of Organic Sweet Potato & Yellow Curry Soup

Bistro Salad, Organic Mesclun 6. V

Pomegranate, Tarragon or Balsamic Vinaigrette

Entrees choices

Grilled Free Range Chicken Breast Cutlets

Smoked & Roasted Garlic

Spaghetti & Clam Sauce

Long Island Little Neck Clams, White Wine, Garlic & EVOO

Japanese Akaushi Meatloaf

Dessert

Bananas Foster

~~~~~~~~~

$39.99 per person, Any Thursday in December

Appetizer choices

Grilled Asparagus, Pine Nuts & White Truffle Essence

Rare Sesame Crusted Albacore Tuna, Spicy Sriracha & Peanut Glaze

Hummus

Marinated Olives, Roasted Red Peppers, Roasted Garlic, Dolmas & Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Entrees choices

Pan Seared Mahi-Mahi

Cilantro Chutney

Sautéed Calamari, Roasted Tomatoes & Spaghetti

Grilled Hanger Steak

Ommegang Abbey Ale Marinated

Dessert

Blueberry Crisp, Ice Cream

~~~~~~~~~

$49.99 per person, Any Thursday in December

Array of our Thin Crust Gourmet Pizza

Appetizer choices

Grilled Asparagus, Pine Nuts & White Truffle Essence

Rare Sesame Crusted Albacore Tuna, Spicy Sriracha & Peanut Glaze

Hummus

Marinated Olives, Roasted Red Peppers, Roasted Garlic, Dolmas & Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Entrees choices

Pan Seared Sea Scallops

Roasted Fennel & Herbs

Wild Alaskan Sockeye Salmon

House Made Teriyaki

Grilled NY Strip Steak

Pineland Farms, raised on small family farms from New York to Maine

Dessert Tasting Plates, includes all three

Blueberry Crisp

Chocolate Torte

Coconut Chocolate Brownie

~~~~~~~~~

$15.00 per person, available Monday to Friday

Cocktail reception at our bar, ideal for up to 25 people. We give a full supply of food for two full hours. Take advantage of this Monday to Fridays at our bar.

If you are like us and don’t have the time to throw a party for your company until January then we have even a better deal for you. You can take five dollars off any package that is $29.99 or more. So you can save a few extra dollars in January.

Top 5 Recycling Faux Pas and How to Avoid Them

How to keep the household recycler happy.

By Sami Grover
Chapel Hill, NC, USA | Wed Sep 30 08:00:00 GMT 2009
PlanetGreen.com


If your household is anything like mine, there's one person in charge of the trash and recycling. And wherever I've lived, that's been me. From student digs to young co-habitating professionals to marital bliss - I've been the one sorting through stinky cat food tins, poorly emptied bottles of soda, and plastics placed in the wrong place. And while I don't mind doing the recycling, there's nothing that drives me more crazy than a lax attitude to sorting trash from my housemates or family members. It's really not that hard.

In general, the biggest thing you can do is to stay informed. Talk with your family or housemates about your recycling system, and figure out methods that make it easy for everyone. There are, however, a few common recycling "sins" that seem to have cropped up in every house I've lived in. So, for all of you who don't take responsibility for the recycling in your home, here are a few hints to keep the domestic peace.

Top 5 Recycling Faux Pas - and How to Avoid Them

Unscrew It! - Yes, plastic bottles are recyclable, but in many communities the bottle caps are not. If that's the case for you, then please unscrew the lid before you throw it in the trash. There's nothing more frustrating than sorting through the recycling, and having to remove each bottle cap one at a time. (see Ed Begley's tips on sorting out plastic recycling codes to find out what is and isn't recyclable.)

Look Inside - For some reason, every household I've lived in has had somebody that insists on trying to recycle all envelopes - even when those envelopes are mostly lined with bubble wrap. Besides the fact that a plastic/paper multilayered envelope like that will almost certainly be unrecyclable, it's also pretty valuable. Hold on to those things and use them again. (Remember - always look to reuse before you recycle!)

Clean It! - I have heard arguments that rinsing out cans negates the energy saved in recycling them, but I'm pretty sure that's nonsense (especially for households like mine where hot water is solar heated). One thing is for certain--sorting through sticky piles of gunky recycling is no fun. So please at least empty containers carefully before you discard them.

Not All Glass is Created Equal - In most communities, just because it's made of glass, doesn't mean it's recyclable. Usually glass jars and bottles are recyclable - but drinking glasses, broken windows, vases, light bulbs and the like are not. At least not in regular household trash. Check out Earth911 to find out what is and is not recyclable in your area.

Compostable Doesn't Necessarily Compost - Sorry, just because it says it's compostable, doesn't mean you can throw it in your backyard heap. Most PLA plastics require high-temperature commercial composting to break down. If that's not available, you may as well throw it in the trash.


So there you have it - making recycling easier for everybody isn't that hard. And one last hint - if you're not the one sorting the trash, remember to say thanks!

Casual California Wine Tasting & Dinner at Aroma Thyme Bistro, Sunday September 27th

So it is no secret that Jamie and I went to Napa Valley last June. For those of you following us on facebook you saw the trip unfolding day by day. But don't worry it was official work, and tough work at times. In fact we averaged five wineries a day for three straight days. There is a lot of work, research and development, in every bottle wine that makes it onto the Aroma Thyme wine list. We visited wineries that we have a long relationship with an revisited a few new wineries.

So our first wine tasting of the fall is going to consist of our Napa Valley and Sonoma trip. so you will taste for stand and wines that we experienced from our trip. This wine tasting will be a bit different than the previous ones. This will be a casual wine tasting on a Sunday afternoon at a reduced price with more wines and our incredible food. The new time and date is Sunday September 27th at 6 PM at the awesome price of $49 per person.

Here are some of the possible wineries that we will be serving:
Ladera, Turnbull, Duckhorn, Cline, Jacuzzi, Alpha Omega, Peju & Grgich Hills just to name a few. Start with hors d'oeuvres and the small bites at the bar and finish with a sitdown dinner that includes our killer Kobe Burger.

Stay tuned for the October 23rd Duckhorn Vintners Wine Dinner. To promote this Dinner Aroma Thyme Bistro will be featuring Paraduxx wine at an incredible price of $49 the entire month of October. This wine is normally is Normally on our list forlists for $90. so even if you miss our Duckhorn wine dinner you can still take advantage of their wine at a very special price.

For reservations please call 845 -- 647 -- 3000.

taste of New Paltz, Sunday September 13th, 2009

September 10, 2009

Taste of New Paltz offers food from all over and entertainment

Donna Yee
Poughkeepsie Journal

Your parents might have told you at one time or another to finish everything on your plate.

Be dutiful and take those words to heart Sunday as you sample and munch your way through the 19th annual Taste of New Paltz at the Ulster County Fairgounds.

The food fest, presented by the New Paltz Chamber of Commerce, draws about 8,000 visitors annually from the local area as well as Albany and Westchester counties, New York City, Connecticut and Massachusetts.

“I think the event itself has a following and that people come and are part of it year after year,” said Christine Crawfis, director of marketing and communications at the chamber.

Taste-size samplings of food and beverages will be available for $2 or $3 from a wide range of local restaurants, wineries, breweries, bakeries, farms and caterers.
Aroma Thyme Bistro of Ellenville will participate for the fifth time. This certified green establishment, owned by chef Marcus Guiliano and his wife, Jamie, offers a vast selection of items, from Indian dishes and vegan recipes to pizza and steak.

At this year’s booth, visitors will find sesame-encrusted tuna and brisket.
“We’re going to be doing our sustainable tuna sashimi dish. We’re also doing our akaushi briskets,” Guiliano said.

Guiliano said with events such as this, he chooses dishes that have a proven track record and appear on the menu.

“Go with the big guns,” Guiliano said.

Participants can take a culinary adventure across the globe in one day. Try Mexican cuisine from Acapulco Grill of Kingston and then take a leap over to Neko Sushi & Restaurant of New Paltz for some traditional Japanese fare. Skip back over to try what Caribbean Cuisine of New Paltz has to offer and then sample the goods at Hudson Baking Company of Milton.

As you mull over your next move, check out the wine selections from Whitecliff Vineyard of Gardiner and Adair Vineyards of New Paltz.

Sample farm-fresh products from Jenkins-Lueken Orchards of New Paltz.
“We do fresh peach smoothies with the peaches we grow on the farm,” said Bob James, who is a partner in the orchard with his brother Eric and mother, Margaret.
Cider doughnuts, fruit and fresh-ground peanut butter with apples slices will also be available.

“It’s all fresh and good for you,” James said.

Good eats isn’t the only thing on the menu, though. Live musical performances throughout the day by local music acts will complement whatever tasty bits on which you’re chowing.

The lineup includes Vicki Russell, Cleoma’s Ghost, the Trapps, the Greyhounds and the Sugar Bees.

Kid-friendly activities will take place over at the Kids’ Expo, where there will be a dunking booth, face painting, balloons and a performance by Radio Disney Performers.

If you’re thinking of doing a little shopping, head over to Artistic Taste and Craft Expo for artwork by local artists, jewelry and other handmade pieces.

Edible items can be sampled or purchased at the Country Store.

The Business Expo will showcase area businesses and services along with raffles. The Wellness and Recreation Expo will hold demonstrations where visitors can learn more about health and fitness.

Guiliano’s favorite part of Taste of New Paltz is seeing regular customers.
“It’s a great event,” Guiliano said. “It’s probably the best event we do as far as turnout and seeing our regular customers and the vast amount of food. We wouldn’t miss it.”

Boyd and Blair Vodka now at Aroma Thyme Bistro, Hudson Valley NY

We did it again at Aroma Thyme Bistro. We found another small handcrafted American-made spirit. This time we found a local Pennsylvania potato vodka. Boyd & Blair potato vodka is awesome stuff. So why not be patriotic and order American vodka in your next martini.

Two guys and a copper pot still. Two guys with a passion for great vodka. Their dream was to create a classic vodka-one that made the way they believe vodka was meant to be made. With potatoes, in small, single batches. And they believe in quality over quantity. That's why they made every single batch by hand, literally. There are no computers or automated processes. From creating their own potato mash the ceiling and signing every bottle, and they do it all. The result is a classic five to be savored once at the time.

Boyd & Blair is made from locally grown potatoes. Why potatoes? First they yield a slightly sweeter vodka. Second, they want to create a classic vodka. A vodka made the right way, the original way-from potatoes. Surely cost more than grains. If you want to make a great vodka, you spare no expense.

Oskar Blues Beer Dinner at Aroma Thyme, Hudson Valley

Oskar Blues Beer Dinner

Friday September 18^th, 2009 7pm

$49 per person

Aroma Thyme Bistro, Ellenville NY

RSVP 845.647.3000

Sashimi, Seasonal Fruit

Mama's Little Yellow Pils

Their new canned good is a delicious, small-batch version of the beer that made Pilsen, Czechoslovakia famous. Mama’s is made with hearty amounts of pale malt, German specialty malts, and traditional (Saaz) and 21st century Bavarian hops.

Potato and Quinoa Pancake

Mushrooms

Dale's Pale Ale

Dale's Pale Ale is their flagship beer and America's first hand-canned craft beer. It's an assertive but deftly balanced beer (somewhere between an American pale ale and an India Pale Ale) brewed with hefty amounts of European malts and American hops.

Rocky Mountain Brook Trout

Creamed Corn & Chile Peppers

Gordon’s

Gordon is a hybrid version of strong ale, somewhere between an Imperial Red and a Double IPA. We make it with six different malts and three types of hops, then dry-hop it with a mutha lode of Amarillo hops. It is 8.7% alcohol by volume, and has 85 International Bittering Units.

Braised Colorado Lamb, Pasta & Greens

Feta Crouton

Old Chub

Old Chub is a Scottish strong ale brewed with hearty amounts of seven different malts, including crystal and chocolate malts, and a smidge of US and UK hops. Old Chub also gets a dash of beechwood-smoked grains imported from Bamburg, Germany, home of the world's greatest smoked beers. Old Chub is 8% alcohol by volume.

Chocolate & Berries

Ten Fidy

This beer is equivalent of decadently rich milkshake made with malted-milk balls and Heaven’s best chocolate ice cream. Ten FIDY is about 10% ABV and is made with enormous amounts of two-row malts, chocolate malts, roasted barley, flaked oats and hops. Its huge-but-comforting flavors hide a whopping 98 IBUs that are deftly tucked underneath the beer’s mountains of malty goodness.

Aroma Thyme Bistro in Nations Restaurant News

Potatoes put skin in the game

Chefs get creative turning popular tuber into gourmet menu items

By BRET THORN

(Aug. 31, 2009) When Bill Horst was in college, his friends called him the “potato king.”

“I made everything—mashed potatoes, potato salad, scalloped potatoes, twice-baked potatoes,” he says.

They were versatile, everybody liked them and—crucial to a college student’s budget—they were cheap.

Horst went on to work in the financial industry, but recently he returned to his passion and started experimenting with potatoes again. That included cooking paper-thin potatoes and bacon at the same time in the same fryer.

The resulting “Who’s Your Daddy” bacon potato chips have become something of a sensation in San Francisco, where Horst started selling them in Dolores Park as part of the city’s burgeoning street food scene, for between $3 and $5 a bag, depending on the size.

They’ve been successful enough that Horst now is making them in a commercial kitchen.

What first drew Horst to potatoes continues to attract chefs to this versatile tuber that long ago captured the hearts of Americans. It’s also gluten-free, easy to work with and a hallmark of many cuisines, from Jewish and German to Peruvian and Italian.

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Americans eat more than 126 pounds of potatoes each year. Pictured are Yukon Gold potatoes, left, and the Russet Burbank variety, right.

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Americans on average eat 126 pounds of them each year. That figure might sound high, but it takes four pounds of fresh potatoes to make one pound of dehydrated potatoes, which are used to make most commercial chips.

At Sra. Martinez, Michelle Bernstein’s Latin-tapas restaurant in Miami, the chef tried to make a traditional Spanish dish, patatas bravas, which is made from big wedges of roasted potatoes served with a spicy sauce and aïoli.

“But they were just OK,” Bernstein says. “I thought I was doing an injustice to them. So I decided to go Latin, which I’m obviously more familiar with.”

Bernstein, whose culinary heritage comes from her Jewish Argentine mother, charges $9 for the dish. She turned to Peruvian huancaina sauce for help. That’s a sauce of aji amarillo chiles, saltine crackers, cream cheese, sautéed shallots, lime juice and evaporated milk. Peruvians make a sort of potato salad using that sauce.

Michelle Bernstein, chef-owner of Sra. Martinez in Miami, describes her new-style patatas bravas, above, as “kind of papas huancaina and papas bravas and American potato skins all mixed together.” She stuffs the potatoes with Serrano ham and huancaina sauce.

Her choice of the type of potato to use was influenced by an American delicacy that she says she loves: potato skins. She takes tiny new potatoes, roasts them until soft, fries them á la minute, cuts off the ends and fills them with the huancaina sauce and Serrano ham that she crisps up in olive oil. She tops it with cilantro.

“So it’s kind of papas huancaina and papas bravas and American potato skins all mixed together,” she says.

At Miami Beach steakhouse Meat Market, chef Sean Brasel makes his own version of tater tots, which he stuffs with Gouda cheese.

“We take Yukon gold potatoes and basically shred them,” Brasel says. He mixes them with salt, pepper and a little cornstarch, rolls it into balls, stuffs them with shredded Gouda and deep-fat-fries them. He sells a dish of about six of them for $8.

Yukon golds are also Scott Howard’s potato of choice for his buttery mashed potatoes inspired by those of Joël Robuchon. The chef of Five in Berkeley, Calif., bakes them on a bed of rock salt.

“The salt helps pull out more of the moisture so you have a really dry, potato,” Howard says.

To make his buttery mashed potatoes at Five in Berkeley, Calif., chef-owner Scott Howard first bakes Yukon golds on a bed of rock salt, rices them, then whips in room temperature butter and finishes it with milk, salt and pepper, and truffle butter on occasion, just to gild the lily.

He rices them and then whips in room temperature butter, “almost like you were making a beurre blanc,” until the dish is about half butter. He finishes it with a little milk, salt and pepper, and sometimes, just to gild the lily, tops it with truffle butter.

“Everyone can judge a mashed potato,” he says. “If you do them well, it really sets you apart.”

At the new B&O American Brasserie in Baltimore, executive chef E. Michael Reidt also aims for superrich mashed potatoes by cooking them confit-style first in lobster-infused duck fat.

New York chef Daniel Boulud says potatoes are typically harvested around mid-August, but at that point their water content is too high to make excellent French fries because they get soggy faster than an “aged potato,” so he asks his suppliers to hold on to some of last year’s crop until October, when the water and sugar content of the new potatoes are right for frying.

If the sugar content in a potato is too high, it will burn on the outside before the center is properly cooked.

Boulud charges $6 for a side of fries at his new burger-and-sausage restaurant, DBGB Kitchen and Bar in the Lower East Side area of Manhattan, and they’re included in the price of burgers, which can run as high as $19.

For his bacon potato chips, Horst uses Kennebec potatoes, which he says are the variety used by the big manufacturers.

“They’re specifically designed for frying,” he says, “so they give much more leeway before burning, and they have a nicer, golden look to them.”

Horst started with Russet potatoes, which he prefers because of their meatiness, but his customers overruled him.

Daniel Angerer, the Austrian chef-owner of Klee Brasserie in New York, uses small purple potatoes from the farmers market for his version of German potato salad.

Except for the purple color, it’s a pretty typical European potato salad—with mustard, vinegar, olive oil, salt, cayenne pepper, black pepper and garlic—“but my grandmother didn’t do any sousvide,” he says.

He doesn’t actually vacuumseal the potatoes, he just slices them and puts them, along with the seasonings, in a Ziploc bag, and cooks them in water at 186 degrees Fahrenheit for around two hours.

“If you want to use some garlic, you absolutely gotta make sure it’s roasted,” Angerer warns, otherwise it overpowers all of the other ingredients and takes on a “weird flavor.” So before adding the garlic to the other ingredients he immerses it in oil and cooks it slowly for an hour.

He says that, by slow-cooking the potatoes, they retain their purple color.

“It’s beautiful looking, and even better tasting,” he says, “although you have to season it again after cooking it, because it loses a little flavor during the cooking process.”

Before plating the potatoes, he tosses them with Italian parsley or arugula.

“I just started doing a suckling pig menu, and I’m pairing the potato salad with the suckling pig,” Angerer says. “The suckling pig’s nice and rich and the mustardy potato salad cuts through it.”

He also offers it as a side dish, called “greenmarket potatoes with arugula” for $6.

Some other New York chefs use potatoes in place of wheat, especially in Italian food.

At Pizzeria Veloce, chef Sara Jenkins mixes durum wheat with cooked potatoes and the cooking water for her pizza dough.

“It makes it quite tender and sweet,” Jenkins says.

At JoeDoe, also in New York, chef-owner Joe Dobias says he always has a potato pasta on the menu, and it’s not always gnocchi.

“I think potatoes are a little more user-friendly for the restaurant,” he says. “They’re a little more stable, a little less labor-intensive than semolina, more forgiving and they don’t require as much expertise.”

He oven-bakes the potatoes until they’re just cooked, and then he lets them cool.

“Most people make gnocchi when the potatoes are hot,” he says, “but I think it just makes a tougher dough. So I tend to cool the potatoes completely; I even put them in the fridge.”

He recently used his potato dough to make cavatelli—a sort of rougher, thicker macaroni.

“It’s a little trickier than gnocchi, which is more or less a ball,” he says. “You need a finer dough and you have to process the potato a little more so not to end up with tough pasta.”

He serves it with broccoli raab, Berkshire pork and sweet corn to imitate a carbonara. He also makes a dish inspired by East-European Jewish knishes and Moroccan-Jewish pastelico.

“It’s more or less a mashed potato that’s combined with whole eggs and then dipped in whole egg and fried,” he says, so it forms a crust even though, unlike a knish, it’s not coated in flour.

“It leaves itself open to a lot of preparations,” he says. “In the Moroccan recipe it’s stuffed with ground beef, but ours is basically a scallion mashed potato.”

He says mixing the egg into the potatoes gives it the stability necessary for deep-frying, “so it doesn’t fall apart in the fryer.”

He serves it with a grass-fed hanger steak for $25. He currently is using local Carola potatoes from Sheldon Farms in Salem, N.Y.

Not far from New York City, in the upstate town of Ellenville, chef-owner Marcus Guiliano of Aroma Thyme Bistro uses potatoes where many others use wheat to make his food gluten-free.

“Whenever we make something, we always think, ‘How can we make it gluten-free,’” Guiliano says, because he finds that, the more gluten-free dishes he offers, the more diners seeking out gluten-free dishes come to his restaurant.

“By doing things gluten-free, we open up a whole new market,” he says.

At Aroma Thyme Bistro in Ellenville, N.Y., chef Marcus Guiliano often replaces wheat with potatoes to make gluten-free food. For example, he uses Yukon golds as the binder in crab cakes.

So to thicken his soups and lobster bisque, he throws in whole thin-skinned potatoes while the soup is cooking and then purées them with the soup.

“I like to use smaller ones, so we get a higher skin-to-flesh ratio,” says Guiliano, because he likes the skin’s flavor. “Some of the fingerlings we get are literally the size of a fava bean.”

When they’re not in season, he uses B or C size Yukon golds. He uses those potatoes as the binder for his crab cakes, too.

“I tried quinoa and millet, but Yukon gold works best for us, because it keeps the crab cakes moist,” he says.

He simply purees the potatoes and folds in all of the other ingredients, forms them into cakes, fries them and serves them.—bthorn@nrn.com

Read more: http://www.nrn.com/landingPage.aspx?menu_id=1380&coll_id=616&id=371858&utm_source=MagnetMail&utm_medium=email&utm_term=chefh@mac.com&utm_content=NRN-News-Culinary%20Currents%209-04-09&utm_campaign=Potatoes%20put%20skin%20in%20the%20game%20#ixzz0Q47zy3QW