Kilmer-Purcell Josh - Beekman 1802: Recipes to Nourish Your Family, Friends, and Community

Copyright 2017 Brent Ridge and Josh Kilmer-Purcell

All rights reserved

For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to or to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 3 Park Avenue, 19th Floor, New York, New York 10016.

www.hmhco.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

Names: Ridge, Brent, author. | Kilmer-Purcell, Josh, date, author. | Trapani, Rose M., author.

Title: Beekman 1802, a seat at the table : recipes to nourish your family, friends, and community / Brent Ridge, Josh Kilmer-Purcell, and Rose Marie Trapani.

Description: Boston : Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2017. | Includes index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2017019016 (print) | LCCN 2017018461 (ebook) | ISBN 9780544850224 (ebook) | ISBN 9780544850217 (paper over board) | ISBN 9780544850224 (ebk)

Subjects: LCSH: Cooking, American. | Seasonal cooking. | Farm produceNew York (State)Upstate New York. | Beekman 1802 Farm (N.Y.) | LCGFT: Cookbooks.

Classification: LCC TX715 (print) | LCC TX715 .R7238 2017 (ebook) | DDC 641.5973dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017019016

Book design by Alissa Faden

v1.0717

To all of those neighbors around the world who invited us to have a seat when we had nothing but our gratitude to bring to the table.

This is a love story.

From the moment that we stepped foot at Beekman we knew that the farm would grow to be bigger than its fences. As the farm grew, it not only reimagined our own lives but also revitalized the entire village of Sharon Springs, New York. Something else happened, too. As the boundaries of Beekman grew to other cities, other states, and even other countries, so did the number of Beekman neighbors. From all walks of life, all ethnicities and orientations, we formed an ad hoc community of believers. Not just devotees of farm to table, but the visionnaires of our own movement, farm AS table.

Our farm sits in an odd vortex. The entire area was called Beekmans Corners at one point in time. On one side of the farm stretches the rest of Schoharie Countya swath of the Mohawk Valley with some of the richest glacial agricultural soil in the world. Its known as the breadbasket of the American Revolution because so much of the food that went to feed the hungry army originated here. On the western border is the village of Sharon Springs, once one of the most famous spa towns in the world. In the early 1900s thousands of people crowded the streets as they rushed to bathe in the miracle mineral waters that sprang forth from the earth.

In the bustling summer months, the farm families would often travel into the village and watch the comings and goings of the hoi polloi such as the Rockefellers and the Vanderbilts and even Oscar Wilde. It was social climbing as spectator sport.

For generations, these two worlds intertwined, and as summer-long spa vacations became less fashionable and as Americas agricultural production moved to areas with longer growing seasons, the inhabitants on both sides of the Beekman held hands as they walked steadily down into nearly a century of economic decline.

Since founding Beekman 1802 in 2008 and bringing together a collective of rural artisans and food-makers under one umbrella, the community has once again clasped hands, working together not just to rebuild but to rebirth, reinvigorate, reengage, and reinvent. Collectively weve rediscovered the power of community (and apparently hand-holding), and people from around the world now travel to our mecca for one reasonbecause around every corner and every bend in the road what you see for miles and miles is nothing but potential.

When we open the barn doors or the village rolls out the welcome mat for visitors its with a sense of pride.

Everyone has a seat at the table.

And it is still true, no matter how old you arewhen you go out into the world it is best to hold hands and stick together.

ROBERT FULGHUM

Makes 12 appetizers

These morsels looks almost too pretty eat, but ultimately everyone will give into their sweet and salty temptation.

• 12 fresh figs
• 1 cup ricotta
• cup confectioners sugar
• 1 tablespoon mini chocolate chips
• teaspoon finely grated lemon zest
• teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 6 thin slices prosciutto, halved lengthwise
• Honey for serving

Wash figs and blot dry. Cut stems off the figs and cut a cross on the top of each, halfway through the fig, to make an opening about inch wide. In a small bowl, mix the ricotta, sugar, chocolate chips, zest, and vanilla. Fill the figs and wrap each fig with half a slice of prosciutto, folding down the edges to look like a flower petal.

Arrange on a plate and drizzle with honey.

[Some people] have a wonderful capacity to appreciate again and again, freshly and naively, the basic goods of life, with awe, pleasure, wonder, and even ecstasy.

A. H. Maslow

USING GRAPE LEAVES

• Season a boneless chicken breast with salt and pepper, then wrap it in the grape leaves. Secure them with a strip of bacon wrapped around the outside of the leaves. Bake at 350F for about 20 minutes, or until juices run clear when pierced.
• Make stuffed grape leaves. For each one, place two tablespoons leftover rice or risotto in the center of a leaf and roll up, tucking in the sides. Drizzle with olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Serve stuffed leaves with a salad or as an appetizer.
• Use as garnish on a cheese plate.
• Shred leaves and use them as a relish on sandwiches.