A sunny morning, despite big, bossy clouds. 78F by mid-afternoon with a cool breeze through the trees. A lovely day with some evening sprinkles.
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Daily Catskills: 08/12/17
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Tag Archives: Upstate New York
A Summer Party in Halcottsville
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On Saturday August 12th at 4pm, Ella’s Mercantile is having a summer party in Halcottsville, a favorite haunt of mine. It’s an exquisitely picturesque haven on a large boating lake, through which the historic railroad (DURR) runs. It’s postcard perfect. I’ve taken watercolor classes there; participated in a plein air painting group (with or without attendant goats); interviewed the reverends of the church for a local publication; exhibited my prints in The Grange and tasted tea with a friend. You can stay at Susan’s Pleasant Pheasant Farm and kayak on Lake Wawaka. There’s even a fledgling Shakespeare Company in the works. The whole village is arguably one of the Catskills most beautiful places. Continue reading
Daily Catskills: 08/09/17
77F by mid-afternoon: a wrestling match between the sun and potbellied clouds that had waned by the evening.
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Daily Catskills: 08/06/17
74F by mid-afternoon and cloudy with a cool breeze. Periods of sunshine ripen the hazelnuts.
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Daily Catskills: 07/31/17
A chilly 56F at 7.30am, rising to 84F by 3pm. Hot, sultry and hazy on top of this part of the world.
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Daily Catskills: 07/29/17
72F and sunny with a cool breeze.
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Catskills Weekend: July 28th & 29th
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EVENTS in the Catskills tonight and this weekend:
Tonight, Friday 28th, there will be music at Wayside Cider in Andes.
Saturday July 29th at 1pm, join trustees at the annual meeting of Woodchuck Lodge, John Burroughs last home built by his brother on the Burroughs’ ancestral home. The board of Woodchuck Lodge works to preserve this historic site and runs its popular Wild Saturday program on the first weekend of every month. Location: 1633 Burroughs Memorial Road, Roxbury, NY 12474. Free tours are also offered on the first weekend of every month from 11am to 3pm.
The Catskill Center for Conservation and Development and the Woodstock Land Conservancy are teaming up for a “Bio Blitz” at the Thorn Preserve in which participants can “volunteer to do a bit of citizen science” until 10pm tonight July 28th. The project continues tomorrow July 29th from 9.30am to 5.30pm at 55 John Joy Road, Woodstock, NY. Meet scientists and expert naturalists to study the wildlife, plants and biodiversity at the Catskill Center’s Thorn Preserve, a beautiful 60-acre locale containing a stream, pond, wetlands, forest and open meadow. A great opportunity to get involved. Continue reading
Daily Catskills: 07/27/17
72F by mid-afternoon with rain for most of the day, only stopping about 3pm. Toad weather.
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Bovina Fashion Week
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Country life is a great leveler. There are American icons in our midst who are asked to sit on boards with people who forget their names and there are enigmatic art directors who hold fashion shows with clothing made entirely from recycled garbage on their 100-acre farm. Who knows what the sheep thought, but a good time was had by the humans in attendance and an essential statement was made about the environment.
Yes, the model pictured above is blurry, but the organizer, Steve Burnett, aka The Bovina Farmer, had a glittering career in New York City before he realized his dreams, so he got everyone drunk on Manhattans. In fact, refreshments for the audience were two whole watermelons and a copper bowl of Manhattans served to us by the illustrious Sir Julian of Richards, he of Tickler fame. The audience was ushered into the event through a dense thicket of balsam fir by the dulcet tones of the bagpipes played by a piper clad in full blue tartan. Once the bagpipes had retreated, musical accompaniment for the show was provided by a world class drummer beating some expert modeling marching orders on metal garbage pails.
There is seriously never a dull moment here in these beautifully eccentric Catskill Mountains.
Daily Catskills: 07/22/17
82F by 1pm, humid and overcast.
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Catskills Weekend: July 22nd
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Saturday July 22nd
Phoenicia
You may just be able to register in time for Taste the World, at 1.30pm on Saturday – if it’s not sold out – at the Phoenicia Library. Sample a medley of traditional foods that The Recipe Hunters learned to make in the homes of locals from around the world. Hear about the stories of people behind these recipes. ADVANCED REGISTRATION required, please call the library 688-7811. 48 Main Street, Phoenicia, NY 12464.
Hobart
Hosted by Transition Catskills, Hobart Methodist Church is holding a Repair Cafe from 10am to 2pm. Take your broken household items, like lamps, vacuum cleaners, small appliances and clothing to be fixed. Hobart Methodist Church, 186 Maple Avenue, Hobart, NY 13788
Bovina
Gardens of Bovina Tour, hosted by Bovina Historical Society will take place from 10am to 4pm. 124 Bob Hall Road, Bovina Center, NY 13740. This is a rare chance to get an insider’s glimpse of one of the hippest areas in the Catskills. Feel free to bring a picnic lunch.
Arkville
If you are interested in becoming a member of the non-profit Catskill Center, they are holding a members-only event entitled The Hudson River School and the Ice Age with speakers and geologists Johanna and Robert Titus. The Catskills Mountains were once at the bottom of the sea where the Bahamas are now. Found out how they got here, Saturday 22nd, 7pm to 9pm. 43355 State Route 28, Arkville, NY 12406. Membership is $35 for individuals and $50 for families.
Andes
Wayside Cider are hosting a Wallabout Fire Roasted Beef Dinner at 6pm Wayside Cider, 55 Redden Lane, Andes, NY 13731. $60 cash at the door.
Monday 24th July
Pine Hill
The Zephyr in Pine Hill is hosting a trivia game night. from 7pm to 10pm. 302 Main Street, Pine Hill, NY 12465. $5 margaritas and some delicious local eats.
Daily Catskills: 07/20/17
85F by mid-afternoon, sweaty and humid with a mix of sun and cloud. Late afternoon showers.
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Daily Catskills: 07/18/17
After a moody morning: 84F by mid-afternoon, sunny, warm with distant clouds. Blueberries ripening.
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Daily Catskills: 07/17/17
84F by mid-afternoon with the morning sun disappearing under thick clouds, and a dash of late afternoon thunder. Humid.
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Daily Catskills: 07/16/17
83F by mid-afternoon, sunny with distant, fluffy clouds.
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Daily Catskills: 06/30/17
84F by mid-afternoon and humid with refreshing afternoon rain.
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Catskills Weekend: July 1st
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Saturday July 1st
Celebrate
9.30 to 4pm in Roxbury, their Summer Festival on Main Street including a Pop-Up Art Sale in the Orphic Gallery, street art, pony rides, wine tastings, fly fishing demonstrations, food, antiques and much more.
Learn
10am at the Catskill Center in Arkville: Stone Pigment Workshop. Catskill mountain artist Laura Leigh Lanchantin will demonstrate her method of grinding Catskill sedimentary rock into oil and watercolor paint. No previous knowledge is required. $12 per person at Catskill Center, 4355 State Route 28, Arkville, New York 12406.
1pm at Woodchuck Lodge in Roxbury: Mairead Mulhern will give a talk on Wildlife Near Home. Mairead, an Environmental Educator from Mine Kill and Mac V. Shaul State Parks, will discuss local wildlife found in Upstate New York. Come take a look at various pelts, skulls, and feathers that are from local animals found in your county. This is a family friendly event. All ages welcome. Address: 1633 Burroughs Memorial Road, Roxbury, NY 12474.
Eat
9am to 4pm: Four and Twenty Blackbirds Pie Pop Up Shop, in the lot at Phoenicia Diner at 5681 Route 28, Phoenicia, NY 12464. July 1st to 4th. Live music by M. Lui and Keenan O’Meara on Saturday night.
Dance
It’s hard to resist a dance party when it comes along. Wayside Cider is having such a shindig on July 1st, 7pm to 11pm, at their brewery in Andes. 55 Redden Lane, Andes, NY 13731. DJ Jess will be spinning.
Daily Catskills: 06/28/17
55F at 8am, sunny, wet from overnight rain, rising to 70F by mid-afternoon with a flotilla of chubby clouds.
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Daily Catskills: 06/27/17
After a wet, gloomy morning, 67F by mid-afternoon and mostly sunny. Huge, thundering clouds quickly rolling through stealing the scene, cracking lightning and later issuing some torrential, late afternoon rain. Moody.
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Daily Catskills: 06/26/17
72F by mid-afternoon, bright and sunny. Mysterious mist is our regular morning visitor.
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Daily Catskills: 06/19/17
Humid and sticky with periods of torrential rain, thunder and flooding throughout the day and throughout the mountains, caused by dense, milky, blue-hued clouds.
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Daily Catskills: 06/18/17
86F by mid-afternoon, hot and very humid with periods of sunshine through a veil of cloud, rain showers and a warm breeze. Sunset in the forest.
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Daily Catskills: 06/12/17
89F by mid-afternoon, sun blazing with hazy cloud moving in around dusk.
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Daily Catskills: 06/10/17
80F by mid-afternoon, warm and sunny.
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Daily Catskills: 06/09/17
74F by mid-afternoon, mostly sunny with some cloud and a persistent, cool breeze.
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Daily Catskills: 06/08/17
75F by mid-afternoon, warm and humid.
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Daily Catskills: 06/07/17
70F by mid-afternoon with a summer breeze and a blue sky naked except for sporadic, plump clouds.
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Daily Catskills: 06/04/17
54F by mid-afternoon, gloomy, chilly with continual afternoon rain.
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Daily Catskills: 06/03/17
66F by mid-afternoon with a cool breeze and rolling, cotton wool clouds.
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Catskills Cocktails: Gin & Spruce
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If you’re a regular reader, you’ll know that I’ve been making natural sodas with forsythia and spruce tips. I’ve discovered that spruce tip syrup goes particularly well with whiskey, too, like the forsythia, which made a tasty Catskills Collins. I’m also working on rhubarb juice that makes a first-rate bitter addition to cocktails for people who find bitters too intense or overpowering for their taste. Here are a couple more refreshing cocktails for the summer.
Daily Catskills: 05/15/17
52F by mid-afternoon, overcast, windy. Occasional patches of blue floating in the gloomy sky like empty spaces in a jigsaw puzzle.
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Zephyr’s Chili Bowl
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The Zephyr’s Chili on the dinner menu stands out for its lightness, uncharacteristic for a chili bowl, achieved by the addition of sweet, juicy chunks of tomato amongst the beans. You won’t go home with a brick in your stomach, but you’ll have enough fuel for a long walk in the country air, the wet, wet, gloomy country air. I took a couple of bites of the cheesy biscuits, wrapped the rest up in a napkin and ate them later. Where’s spring? Yesterday was warmer at 62F and cloudy with some late afternoon sun. Today: more rain. My seasonal affective disorder is only just held at bay by remembering how low the Catskills reservoirs were last year and how much they need replenishing. Spring has been more of a gastronomical tour around the mountains, ducking into restaurants, sitting at the bar and trying some of the Catskills’ best fare. Try also, Traveler’s White Tea with Hibiscus, (which also goes well as a vodka mixer).
Daily Catskills: 05/11/17
62F by mid-afternoon, scattered clouds, but warm in the sun with a cool breeze.
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Daily Catskills: 05/08/17
36F at 8.30am with a layer of overnight snow melting in the sun, chilly and overcast with the snow flakes swirling in the wind. 44F by mid-afternoon.
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Daily Catskills: 05/07/17
46F by mid-afternoon, humid and overcast with continual misty rain. A good day to forage, harvest, cook and preserve.
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Daily Catskills: 05/06/17
60F by mid-afternoon, overcast, dreary and continual rain with occasional sunny breaks in the cloud.
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Daily Catskills: 05/03/17
51F by mid-afternoon, chilly, windy and overcast with a sunny afternoon.
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Prelude to a Kiss at STS Playhouse
Two years ago, I saw Proof at the STS Playhouse in Phoenicia and it was riveting and engaging. At the time, I called it “remarkable: deeply engrossing, funny with excellent performances from the cast. Proof explores the world of madness and mathematics”. It was a great production, starring Jennifer Paul, Farrell Reynolds, Stephen Powell and Kimberly Kay.
This year the Playhouse is putting on a production of Prelude to a Kiss, by Craig Lucas, directed by Michael Koegel, owner of Mama’s Boy Burgers. You may remember the movie with Alec Baldwin and Meg Ryan. Opening night is this weekend, May 5th, running until May 21st. Make a perfect night of it and get early dinner and drinks at nearby Peekamoose Restaurant– the play starts at 8pm.
STS Playhouse, 10 Church Street, Phoenicia, NY. Tickets $20 or $18 for seniors and students. Call 845-688-2279, or click here for more information.
Daily Catskills: 05/02/17
58F at 9am, raining, overcast and humid. Last night’s rain gushing down the mountains. Breezy afternoon.
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Daily Catskills: 04/28/17
77F by mid-afternoon with hazy sunshine. Asparagus sundial.
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Catskills Conversations: Rebecca Andre
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UD: What brought you to the Catskills?
RA: My husband Mark and I would travel north from our Pennsylvania home just on a whim. This was before we had our daughter Isabella. We always ended up coming home from Lake Placid, the Adirondacks or wherever we ended up, through the Catskills. After we had our little girl and we weren’t traveling around the world anymore, we decided to get a vacation home here. Then once my daughter was of age to go to kindergarten, we made a decision to move here, so that she could start kindergarten here and not have to move mid-term.
Local Eggs: Sweet & Delicious
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It’s been a long time since I’ve had an egg as delicious as this: bright orange yolks, rich, sweet and creamy, almost like a dessert when soft-boiled on toast and in yesterday’s salad! Leigh Melander, a colleague at WIOX and founder of Spillian bought a bucket of eggs into the radio station to share. Leigh says her hens, who are completely free range, are very happy and I believe her. They were presented with some art a few days ago and all flocked around to inspect it.
Part of the lure to the country or Upstate New York, apart from the fresh air, is the local food. It’s worth battling five months of winter for glorious food like this. When wholesome food of this calibre becomes an expensive luxury in the city, it’s time to move upstate where your neighbors bring you eggs, cheese, bread, jam or any number of spring items that they have produced on their homestead. Just the fragrant aroma of a homegrown tomato feels like a miracle.Local, country board meetings are never without something homemade to pass around like goat’s cheese or bread. This second rainy and gloomy day of the week has been lit up like a summer’s day by simple eggs on toast using local bread.
Winter is tough up here, but the spring rewards are like Sunday Best, not taken for granted and savored all the more.
Taste Buds Gone Wild
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Last night, Rob Handel, chef at Heather Ridge Farm, impressed a large crowd packed into the Catskill Center with his knowledge on wild edibles and foraging. After conducting a talk on how to incorporate wild vegetables into our diet by producing tinctures, ferments and syrups, he brought out some delicious, earthy, wholesome food to taste that made the taste buds come alive.
Endive stuffed with porcini mushroom pate topped with ramp pesto accompanied by carrot, burdock root and garlic grass salad (pictured above).
A pickled milk weed pod
Forsythia Syrup with Soda
Nettle Soup
Some of the ingredients in last night’s tasting were foraged recently: forsythia is available now and ramps are coming up. The nettle soup was fresh and exquisite. Some ingredients were preserved; the pickled milk weed pod tasted like a larger, yet much more subtle, caperberry. The crowd was so large for this event, not only because Rob is so knowledgable, answering everyone’s follow-up – and non-follow up/general experience – questions with ease, but because wild edibles are becoming very popular. Gradually, people are turning away from traditional foods and taking a keen interest in the wildly diverse tastes of foraged herbs, funghi and vegetables that they can find on their property like garlic mustard, burdock, nettle leaf, sumac, dandelion, sheep sorrel, milk weed, porcini and more. This kind of rare, unusual – and FREE! – food excites the taste buds. Plus, it’s fun to forage. Rob recommended a few books, one of which was The Joy of Foraging by Gary Lincoff.
Donate
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On my jaunts around the neighborhood, I regularly bump into people who love Upstate Dispatch. Last week, a reader told me: “I love the site! I just wish there was more of it”. Me too!
Upstate Dispatch takes hundreds of hours per month to research and write. All of the food and drink you see reviewed here has been paid for, with one exception, and where tickets are sold to local cooking, foraging, writing and art classes, they have been purchased. In the past, when we’ve had contributors, we have paid them. As I a writer, I believe artists and writers should not have to work for free. We are also an advertisement-free site, so we rely on donations.
If you love reading Upstate Dispatch, please consider donating. Future donations will fund a small summer arts and literary studio in the local village for Upstate Dispatch. We want to expand our coverage over the summer, move into the community, and revive the Catskills Conversations series, shedding more light on our local luminaries and their stories.
Lastly, I want to thank our past donors who have expressed their appreciation of Upstate Dispatch in a meaningful way. I’m sincerely and immensely grateful for the love!
Please find our donation page here.
Happy Spring!
J.N. Urbanski
Daily Catskills: 04/11/17
80F scorcher, hazy, humid. Wading in cool streams, under waterfalls, shaded by pine trees.
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Daily Catskills: 04/09/17
68F by mid-afternoon with wisps of cloud in an azure sky. Laundry swaying in the breeze like huge flags.
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Daily Catskills: 04/07/17
36F at noon: thick mist, rushing rivers, overflowing tributaries, sloppy mud, snow until mid-afternoon. Spring on hold.
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Daily Catskills: 04/06/17
38F by 2pm and overcast with persistent heavy rain throughout the day.
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Daily Catskills: 04/05/17
60F by mid-afternoon with clear skies and flowing streams reflecting the blazing sun. Spring springs.
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Daily Catskills: 03/21/17
45F at 8.30am and 51F by mid-afternoon, humid, with large piles of snow trickling into rivers, ditches and gullies.
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Upstate Dispatch in NYC
We’re proud to announce that a framed Daily Catskills print will be offered in a Silent Auction and Art Exhibition at The Emerson in Brooklyn this Saturday organized by Melissa Irwin. It’s a privilege to be able to use this medium to raise money for charity. All proceeds from the event will be donated to Planned Parenthood, a 100-year-old institution that provides reproductive health services and cancer screening for millions of people every year. It was “founded on the revolutionary idea that women should have the information and care they need to live strong, healthy lives and fulfill their dreams”.
Daily Catskills: 03/20/17
44F at 1pm with faint wisps of cloud and brilliant sunshine reflected off the snow.
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Daily Catskills: 03/19/17
46F by mid-afternoon, brilliant sunshine, two feet of soft snow acts as a giant pillow for lounging in the sun.
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Catskills Sandwich: Mean Green Burger of Windham
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Half a pound of Angus beef served with either fries or salad; it’s the jalapeno mayonnaise sauce that gives this juicy burger a hearty kick to the palate with melted smoked gouda cheese, sliced dill pickles and lettuce. The bun is also up to the challenge, remaining steadfast despite the onslaught of sauce, which will run over and douse the perfectly cooked fries: crispy outer shell and fluffy potato within and possibly the best fries in the Catskills (along with the steak fries at Boiceville Inn). The Mean Green from Catskill Mountain Country Store and Restaurant is wholly delicious.
Daily Catskills: 03/12/17
18F by 1pm, sunny with more skin-peeling, freeze-dried hands, thundering winds.
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