2012年3月30日星期五

Country Weekend Trip Report--with Wolves! (and photos)

Will post in the first reply.

Country Weekend Trip Report--with Wolves! (and photos)

As people periodically post on here asking about weekend trips out of the city, I thought someone might be interested in a report of our recent weekend in the Hudson Valley.

The purpose of our trip was two-fold: 1.) To visit the Wolf Conservation Center in South Salem, NY, and 2.) To eat at Blue Hill at Stone Barns. We also decided to visit the Croton Dam and Dia: Beacon. We’d been to the latter before, but not for a few years.

With the exception of the Wolf Conservation Center, everything can be visited either by taking the train (Dia: Beacon) or a combination of train and taxi (Blue Hill, Croton Dam). The WCC is really in the middle of nowhere, so you do need a car to get there. We rented one using Priceline and paid $119 for Friday-Sunday. We hate cars and driving, but once we were out of the city, it was tolerable. I imagine someone who enjoys driving would like tooling around the lower Hudson Valley, as there are lots of winding country roads.

We stayed in the town of Croton-on-Hudson, at a bed and breakfast called the Alexander Hamilton House:

http://alexanderhamiltonhouse.com/

Reviews (by others, not us) here:

tripadvisor.com/Hotel_Review-g47560-d79925-R…

We’re not really B%26amp;B people, but it was nice. (We picked it because we had a gift certificate from bedandbreakfast.com and they were one of the few participating places in the area that had rooms available for that weekend.) They made fresh cookies every day, which is tough to complain about. There’s not much going on in Croton-on-Hudson, but the B%26amp;B is within walking distance of the town center, where there are a few restaurants and stores. We also saw a beaver when we were nearby, which was fun.

Friday night was our dinner at Blue Hill at Stone Barns, which is a working farm on the Rockefeller Estate that has a restaurant run by Dan Barber. It is the bigger sister to Blue Hill in Greenwich Village, which is a restaurant we love and that gets recommended on here from time to time. Barber is one of the great practitioners of farm-to-table cooking, so many of ingredients come straight from the farm outside the restaurant windows, and if you get there early enough, you can tour around and see some of the greens you’ll be eating later while they’re still in the ground, or the cows and pigs who recently gave up one of their companions for your meal. During the meal, they bring you various ingredients in their unprepared state (goose eggs, for instance) so you can see what it’s like before it becomes food. It’s the kind of place that Michael Pollan wants us all to go to, in other words.

Their site is here:

bluehillfarm.com/food/blue-hill-stone-barns

(Incidentally, for Top Chef fans, Barber was the celebrity sous-chef who worked with Richard in the season 4 finale.)

One of the more interesting details is that there is no menu. You’re presented with a long list of all of the ingredients that are available to the kitchen that day and asked whether there is anything you don’t want. (We said no, but they’re pretty thorough, asking if you’ll eat glands or tongue or whatever, and we noticed a few tables around us with some very picky eaters who seemed to be well-accommodated.) You can choose whether to have a five-course meal or the “farmer’s feast,” which is nominally 8 courses but actually more. We went with the latter and were served a total of 16 dishes, plus petits fours. Since each diner has different preferences and the cooks do what they want, no two tables have exactly the same meal.

We have photos and descriptions of all 16 dishes (and the farm, etc.) on our blog here:

…blogspot.com/2009/03/blue-hill-at-stone-bar…

so I won’t repeat them all in this report. Of the 16 dishes, 15 we loved and one (the hake) we thought was sort of a misfire. The highlights were the vegetable tasting course, the veal tongue salad, the potato-shellfish soup, the goose egg pasta, and the venison.

As the meal was winding down, our waiter came over and handed us a copy of the menu that Dan Barber had drawn up for us and then invited us back into the kitchen to meet Barber and watch him and the staff work. (There are a couple of photos of the kitchen on the blog entry above.) This was really, really neat, and a wonderful end to a fantastic meal. It was an expensive night, to be sure, but truly one of the great eating experiences of our lives.

On Saturday, we got up and had breakfast in the B%26amp;B before setting out to the Wolf Conservation Center. The WCC is part of the US Fish and Wildlife Service’s Endangered Species Program. They are one of the institutions that captive-breeds wolves to be reintroduced to their historical ranges (Yellowstone, for instance). The WCC has 28 wolves in its care, but only 4 that you can see. (They want to ensure that the others will be afraid of humans and thus not become pests or put themselves in harm’s way.) The 4 “ambassador wolves” constitute the WCC’s outreach program—biologists and volunteers from the center take the wolves around to schools, etc. to educate people about them. Here’s their site:

http://www.nywolf.org/typo3/index.php

I’m pretty sure that neither of us had ever seen a wolf in the flesh, so we were really looking forward to this. Our visit began with a 30-minute presentation inside a little cabin; a volunteer talked about the mission of the WCC, wolves in general, their history in North America, and so on. They have both family programs and adults-only programs; we would have done the latter except there weren’t any adults-only spots left that fit in with our schedule (they only have programs on the weekends, I think), so we were there with lots and lots of kids, a girl-scout troop, in fact. Accordingly, the presentation was aimed at kids, but it wasn’t so elementary as to be useless or anything. After the presentation, we all went outside and a volunteer led us in a howling lesson. We couldn’t see any of the wolves at this point, so when they started howling back from amidst the hills and woods, it was electrifying, even with the kids screaming.

We then climbed up a hill to the first of two enclosures that house the ambassador wolves. A volunteer fed them (lamb stew) answered questions while we got to ogle the wolves and click away with our camera. We’d been reading Barry Lopez’s book Of Wolves and Men in preparation for the trip, so we were disposed to admire them, but they really are magnificent. And huge! The volunteer held some lamb high up on the fence so one of the wolves would stand and get it, and it towered over here.

At the end, the two of us kind of hung around a little and let the kids and their parents leave. When it was just us, the volunteer we were talking to didn’t seem to mind if we got a little closer to the fence (when the kids were there, no one could get within about 6 feet of it), so we got to have a few moments up close with them. Really an amazing experience, even with the fence between us.

Photos here:

…blogspot.com/2009/03/wolf-conservation-cent…

After this, we drove to Beacon to go to the Dia Museum, which houses monumental (as in large) works of contemporary art—giant sculptures, wraparound paintings, etc. We had lunch in a little sandwich place in town called Poppy’s (pretty good) then went to the museum, which is in a former Nabisco factory. As I said, we’d been to Dia before, but we really enjoy it and they acquired some new pieces since we were last there. Photos here:

whrtny.blogspot.com/2009/03/diabeacon_23.html

We spent the rest of the afternoon there, then drove back to Croton-on-Hudson. After the previous night’s feast, we wanted something low-key for dinner, so we walked to one of the restaurants in town. Nothing to write home about.

On Sunday, we had breakfast in the B%26amp;B, then check out and drove to the Croton Dam, which Croton boosters claim is the second-largest hand-hewn stone structure in the world, after the Great Pyramid at Giza. Who knows if this is true, but it’s definitely large and well worth a visit if you’re in the area. There’s a park in front of it, and behind it is one of the major reservoirs for the NYC water system. If you like dams and water, some photos here:

whrtny.blogspot.com/2009/03/croton-dam.html

And then it was back home. Thanks for reading!

Country Weekend Trip Report--with Wolves! (and photos)

Crans ..... thanks for the swell report. I couldn%26#39;t help noticing the interior photos on your blog of a mostly empty restaurant. You also mention you visit to %26#39;Blue Hill%26#39; was %26#39;at night%26#39; but it looks sun light streaming in the windows. So was the place mostly empty (or does a picture NOT tell a thousand words after all)? Was it sparce because you got there early or do you think that was due to a slow weekday Thursday crowd ...... or is it that everything is just slow up there now? I did also happen to read a New York Times article just this past weekend about the %26#39;hard times%26#39; Beacon has fallen on.

nytimes.com/2009/…

I know you%26#39;ve been up in those woods before ..... so are there now tumble weeds now rolling through Beacon?


Sounds like a terrific weekend. Thanks for posting, I want to see more of the Hudson valley.


Thanks for the TR. I think that%26#39;s the first time I have read about a person%26#39;s day trip away from NY. Sounds like you had a great little weekend away from home. A good-easy read! Thanks Crans.


crans

do you mind revealing the price for the meal?

stuckinnj


Great report,the wolves are beautiful!


Hi Crans,

With 8,043 posts and counting, it is really nice to see NYC folk enjoying our great NYS outdoors. We especially enjoy the area near New Paltz and Lake Minnewaska state park.

For many visitors to NYC, it is interesting to take note of our City%26#39;s contribution to the conservation and protection of our greatest natural resources. The Bronx Zoo and the first President of the American Bison Society, Hornaday together with Teddy Roosevelt, helped save the American Buffalo, providing them to the USA%26#39;s first wildlife refuge in Oklahoma in 1907, which ultimately placed buffalo in many areas out west including Yellowstone National park.

I have included a few links for those interested.

fws.gov/southwest/…bisonhist.html

fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/Wildli…

…si.edu/history/…bisonphotos.htm

Now in Fort Benton, Montana, Museum of the Plains

Happy NYC %26amp; NYS Trails


Thanks, all!

LP--Our reservation was at 6, so when we got there (and for the first hour) it was still fairly light out. We didn%26#39;t get up from the table until after 9, by which point it was dark. (You can actually sort of see this in the photos--they become more and more golden/blurry as the night goes on. But maybe that was the wine as well.) When we sat down, I think there was only one other occupied table. By 8 or so, though, it had filled up entirely. When we went to book, maybe 3 weeks ago, the only times with availability were 6 and 10. So it looks like they%26#39;re doing pretty well with the main seating, but the early seating is definitely falling off. I%26#39;ve noticed this in the city as well: it%26#39;s still hard to get tables at good times at popular places, but suddenly quite easy to get them in the 6-630 range.

StuckinNJ--After wine, tax, and tip, we paid a little over $400. The farmer%26#39;s feast is $125/person; I believe the 5-course meal is $95/person.


What a great post and great trip.

Thanks for taking the time to do this.


Thanks for the %26#39;feed-back%26#39; Crans. So then I guess the wolves are not really howling at the %26#39;Blue Hill%26#39; doors yet after all.

But hey ..... do I get any credit for my remarkable self restraint and incredible level of maturity for not even mentioning or making a joke about all the fun beavers I have also seen over the years. Nope ..... not even gonna touch that one. So I guess there%26#39;s some room for me to grow here too.

  • vc
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