Good skate

If you’re anywhere close to 42nd Street and 6th Avenue in Manhattan around lunchtime tomorrow (Monday), this could be fun. The pond at Bryant Park opens for free admission ice-skating, with free skate rentals to the first 300 skaters. To make it even better, there will be live music and performances by championship skaters, including Michael Weiss, three-time U.S. Figure Skating Champion and two-time World Bronze Medalist. He’s not the same Michael Weiss as HVC magazine’s wines columnist (and CIA professor in wine studies and noted wines expert.) As far as I know …

How about them apples (and pears)?

In the October issue of Hudson Valley Connoisseur magazine, Jessica Bard has a great article on hard apple cider – the magical drink you get when you let apple juice ferment into alcohol. She included a nice guide to local sources that produce exceptional hard cider on a regular basis such as Warwick Valley Winery in Orange County and Hilltop Orchards & Furnace Brook Winery in Richmond, Massachusetts (near Lenox.) As far as I am concerned, a well-made hard cider ranks right up there with good sparkling wines made from grapes.

I also am a big fan of hard pear cider (perry) and was heartbroken when Elizabeth Ryan’s cider mill at Breezy Hill Farm in Staatsburg burned a few years ago. Elizabeth produced an exceptional perry. Thankfully I discovered that the Warwick Valley Winery Doc’s Draft Hard Pear Cider is also delicious. In her article, Jessica shared the news that Breezy Hill may resume cider production soon, and that Montgomery Place Orchards might be producing some hard cider on a limited basis.

Last Saturday I headed out for some shopping at the Montgomery Place farm stand on Route 9G in Red Hook near Bard College. What a crowd when we got there! Granted, the farm’s produce is outstanding but still I have never seen the place with both parking lots filled, and cars parked across the road. Turns out they were having an apple pie contest. It was much too busy for me to ask farmer Thalia Finke which apple varieties made up the winning pie, but I’ll have to follow up on that. (I picked up some Northern Spy for my own pie and some nice Empires for eating fresh, because they didn’t have any of my new fave -- Honeycrisp -- on hand.)

And they did have hard apple cider, packaged in cute pint canning jars! But as I got there, they were out of the jars. The staff assured me they would be making more. Can’t wait!

More local jewelry!

I see Sweetheart Gallery in Woodstock is having a sale on Elements Jill Schwartz Jewelry until Oct. 31st. The April issue of Hudson Valley Connoisseur magazine featured some polka-dotted home décor items from this very interesting designer. Her handmade jewelry collections, such as this $172 necklace at left, include mixed antiqued metals, semi precious stones (citrine, peridot, amethyst, moon stone, quartz), sea pearls, freshwater pearls and findings along with elements of collage.

Farewell Anna ...

I read in today’s news that the actress Deborah Kerr has died at age 86.

Among her many notable roles was that of Anna, the governess in the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical The King & I. Last Christmas, a friend surprised me with the 50th Anniversary Edition DVD of the classic 1956 film of the musical starring Ms. Kerr and Yul Brynner. The film stands up to time, and is a favorite of my pre-teen daughter.

The musical has good memories for me: I was part of the children’s chorus in a Dutchess County production of the musical way back in my elementary school days. I also had the good fortune to see Yul Brynner play the King on Broadway during the mid-1970s. I can’t recall who played the role of the governess in that performance – to me, Deborah Kerr will always be Anna.

People to be proud of ...

With still no hard frosts in the valley (at least none having hit MY garden), there are lots of fresh local veggies still available at our regional farmstands. These recipes featuring local and seasonal ingredients are in the latest issue of HVC magazine (October-November), now on sale at the outlets listed on our Web site.

--Farro Fettucine with Guanciale, a delicious form of artisan Italian bacon (with sourcing info)
--Cavatelli and Broccoli
--Beef & Barley Soup with Garden Veggies
--Pork Chops with Apple Hard Cider-Shallot Sauce

They accompany a column by Chef Tom Griffiths about Chef's Garden programs and eating local, seasonal food, and Jessica Bard's article about regional artisan hard (alchol) ciders. And don't forget to get the free download we have on the HVC Web site of Tom's instructions for making the most perfect holiday turkey and our wines columnist's tips for the best wines to pare with holiday fooods.

We're lucky to have some of the country's best food and wine experts writing for HVC magazine. Folks such as our food columnist, Tom Griffiths, a Certified Master Chef (and Culinary Institute of America associate dean) and our wines columnist Michael Arthur Weiss, a CIA professor who has authored important wine books and who keeps racking up international recognition and awards for his contributions to wine education.

Freelance food writer and chef Jessica Bard (a CIA grad) is a frequent contributor to HVC, with her informative articles and delicious original recipes. (Jessica also teaches cooking classes at Warren Cutlery in Rhinebeck.) And here in the office, Theresa Marquez, also a graduate of the CIA bachelor's degree program, makes sure the recipes we print will actually work in your home kitchen.

If you prepare any of the recipes, please let me know how they turn out! And if you have a food topic or item you'd like to see in the magazine, please let me know.

Living green!

We featured estate jewelry as part of HVC magazine's October "Living Green" issue, because giving pre-owned fine jewelry a new home is my favorite type of recycling!

I love this HVC cover. Photo director Spencer Ainsley shot this vintage 1960s toucan pin on the leaves of an Anthurium andreanum exotic houseplant that I keep in my office window overlooking the Poughkeepsie Post Office. The absolutely FAB pin (made of 18-karat yellow gold, with pave diamond beak -- 58 diamonds! -- and black mother of pearl) is from the Zimmer Brothers estate jewelry collection. The pin is back at Zimmer now, where I understand the Poughkeepsie store is having an antique and estate jewelry sale from Oct. 25-27.

Pin for sale at Zimmer. And Hudson Valley Connoisseur magazine for sale at outlets listed on our Web site. :-)

Jan Brett in Millbrook

It’s going to take some serious juggling of my soccer-mom schedule on Saturday but I really hope to bring my daughter to Millbrook for Jan Brett’s appearance at Merritt Bookstore. One of the nation’s foremost author-illustrators of children’s books, Brett will present her latest work, The Three Snow Bears, at 10 a.m. at the store at 57 Front Street in Millbrook.

Jan Brett has more than 33 million copies of her books in print, including The Mitten and Trouble with Trolls, which were a part of our bedtime reading rituals. She lives in a seacoast town in Massachusetts, close to where she grew up but during the summer her family moves to a home in the Berkshire Hills -- I hope she reads HVC magazine when she's there.

Stoneware sublime

The play of light in Marilyn Price’s ceramic landscape at left reminds me of my trip to Italy last fall and I’m curious to see what the rest of her work looks like. We’re all in luck because she’s exhibiting at RiverWinds Gallery, 172 Main Street in Beacon, from Saturday through November 5.

RiverWinds Gallery features traditional fine art and contemporary crafts including ceramics, pottery, cards, paintings, photography, jewelry, apparel, and home décor created by Hudson Valley artists. Gallery hours are Wednesdays through Mondays, from noon to 6 p.m., and to 9 p.m. on the second Saturday of the month. (The opening artist reception takes place this Saturday, from 5-8 p.m.)

Here’s how she describes her art:

Ms. Price's colorist inclinations in glazing derive from her approach to painting. These landscapes reflect the tying together of two areas which have occupied much of her artistic exploration. She thinks of these clay tile surfaces much as one might think of a canvas. These landscapes, with their layered glazes are an attempt to blur the traditional distinctions between painting on canvas, and glazing on clay or using color on clay tiles.

Because many stoneware glazes are just shades of white, tan, or gray in their unfired state, Ms. Price needs a mental image of the landscape in order to proceed with the glazing, especially during the first stages. When finished, these landscapes are firmly mounted on wood backings and grouted with matching colors to give the final effect. The sensual surfaces, colors, and textures created by clay and glaze create visual and tactile equivalents of the artist's experience of nature.

In this same spirit she has made other wall pieces with small handmade tiles. In this process, small damp, unfired tiles are pressed into powdered, colored porcelain, fired to stoneware, then formed into compositions. Many subtleties are inherent in the exploration of color and texture in this technique.

Ms. Price’s background in art includes intensive under graduate study in painting at Cooper Union and NYU, and graduate studies at NYU and Columbia. After many years as a painter and art educator, she became involved in ceramics. Her accomplishments in this area include extensive work on the potter's wheel, and hand building sculptured vessels and wall pieces. Ms. Price's work is in galleries and private collections throughout the valley.

Buy local art!

Buy local art!

I love buying original art. If it's from local artists, all the better.

Jennifer Axinn-Weiss creates the clever Gourmet Giggles cartoon that appears in Hudson Valley Connoisseur magazine. She's also an accomplished artist and right now her work is appearing in a "two-woman show" at Sharada Gallery in Rhinebeck.

"A Group of Two" features paintings by Jennifer and Joanne Klein.

Here is a little background info on them, supplied by the artists:

Jennifer Axinn-Weiss is a visual artist and resident of Rhinebeck, New York. She has exhibited widely for over 20 years in the US and Italy. Jennifer is a sculptor turned painter and feels that "…art is the place where invisible presence can be made visible through image, color and light." Her painting style is ripe with symbolic meanings, texture, and color reflecting a connection between her internal and external world. She works in oil on canvas, sometimes using gold.

Joanne Klein's rich and powerful use of color is compelling. She has been a fine artist and painter for over 20 years with her work evolving from a realistic and surrealistic approach to her current body of work in abstracts. The historical movements of the Russian Constructivist, Abstract Expressionist, Minimalists, and contemporary architecture have been influences. Klein's paintings are a composite of geometric shapes covered in highly saturated colors. A creative process of deconstruction, reduction, and rebuilding, is Joanne's primary means for developing imagery. She works in oil on canvas and oil pastel on paper

For more information on the exhibit you can contact Sharada at 845-876-4828, from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Or just visit www.sharadagallery.com.

The exhibit only runs through November 9. Go. Buy. I'm headed there this weekend. Now I just need to get more walls in my house...

Speaking of jewelry ...

For the October issue of Hudson Valley Connoisseur, we explored a couple of very fine jewelry shops in the region and found some wonderful estate pieces (some antique.) I was particularly taken with an early 1940s 14-karat pink and green gold Retro bracelet that we photographed at Zimmer Brothers in Poughkeepsie and a ca. 1915-1927 pendent of .830 silver, adorned with Labradorite stone surrounded by Australian opals, which we saw at Hummingbird Jewelers in Rhinebeck.

But that's my taste. Whether you're into more formal pieces or funky adornment, check out the magazine. HVC's photo director Spencer Ainsley photographed a great selection of various styles of "pre-owned" jewelry available in the valley -- all stunning!

Jewelry is fun

Ulster County jewelry artist Judy Polinsky recently sent me a link to her new Web site.

I found this great item listed there -- according to her description, this $290 necklace of shiny bronze and pearl-like seed beads is 17 inches long with a toggle created from seed beads, finished with a vintage pin she found at an estate sale.

Buy local. Jewelry is fun. :-)

Talking turkey and a new look ...

We've revamped the Hudson Valley Connoisseur magazine Web site, and it's beautiful. (Kudos to our art director Dean DiMarzo!)

As a treat to our readers, we've included a free download of last year's column about brining as the way to make the most delicious turkey, written by our food columnist Tom Griffiths. Tom is a noted chef and an associate dean at The Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park -- and he knows what he's talking about. We've also repeated a list of wines that pair extraordinarily well with holiday foods, as suggested by our wines columnist, CIA wine and spirits professor Michael Arthur Weiss. Please let me know how you enjoy it!