DINING ONA FARM
Curated meals create singular experience at the source of bounty
Curated meals create a singular experience at the source of the bounty before the Terrain & Table series closes.
Even though recent storms keep reminding us of the unpredictability of dining outdoors these days, the range of experiences continues to entice. Let me say if you’re among those who roll eyes at adventures to towns an hour or more away, consider this: The boundaries of the Hudson Valley and Capital Region continue to blur, and, for many, one of the joys of fall is a drive upstate, or down, fueled by the promise of a good meal at the end.
Back in 2016, Outstanding in the Field, an events company
that hosts dinners on farms throughout North America and beyond, held one at Samascott Orchards in Kinderhook on a blisteringly hot night. We toured the farm, picking strawberries in our heels, before a table set for 100 appeared among the fruit trees, and a pig roast dinner was served family-style. By 2017, the locations were all farther afield, none within convenient upstate reach.
But Terrain & Table, a new venture from Shawn Lang and Kris Preplica, the duo behind Catskill lifestyle brand The Farmhouse Project, has taken up the slack. Now in its third season, the Terrain & Table dinner series places ticketed guests in bucolic country settings from apple orchards to lavender fields and feeds them at tables set prettily for a dinner party under the stars. They partner with local producers, too including distilleries like Do Good Spirits from Roscoe, in Sullivan County, and Old Tavern Farm Winery in Stillwater, so the welcome begins with a New York-focused craft cocktail, and dinner flows with generously poured Empire State wines.
Unquestionably, it all depends on what you call fun. With tickets priced around $200, it’s comparable to a splurge on theater tickets or good seats at a sports event. For those dream-chasing remarkable pre-COVID dinners that once transported and inspired, this concept of integrating venue and carefully curated food hits the spot.
At Stone Ridge Orchard in Stone Ridge, Ulster County, we turn off the highway onto a road less traveled, passing rows of twisted apple trees laden with ripe fruit, and gingerly ease the belly of our car over curved ruts worn deep by tractor tires. With the threat of rain in the air, we’ve been forewarned to wear sturdy footwear, bug spray and sun hats. The plein-air dinner will be served in the shade of an impressively large tree, at tables shielded by open-sided tents. As we park in a field, it’s all there: guests in boho-chic dresses, some lounging on colorful blankets on the grass. A solo singer strums guitar, folk and pop filling the air. Guests are signed in, tables assigned, and, in a sign of the times, vax cards checked before we’re left to roam free.
At the Hudson Valley Farmhouse Cider bar, we sip apple cider sangria made with Northern Spy apples and scented with torn herbs, followed by a tasting of Breezy Hill and Stone Ridge Orchard ciders: Godspeed the Plough, Traditional Dry and Bourbon Barrel Aged, all unfiltered with no added sulfites, raw and fragile like natural wines. The orchard and ciders belong to award-winning farmer and cider maker Elizabeth Ryan, founder of the Green Market in Manhattan’s Union Square, who talks enthusiastically about the process, from studying fruit farming at Cornell in the 1980s to cider making in Somerset, England, and their current fermentation of a not-yet-ready pomode, an eau de vie pomme apple brandy.
We collect lavender-blueberry-rhubarb cocktails, opting for Bootlegger vodka or gin, and wander to higher ground to survey the orchard’s 250 acres planted with 150 apple varieties. There are glamping tents up here, for a lucky few who booked ahead, with wood stove chimneys poking through canvas tops. From there we beeline to the cooking tent, where tonight’s guest chefs, Cheryl Perry and Lizzy Singh-Brar, are grilling string-tied porchetta parcels, and their team is busy ripping herbs and spoon-smooshing corn puree on mismatched china plates.
Lang and Preplica appear in shorts and floppy hats, greeting guests, hello-ing me, and I can’t help but see them as a younger version of the Beekman 1802 boys from Sharon Springs. The beautiful setup of wooden tables and chairs, cloth napkins and tablescapes feels closely aligned with their Farmhouse Project brand, which began as a renovation of their fixer-upper Catskill home a decade ago. The brand has expanded to sustainably produced home goods and collaborations like cocoa butter from Troy-based Primo Botanica in their hand cream. For the dinner series, they prioritize the use of seasonal, local ingredients, the farms listed on paper menus, and this summer’s monthly lineup features women chefs with diverse backgrounds across restaurants, catering and supper clubs.
Summoned to tables, dinner begins with a tender grilled octopus tentacle nestled in pureed corn, swirled in vivid orange and green smoked paprika and nasturtium oil. Walt Borisenok, owner of the Old Tavern Farm winery and horse farm, has left his horsebox bar to move between tables pouring a Frenchoak chardonnay. The porchetta arrives with a tumble of lentils, bitter broccoli rabe and roasted beets in a late summer play, but dessert is the bigger surprise: simply sweetened summer fruit with spruce-tip crumble, basil meringue and Chantilly cream.
By now, the sun has set, and we amble out under an indigo sky wrapped in shawls and grabbing an apple from a tree for the ride home.