Blooming Hill Farm
Last weekend I went up to Guy Jones’ Blooming Hill Farm. I love Guy’s farm and think of it as the next best thing to having a country house. Located about 60 miles from New York City, the drive up is only a little over an hour. Though I planed to have brunch, get some gorgeous organic produce and leave, inevitably, I always end up spending most of the day. Once I’m sitting outside by the stream eating Nadine’s grilled vegetable salad and sipping iced tea from Mason jars, life slows down. How could one not wander across the stream to talk to Stuart as he makes pizzas in the outdoor wood fired oven using heirloom tomato sauce from last years tomato crop, basil they grow and organic cheese…. It becomes increasingly difficult to pull myself back to the city.
Guy’s motto is “don’t buy food from strangers,” he writes this on weekly faxes he sends out to the restaurants the farm supplies. He certainly is no stranger, as his farm has been delivering to many of New York’s best restaurants for over 20 years and is now a destination lunch spot for everyone in the know. As soon as I found out you could visit the farm, I ventured up and now go every chance I get, in all seasons. When my mother was last visiting in late fall, we sat huddled around a fire in the barn eating sour dough pancakes and drinking hot cider. Cozy and delicious!
On the last Saturday of every month the farm hosts a 5-course vegetarian dinner, featuring New York City chefs. The chef in charge on that particular Saturday prepares a menu featuring the vegetables Guy’s growing that month and incorporates local dairy products. I heard they had rhubarb popsicles for dessert last month. The dinners fill up fast so you have to book ahead.
Besides being able to get the best just-picked organic produce at very reasonable prices and a delicious lunch or brunch, they also sell, bread, pastries, home made cakes, local cheese, milk, potted plants and fresh cut flowers. You can get everything you need and come home feeling relaxed and refreshed.
Photography by Bonnie Chaplin
Amy Chaplin
Amy Chaplin is an Australian living in New York City by way of Amsterdam and London. She grew up in rural New South Wales in a family and community of gourmet vegetarians; cooking and eating meals from her family’s biodynamic garden sparked her passion for fresh ingredients and hand-made food. It can be said that Chaplin’s career as a chef began while making bread with her father and peeling apples for her mother’s crumble. Chaplin’s upbringing also helped inspire her philosophy, that how and what we eat directly affects the world in which we live, as well as our own well-being. To this day the food she cooks features local, organic and plant-based ingredients. After 5 years as executive chef of the world-renowned vegan restaurant Angelica Kitchen, Amy now consults, cooks and teaches privately, her clients include Natalie Portman and Anna Devera Smith, among others. Chaplin finds herself dispensing recipes and answering queries about the health benefits of ingredients on a daily basis. This whole foods chef is always happy to share her passion for the natural culinary arts and loves inspiring others to cook and eat well too.