THE BEET: Volume 13, Issue 16
THE BEET : VOLUME 13, ISSUE 16
In this week’s BEET:
- Halloween Party
- Letter from Ted
- Around and Out of Town
- NY Cider Week
- Cycling Festival
- Oktoberfest at Hunter Mountain
CSA Pickup Today 5-7:30pm
PS 56 at Gates and Downing (enter on Downing)
Halloween Pot Luck
We are looking for a few people to volunteer to help us coordinate this event. We need folk to help put some kid-friendly activities together, and help set up & decorate. If that sounds like fun to you- please email me here at the newsletter, and I'll fill you in, or you can sign up when you come to pick up your share!
Everyone else- we hope that you'll sign up in October to bring a dish, and we look forward to seeing y'all there!
LETTER FROM TED
The coming of fall usually corresponds with the departure of several people on our staff. Farm work is something that people can afford to do only because they are good at stitching together different parts of their economic lives. Sara, who has been with us for seven years, normally leaves us in October to join her family in their seasonal wreath-making business. (This year, however, she left us even earlier than usual to travel through Europe for a few weeks before wreath-making season.) She also does portrait photography. Three staff members returned to college – including my two boys and Mack, who is at FIT in New York. Mack is interested in sustainable dwellings and has helped fellow staffer Daren design the cabin he’ll be building on family land not far from here. Daren grows celeriac and garlic for the market, and works with us on various winter projects. He has been with us for eight years. Aidan will be heading to Telluride, Colorado soon to work at a ski resort for the winter season. Sisters, Victoria (a nine-year veteran) and Naomi (seven years), will be leaving us soon, Victoria to have a baby (!) and Naomi to retreat to the deep Maine woods to draw and read and hike. But we expect to see them over the winter for winter share packing and, in Victoria’s case, to take possession of the jams she’ll make for our winter share. Andrea, who started working with us ten years ago, makes teas in the winter from herbs she grew and dried during the summer. Andrea also works on weekends on the farm of a friend in Columbia County. They are a creative group of modern day homesteaders whose outside income not surprisingly is mostly food or farm-related.
For the last seven or eight years we have employed an extended family from Mexico. Some of the Medinas return to Mexico for the winter. Martin and Monica will join the corn, bean and squash harvest back in Laguna Prieta, their home town, where they also plan to participate in the many celebrations that take place throughout the winter. They leave five children behind to work on our farm each summer, and, as you can imagine, they are counting the days until their reunion. Monica calls home almost every day. Martin has been coming to the states for nearly 20 years under H-2A visas. Although I think they would make excellent neighbors, there is no path for citizenship (or even that type of visa we call a green card) for their side of the family. Salvador and Candelaria remain in their small house in nearby Cambridge during the winter. Because of a long, clean record of employment in the US, much luck, and by spending many thousands of dollars in fees and payments, they have managed to obtain green cards for their entire family. I am happy for them, but find the arbitrary nature of the visa process maddening. The cold has taken getting used to, but they tell me it has been worth it. Their youngest children are in the local school and maintain full schedules. Their oldest daughter and her husband, Gabriel, also work with us, and they will be heading to Juarez, Mexico in three weeks for an appointment to procure for him, too, a green card. With that they can start a new chapter in their life together, part of which includes attendance at the local community college and, perhaps, a clearer path to the American dream.
This week’s share in the harvest includes potatoes, Delicata squashes, yellow onions, beans or corn, depending on what you’ve had recently, golden beets, sweet peppers, chiles, parsley, lettuces, and your choice of two greens from a list that includes bok choy, Dinosaur kale and Swiss chard.
Have a great week, Ted
AROUND & OUT OF TOWN
The fall is a great time to get out of town- not too far tho- there's a lot of great food related things happening in the Hudson Valley- most within a 2 or 3 hour drive of the city. As a lover of The Hudson Valley and the Catskills, I would highly going for a drive and checking out these events. Most farms upstate will be offering pumpkin picking and apple picking now too. All you have to do is drive up!
Here's a link to several near the city.
NY CIDER WEEK!
All things cider related! Tastings, classes, and many special events.
The word "Cider" means fermented apple juice, and this week long festival celebrates the old-now new again beverage. Real cider is not brewed. There’s no grain, no cooking, and no fast route to high quality. Serious cider is all apple juice, pressed from superior cider varieties. It represents the land that grew that fruit. It takes time and patience. Great beer can be made in weeks; great cider, not.
This week long festival is happening 3 different weeks, in three different NY regions. Take a trip upstate, or wait until its here in NYC.
Finger Lakes: October 3rd – 12th, 2014
New York City: October 24th – November 2nd, 2014
Hudson Valley: November 14th – 23rd, 2014
RENSSELAERVILLE CYCLING FESTIVAL
SEPTEMBER 27 & 28
The Rensselaerville Cycling Festival, held in Catskills farmland next Saturday, gives you the chance to steep yourself in autumnal splendor and explore the foodshed beyond the common hayride or corn maze. The festival features all the rides you’d expect from a serious cycling event, from a low-key 8-mile fun ride to a fully-supported 84-mile Gran Fondo with over 8000 feet of climbing. The courses lead cyclists past dozens of farms, and they rise and fall through a stunning part of the world: the Northern Catskills and the hills that spread out from them like an apron from Oak Hill to Albany are green valleys, rock-cluttered creeks, and wide open pastures framed to the south by the sudden eruption of mountains.
Hunter Mountain: Oktoberfest!
If you like local beers and wines, German music, potato pancakes, and mountains; you're going to love this event. October is the time of the harvest, and in the old country, after the harvest is in, it's time for celebration. Join us in celebrating Oktoberfest, in the finest new-world tradition. Featuring German-American music inside, and great local bands outdoors. Some of these weekends coincide woth other events. Colors in the Catskills is an all-brands motorcycle rally. Das Laufwerk is one of only seven VW sponsored rallies in the country.
- Sept. 27-28 – with Gestalt BMW Car Rally
- Oct. 4-5 - with Colors in the Catskills Motorcycle Rally
- Oct. 11-12 - with Das Laufwerk Eurocar Rally
- Oct. 18-19 -Wine Tasting and Farmer's Market
