November 12, 2007 at 7:22 pm · Filed under Catskills
I haven’t made a pie since placing second in an apple pie baking contest at Enid’s three years ago. Though I continue to milk the prestige of that pie, I thought it was time to attempt another. This weekend, in an unfamiliar kitchen and lacking the crutch of my dough-crusted Cooks Illustrated recipe, my friends and I cobbled together a knockout apple pie. The eighth note garnishes, carefully placed to obscure any imperfections, clearly convey a lyrical quality.
October 10, 2007 at 5:39 pm · Filed under Catskills
Amid rumors of nepotism, bribery and unfit judges, Barryville, New York’s Annual Pumpkin Fest yielded one bright spot - my own third place finish in the sweet and savory pumpkin cookoff. This past Saturday, dozens of participants submitted fine autumnal dishes such as pumpkin poblano soup, pumpkin bread pudding and a savory pumpkin sausage pie, as well as gloppy Family Circle-esque offenses. The prizes: $100 cash, pumpkin-topped trophies, some ragtag purple ribbons and fifteen minutes of local recognition. My entry, an ice-cold pumpkin smoothie, likely had a competitive advantage thanks to the unseasonably warm weather. Nevertheless, we found some of the judges’ winning selections to be…let’s say… questionable. I’ll keep my post-game, obscenity-laden commentary confined to our car ride home. Suffice it to say, my culinarily standout group of friends and I will be back with a gourd-smashing vengeance next year.
A band playing instruments plucked from the garbage, a devotional Kurt Vonnegut float and a lone middle-aged baton twirler were just a few features of Livingston Manor’s (pop. 1500) Annual Trout Parade. Positioned near the Willowemoc Creek, with its beaver dams, bogs and meadows, the area offers some of the finest brook trout fishing in the Catskills. It only makes sense that they host the Annual Trout Parade. I attended the Fourth Annual Trout Parade not out of love for fishing, but to both enjoy the optimism and oldfangled charms of a small-town American parade, and eat some delicious local trout in as many preparations as possible. En route to the parade, I pondered the limitless possibilities of trout.
“Maybe there will be trout jerky, trout hot dogs, trout tiradito or trout pie,” I thought to myself.
A personal weblog of my experiences with fresh ingredients, home cooking, standout meals and the occasional bout with food poisoning from Brooklyn to Belize and beyond…
