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From restaurant reviews to ag policy: if it's edible, it's in here.

Fire leaves Athens without pizza, Columbia County without cable

By Lissa Harris
2/22/12 - 11:46 am

A fire early this morning destroyed the Slice of Athens pizza parlor and pub, at 29 South Washington Street in the Greene County village of Athens.

The fire also destroyed some phone lines, as well as a fiberoptic cable that supplies cable television and internet to much of Columbia County. According to the Facebook page of Mid-Hudson Cablevision, the company that owns the cable, a crew is working at the site now, and the company is hoping to restore service soon.

Some Greene County phone service was also affected by the fire. According to John Farrell, director of the Greene County Department of Emergency Services, both the county office building in Catskill and the Catskill Central School District have been affected by phone outages, and service has not yet been restored.

"The report that I have been given says it will be put back into service as soon as possible. There are crews working there now," said Farrell. "Hopefully this afternoon it will be up and running."

A dispatcher at Columbia County 911 said that the county's 911 service had not been affected by the fire.  Read more

Shandaken farmstand law hearing to be held Thursday

By Lissa Harris
2/21/12 - 10:44 am

Mark your calendars, Shandaken: This Thursday, Feb. 23, the town board will hold a hearing on a much-debated farmstand law. The meeting will be held at 6pm in the town hall on Route 28.

The proposed law would govern all farmstands in Shandaken, but the immediate purpose is to legalize the Hanover Farms business on Route 28. The farmstand is larger than Shandaken zoning code allows, and has been the subject of much controversy in the town. A previous proposal to re-zone a stretch of Route 28 as commercial, which would also allow Hanover Farms to operate legally, drew fierce opposition at a town meeting last May.

Alfie Higley Jr., who owns Hanover Farms with his father Al Higley, was elected to the Shandaken town board last November.

Louisiana Saturday Night fundraiser in Roxbury set for tomorrow

By Andrea Girolamo
2/17/12 - 3:35 pm

The MARK Project's annual Louisiana Saturday Night is upon us! Tomorrow, Saturday, February 18,  the Roxbury Arts Center will host a Cajun/Creole cook-off, and dancing to the music of Captain Squeeze and the Zydeco Moshers. Organizers say this is one of their most popular events, and that space is limited.  If you're interested in attending, call 845 586-3500, and see our calendar for more details.

-- Andrea Girolamo

Help wanted: Open jobs in the local-food world

By Lissa Harris
2/17/12 - 1:11 pm

Photo by Flickr user Darwin Bell. Published under Creative Commons license.

We've noticed a bunch of interesting job postings cropping up lately in the world of local food and restaurants.

(Does this bode well for the local food economy? Impossible to say. But you know what they say in journalism: Three makes a trend.) 

The Phoenicia Diner, recently bought by longtime second-homer Mike Cioffi, is looking for a chef to plot a radical makeover for the place:  Read more

Letter to the Editor: Wondering about Freshtown

By WP Newsroom
2/16/12 - 11:52 am

Editor's note: The Freshtown supermarket in Margaretville, owned by the Katz family, was flooded during last August's Tropical Storm Irene. Six months later, it is still closed. -- Julia Reischel

Dear Editor,

I took a ride today, to Prattsville. I haven't been that way in over two years. I had no reason to go there. Due to what I like to refer to as the Freshtown Fiasco, I decided to check out the Great American Supermarket there. I've gone to Stamford (Grand Union) and Delhi (Price Choppers), as well as the mega stores in Kingston and Oneonta, so I figured, why not the Great American. Surely they can use my business.

I was so impressed with what the owner there has done. I don't know what the store looked like before the floods, but it sure was attractive today. The staff was friendly, the customers all had smiles on their faces, and the prices were extremely fair and the selection very very good.

I know from reading the WP and the other local media that this store, indeed the whole town, was affected by Irene and Lee. Driving through Prattsville was heart-wrenching. Margaretville has rebounded so much more quickly.  Read more

Hudson Valley Seeds celebrates the Art of the Heirloom

By Lissa Harris
2/15/12 - 4:07 pm

Illustration for the seed pack of heirloom tomato variety Cosmonaut Volkov. Art by cartoonist and graphic artist Will Sweeney, for the Hudson Valley Seed Library's "Art Pack" line of artist-designed seed packs.

This Friday, the Horticultural Society of New York fetes a local seed company, and the artists commissioned to design its signature line of seed packs, with an opening reception at their gallery in midtown Manhattan. Local stalwarts Brewery Ommegang and Tuthilltown Spirits will be on hand to provide libations. 

It's a grand event for the Hudson Valley Seed Library, a company that has grown quickly over the last few years from its humble origins as a seed-saving project in the Gardiner public library. Founders Ken Greene and Doug Muller now operate a small seed farm with an expanding line of heirloom varieties in the Ulster County hamlet of Accord, and run a seed-saving membership program for local gardeners.  Read more

The cost of local food: A Schoharie County farmer defends her prices

By Lissa Harris
2/1/12 - 11:34 am

Photo: Jacob Heymann Butcher Shop, 345 Sixth Avenue, New York City. Taken in 1938 by WPA photographer Berenice Abbott. Source: Flickr.

Local farmer Shannon Hayes, who raises grass-fed pigs, cows, sheep and chickens at Sap Bush Hollow Farm in West Fulton, has an essay in Yes Magazine this week about why she charges $7.50 a pound for ground beef -- and why that's just fine.

Every week, we meet someone who tells us the prices are too high.

In fact, at those prices, the average net income for our family members has maxed out at $10 per hour. But part of our job is to hold our chins up and accept weekly admonishment for our inability to produce food as cheaply as it can be found in the grocery store.  Read more

Saving a 171-year-old general store

By Julia Reischel
1/20/12 - 10:54 am

Above: Helen Mitchell standing with Glen and Rachel Gaetano, the brand new owners of Barlow's, a general store that has been operating continuously in Treadwell for 171 years. Photo by Cheryl Petersen.

Cheryl Petersen, a reporter who writes for the Delaware County Times, was on hand for the sale of Barlow's, Treadwell's venerable local grocery store, on January 6. She sent us the photo of the handoff, which we've posted above.

Petersen tells us that Helen and Joe Mitchell, who have operated the store since 1991, are retiring. After a long search, the Mitchells had given up looking for a buyer for the property, which has been running continuously as a general store since 1841. At the last minute, Glen and Rachel Gaetano stepped in to buy the store and keep it open.

To see more of Cheryl's story, check out the Delaware County Times.

Matchmaker, matchmaker, find me a farm

By Bethany Lyttle
1/18/12 - 8:19 pm

Above: A Flickr slideshow of photos from Catskills FarmLink landowners and farmers. The first photo is of Michelle Premura, a landowner who has listed 13 acres between Delhi and Stamford on the FarmLink website. Click on individual photos to see the captions.

After graduating from West Point Academy and serving in the army for five years, Julie Zavage pursued a degree in organic agriculture from Colorado State University. Two internships and an apprenticeship later, the 30-year-old is ready to start her own vegetable farm. But Zavage doesn't own land, nor does she have the money to buy it. Leasing land is her only option.

So she turned to Catskills FarmLink, a new local website aimed at connecting would-be farmers with landowners, for help.

“I'm typical of many farmers of my generation,” she said. “We have the desire and ability to do the work and do it sustainably, but we don't have the money to buy the land we need.”  Read more

Twelve months of farming in the Catskills

By Julia Reischel
12/3/11 - 10:57 am

Farming in the Catskills isn't easy. There are few amber waves of grain of the kind depicted on your average bank calendar in our rocky hills.

So Madalyn Warren and Tovey Halleck, who manage a farm in Roxbury along with a project called the Andes Sprouts Society in Andes, worked with DeeDee Halleck, a Woodstock-based videographer and activist, to commemorate a distinctly-Catskills brand of small-scale agriculture in a calendar of their own.

Their project, the 2012 Sprouts Farm Calendar, is available for sale now. (Proceeds benefit the Andes Spouts Society.)

The calendar's scene of a maple syrup spigot in March and the bravest of new spring shoots in April will look familiar to anyone who lives through "mud month" in the Catskills.

Here's what Madalyn tells us about the calendar:  Read more

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