The Catskills region has plenty of culinary traditions — maple tapping, cider brewing, cheese making — but one thing the area has never been known for is pasta. Bob and Jen Eckert are out to change all that, using local ingredients to bring the traditionally Italian staple into the Catskills food-making fold.
The husband-and-wife team began Northern Farmhouse Pasta (209 Rockland Road, Roscoe, 607-290-4041, northernfarmhousepasta.com) in 2011, dedicated to creating handmade ravioli and other pasta using local ingredients. To drive the point home, an image of New York state adorns all of Northern Farmhouse’s packaging.
Left: Bob and Jen Eckert. Photo by John Tappen.
“I was tired of seeing the outline of Italy everywhere,” said Bob Eckert, who is of Italian descent himself. “Everyone always talks about a ‘fine Italian tradition’ to sell pasta. We wanted to focus on New York.”
With a mission to produce a truly local product, the Eckerts emphasize seasonal goods. They favor a few fresh ingredients (two to three for pasta; about five for ravioli) and avoid using preservatives. Many of the ingredients, from squash to mushrooms, grow right in their backyard in the Sullivan County town of Roscoe.
“If they’re not ours, we get them from local farmers at the farmers’ markets,” said Jen Eckert.
Or from the wild. Come late April, Bob Eckert ventures into the mountains near his home to forage for ramps, wild leeks with a delicate onion flavor that are difficult to cultivate. He includes them in a ravioli that’s available only in April and May.
“I always want to have my hands in the dirt or in the flour,” he said.
The only ingredient the Eckerts don’t grow, buy or gather in the Catskills is wheat. But even that comes from New York — from a supplier in the Finger Lakes — and someday they hope to reap their own grain on their farmstead.
The pasta selection changes with the seasons. The Eckerts stuff their ravioli with roasted summer corn in the summer; pumpkin and arugula, butternut or acorn squash in the fall; and cherry-wood-smoked mushrooms in the winter.
Left: A Beech A36 aircraft. 
