A glimpse of upstate October

Dog-sitting, leaf-peeping, and cooking cooking cooking

Oct 30, 2023

Friends! A short post for you today about going upstate last week and cooking up a storm. Keep reading for dog content and autumn beauty, and to learn how I made a bangin’ mushroom tart with roasted garlic crème fraîche for dinner.

Teo and I spent last week in Millbrook, New York, dog-sitting for his aunt and uncle’s black lab Axel (lovingly referred to as Dingus). Dingus is a handsome dog, born and raised in Millbrook, with a sleek black coat and a wicked nose. Teo’s uncle Hugo is a hunter, and Dingus is his trusted companion. When Dingus isn’t sniffing out game birds, however, he is a snuggleupagus who nuzzles up against your legs and is always excited to see you.

Teo’s aunt Sarah is a sensational cook — calm and clever — and I’ll never forget the time she cooked for me when I had to eat a gluten-free diet to address a health issue. We were a large group, and Sarah was serving pasta with her signature venison ragù. Having received the message that I wasn’t eating gluten, she boiled a small pot of water beside the big one and cooked up a single serving of gluten-free pasta just for me. No concerns, no fuss, no questions. This action may sound unremarkable to you, but the quiet ease with which she included me felt completely remarkable. (With that said, it’s a very good thing I can eat gluten now, as it’s in almost every food I love to eat, ha ha.)

At the American Academy in Rome, we often hosted diners with complicated food restrictions, and while it took forethought and a smidge of extra effort to cook for them, I was happy to do it. What a beautiful thing to be cooked for in general, but especially when you have health-related restrictions. Oh, and Sarah’s ragù was exceptional — rich and meaty and just the thing for a cold upstate night beside the fire. There was a wintry salad of tender lettuce and bitter radicchio in an oversized wooden salad bowl, too. Perfect.

While dog-sitting, it was a delight to cook in Sarah’s kitchen, which is well-stocked and sensibly laid out — a cook’s kitchen. The back garden contains pots of parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme (wink wink); the freezer is stocked with fish and meat; the pantry is full of grains and pulses. With nothing to do but computer work, I spent a significant amount of my time in Millbrook in the kitchen.

First up, an austere gingerbread cake with dark molasses, bitter and barely sweet, based on an Edna Lewis recipe. We sliced off thin, shard-like slices to eat between meals, unadorned but for a sprinkling of powdered sugar. If I were to serve the cake for dessert, I’d pour a warm salted caramel sauce on top and serve it with a dollop of thick, tangy crème fraîche. As far as I’m concerned, crème fraîche improves everything. Cake, pasta, scrambled eggs, savory tarts. One day, I roasted a whole head of garlic and squeezed the sweet, jammy cloves into a container of crème fraîche. Seasoned with salt and black pepper, it was a very delicious mixture. I spooned it on a sheet of puff pastry, topped it with lots of pan-seared mushrooms, baked it, and ate. It was one of the best things I’ve cooked lately. By the way: I’m posting photos of the food I make on a new Instagram account @girlwithgroceries, which I’d love for you to follow and share.

The other culinary highlights of our time upstate were a salad with roasted squash, dates, and Parmesan, a seared venison tenderloin (when in Millbrook!), and a simple pasta with Marcella Hazan’s famous tomato sauce.

October really is the best time to head north, when the leaves are blazing red, orange, yellow and the air is starting to crisp up. With limited trees in the city, it can be easy to forget that the season is changing, but upstate, it is unmissable. Teo and I went on a hilly walk at Wethersfield Estate one day and took a silly amount of photos of leaves like the NYC tourists I suppose we are. We didn’t see a soul, besides some cows and a flock of geese.

Other upstate activities included not one but two visits to my cousin Sam’s coffee shop All That Java and a visit with my 103-year-old great aunt Janet, who lives in Rhinebeck with her daughter Barbie. Janet is my late maternal grandpa’s older sister — a painter and singer who once told me she swears by Pond’s Cold Cream for her radiant skin. I love her and her family very much.

It was a happy week, and Teo and I left feeling grateful that we both have family in the Hudson Valley. Back in Brooklyn, life is running at double speed as always. I’ve been spoiled with lots of good food and good art lately, so there’s MUCH to report when I write to you next.

Love you all and hope you’re hanging in there.

More soon.

Phoebe