Josh Kilmer-Purcell's Blog, page 112

Welcome Country Living Readers

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Hi, Country Living Magazine readers. We're glad to meet you.

[image error]If you just read about us in your November 2011 issue, and this is your first time here…welcome! If you liked the recipes in the magazine and are interested in our cookbook, The Beekman 1802 Heirloom Cookbook, please click here to purchase, or visit your local bookstore. You'll also find our great community of heirloom cooks in our cookbook section of this website.

If you want to know more about us, here's a little tour of the farm and what we do…

[image error]First off, we're Brent and Josh, otherwise known as "The Fabulous Beekman Boys." Brent is a physician who used to work as "Dr Brent" at Martha Stewart Omnimedia. Josh is a writer, who also works in advertising. We've been together 11 years, having met in New York City where we lived full time up until three years ago. That's when we stumbled across the Beekman Mansion and Farm in Sharon Springs, NY while on an apple picking trip.

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You can watch our adventures on our TV show, "The Fabulous Beekman Boys" now available on iTunes, DVD, or Amazon Instant Video.   Or you can read all about how we became "accidental goat farmers" and founded our company, Beekman 1802, in our bestselling memoir "The Bucolic Plague."  If you're interested in trying some of our goat milk soaps, cheese, and artisanal crafts, please check out our online store or visit us in person.

Beekman1802.com is the hub of everything Beekman:

You can read articles about gardening, animals, decor, health, and food & wine (we share a lot of recipes.)

You can also read blogs from Brent, Josh, and our resident ghost – young Mary Beekman.

For those who watch The Fabulous Beekman Boys, you can get behind the scenes dirt in our Beyond Fabulous blog.

And we also feature other seasonally like-minded guest bloggers, and throw the occasional contest.

You can chat with other "BeekGeeks" in our forums.

And for those who just want to kick back, you can watch some of our slide shows and videos from around the farm.

And for the bare basic details, here are the pages for contacting us, Sharon Springs store info, upcoming events, and retail partners near you.

So we're glad you found us. Please look around and let us know what you think. And please share any advice with us as well. We can all always be a little more fabulous.

xo,

Josh & Brent

Josh's Fall Reading List

Here's what I have on my nightstand as the weather turns chilly. What's on your's?

From Our Grandmothers' Kitchens One of our favorite magazines, Cooks Country Magazine believes in heirloom cooking as much as we do. From readers' family favorite recipes, Cooks Country tested and perfected recipes from around the country.

Woodswoman: Living Alone in the Adirondack Wilderness. This book is a treasure find from one of our fans. Anne LasBastille tells beautiful inspiring stories of living in the wilderness are inspiring and beautiful.

The Color of Rain This is a very personal choice of Josh's. Over twenty years ago, he introduced his friends Matt and Gina, who fell in love and were married. Matt died of a rare cancer a few years ago, and this is the story of how Gina found love again through a miraculous "chance" encounter.

My Life in France by Julia Child This one is kinda a no brainer. If you haven't read it yet, (and we're embarrassed to admit we hadn't either,) you must pick up this book. You can practically hear Julia's enthusiastic voice as she described how she discovered her passion for food upon moving to France.

Comfort Me With Apples We're huge Ruth Reichl fans. She combines two of our favorite things: good food and good memoir. Through divorce, remarriage, and childbirth, Reichl tells the story of her life in food.

Salt: A World History This is a fascinating book about how this kitchen staple has shaped and changed the course of human history.

The Chatter (Oct)

 

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We've lobbied really hard for Garrison Keillor to give up life in Lake Wobegone and move to Sharon Springs,  but thus far he has not answered our letters or returned our calls.

Sharon Springs has beautiful people and above-average children, too, so on to Plan B.

What is a small town village without a small town paper to keep track of what everyone is doing?

Leila Durkin, proprietor of The Village Hall Gallery, is now editor of our own little paper.

Each month you can check back here for a new issue and follow the lives of the real village people.  If you pay a real visit, you  may even want to submit a story idea of your own!

You may not live in small town, but at least you can pretend.

See below for the October 2011 Issue

Morning Bells

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To celebrate the release of the Beekman 1802 Heirloom Cookbook, we were invited to ring the bell to open the NASDAQ stock exchange.

Here's the transcript from the president's address:

Well good morning everyone.  It is truly my great pleasure to welcome the stars of the hit television show, "The Fabulous Beekman Boys," Josh Kilmer-Purcell and Dr. Brent Ridge.   I'd also like to extend a warm welcome to all our distinguished guests to NASDAQ.  We're excited that you could all join us – right here from the crossroads of the world – in Times Square New York as we get set to ring today's opening bell.  Josh, Brent – what do you think?  A round of applause to kick things off this morning?

Josh Kilmer-Purcell and Dr. Brent Ridge are the founders of Beekman 1802, one of the fastest-growing lifestyle brands in the United States, and authors of the upcoming book, The Beekman 1802 Heirloom Cookbook which will be available at bookstores everywhere on October 4th.

Josh and Brent's decision to leave city life behind has been chronicled in Josh's national best-seller, The Bucolic Plague, and on the hit TV show, "The Fabulous Beekman Boys".  Their website, Beekman1802.com, has been nominated for a James Beard Award and Epicurious hailed them as "The Next Martha Stewarts."  Their company, based out of their 60-acre goat farm in Sharon Springs, NY, designs products that are sold throughout their website, and at major national retail stores as well as smaller shops and boutiques across the country.

Josh Kilmer-Purcell and Dr. Brent Ridge, founders of The Beekman1802.com lifestyle brand, have created a gorgeous cookbook that is "Heirloom" in every sense of the word:  they showcase heirloom fruits and vegetables; offer delicious heirloom recipes from farm, family, and friends; and include a section in the back of each chapter so you can personalize the book with your own treasured recipes–and create a unique keepsake to hand down to your family! From springtime pea pod risotto and summery strawberry shortcake to quick braised collards in autumn and yummy chicken 'n' dumplings for a snowy winter's day, this is simple yet luscious farm-fresh fare that everyone will love!

Now, I think we would all agree that NASDAQ OMX is the home of innovation and entrepreneurship. We're the home of the out of the box thinkers – the passionate ones who are changing the world we live in.  So it's fitting to recognize Josh and Brent this morning – they are the visionaries, the game-changers- as we saw from the video a little while ago – those who dream to do more.   Josh and Brent have proven that with hard work, outside-of-the-box ingenuity and passion anything is possible.

 

This is what it means to have your name in lights!

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Mary Cooks

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Mary Beekman is a four-year-old ghost who resides in The Beekman Mansion, and considers Brent and Josh her "imaginary friends." Follow Mary Beekman's Diary each week to learn what it's like to be a young child in early 19th century America

Father likes mincemeat pie the best.  It takes a long time to make.  I helped to do that.  I stoned the raisins.  First you have to chop the boiled meat and suet very, very fine.  Then the apples are peeled. They have to be chopped very fine also.  Mother ground the spices and made sure I had stoned the raisins (removing the seed) properly.  I stood on a stool with my apron on so I could reach the table. It made me taller.   Mother had to strain the raisins just one more time after I was done.  This will be the best mincemeat pie Father has EVER had.  I think Mother will put some brandy in.  I don't really like this kind of pie.

I said some of my alphabet from the Primer while I was working.

A  was an Angler, and fished with a hook,

B was a Blockhead, and ne'er learn'd his book,

C The Cat doth play and after slay.*

Everyone was so busy that Josh and Brent came to sing with me.   Their alphabet song was different than mine. I had never head it before. But we sang anyway. Mother told me I had done very well with my song.  I don't think she can hear Josh and Brent.  It is easy to stay busy today.  It is warm in the kitchen even though the wind is blowing outside. And I can see the clouds run in the sky and the leaves dance to the ground.  Part of the window has water running down on the inside.

My favorite pie is Pumpkin Pie:  Take the pumpkin and peel the rind off, then stew it till it is quite soft, and put thereto one pint of pumpkin, one pint of milk, one glass of malaga wine, one glass of rose water, if you like it, seven eggs, half a pound of fresh butter, one small nut meg and sugar and salt to your taste*.  This is not as hard to make as the mincemeat pie.

*American Children Through Their Books:  1700-1835

* The Frugel House Wife:or complete woman cook  – Sussannah Carter

Recipe Contest

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This is our BIGGEST!  CONTEST!  EVER!!! (so far)

Last year we decided to do a recipe contest.  You've all seen those, right?  Us, too.  So we decided to put a Beekman 1802 twist on it.

We created the Beekman 1802 Heirloom Recipe Contest.  We asked you to share your recipes but also the stories behind them.  By the end of the contest, we had over 1,000 entries to sort through.  We read the stories first to narrow down the field because we believe it is the story and the memories behind a recipe that make them special—that make them heirlooms.

This year, in honor of the release of the Beekman 1802 Heirloom Cookbook, we've partnered with Bon Appetit magazine to make the contest even bigger than last year.

Click HERE to enter.

One grand prize winner will win a trip to NYC where we and the editors of Bon Appetit magazine are going to throw a party JUST FOR YOU in the amazing test kitchens of Bon Appetit!!

Others will win amazing prizes from Terrain—the store that we could literally spend the rest of our lives in (if we didn't have a farm to run!)

Creating An Heirloom

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(Welcome QVC Viewers! To keep up with Brent & Josh & Beekman Farm, be sure to sign up for our monthly newsletter. We'll share exclusive deals, tips, recipes and fun stories about the farm. Sign up here!)

The recipes we create when we  pull things fresh out of the dirt have always been one of the most loved parts of Beekman1802.com.  We enjoy coming up with different dishes and LOVE our library of cookbooks, but when we started thinking of doing our own cookbook, the first question we asked ourselves was:  Does the world actually need another cookbook?

All of the products inspired by our life on the farm are designed to be worthy of passing along to the next generation, just like the Beekman 1802 Heirloom Recipe Cookbook.

The meals we love and that have been passed down through generations of family members are heirlooms in and of themselves and the book includes over 100 recipes that we've adapted from our family archives, each given our own little Beekman 1802 twist.  The recipes are both simple and ingenious.  Comfort food has to be as easy to make as it is pleasing to eat.

 

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A treasure trove of family traditions, nicely bound

Every family has one (maybe many more)—the treasured family recipe that is hauled out at every family celebration.  Often written on index cards and spiral bound notebooks, sometimes existing only in the recesses of a matriarch's  memory, these dishes serves as retrospectives of our lives.

We've also made special room in this keepsake volume for you to include your family's own heirloom recipes.  Simply use the blank recipe cards provided and store them in the beautifully-crafted protective pockets included in the book.  You can print off additional recipe card templates for free any time you need them by clicking here

This is not just OUR cookbook.  It's YOUR cookbook.

 

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One recipe, a thousand ways

It's been said that too many cooks can spoil the broth, but not here.  There's an entire section of beekman1802.com devoted to the cookbook, and cooks are encouraged to share their adaptations to the 100+ recipes.  Recipes are really living cultural documents.  They evolve based on the tastes and norms of a particular era in time, and we want to capture that.

We also want to develop a community of cooks who want to share tips and ideas on how they have used our recipes as a starting point.

Each recipe in the book has a column for writing your own notes.  You can then visit that recipe's page and contribute your ideas to the online community of cooks who are all using the cookbook.  In this way, each recipe becomes a thousand different recipes.

You can even upload a photo of your own version of the dish.  We want you to brag!!

To see a sample of one of the recipe pages, click here

 

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The look of an heirloom

The Beekman 1802 Heirloom Cookbook was designed to be handed down from one generation to the next and it was very important to us that every aspect of the book carried out the idea of being an heirloom, including the photography.

The artist, Paulette Tavormina, lives and works in NewYork City, gathering produce from farmer's markets throughout Manhattan in order to create the intricate studies she captures on film. Her arrangements often recall the sumptuous detail of seventeenth century painters highlighting the food as much as the table setting. Tavormina creates worldly still-lifes with a painterly perspective reminiscent of Dutch, Italian and Spanish masters, such as Francisco de Zurbarán, Giovanna Garzoni and Adrian Coorte.

For the book, Tavormina used vegetables grown on the Beekman Farm in upstate New York as well as thousands of dollars of silver, china and crystal pieces on loan from the French-based company, Christofle to display the final dishes.

The resulting photos are timeless.

 

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We look forward to cooking up something special with you.  Pass the memories.

To see what others are saying about the Beekman 1802 Heirloom Cookbook, click here

2011 Harvest Festival Photo Tour

 

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The hardest working village in America pulled it off once again! For the 2011 Harvest Festival this past weekend, Sharon Springs (population 547) swelled to over 10 times its size…which roughly matches the size of its heart.  Though the weather forecast called for two straight days of rain, we all consulted our Farmers Almanacs and declared the TV weathermen full of goat poo. In fact, not a drop of rain fell, and every cloud disappeared by Sunday morning.

There were visitors from at least 19 states, from Washington, to Arizona, to Florida, to Maine. The "Beek Geeks" and "Sharon Springs Groupies" were back and lovelier than ever. We also met some babies who were still buns in the oven at the 2010 Harvest Fest. And we were thrilled to have the very first Harvest Fest engagement proposal at Saturday's Harvest Feast. We loved meeting everyone, and for those of you who said you were checking Sharon Springs off your Bucket List we hope you don't kick it for a long time, because we want to see you again and again. Thank you to all who came, and to all who followed along on Twitter and Facebook. Share your memories in the comment section below.

P.S.  If you're thinking of visiting Sharon Springs any time this week, please don't honk your horns. Most of us are napping.

Click on any of the photos below to begin a slideshow of the weekend. (Thank you Ian Siegel for taking these wonderful photos.)

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The Farmer's Prayer

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For every special event in Sharon Springs, we try to decorate the windows of the Mercantile with an appropriate theme.

The Mercantile is housed in an old hotel building and not a storefront with traditional plate glass.   Instead we have a long row of windows and storm windows.

Because window decorations are both temporary and exposed to the elements, we never like to spend too much money but nonetheless want the windows to be inspiring.

For the 2011 Harvest Festival windows, we chose an old rhyme called The Farmer's Prayer, placing a stanza in each window.

We enlarged images from old seed packets to use as our key element surrounds, turning each window into the cover of a vintage seed catalog.

The use of the interior storm window as an alternate plane allows for the opportunity to create depth of field, and it's a great technique that anyone can use when decorating windows for the upcoming holidays.

 

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The paper cut-outs were placed directly on the interior storm window, but for those cuttings that were applied to the exterior glass, we spray-mounted the images onto black foam board to make them sturdier.

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To add a little extra animation to the windows, we made cut outs of butterflies.  Two copies were made of each specimen.  One copy was mounted on foam board and the other was folded and glued down the center.  With a slight breeze, the "wings" flutter.

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Click on the slide show below to see the complete prayer

 

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Good Harvest for All

Reviews are In

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The Beekman Boys, aka Kilmer-Purcell and Ridge, two former city dwellers who share tales of country life through posts on cooking, health, decorating, gardening, and more on their popular Web site, Beekman1802.com, and in their regularly e-mailed newsletter, are stars on the rise. Featured on Planet Green TV, the duo take their "heirloom" lifestyle to the masses, creating goat's milk soaps and artisanal cheese, and with their latest endeavor, a cookbook. Organized by season (and subdivided by course), this well-designed gift title presents Heirloom Recipes the authors hope will be passed down through generations, created by "using ingredients the minute they are plucked out of the garden." While new cooks may be intimidated by the lack of information on technique or instructional photos or illustrations, the appealing collection of seasonal recipes–spring's dandelion salad with hot bacon dressing; summer's lemonade with lavender and vanilla; fall's roast pork loin with gingerbread stuffing; and winter's macaroni and cheese with kale and mushroom–entice and inspire anyone with a nearby farmers' market. A "Notes" section gives the title an old-fashioned, personal feel, and top-notch photography by Paulette Tavormina, along with chapter-opening quotes by authors including Henry James, create a complete package that will make even the die-hard urbanite fantasize about country living or at the very least, eating at the farmhouse table.

 

 

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The dynamic stars of Planet Green TV's The Fabulous Beekman Boys offer up the ultimate volume of their most treasured, hand-me-down recipes.

In order to "relinquish the overly indulgent and instantly gratified existence to which we had become accustomed," memoirist Kilmer-Purcell (The Bucolic Plague, 2010, etc.) and Ridge, a former vice president at Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, relocated to the 60-acre Beekman farm in upstate New York. Inspired by the country life, their cookbook emphasizes the use of fresh, organic, homegrown ingredients—and not just because their farmhouse is located 20 miles from the nearest grocery store. The authors organize the sections seasonally, beginning with springtime offerings that include greens from the garden to make Dandelion or Spinach salads; asparagus, both roasted and baked into a "custardy" torte; and homegrown peas in a white wine risotto with freshly picked strawberries and rhubarb for sweeter creations. While somewhat light on creativity, heirloom garden fruits and vegetables highlight cool, basic summery offerings such as Chanterais Melon Salad, Grandma's Potato Salad, Meat Loaf Burgers using the authors' signature "Blaak Cheese," and Buttery Peach Cake. The bountiful harvests from fall and winter inspire more rustic, hearty meals like Hungarian Pork Goulash, Baked Apple Dumplings and Spiced Carrot Cake. Vibrant photographs and personal memories and anecdotes round out this obvious labor of love. The authors shine best when tweaking commonplace recipes with alterations of their own, which, they write, add flavor, sophistication and spicy diversity. For instance, "Supermoist Corn Bread" benefits from the addition of buttermilk and sour cream, while linguine is transformed with freshly chopped mint and lavender. Epicurean advice on toasting nuts and making buttermilk, poultry stocks and greens further enhances this uniquely homespun collection of throwback recipes.

Classic, unfettered goodness with a sustainable mindset.

 

 

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(A Booklist starred review)  Manhattanites-turned-farmers Ridge and Kilmer-Purcell (beekman1802.com), of reality TV's The Fabulous Beekman Boys, present a brilliantly simple, flawlessly executed collection of seasonal starters, main dishes, sides, and desserts. Readers can expect familiar recipes with a twist, like Homemade Lemonade with Lavender and Vanilla, Mac and Cheese with Kale and Mushrooms, and Bourbon Roast Turkey. Several dishes feature hard-to-find ingredients or heirloom produce, but generally it can be substituted with conventional equivalents and the recipes include variations. The beverages are especially good, and there are a number of fall and winter recipes suitable for the holiday table.

 

Leave your review of the Beekman 1802 Heirloom Cookbook in the comments section below

Order your copy of the book by clicking here