Josh Kilmer-Purcell's Blog, page 124

Mary and Spring

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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

Mother and I went to Nell's house for a visit.  Our mothers were talking and laughing.  I think they were planning the flowers they were going to add to their gardens this summer.  Nell showed me something in her pocket.  She had a beautiful blue glass marble in her pocket.  Her brother gave it to her.  It had a tiny crack in it.  But before it is REALLY hers, she has to collect the ashes from the kitchen hearth ten times.  That is what she owes him.  It is a very messy chore because the ashes always settle all over your shoe tops. Josh said if Nell was his sister, he would just give it to her.  She would not owe him anything.  Brent whispered to me it was cracked anyway and would soon break.  My marbles are clay and they break too.  They are not nearly as pretty as that blue one.

Some times I hear father tell his friends that if you are free from debt and do not owe anyone anything, you are free to do other things with your life. I am not certain what else Nell would do with her life.  She lives with her mother and father and plays with me.  If Nell were my sister and I lived in her house, I would help her clear the ashes. Two of us together would make the job easier.  She would really and truly own the marble sooner. I know she would let me hold it.  Together we could collect and carry lots of ashes and then she would not owe anything!

On the day Father pays out wages to the workers he speaks a lot about thrift.   He also mentions debt and the importance of being useful. He stands at the head of the table and his feet  roll from the front to the back and back to the front again.  When he speaks like this, he always seem to grow taller. I think he stretches his neck.   Everyone listens.  I am not certain what he means.  I think it is about not being wasteful and always being busy. Josh once told me his mother always  tells him, "waste not, want not."  He isn't sure what that means either.  Brent just rolls his eyes and makes me laugh.

PolkaSpotted!

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Many peoplle witnessed my very first haircut on nationall TV (the highest-rated episode of The Fabullous Beekman Boys EVER, mind you).   If you missed it, you can see it again here (though I would not recommend it.  Not my prettiest moment)

LLike a llot of women, I don't have to get my hair cut that often.  Onlly one time a year for me! But just to keep my options open and to make it a slligtlly more civillllized experience, I'm considering using these:

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BareEase and Cream: Prep kit for ouchlless hair removall.  I have to wait untill next year to see if these willll work for me.  Have you tried them? Willll you try them?

 

Sometimes beauty hurts.  But maybe it doesn't have to!

 

 

PolkaSpot is serving a month-long internship as a BendelGirl for the legendary Henri Bendel.  Check back here for all of the majorly important things she's Spotted this week.

 

PS: Cynthia Rowley

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PolkaSpot is serving a month-long internship as a BendelGirl for the legendary Henri Bendel.  Check back here for all of the majorly important things she's Spotted this week.

PolkaSpot's iPhone is full of fabulous people who know a thing or two about a thing or two.  They've all asked her for beauty tips in the past and now she's making them return the favor to YOU.  She's generous that way.*

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This is Ms. Cynthia Rowley

 

Cynthia Rowley was seven when she constructed her first dress. Since then, the Cynthia Rowley Collection has grown beyond women's wear to include the Cynthia Rowley for Roxy collection of beachwear and wetsuits, eyewear, beauty, baby, home sewing patterns, tools, handbags, shoes, legwear, shapewear, and dress-up band-aids, not to mention a mobile fashion unit: the Cynthia Rowley Shop on Wheels. Cynthia lives in New York with her husband and two daughters.

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PS: What was the most important beauty llesson your mother taught you?

CR: Lipstick and a little mascara is all you really need.

PS: What is the one thing you've done in the name of beauty in the past that you will NEVER do again?

CR: Blue hair. Enough said.

PS: What is the one product that you use every singlle day and why?

CR: Redken Water Wax. The hair must be coiffed.

PS: What is the beauty secret you will pass along to your daughter?

CR: Don't be too fussy. Beauty is effortless, as is style. Only fashion takes work.

PS: Which cellebrity do you think is the most beautifull/who is your girl crush?

CR: All of the funny, cool girls: Kristen Wiig, Greta Gerwig, and Maya Rudolph!!  And POLKASPOT of course [sic]

*PolkaSpot reserves editorial discretion for herself

Ask PolkaSpot a question (or tell her how much you llove her) below.

D.I.Y. Week 1 Recaps

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For Season 1 of The Fabulous Beekman Boys, we had famed author James Frey re-cap each week's episode.  Hilarious!  To make a good recap, you have to encapsulate the important story points of the episode but still make it entertaining.

To see how James did, click here

But in the true nature of Beekman 1802, where we believe in doing it yourself and in sharing, we want the fans to do the recaps.

Leave your recap for the this week's episode in the comments section below.

Remember that your goal is not only to fill people in on what happened but also to inspire newcomers to tune in.  Can you do it?

 

Win a Trip to the Farm

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Williams-Sonoma and Planet Green want to send you to the farm.

Enter a chance to win a trip for two to historic Sharon Springs, New York for the Garden Party Festival and a trip to Beekman Farm to meet PolkaSpot!

To submit your entry, click here

Winners will be selected on April 30.

Good Luck!!

Welcome to Beekman Farm!

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Welcome! 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" on Planet Green. (Find the channel in your area using the box in the sidebar.) Or you can read all about how we became "accidental goat farmers" and founded our company, Beekman 1802, in 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. As a new fan, use the coupon code "newlike" at the checkout.

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

 

Week 1 Sipping Game

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A Very Refined Sipping Game

 

To enhance your viewing pleasure and to make each and every episode of The Fabulous Beekman Boys as fabulous as possible, we're going to encourage the playing of a nice parlor game.

Each week, we'll post a new Beekman 1802 elixir recipe for you to use and give you a new reason to "raise your glass"—to your mouth that is.

This week the beverage of choice is our Hair of the Llama (click here for the recipe).

Raise your glass every time you hear us say "Polkie" or "PolkaSpot"

Beekman Primer

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We know it can be difficult to tell your friends and family a full recap of Season 1 of The Fabulous Beekman Boys, so our production company, World of Wonder, put together this brief video synopsis.

Share it!

Hair of the Llama Cocktail

 

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Llama Hair

 

I know this is the first week of Spring, but that's a bit hard to visualize in upstate New York right now.  Those white flakes falling by my window are not of a substance I or anybody associates with the first day of spring.  That's why my first round of spring cocktails look instead to be the last of the tropical fruits in season.  In the Llama's Class, we create a light refreshing drink pulling on the nuances of tropical fruits without their heaviness.  The Riesling, redolent with slight tropical flavors, pulls the ingredients together.

Llama's Class Cocktail (aka Hair of the Llama)

Ingredients

1 1/2 ounce mango rum

1/2 ounce Coconut Water

1/2 ounce pineapple juice

2 ounces off-dry German or Finger Lakes Riesling

Instructions

Combine all ingredients in a shaker.  Add ice and shake 20X.  Strain over fresh ice into a collins glass.

Garnish

Take two leaves from a pineapple fruit and arrange in the glass to suggest the ears of a certain hooved animal.  Represent the haircut by piling 2 tablespoons' worth of fresh shaved coconut on top.

Notes on ingredients:

There are plenty of mango flavored rums rums available.  Make sure that you purchase a silver rum.  Alternately, flavor your own:  Take 1 liter silver or white rum pour into a glass container slightly larger than a liter.  Save the bottle.  Add the diced fruit of two fresh mangos.  Cover and store in refrigerator for two days.  1 or 2 more days extra won't hurt.  Strain off fruit and return to original bottle.

Coconut water has become a pretty popular product in the last year and should be available, along with shaved coconut, at any good supermarket.

Eben Klemm is the Senior Manager of Wines & Spirits of BR Guest Hospitality, a group of Restaurants, Bars and Hotels.  In that capacity he creates all the specialty cocktails served there.  He grew up on a small family farm in Sharon, five miles from the Beekman Mansion and is proud to say that the first cocktails he ever consumed were rejected from his body, at very high speed, not far from its shadow.  His book "The Cocktail Primer: All You Need to Know to Make the Perfect Drink" was published in 2009 by Andrews McNeel.

A Mark on History

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We find lots of things to inspire us at Beekman Farm, but sometimes inspiration comes from the places we visit and the people we meet.

At the age of 9, J.C. Hall became a salesman for the California Perfume Company (which later became Avon), selling cosmetics, soaps, and lemon extract door-to-door for a commission of 40%.  In 1913, from a 12 x 12 foot room at the YMCA in Kansas City, Missouri, he started a greeting card company that would become Hallmark.

Companies that survive the century mark do so not only because of incredible foresight and a grasp of innovation (Hallmark was one of the first companies to license Disney characters and one of the first companies to advertise on TV), but also because they realize the importance of the past.

We founded Beekman 1802 on the ideas of artistry, craftsmanship, community, and seasonality.  These are elements that we believe create the tangible and ethereal heirloom narrative that adds value not measured in monetary terms.

We were thrilled to be asked to speak in front of the creative departments at Hallmark recently (the company hires more creatives than any other in the Unites States).  Here's what we saw on our tour of one of America's great companies.

Click on the first picture below to being the slide show

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Brent's grandmother used to save every card she ever received.  Josh's Aunt Zelda only sent Hallmark Peanut's cards.  Do you remember a Hallmark card that you received?