Josh Kilmer-Purcell's Blog, page 21

Lessons on Inspiration

“If you want to build a ship, don’t herd people together to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.” – Antoine de Saint-Exupery

 

We always say that the biggest compliment that anyone can give us to tell us that something we’ve created has inspired them.

People often ask what year we started Beekman 1802, and while it’s true that 2009 is the year that we started the farm and the company, it’s also the year that we started “living” Beekman 1802. Along the way we’ve built a small team of employees and a legion of “neighbors” around the world who all somehow manage to inspire one another.

We think often about what it means to inspire others and here is what we’ve learned to be the essentials of doing so

Care: With all the intricacies and turmoil of the modern world, it can seem overwhelming just keeping your own head above water, but the first step in inspiring anyone is to show them that you care about them. In this day and age, you can communicate that with something as simple as a “like” on social media.

Be optimistic: The number one reason that neighbors tell us they like to hang around Beekman 1802 (whether it’s in our store, online, or on visits to our little village) is because of our relentless optimism and positivity. We are not unique creatures. We, too, have negative thoughts and sometimes bitter opinions, but we also realize that there are plenty of places to find that in the world. No one needs another, but a place that is non-judgmental and always trying to find the good in people and the beautiful in the world is transcendental.

Build people up: People are not perfect, and there’s no shortage of people who will line up to point out our imperfections. Be the person who finds the good in everyone, even the good in the imperfection.

Admit your flaws: Understanding that other people have to work hard at it too is excellent motivation to work harder. We are always the first to say if we’ve messed up a project, missed a typo, or burnt the toast. There should be no shame in showing that life is not perfectly edited all the time.

Be a dreamer: Be that person who is always asking “why?”, “how?”, and “what if?”. It is contagious, and if we ask those questions often enough dreams move from the improbable to the inevitable.

 

 

 

 

Six Tips for Dry Winter Skin

There’s a ton of advice out there for how to soothe dry winter skin. The issue, we find, is that it’s mostly the same. After five winters in upstate New York…we know dry skin. And we’ve developed some real, honest-to-goodness helpful tips to avoid it. Not the same old “drink a lotta water, stay out of the wind,  yadda yadda yadda.” Make these six tips part of your routine and we promise you’ll have a smoother, less itchy winter.

 

1. Pre-moisturize. Why moisturize only after the damage is done? Putting on lotions before bedtime is good. But it’s more important to put some on before going into the harsh outdoors.

 

2. Don’t get Steamed & Drip Dry  – Taking a long hot shower or bath doesn’t actually help hydrate your skin. Your skin doesn’t soak up water from the outside. A long hot bath or shower can actually dry out your skin, because it can dissipate your skins natural oils, which are then absorbed further when you dry off. Which brings up the second part of good winter shower habits: when exiting the tub, don’t completely dry off before putting on moisturizer. (Granted this is easier if your bathroom is warm. Try a space heater placed well away from tub or sink.)

 

3. Dress Too Warmly – Believe it or not, your skin benefits from a little sweat. Your skins natural moisturizer, sebum, is produced by your sebaceous glands. These glands slow production when they’re cold. Keeping warm, and keeping moving, helps boost the skins natural sebum.

 

4. For Once, It’s Not All About Water – While there are millions of reasons why you need to stay hydrated, drinking excess water does nothing to further hydrate your skin. So in addition to being adequately hydrated, you’ll also need to eat foods rich in essential fatty acids – like walnuts, salmon, flaxseed, olive oil, and pasture-raised meats, and wild rice. Try our Pumpkin Nutty Health Bar for Dry Skin.

 

5. Shiver in the Car – During the winter it’s tempting to turn up the heat whenever you can, especially in small enclosed spaces like your car. But the combination of high, dry heat and swift moving air from vents will dry out your skin faster than anything. Keep your car at a moderate temperature…don’t turn up the heat just because you can.

 

6. Use only Natural Soaps –  like Beekman 1802 Soap. Real soap produces glycerin as it’s made. (The process called saponification.) Most commercial soap bars and gels remove the glycerin (it can be sold more expensively for other uses) and replace it with detergent. Only real soap contains glycerin.

 

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Winter’s Blooms

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Beekman 1802 Farm is the source of inspiration for everything we create, and Spring and Summer, when the sap and the nectar are their most plentiful, seem to be the seasons when our creative juices are flowing at their mightiest.

But mothers have a way of knowing what her children need, and Ma Nature is no exception. She obviously sensed our need for Winter nourishment and created these “frost flowers” on the surface of the upper pond.

Although we’ve witnessed hoar frost on the farm many times, we were unfamiliar with frost flowers. It turns out they require a VERY specific set of criteria to “blossom” and are therefore more rare.

Frost flowers form when newly formed ice sublimates–changes directly from a solid to a gas totally bypassing the liquid stage. Initially, the water vapor formed by sublimation is the same temperature as the ice, but gets quickly cooled by the cold air. The air then becomes supersaturated with water vapor, which means the air has too water much in it.   When the supersaturated air touches another ice crystal the water vapor quickly turns back into ice. This process is called nucleation, and in the case of frost flowers the process begins on little bits of ice that are sticking up out of the water . Over time, more and more crystals form on the existing frozen architecture. The crystals expand outward in spiky arms, creating these fascinating frozen flora.

Growing anything requires the right growing conditions. For the flowers to form you need the absence of wind and you need the air immediately above the water surface to be about 20 degrees cooler than the water itself.

Gingerbread Farm

Gingerbread descends from Medieval European culinary traditions. Gingerbread was also shaped into different forms by monks in Germany in the 13th century. Nuremberg was recognized as the “Gingerbread Capital of the World” when in the 1600s the guild started to employ master bakers and skilled workers to create complicated works of art from gingerbread. Medieval bakers used carved boards to create elaborate designs. During the 13th century, the custom spread across Europe. It was taken to Sweden in the 13th century by German immigrants.

The tradition came to America with Pennsylvanian German immigrants.

The culinary students at SUNY-Delhi (who previously taught us how to carve ice) created this masterpiece and won “Best in Show”.  It took them 165 hours of work!

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Weird Christmas Trivia That Sticks in Josh’s Brain, Part II

Since many of you liked “Josh’s Weird Christmas Trivia that Sticks in His Head Part I” (although we have no idea why,) he decided to dump even more useless trivia on you. Enjoy. (Or whatever else you do with useless trivia.)

The Christmas Eve tradition of NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense Command) updating Santa’s “exact coordinates” began as a printing error. In 1955, a newspaper Sears advertisement included a phone number for children to call and talk to Santa. Except someone at the newspaper made a mistake and printed the direct emergency number for one Colonel Shoup, Director of Operations for the US Continental Air Defense. Unable to ignore the ringing hotlines, Shoup’s staff decided to go ahead and give the children information about Santa’s whereabouts on their radar screens. The military agency has continued to so do every year since, and now has a website devoted to tracking Santa’s progress. Sears has a website devoted to tracking clearance items.

 

The town of Gavle in Sweden is a terrible place to be a giant goat. In 1966 a town politician had the idea of erecting three-story goat made of straw (a traditional Swedish Christmas symbol) in the town square. However the lights were faulty and the statue went up in flames on Christmas Eve. Undeterred, they built another three story tall straw goat the next year. Then someone burned it down on purpose. And then the next year’s construction it was hit by a car. And then vandals started setting it on fire every year. In the entire fifty year history of the Gavel Goat, it’s only survived until Christmas twelve times. Someone should gift the town of Gavle a security camera.

 

In the Ukraine, spider webs are a traditional Christmas decoration. Which is kinda creepy until you know the story. Legend has it that a poor woman with many children had no money to by gifts or decorate their Christmas tree. Some sympathetic spiders decided to cover her tree in decorative webs, and when the first morning light came through the window, the webs magically turned into silver and gold. I have no idea what makes spiders so sympathetic in the Ukraine.  Ours on the farm are pretty apathetic at best.

 

In Caracas,  Venezuela, children tie a long red string to their toe before heading to bed. They leave the other end hanging out their bedroom window. On Christmas morning, churchgoers tug the end of the string to wake the children up in time to get to Mass. Think that’s weird? Well, the even stranger part is that the passersby are on roller skates. Dressed as Santa. Why? No one knows that part. I’m guessing it has to do with the Disco era, but I’m likely entirely wrong.

 

 

Fearing felines at Christmas? Historically, sheep farmers in Iceland wanted to get their wool cleaned and processed before year’s end. So they decided to offer new clothes for Christmas to all those who finished their work. And to those who didn’t? Well they were said to get eaten by the Yule Cat – a giant feline who crept along silently in the snow, apparently  hunting people wearing old clothes. Yet another reason to not wear last year’s style.

 

Radishes are probably not what you think of as Christmas fare. But sometime in the 17th century, in Oaxaca, Mexico, the autumn radish harvest was so abundant that many farmers couldn’t sell their entire haul. So they left the rest in the ground. In December, they found that the radishes had grown to gigantic proportions, however they were inedible. So they decided to display the curious monstrosities in their December farmers markets to help bring in more customers. Eventually they started leaving some in the ground on purposes and carving them into elaborate sculptural displays – often Nativity Scenes – for a December 23rd Night of the Radish Festival. Now the late December radish carving contest draws thousands of visitors each year, and children all around the world clamor to get radishes in their stocking. (Not really. We made that last part up.)

 

Each year, the Colonial Williamsburg Village puts on an elaborate historic colonial Christmas display. The issue? It’s not remotely historic. In fact, early Williamsburg residents didn’t celebrate Christmas at all. The word never even appears in early documentation. But the museum is honest about the deception. In 1936 they began explaining that they combine other elements of colonial celebrations with our modern conception of the holiday to bring in tourists. Hey, even museums need to keep their doors open.

If you like to learn new things about the world, check out the Beekman 1802 Almanac.

Baby Goats in Christmas Sweaters

This is a post of pictures of baby goats in holiday sweaters.

I don’t think we really need to add any additional explanation.

Enjoy.

The Glitter Village

Last holiday we set up a pop up shop in the lobby of The Lenox Hotel in Boston (click here to see that). While Brent was busy setting up the shop and designing the windows of the hotel (click here to see that) he began chatting with someone who worked for the hotel about all the Christmas decorations from the the previous years. Most big hotels, retail stores, and some office buildings update their holiday displays every year leaving “last years models” obsolete.

Brent being Brent hinted:  “Well, if you ever want to get rid of any old Christmas decorations, give us a call.”

A few months later Brent got an email saying that the decorating company was moving out of one of their warehouses. If we wanted anything and could get a truck there to haul stuff away, it was ours.

So we did what any sane people who love holiday glitter would do.  We rented the biggest Uhaul truck we could find and fetched those decorations!

Sharon Springs is a tiny little town (population 547), and like most tiny towns in America, there’s not a lot of municipal budget for any “extras”, so we’ve never really had many holiday decorations in the village.

That changed this year thanks to The Lenox Hotel!

Now the little village that dreams of glitter is actually covered in it!

Take a look:

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You can come visit Sharon Springs anytime you want.  Bring as much glitter with you as you can pack!

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Gluten-Free & Other Specialty Flours

FOR DECADES, the term “flour” was synonymous with the powdery and versatile baking go-to, which is made from ground wheat. Alternative flours of varying colors and textures are now widely available, thanks in part to the growing popularity of the gluten-free diet. They can have more nutrients, plus protein and fiber. But how do you use them? Here’s a primer.

1. Almond Meal – Makes great pie crust and cookie bars. Mix it into a dough with butter, sugar, and a pinch of salt, and press it into a greased baking dish—or crumble the dough over sliced ripe fruit and bake.

2. Cornstarch – Commonly used to thicken stews and sauces and tenderize meats in Asian stir-fries. Dredge chicken or fish in cornstarch before pan-frying for a deliciously crisp exterior.

3. Glutinous Rice Flour – Gluten-free, despite the name! Because it’s higher in starch content than regular rice flour, it can be used as a substitute for wheat flour in a béchamel or roux.

4. Millet Flour – The high-protein cereal grain can also make a quick and easy flatbread when mixed with water and salt into a dough, rolled into balls, pressed flat, and cooked in a lightly oiled pan.

5. Sorghum Flour – High in nutrients, this drought tolerant cereal grain is often a star ingredient in gluten-free flour blends, but can stand on its own when swapped for flour in tortilla or pancake recipes.

6. Whole Grain Flours – Even a year ago, it was tough to find a gluten-free whole-grain flour blend with good flavor and texture. Now there are plenty that can be swapped for wheat flour measure for measure.

7. Guar Gum – This flour acts as a thickening agent, and also a binder when used in small amounts. For stretchy pizza dough, add one teaspoon per cup of flour mix that doesn’t contain xanthan or guar gum.

Everyone is Gifted

 

Brent grew up in rural North Carolina and went to a fairly small public school system. In elementary school he was identified as “gifted and talented”,  and twice a week he would be made to sit in the hallway outside the classroom and do advanced academic work.

His other classmates (as schoolkids do), started calling him “gifted and ‘tarded”. It was a cruel moniker, but Brent didn’t really care because his parents taught him that just because he was good a figurin’ and cipherin’, he was no more blessed or special than anyone else.  EVERYONE is gifted in one way or another–including the budding comedian who came up with that nickname.

At Beekman 1802, we are always amazed at the talented people that we meet everyday, from our neighbors down the street, to the Beekman Neighbors around the world, to each of the artisans that are part of the Beekman 1802 community.  You are ALL geniuses to us.

So this year, the theme of holiday at the flagship Beekman 1802 Mercantile in “Everyone is Gifted”

Take a tour:

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Holiday Chatter 2016

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?

Nancy Pfau, the town historian, 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 Holiday 2016 Issue

 

 

Holiday Chatter 2016 by Carlos Stewart on Scribd