Josh Kilmer-Purcell's Blog, page 69

Heirloom Desserts Pre-order!

 

We both lost 15lbs when running The Amazing Race, and this is how we gained it all back!

The Beekman 1802 Heirloom Desserts Cookbook releases in September but is now available for pre-order from all the places you love to buy books.

It includes all of the things that millions of people loved about the first cookbook, the Beekman 1802 Heirloom Cookbook.   100 delicious time-tested heirloom recipes with our modern Beekman twist, stunning photography from Paulette Tavormina, anecdotes from our life on the farm, and, of course, places to record your family’s own heirloom recipe traditions.

Here are the places it is available for pre-order:

 

for Amazon, click here

for Barnes & Noble, click here

for IndieBound, click here

for Books-a-Million, click here

 

Check out our Facebook Events page to see if we are coming to a city near you on the nationwide book tour!

 

 

 

 

5 Beautiful Things

 

It’s in Our Hands

It was only after a colleague gave me a high-five that it struck me: this week’s post had to be about hands. We do so much with our hands and put them through so many rigors in a day that it’s easy to take them for granted. But when you’ve finished reading this I want you to look at your hands. I mean, really study them. Think about the food they’ve prepared or the children they’ve helped to raise or the lovers they have caressed. Think about the weeds they’ve pulled, the bulbs they’ve planted and all that wayward dirt you’ve scrubbed from them. Monuments, great paintings and sculptures, beautiful details and small embellishments have all been influenced by the touch of hands. Hands, like our faces, are also telltale signs of character. Their roughness or smoothness, their wrinkles and their manicured nails all say so much about who we are. Look at the hands below, which are so beautifully photographed, and then study your own as well as the hands of those you love. It’s your assignment for the day.

 

Andrew Ritchie is the creator of Martha Moments, a blog devoted Martha-Stewart related content and her community of supporters. He lives and works in Toronto, Canada, and has been a longtime friend of Brent & Josh, Beekman 1802 and Sharon Springs. Each week he’ll scour the world (wide web) to find the 5 most beautiful things to inspire you. Follow Andrew on Pinterest.

Behind the Scenes of Glimmerglass Festival

“Don’t you guys miss all the museums and shows and concerts and stuff in the city?”

That’s probably the #1 question we get since we sold our city apartment and moved full-time to Sharon Springs. It’s also the easiest to answer: we go to far more cultural events up here than we ever did in NYC. Between the hassle of cabs, the expensive pre-show dinners, the sold out shows, etc etc., culture in NYC comes at a price. Sometimes a really big literal one.

Our area is actually a hidden gem of museums and performing arts, so we wanted to start sharing a few with you folks who want to come visit us but are afraid you’ll have to spend the entire weekend shucking corn. (You’ll only have to spend an afternoon shucking corn. Other than that, you’re free.)

The first destination we want to share with you is also one of the most impressive. In the country. That’s right…anywhere. What Tanglewood is to classical concerts, and Jacobs Pillow is to dance…Cooperstown’s Glimmerglass Festival is to opera and other singing arts. (As well as other riveting performances.)  Glimmerglass was founded in the Cooperstown High School Gymnasium in an effort to bring world class opera to the region. It succeeded…wildly. Now the productions take place in a beautiful state of the art facility on the shores of Otsego (Glimmerglass) Lake. It has debuted many world premieres, and has been host to many of the most talented Opera singers in the world.

Each summer Glimmerglass Festival puts on four shows in rotating repertory. It’s well known for debuting cutting edge shows, but also for amazing productions of perennial favorite operas. Additionally, it usually includes one production from the American Musical Theater world among its four selections. This season’s productions include: The Flying Dutchman, Camelot, King for a Day & Passions

We’ll be attending all four. You can easily make either a weekend, or a whole week out of the festival, which this year runs from July 6th to August 24th.

We were lucky enough to be invited to witness the backstage activities of this year’s production. It was a fascinating afternoon which began with observing the childrens’ chorus rehearsal, and culminated in the full dress rehearsal for The Flying Dutchman.  Follow along…

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Summer Reading Hammock Giveaway!

Fun summer books & hammocks.

Is there a better combination? (Ok, maybe if you throw an ice cold lemonade in there as well.)

We thought it would be fun for everyone to list their favorite summer reading book of all time, and where you were when you read it. It can be from a vacation you took as a child. Or the vacation you’re taking right this very moment. It can trashy, sophisticated, funny, classic…whatever.

Brent’s favorite summer read was a book called The Saturdays, by Elizabeth Enright. He found it while visiting his grandparents, on a bookshelf in his mother’s childhood bedroom. He re-read it every summer of his youth, sitting under the same chestnut tree in his grandparents’ yard.

 

Josh loved a crazy book called House of Leaves, by Mark Z. Danielewski that he took with him on a long summer trip to visit his uncle in France. It’s a pyschological/supernatural cult horror novel that completely overshadowed the trip. But was so good that it was worth it.

A friend at Serenity Health and Home Decor has generously donated this cool Handmade Mayan Double Hammock for a giveaway. So simply share your all-time favorite summer read in the comment section below, as well as a sentence or two about where you were when you read it. Enter by next Monday, July 8, 11:59pm, and we’ll choose a random winner on Tuesday, July 9th. (Apologies, but due to shipping constraints, winning entrants must live in the contiguous U.S.)

Hammock:

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5 Beautiful Things

 

American Houses

Everytime I visit the United States, I am always captivated by the various styles of residential architecture that line the streets. Sometimes a single road will have three or four different styles represented, from Tudor-Revival to Colonial to Shingle-Style. The wide variety of home styles reflects a nation rich in history and one that has been heavily influenced by its diverse geography, as well as its English, Spanish and French heritage. Many of the home styles are ‘revival’ styles, meaning they have borrowed architectural details from historical periods; Greek-revival homes, for instance, are usually white and often feature temple-like pillars at the front entrance, referencing the ancient Greek and Roman monuments. The White House is an example of this form of architecture.

There are at least 23 different home styles that are quite unique to North America: the log cabin, the saltbox, Georgian, Federal, Greek Revival, Gothic Revival, Italianate, Second-Empire/ Victorian, Queen Anne, Shingle, Richardsonian Romanesque, Folk Victorian, Colonial Revival, Cape Cod, Neoclassical, Tudor Revival, French Revival, Spanish Colonial Revival, Pueblo Revival, Craftsman, Modernist, International and Ranch/Bungalow.

With the Fourth of July in mind, I’ve shared five of my personal favourite American styles with a description of their distinct architectural features. Happy Independence Day!

1. GOTHIC REVIVAL: 1840 to 1880

Features: Steeply pitched roof with decorated bargeboard and cross gables with spires, arched gothic windows and doors with arched panels, first-floor porch.

The Gothic Revival is another trend that started in England and made its way to the U.S. The style mimics the shapes found on Medieval churches and houses. It is almost always found in rural areas.

2. SHINGLE: 1880 to 1900

Features: Exterior walls and roofs of wood shingles; asymmetrical house shape, often organic to the landscape around it; large porches; intersecting roofs of different shapes, including gambrel.

This style is distinctly ‘seaside’ and was mostly popular along the coast in the Northeast. Shingle houses were usually large, free-form mansions built into the rocks and hills of the shore. Many smaller Shingle homes exist today.

3. SALTBOX: 1607 to early 1700s

Features: Steeply pitched (catslide) roof that reaches to first story in the back; massive central chimney; small windows of diamond-paned casements or double-hung sash with nine or 12 lights.

Most saltboxes existed in and around New England. Their steep roof pitch is a remnant of the days of thatching, but early settlers learned that wood shingles were better at funneling off snow and rain. Few original saltboxes survive today but the style is often copied because of its charming simplicity.

4. ITALIANATE: 1840 to 1885

Features: Hip roof with deep, bracketed eaves; arched 1-over-1 or 2-over-2 windows with elaborate crowns; paired-door entryway with glass in the doors.

Again modeled after a fashion started in England, the Italianate style rejected the rigid rules of classical architecture and instead looked to the more informal look of Italian rural houses.

5. TUDOR REVIVAL: 1890 to 1940

Features: Steep-pitch side gable roof with cross gable and half timbering; double-hung or narrow, multi-light casement windows, some with diamond panes; semi-hexagonal bay windows; walls of stucco or stone (later examples).

More Medieval than Tudor, the style’s details loosely harken back to an early English form. Though the style began in the late 19th century, it was immensely popular in the growing suburbs of the 1920s. A version of Tudor came back into vogue in the late 20th century.

Which style would you choose as home sweet home? Tell us in the comments section below

Fourth of July…in March

Whenever you see something written in a monthly magazine, invariably the article was written at least 3 months prior to publication.  Sometimes as far as a year in advance!  So all of those decadent and beautiful holidaydecorations we all “ooh” and “aah” over, some photographer and stylist were putting together in the heat of summer. When Brent worked at Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, in July and August the test kitchens would be over-flowing with Christmas cookies.

So we were not surprised when Wine Enthusiast called us in March for an article about our plans for celebrating the Fourth of July.

So we dreamed of the most Americana-laced celebration we could—and now that’s what we have to live up to!

We’re headed out to the park with our Bourbon Slushies in hand!  See the article below for the recipe.

SummerEntertaining Wine Enthusiast

 

A Love Note to You

 

Do you remember how thrilling it was to receive a love letter?

Tucked through the narrow slots of your locker,

or traveling across the vast expanses of a classroom

through a sea of children’s hands

before landing on your desk?

This is a love letter to you.

You’re one of the community

of people that nourished our relationship

through 14 years so that we could get to this day.

Thank you!

 

We know it’s impossible for everyone to be physically with us on this day but please feel

free to use the comments section below as our “virtual guestbook”

5 Beautiful Things

 

They Do

You may have heard that two residents of Sharon Springs will be tying the knot this Friday! Since I won’t be able to attend their wedding, I want to use this week’s edition of the column to wish Brent and Josh the most heartfelt congratulations. These guys have been inspirational to me right from the start. It wasn’t long after they acquired the Beekman that I began to document their journey from city to country on my blog. With each post and each new venture they undertook I was more impressed by their vision and determination and, especially, their humility and kindness. We became friends and they have been helpful to me in ways that I cannot adequately express. Their honesty with each other and their commitment to making it work – to building a life together – is what really resonates so strongly about their love. I am so thrilled that they are marrying in the place they most love on earth, surrounded by the beauty of the land and the love and support of so many. I will be thinking of them on Friday, and I know many of you will be too.

Below are five beautiful wedding cakes to feast your eyes on – from the simple to the more elaborate – as we wish Brent and Josh our best for their special day. (I quite like the idea of using multiple smaller cakes or cupcakes to broaden the spectrum of flavors.)

 

Which cake would you choose?

Final Renovation Pictures of the Beekman 1802 Flagship Mercantile

You always learn by watching others.

When we first started Beekman 1802, we always tried to work with first-in-class retail partners.  Not because of prestige and not because it meant moving more volume, but because as a young company, we had a lot to learn (and still do).  By working with companies like Anthropologie, Henri Bendel, Williams-Sonoma, John Derian. Murray’s Cheese et al, it was like taking a retail master class every time we delivered an order.

These are companies that focus on the details and on delivering something extra to the customer when they walk in the door.  They deliver an experience.

Take a look a tour of the Beekan 1802 Mercantile flagship store in Sharon Springs, NY.

We hope that we’ve learned our lessons.

 

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Fly Away

 

Now that we’ve entered the world of fly fishing, we asked our friend and fishing expert, JP Ross, to give us some hints on how choose the best lure.

JP says:

Selecting the right fly when fly fishing is not much different than choosing the right golf club for your next shot, or setting the exposure on your camera for the perfect picture. It takes practice, knowledge and understanding of your environment in order to get it right half the time. No matter what any avid fly fisher will tell you, you only have to be close half the time unlike golf and photography.

Choosing the right fly when trout fishing is also a lot different from choosing the right fly when bass fishing or fishing for blue gills and sunfish. The later species are far less selective and are much more opportunistic feeders, in other words, you just need to get a fly near them and they will usually bite it.  Trout however are very tuned in to their environment.  A bad cast or the wrong fly could me your net stays dry.

Fly fishers often refer to their fly selection based on the “hatch.” The hatch is the species or type of bug that is coming off the water at that time. We refer to it as a hatch, because the insects are actually hatching from a nymph or pupa to an adult.  Much like a caterpillar turns into a butter fly.  Sometimes it is two or even three different types of flys hatching and the trout will likely only be keyed into one type. This is called selective feeding and can be difficult to “match the hatch.”

The secret is to watch the water and try to observe you environment the best you can.  When filling your fly box you generally want a variety of flies in various colors and sizes.

 

In general:

The Adams

Royal Wulff

Elk hair caddis

Emergent sparkle pupa

Rusty spinner

White Wulff

Various colors of compara duns

and ants and grasshoppers will take care of most of your days note water.

You should have all these flies in size 12 to 16

 

All these flies above are called dry flies, and are used when the fish are fishing or splashing on the surface.  If there is no activity on the surface then you better fish under the surface of the water with a wet fly like:

Hares ear nymphs

Pheasant tail nymph

Bucktail streamers

and wooly buggers.

 

These flies are good all-around flies to get the angler started.  When you are out on the water and you see bugs hatching try to grab one, hold it up to your fly box and just pick something that is close.  First go by size! Then by color and then by shape.  If you cast your fly and the fish comes up to look at your fly but does not take it, just go a little smaller and that usually fools them every time.

See the B. 1802 Badger Hackle Fly Rod handmade by JP Ross. Click here

JP Ross hand-tied flies (as seen above) using the goat hair from Beekman 1802 Farm.  Click here