Josh Kilmer-Purcell's Blog, page 87

Don We Now

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In 1969, the Metropolitan Opera made a donation of costumes from its former productions to the New York State Council on the Arts. In its earliest incarnation, the Costume Collection, Inc. was located in Saratoga, NY. The collection has moved several times but is now housed in the historic Kaufman Astoria Film Studios in NYC and is now operated as an arm of the Theater Development Fund. The warehouse holds over 85,000 costumes and accessories

There is simply no way  to say how many companies have utilized the Collection since it’s inception but as an example in 2011-12 the Collection provided costumes to approximately 500 organizations for close to 1000 productions in 28 states across the country and over 500 costumes are mailed out or unpacked every day.  The Collection rarely turns down donations of costume and vintage clothing (which can be a tax write-off!)

The primary goal of the Collection is to support non-profit arts organizations, but they also rent costumes on a commercial basis for projects of artistic merit.

For several years, the Collection has helped us dress for the Victorian Celebration in Sharon Springs, and we are so grateful for the support they’ve provided in helping us establish this event

Click here to get a peak of the frivolity of Victorian Celebration in Sharon Springs–always the first Saturday of December

 

Learn more about the TDF Costume Collection, donating or renting.  Click here

BlaakBalls

 

We recently made a batch of Josh’s Uncle Jim’s meatballs, substituting shredded Beekman 1802 Blaak cheese for parmesan. It was delicious, and we’re sure Uncle Jim wouldn’t mind since he never made any of his delicious recipes the same way twice. Josh credits his Uncle Jim in the forward of The Beekman 1802 Heirloom Cookbook as the person who taught him that cooking can be enjoyed as much for the process as for the result.

Right before Josh went off to college, his mom sat him down with her recipe box and some blank index cards. “Write down all of your favorite recipes,” she said, “so if you miss home, you can make something to remind you of it.” One of the first recipes he transcribed was Uncle Jim’s “Italian Meat Balls,” and we still use that same, stained, recipe card to make them today:

 

This might not be a terribly complex meatball recipe, but it’s the best one we’ve ever tried. The secret, we feel, is the inclusion of bread. Many Italian home cooks will say that bread was used as an “extender” for when meat was too expensive. But we think the bread plays an essential role. It absorbs the juice and fat from the meat that would normally drain off while baking, keeping the finished meatball from drying out and getting tough. The other secret is to not cook the meatballs all the way through. Finish cooking the meatballs in the sauce. That way flavors from the sauce will be absorbed into the meatballs, and juices from the meatballs will be absorbed into the sauce.

 

Uncle Jim’s Italian Meatballs

4 slices white bread, preferable stale, cut into 1/2 cubes

1 lb ground beef (or 1/2 lb pork, 1/2 lb beef)

2 eggs

1/2 cup Romano cheese (or parmesan, or substituted Blaak.)

2 tablespoons dried parsley, or 4 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley

Approx 2 teaspoons garlic salt

1 teaspoon oregano

More plain salt to taste, if necessary

Ground black pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 400F. Combine all ingredients in a large bowl and thoroughly mix with your bare hands. Roll individual meatballs between your palms (approximately 2-3 inches in diameter) and arrange on a baking sheet with a rim. Bake meatballs for approximately 15-20 minutes, or until outsides are thoroughly browned. Transfer desired quantity to simmering sauce and cook at least another half hour until meat is cooked all the way through. (Meatballs may also be frozen for later use.)

 

 

Gartending: Light by Fire

 

Klaus always knows how to make the best of a bad situation.  We had a bit of a storm here.  Klaus was fortunate not to lose the roof over his little head.  He didn’t even lose a bottle of liquor.  But how will Klaus stay warm?

Up in the Alps where Klaus was “born” they are used to going for many weeks without power.  It’s all early to bed and rise with the sun.  Sleeping when the sun goes down is hard for a little guy who is used to staying out all night long and carousing.

It takes a strong constitution to survive without good ice.  Klaus lost power three days ago and it’s not been easy for him to make that adjustment for no cold drinks.

Fortunately for Klaus, he has two Norwegian woodstoves to keep the home fires burning.  Plenty of dry wood fuels the stoves and Klaus appreciates attention he’s been getting from his admirers out in the woods.  The woodland creatures are making their way back to their homes after hiding out from the hurricane.

Klaus has a couple of chainsaws (small ones) and some splitting axes for all the new fallen wood.

His friend Lily the woodland fairie met him by the small woodpile and they built a campfire to release the spirits of the trees that fell during the “big wind”.

Even the other tree gnomes that live in the forest lost their homes.  Klaus has been busy gathering them together.  He needs their help chopping down fallen trees and occasionally offering them a drink from the flask on his chest.  He’s been quite industrious and he is getting everyone rather smashed.

Time to take the chain saw away from him.  There is nothing worse than a drinking gnome injuring himself on a chainsaw when he’s had a couple too many.

When Klaus gets cold he makes his way through the woods and back into the house.  The Jotul stove upstairs sports a Le Creuset teakettle.  It spits steam merrily away, readying Klaus’s friends for a nice pot of warming tea.  Klaus is rather fond of tea and his woodland friends cannot wait to get a buzz on.

But what should go into the mug?  Today Klaus has a powerful thirst for a cocktail named the Wood Splitter’s Dilemma.

In this strong drink, Klaus has started with a pot of dark, black tea.  A good “cuppa” tea is always a good start towards an intoxicating drink.  What comes after intoxication is usually dancing.  Currently all Klaus wants to do is sleep.  Maybe sneak some wood cutting in, running around with the woodland fairies and of course some drinking.

That cup of dark tea needs something to bind it together.  A bit of Bourbon perhaps.  Klaus is ever so fond of Four Roses Bourbon.  He likes the Small Batch version because of the soft, expressive nose.  He also likes his tea to be corrected by some of the Royal Rose simple syrup of Three Chiles.  Spicy and sweet, the Three Chiles is the perfect warm up for his little ceramic stomach.

Klaus has a container of Bitter End, Mexican Mole’ Bitters at the ready to go along with his Bourbon, hot tea and spicy simple syrup.  Just a couple drops of the fire driven chocolate- laced bitters will get his little ceramic heart started anew.

And what better way to warming?

So into the cups go some Four Roses Small Batch Bourbon, Royal Rose- Three Chiles simple syrup and hot tea plus a few drops of liquid chocolate driven love make up this pot of healing.

Life is good.

No wood problems here!

 

Wood Splitters Dilemma

Ingredients:

Four Roses Bourbon (Klaus likes the Small Batch)

Black Tea

Royal Rose Simple Syrup of Three Chiles

Bitter End Mexican Mole’ Bitters

 

Preparation:

Heat a pot of water on your wood burning stove

Pre-heat the tea mugs with hot water

Add 2 ounces of Four Roses Small Batch Bourbon to the mug

Add 2 Tablespoons of Three Chiles Simple Syrup

Add Hot tea

Drip about three or four drops of the Bitter End Mexican Mole’ Bitters over the top

 

Yodel! Yodel!  And drink some spiked tea with the woodland fairies!

 

 

Kitchen Disasters Contest Winners

 

Your entries for our Facebook Kitchen Disaster contest were hilarious. You risked public embarrassment to share stories of drunken grilling, liver stir fry, “potatoes au mucilage,” meatloaf made with all-bran, duck a la space heater, spinach bread sans spinach, tuna whiskey casserole and much much more.

In fact, we’re adding a 4th winner based on one of our own favorites. We loved the story about the terrible “Hawaiian Chicken” and the good sport mom who endured her children’s cheers when she dropped the copious leftovers – and continued to take the ribbing for years afterwards. Even though she’s no longer with us, any mom who turned misfortune into a loving lifelong memory deserves to win her child a Beekman 1802 Heirloom Cookbook.

So our FOUR winners (three chosen by number of “likes”, and one by us) are:

Alan Bennett Ilagan, who mistook cilantro for parsley in Thanksgiving turkey stuffing.

Desmond Wilson, whose lopsided cake was his first introduction to his partner’s family.

Vicki Vik-Cook, who forgot to remove the plastic from her canned ham.

And Sandi Gulbranson Frenke, who’s mom still can’t live down “Hawaiian Chicken.”

If you’re one of the winners, please contact us at customerservice@beekman1802.com with shipping instructions, and the name for whom you’d like us to inscribe your Beekman 1802 Heirloom Cookbook.

To read all of the hilarious entries, click here.

Atlanta Visit 2012

We always have a great time visiting Country Living Magazine Fairs, and this year’s Atlanta Fair was as festive and fun as ever. For whatever reason, the crowd that comes to our cooking demos there always bring out the best (and most mischievous) in us. This year we led an impromptu model walk parade during the demo, invited Atlanta’s youngest “SWAT” team member onstage to help us fill lasagna rolls, and gossiped about the Amazing Race. (Don’t worry, CBS, we didn’t give away any spoilers!)

This year we also had the great opportunity to visit the Morningside Farmers’ Market, the city’s only certified organic farmers’ market, and also one of its oldest. And a previous season’s Amazing Racer stopped by to chat. Check out the slideshow to read more about our trip. (We weren’t able to capture the information of all the shots of vendors’ wares that we took. If you have additional information, please share in the comment section below.)

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Creating An Heirloom

 

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. (You can get an autographed and personalized copy here)

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.

 

 

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.

 

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

 

 

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.

 

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

To get an autographed and personalized copy, click here

5 Beautiful Things

 

Tales From The Crypt

The bearded man led us down the porch steps and onto the lawn, his boots crunching through an icy layer of snow, which had begun to fall the moment he mentioned the crypt in the backyard. With its frozen tears, the sky wept down upon us as we got closer and closer to the tomb. “This way…” Josh said, beckoning my mother and I a little closer with a dark glint of glee in his eyes. “Don’t be afraid…” He opened the door to the crypt where members of the Beekman family were laid to rest: stones laden with green moss, melted candles, a human bone…  (Cue thunder and lightning.)

Visiting the Beekman crypt with Josh was a highlight of my visit to the farm several years ago. The history of the mansion Brent and Josh call home is peppered with tales of paranormal activity, ghost stories and sinister happenings. Brent even invited a local ghost-whisperer to the farm to help make sense of the mysterious midnight creeking and clanging that takes place in the house.

I couldn’t let Halloween pass without a little tribute to the dark things that keep us on our toes, that give us goosebumps, make our hearts beat a little louder, make us hold our collective breath in stunned silence. Below are five eerily-beautiful things and an excerpt from one of my favorite Edgar Allan Poe poems called Dreamland.

By a route obscure and lonely,

Haunted by ill angels only,

Where an Eidolon, named Night,

On a black throne reigns upright,

I have reached these lands but newly

From an ultimate dim Thule-

From a wild clime that lieth, sublime,

Out of space- out of time

Bottomless vales and boundless floods,

And chasms, and caves, and Titan woods,

With forms that no man can discover

For the tears that drip all over;

Mountains toppling evermore

Into seas without a shore;

Seas that restlessly aspire,

Surging, unto skies of fire;

Lakes that endlessly outspread

Their lone waters- lone and dead,-

Their still waters- sad and chilly

With the snows of the lolling lily.

 

 

Photos: http://pinterest.com/andrewr/darkness/

 

Andrew Ritchie is the creator of Martha Moments, a blog devoted to 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.

 

 

“Muslim Country Kiss”

Some people have asked why we haven’t been as visibly affectionate as other couples on the race. Of the 5 legs shown thus far, 4 have been in Muslim countries; and homosexuality is illegal in every country we’d visited or passed through. Since we are guests in these countries (and accidentally whacking folks with bamboo sticks to boot!) we chose to not embrace or kiss for practical and respectful reasons. We were literally relying on the kindness of strangers and cab drivers, and challenging their beliefs would not have been strategically smart nor neighborly.

To be completely fair, perhaps many of the great people we met along the way wouldn’t have had any issues with our relationship, but unfortunately we didn’t have the time to get to know them better personally. We are grateful that the producers of the show made all of the racers aware of the cultural backgrounds and differences of the countries we were heading into. Not only did it help us keep safe, but it made all of us better representatives of the U.S.  In addition to all of their Emmys, The Amazing Race producers should receive a medal from the State Department for collectively being the best diplomats and ambassadors this country has.

In this behind-the-scenes video, Brent explains what happened at Bangladesh’s scale challenge, and at the end you can see how we shared our own secret “Muslim Country Kisses.”

Mary and Autumn Morning

 

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.

 

It was cold in my bedroom when I woke up.  And it was still dark except for the fireplace.  I didn’t want to get up right away. I watched the shadows on the wall and ceiling.  I pretend they are animals or flowers. My head was wide awake but I knew the floor would be very cold to my feet and the pot under my bed would be cold when I lifted my shift up. My night cap had fallen off and I didn’t want to raise the covers to find it!!!  I heard the woman walking back and forward to add wood to the fireplaces in our bedrooms.  I wonder what time she gets up.

Breakfast and laughing with everyone made me warm.  The woman who helps mother at the hearth had red cheeks. She can always make the boys laugh and act silly.  I will work on my crocheting today and then my sewing stitches.  I am getting better at both and I am going to make Mother a pincushion for Christmas.  The sun is coming out.  Mother said if it warms up I can go sit near the kitchen door and blow bubbles.  There is plenty of soapy water because it is wash day. She said it was a watery sun but I could go out for a while.

Sometimes I use a piece of pie stem or straw.  I like to use a straw best because the piece of pipe stem tastes funny. It tastes like Father smells when he kisses me good night.  If I soak the straw a little at the end where I put the suds and split it into four a little ways up, the bubbles are bigger.  I like to blow a lot of bubbles when Josh and Brent are with me because they wave them all around my head.  I am surrounded by round rainbows.  It is like a fairy story that my Grand Mother tells me.  It is about a princess who lives and dances in rainbows.

 

5 Beautiful Things

 

“See the geese in chevron flight

Flappin’ and a racin’ on before the snow

They’ve got the urge for going

And they’ve got the wings so they can go”

This excerpt from Joni Mitchell’s 1967 song “Urge for Going” has been traveling the circuits of my mind for days now. Above my head, each evening as the sun slips into the horizon, I hear their calls, like so many clown horns sounding off in the crimson clouds. Canada geese are everywhere. (There are in fact too many of them.) Here in the country that Christened them, they are iconic, especially when seen in their fabulous v-shaped formations in the sky as they migrate south for the winter.

The V-shape (which is also the Roman symbol for the number five, in fact) inspired this post about an equally iconic design that has been making a comeback in décor and fashion this season. Rather than show you pretty pictures of geese, I opted for a more design-conscious alternative. The chevron motif (a modified V, multiplied) has patterned the walls, floors, bedspreads and dresses of the bold and adventurous since the 1500s. (The floors of the Galerie Francois at the Palace of Fontainebleau in France are made up of a seemingly-endless array of interlocked chevron planks.) Designers today cannot get enough of the clean, linear modernity of the pattern, which can be either enriched or subdued through colour, width and saturation. Below are five images of chevron in décor put to beautiful use.

 

 

Photos:

1. Poppytalk.blogspot.com

2. Poppytalk.blogspot.com

3. witandwhistle.com

4. nytimes.com

5. vinteriors.blogspot.com

 

Andrew Ritchie is the creator of Martha Moments, a blog devoted to 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.