A farm girl at heart...
I’ve been in New York for close to 3 months now. I can’t love the food enough, and the hustle & bustle really puts you in your place. How can you not love this city? However, as much as I’m an urban girl and love to be out and about…the times that I thoroughly enjoy the most is when I get a moment to breathe. You’ll hear many New Yorkers say they like to leave the city for a quick weekend trip, just to get away from the madness. It didn’t occur to me that I desired to partake in this as well. Something that most people may not know about me is that my ultimate dream is to have a small farm of my own. The girl from Chicago, who lived in Seoul for 3 years, love city lights, and now a member of the daily grind in New York is still planning on making this dream happen. So when I stepped foot into Blue Hill, I instantly felt a connection. I was home. I seriously didn’t want to leave.
Words are limitless to describe my recent experience at Blue Hill at Stone Barns. A few of my co-workers introduced me to this place on our drive back to the city, after some long meetings in Connecticut late January.
If you’re fortunate to take a break and leave town, even if it’s for a one-day trip, it’s so well worth it if you want to get recharged. It definitely doesn’t take long for me to be ‘whole’ again. I just need to squeeze in a little ‘Sarah time’ here and there and I’m in a happy place:)
A bit of history…
Blue Hill at Stone Barnsis located in Pocantico Hills, New York (Westchester County). Chef Dan Barber & his team has converted these beautiful stone barns that was originally part of the Rockefeller estate, into a true farm-to-table or farm-to-fork as Chef Barber would put it. Yes, we eat in these stone barns, on their farm. Blue Hill is dedicated to promoting sustainable agriculture, local food, & community supported agriculture. Blue Hill is a four-season farm, and their menu reflects this. The farmers don’t use pesticides or chemical additives which is amazing. They use ‘black gold’ compost made from leaves, grass clippings, livestock manure, hay & kitchen scrap. A six-month composting cycle is used to reduce the weed and pathogen contamination to produce a fertilizer key to the health of the farm (wikipedia.org).
The food...is a beautiful thing...
Let’s just say that I have never been to a restaurant where they make vegetables taste better than anything else! Eating off of tree bark and clipping your own greens? Can you experience this elsewhere? For this visit, we dined at the bar instead of the main dining hall as it was somewhat of a last minute stop over. Hence the no reservation. Nonetheless, we had so much fun dining at the bar with their 3 course ‘bar menu’, which actually ended up being something close to 10 courses with the amuse bouche! Service was perfect, food was spot on, and each course just out-did the previous one. Everything made perfect sense. Needless to say, I was in utter bliss. It's like feeling in love all over again~
Working on their farm…
The Stone Barn farm takes volunteers all year round, and you can really be interactive with the farmers and be in the know when it comes to farming. It’s a bit cold at the moment, but come around spring I’ll be signing up many weekends moving forward. I already have verbal commitments from some friends as well, haha. I'm getting my farm gear ready, so who wants to join???
*Please note that this post features Blue Hill at Stone Barns. You can refer to their Manhattan location via their website.
