As digital editor for Chronogram Media, I curate web content for Upstater & Chronogram, focusing on the food & drink scene, lodging, lifestyle, & cultural coverage for the Catskills and Hudson Valley
A Geothermal Greenhouse Grows Microgreens All Year
Pioneering environmental architect Michael McDonough has created a proprietary tech cluster to power a four-season, geothermal greenhouse. His enterprise, Tongore Brook Farm, located on a 30-acre property in Stone Ridge, is the prototype.
Brookby Farm: A Family-Owned Raw Milk Operation
In a culture ruled by fierce individualism, powered by industrial agriculture, and characterized by disconnected families, Brookby Farm is an anachronism. The fifth-generation family dairy farm, in eastern Dutchess County’s Harlem Valley, is run by Steve Vincent, his wife Jaime; and their three adult children, Steven, Will, and Elyssa; and supported by a community of countless nieces, nephews, neighbors, and friendsThe Vincents’ passion and collective effort has ste...
Ship Shape: A Shipping Container House in the Hudson Valley
In 2006, Robyn Volker and her wife Anke Irmscher were living in a co-op building in the East Village when they decided to buy a property in Livingston Manor, a Sullivan County hamlet. For the next few summers, the couple lived in a 250-square-foot teepee on their six acres of paradise while deciding what kind of permanent structure to build.
Little House in the Big Woods
As a child in the 1970s, photographer and creative director Jason Koxvold spent each summer roaming the forested mountains of Norway at his grandfather’s estate, Lidartunet. His grandfather, Leif Koxvold, founded the property in the 1950s after abruptly retiring to spend more time in nature, make paintings, and whittle gnomes and other fantastical figures. Over the next 20 years, the family added barns, houses, and outbuildings to create a bona fide family compound.
All Roads Lead to La Salumina
Hurleyville’s quaint main drag has undergone a quiet renaissance in recent years. Backed by the benevolent benefactor The Center for Discovery, with its altruistic mission and seemingly bottomless funding, the shabby, run-down buildings of my childhood town have been renovated, restored, and rented out through their Healthy Community Model. The Pickled Owl serves up craft beer and farm-to-table fare. The Hurleyville General Store offers artisanal products for the kitchen, body, and home. A ra...
Kelly’s Bakery: Poughkeepsie Gets its Sourdough Fix
Pretty much all of us dabbled in breadmaking during the first bout of lockdown, learning what a sourdough starter was and how to keep it alive, dusting off the ol’ Dutch oven, and churning out lumpy loaves of varying consistency. But when CIA-trained pastry chef Kevin Halim turned to breadmaking in the early days of the pandemic, with a restaurant-honed intensity and too much time on his hands, it was only a matter of days before he was churning out three, four, five experimental loaves a day...
Village Grocery & Refillery Opens in Midtown Kingston
When Sydney natives Anthea White and Mark Palmer used to take their soul/jazz/pop outfit The Hipstones on the road, it was always a tour goal to find the best coffee in every town and city. “It was always in the most random spot,” says Palmer, which perhaps explains their enchantment with the out-of-the way location they eventually picked to house Village Coffee & Goods. When the couple bought a house in Midtown Kingston in 2017, they subsisted off trips uptown to Outdated Cafe for their caff...
The Meat Wagon Parks it in Kingston
When Fleisher’s Craft Butchery closed the doors of their Uptown Kingston location, butcher Stefano Diaz looked around and didn’t see many options. Fast-forward four years, and the Fleisher's alum has just cut the ribbon on his own whole-animal butcher shop in Midtown Kingston: The Meat Wagon. In 2017, just short two years after he completed Fleisher's intensive butchering apprenticeship, Stefano Diaz suddenly found himself out of work. He tried a stint at the meat counter at Adam’s Fairacre F...
Mangia! Barbaro Taps into Millbrook's Italian Roots
With a bright orange sign and matching umbrellas on the sidewalk, Barbaro in Millbrook is hard to miss. If the jolly signage wasn’t enough, it’s also right in the heart of the small village, at the corner of Franklin Avenue and Church Street, appropriate placement for what has rapidly become the go-to gathering spot and date night destination for locals.
Opened in November 2018 by Luciano Valdivia and chef Gianni Scappin, Barbaro is the latest restaurant by the duo, whose other joint projects...
KorPot Brings Authentic Korean Cuisine to Southern Poughkeepsie
While in an urban culinary cornucopia like New York City you can find the most obscure and specific of establishments—from vegan Eritrean food to Cantonese dim sum dens—in the less densely populated Hudson Valley, we often find ourselves stuck in the wide-cast nets of fusion food places. Nowhere is this more common than in the realm of Asian cuisine, where Korean dishes are often served up alongside Japanese ramen and Szechuan beef.
KorPot, Poughkeepsie’s newest restaurant, aims to remedy thi...
TMI Project's Eva Tenuto on 10 Years of Powerful Storytelling (Q&A)
Kingston-based nonprofit TMI Project was founded in 2010 with the honorable mission of "offering transformative true storytelling workshops and live storytelling performances to underserved communities." Over the course of several months, storytellers workshop monologues, bringing to light the "TMI" parts of their stories, the parts they usually leave out because of shame or embarrassment. These workshops culminate in an evening of live performances. Over the next four months, we will be feat...
Glen Falls House: A Legendary Catskills Resort Reimagined
In May 2017, The Glen Falls House, a storied Catskills resort, was purchased by two bright-eyed entrepreneurs dead set on reinvigorating the 50-acre property. Newly renovated with a refreshed vision for the future, the Round Top resort offers saturated sensory experience that blends genuine hospitality, an unapologetic love of fun, and a reverence for the natural world. Head there this weekend for a holiday weekend pool party and music extravaganza, or book your fall retreat.
The Pines: A Mount Tremper Roadhouse Redefines Catskills Hospitality
In 2016, Catskills folk-rock singer Burnell Pines bought the former Tiso's trattoria on Route 212 in Mount Tremper and began the laborious renovation to create The Pines—a laidback roadhouse with lodging, music, and farm-to-table fare.
The Most Important Room in the World
A look at the life and work of Cary Fowler, scientist, conservationist, and biodiversity advocate, best known as the mastermind behind the Svalbard Seed Vault.
Thy Kraut Kingdom Come
Biodynamic operation Hawthorne Valley recently took $1.56 million in loans to fund their fermentation empire.