Abandoned Hard Cider will open an outpost in Woodstock on August 7 at 1801 Route 28 next door to Santa Fe Restaurant. Abandoned Hard Cider is known for dry ciders made with apples from wild, abandoned and family orchards in the Catskills and Hudson Valley.
Something’s brewing on Saint James Street in Kingston. Tommy Keegan, proprietor of Keegan Ales, has confirmed that he’ll be joining forces with Kenan Porter’s Middletown-based Clemson Bros. Brewery. This gives Keegan, now 49, a way to gradually exit the business he started 17 years ago. As with many business deals, this one has slowed to a crawl under the weight of the pandemic, but the deal could be sealed by fall.
The plan allows businesses to expand their facilities onto the street at certain times, making it easier to fulfill the state’s social-distancing requirements and to compensate for limits on indoor capacity.
County, municipal and business leaders devised strategies to get the ball rolling after the new rules went into effect last weekend. That includes creating temporary eating courts in public spaces and cutting through red tape to get temporary outdoor seating approved on a case-by-case basis.
There’s a tenth of an acre along Route 32 North in Tillson that is almost like a city borough unto itself. This is the triangular swath of land that is home to Tommy Hayes’ food truck, or as most people just say, “Tommy Dog.”
“This year, it’s all about making the market a safe and secure place to shop,” said Judith Spektor, coordinator of the Saugerties Farmers’ Market committee. “The farmers’ market is more important than ever at this time, both because people need access to fresh, healthy food and because local farmers have lost most of their restaurant sales and the community wants to help support them. So the committee put a lot of effort into designing a market layout that would protect shoppers and vendors.”
According to owner Leslie Woodward, nut milks are high in antioxidants, have a lot of protein and no refined sugars. Unlike some other nut milks, which substitute paste for nuts and have fillers, Edenesque’s products are “40 percent nuts. I make it the old-fashioned way. It’s a clean, honest product.”
The Rhinebeck Farmers’ Market began its 26th season on May 3. The market will continue to run until December 27
As of May 4, 100,000 meals have been prepared and packaged through Project Resilience, an Ulster County initiative that has tapped over 150 restaurants to mass-produce hot meals for residents that have been impacted by COVID-19. The program, which has been underway since the beginning of March, will halt restaurant deliveries on May 16. But, the program will continue in an altered capacity in its “second phase.”
Locally sourced food has become increasingly more important as people attempt to stay closer to home in the midst of a global pandemic. Growers, farm-market organizers and supporters are working to provide customers with safe, accessible, fresh food while drastically reducing the links in the sometimes overwhelmingly complex food chain. We checked in with farm markets in Woodstock, Saugerties, Kingston and New Paltz. All were either already open or preparing to reconfigure their outdoor spaces while expanding their online offerings.