Hurley's Dutch Origins

We were honored this weekend to host Mr and Mrs Rob de Vos. They were both such kind and unassuming people that we had no idea, until just before they left, that Rob de Vos is actually the Consul General at the Netherlands Consulate in New York. We've had a few visits from those working at the Consulate, but it took us a while to realise Rob de Vos was actually their boss.......

Over 30 years in the Dutch Foreign Service has taken him to North Yemen, Dar es Salaam, London, Mali, Madrid, South Africa, and now New York. Of course, the Dutch heritage in this area is of great interest to those from the Netherlands Consulate. One very interesting book we've been given and can recommend is The Island at the Center of the World, by Russell Shorto, which is based on recently found documents about the original New Amsterdam. It sheds interesting light on some of the roots of America's freedoms.

Mr and Mrs de Vos were interested to hear that Hurley is having its 350th Anniversary Celebration on September 15th this year. You can check here for more information.

Our herb garden

One of the first things we did when we started renovating the house was to establish a herb garden. We're always using herbs freshly picked from the garden, whether it's parsley or chives in some scrambled eggs, or basil for a frittata, or mint for a red grapefruit, apple and mint salad, etc.....this year we even tried out some lavender in shortbread for the guest cookie jar! At the top you can see the herb garden as it is now - we're excited that the box hedges have nearly joined up.........below you can just about see a couple of box hedges when we planted them, bottom right, about 4" high, back in 2008. It's amazing what happens if you wait a little while. Now, all we need is for the plum tree we planted at the same time to start bearing fruit too.....

We're one of the BEST!

We're thrilled to be listed as one of nine BEST inns and B&Bs in New York State, in Frommer's 5th edition of their guide. They've given us 3 stars (= a "must-see") and listed us as a "special find"!

Here's what they have to say (p.236):

"In a charming, 300-year-old stone house in Hurley, one of the Catskills towns with old Dutch roots, this lovely property pays tribute to the area's heritage by naming its rooms for paintings by Johannes Vermeer, the 17th century Dutch master. And they're suitably aesthetically minded, with four-poster beds and luxurious Frette sheets. It's nearly impossible to choose a favorite room, but "The Girl with a Pearl Earring" seems to be the consensus pick. This is the type of elegance and historic character not often (ever?) seen in B&Bs, and the husband-and-wife team, Sam and Nadia, run it with aplomb and great attention to detail, serving terrific breakfasts and orienting guests to the Catksills' great offerings. The grounds and views overlooking the Esopus Creek are outstanding. Look online for great package deals, such as 3 nights of the price of 2."

We'd like to thank our guests for recently pointing out to us that we were listed, it really made our day! We might add that we're just as well positioned for the Mid-Hudson Valley as for the Catskills. We feel very lucky to be living in such a beautiful part of the world. Come and visit, and enjoy....

Time to do some gardening

At last, we've had some rain! Time to do some gardening.........Above (top) are wildflowers on the river bank, Nadia busy getting rid of some weeds, and pansies that seem to have planted themselves.

Slow Roots Farm

Meet Jacob Diaz and his chickens! We started using his eggs in the Fall, and then had to wait until now because they stopped laying for the winter. When we first started using these, we couldn't get over how deep yellow the yolks were.....they certainly weren't like anything we'd ever bought in a supermarket. Jacob's website is full of information about his CSA farm and visitors to Saugerties and Rosendale farm markets last year will be familiar with his wonderful produce. We highly recommend buying a share of his harvest, and consider ourselves very lucky to be living so close to his farm.

Our favorite olive oil Gluten Free bread

Our guests love this olive oil bread, whether they have to avoid gluten or not. This is adapted from a recipe in ‘Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day’ by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe Francois, and we think it’s really delicious! For all our bread baking we preheat a baking stone in the oven, and use a silicone mat on a pizza peel to slide the bread in when it’s the right temperature. We bake a lot of bread using the new no-knead method –and making 4 pound loaves in one go also saves a lot of time.
Once you’ve bought the ingredients, this is really easy to make. In a large bowl mix together:

1 cup brown rice flour, ½ cup soy flour, 1 cup tapioca starch/tapioca flour, 3 1/2 cups cornstarch, 2 tablespoons granulated yeast, 1 tablespoon kosher salt (really important for the flavor, add more to taste), 2 tablespoons xanthan gum

  You can do this by hand, or in a stand mixer with paddle, or a food processor – but be aware this is a large amount. If your machine’s too small, by hand might be easiest. Then add:

2 1/2 cups lukewarm water, 4 large eggs, 1/3 cup olive oil, 1/3 cup canola oil (or increase proportion of olive oil to taste), 2 teaspoons white wine vinegar/cider vinegar

At this point you may be thinking, what’s this gloopy mess?! But don’t panic, even if you have to spoon it onto the silicone mat. Make four ‘piles’ and then, with wet hands, scoop up one of them and hand it to and fro, making an oval shaped loaf. Do the same with the other 3, washing your hands each time and keeping them wet. At the end, you can further smooth the top of the loaf, again making sure your hands are wet.

Cover each loaf loosely with plastic wrap, and leave somewhere warm to rise for about an hour. Make sure to preheat the oven to 450 F about 30 minutes before you need it. Then, remove plastic and sprinkle on top:

Sesame seeds and flaxseeds

...and bake for 30 minutes. (For this bread, you don’t need steam to get a nice crust). After 15 minutes, remove the silicone mat so the loaves are resting on the stone for the last 15 minutes. Leave the loaves you’re not using to cool, and freeze them. You can easily defrost and then refresh them later, in an oven at 350F for 20 minutes to get that just-baked taste. Enjoy!

PS Update Dec 23rd 2012: Very many thanks to Phyllis Bales from Washington State who called today to let us know we'd somehow forgotten to list one VERY important ingredient, namely the water!! Huge apologies to anyone who tried this recipe without it.........

Valentine's Day Origami

We like to have fun with our seasonal gifts for guests. Here we're using origami to make small boxes for chocolates; - these come free with your reservation on and around the 14th. (Although we're nearly full both weekends either side of the 14th, there's still good availability on the day - and if you'd like one of these for any booking in February, just call and request one).

Second only to the Virgin Islands........

We've always said that this area has the potential to grow as a tourist destination. Last year, we were featured as a 'gourmet' destination by the Canadian press, and now the Lonely Planet has rated the Hudson Valley #2 in its top 10 US travel destinations for 2012, (just after the US Virgin Islands). To quote: "It’s a real city break, with leafy drives, wineries and plenty of farm-to-table foodie options that draw even spoiled-for-choice Manhattanites away from the city."

(The photo is of Lake Minnewaska, taken by Sam).

We go green! (It's official)

Together with seventeen other lodging establishments, we were recently honored at a reception at Belleayre Mountain, as recipients of the Green Concierge© Bronze certification. The program, administered by environmental consulting firm HospitalityGreen LLC, trains and assesses lodging facilities to ensure they meet standards for waste reduction, energy and water conservation, environmentally preferable purchasing, and recycling.

We have all made both small and large changes to meet this standard, e.g. using energy efficient light bulbs, recycling, composting, using non-toxic cleaning products, upgrading sinks, showerheads and toilets to water-conserving models, purchasing recycled-content paper products, and sourcing local produce whenever possible. A tracking tool helps us track measurable environmental improvements.

Evadne Giannini, Founder and CEO of HospitalityGreen LLC, said “..it’s wonderful to see how far they have come. They have been so dedicated to the program and now that they are officially certified, we hope to see the Catskills flourish as an eco-tourist destination.”

It was nice getting a pat on the back, and wonderful to meet some inspirational owners, one of whom also runs a farm! Plus the carrot cake was awesome. Thank you Evadne for arranging that, and for all Hospitality Green's hard work and help.

November Harvest

We're gathering in the last of the crops from our garden for this year - this is mainly kale for our own use! We've also been drying big bunches of herbs to use in our winter breakfasts. This season we grew a lot of our own flowers for use in the guest rooms too.

Sinterklaas Goes Bi-Coastal

This is a great free family event, so good to hear it's back on both sides of the river. On Saturday, November 26th there's a full day of activites at the Rondout, which this year is hosting the opening Sinterklaas event. This is where he's sent off on a tugboat to his destination at Rhinecliff. (We all know Santa usually arrives by boat, right?).

Children (accompanied by adults) are invited to a workshop from 12.30 to 2.30pm at ASK at 97 Broadway to make their own bejeweled Crowns & Branches to wear and carry in the parade later. Come and see stars, puppets, music and costumed players. There'll be a reception at the Downtown Visitor's Center after the parade, and a dusk tree lighting ceremony. Read more here!

What would you do?

ABC News correspondent John Quinones and his fiancee stayed with us this weekend. As you might imagine from his current show "Primetime: What would you do?" John is a gregarious person, with a deep and genuine interest in everyone.....His relaxed manner put everyone at their ease, the conversation flowed, with lots of laughter, and breakfast broke all records by only stopping at noon!
But here's a dilemma: when you have someone well known stay with you, do you ask them for a photo for your blog? Well, we don't always. You can usually tell when someone just wants a quiet break. In this case, we thought it OK to ask, and John graciously accepted. Thank you John, and it was great meeting you.

Hurricane Irene

Well in the last ten days we have been struck by lightning, had a small earthquake and then last Sunday we were hit by Hurricane Irene! We have been very lucky and come through it all unscathed. In this photo you can see the tail end of the storm clouds passing over the corn fields just along at the end of our road. The guests who were here during the storm were very brave and we had an informal party by candlelight on Sunday night - power was restored later that evening. We're celebrating the return of internet access today by posting this blog! Apologies to anyone who's being trying unsuccessfully to contact us in the last couple of days.

Phoenicia International Festival Of The Voice

August 4, 5, 6, 7, Phoenicia, New York.

http://www.phoeniciavoicefest.com/

1000 Buddhas

His Holiness the 17th Gyalwang Karmapa, Ogyen Trinley Dorje, is a world-renowned Tibetan Buddhist master, a living buddha who embodies wisdom and compassion. His seat in North America is just 12 miles from here, on Overlook Mountain above Woodstock, NY, and is called Karma Triyana Dharmachaktra (KTD). His Holiness will be visiting KTD tomorrow (Sunday) and giving teachings there on Monday and Tuesday. This is only the second time that he has been able to visit North America and you can read about this visit as it happens here. His Holiness the Karmapa will be giving the "Empowerment of 1000 Buddhas" and you can watch the teaching and empowerment here.

Hudson River Photographer

One of our favorite Wedding Photographers Diane Stredicke has a wonderful spread of photos on her blog of Andrea and James's Fall wedding here at the Stone House. She is a very talented photographer who always captures the personalities of her couples and the joy of the occasion. We have to say that the Stone House and the surrounding country look great too! You can see more of the shoot here:
http://www.hudsonriverphotographer.com.

Eco-Tourism

As you can see from these two pictures taken the other evening in the nearby Minnewaska State Park Preserve we live in an area of great natural beauty. The Mountain Laurel was blooming and a baby Red Salamander wandered across the trail.

With the Lower Esopus Creek passing through our property, The Catskill Mountains just to the north of us, The Shawangunk Ridge just to the south and the magnificent Hudson River immediately to the east, we are literally surrounded by unique, rich and diverse ecosystems.

We feel that providing accommodations for guests in such an area brings with it a responsibility to protect the environment that we inhabit. So over the last few months we have been working with The Green Concierge Project to gain accreditation for our environmental sustainability practices. Now we have added a page to our website detailing our Environmental Policy. Let us know what you think - any feedback to help us extend this work is very welcome.

Great Press!

It was early Spring and we had a booking from Eve Dumas, journalist for the quality broadsheet La Presse in Montreal, who had heard great things about Fleisher's in Uptown Kingston and wanted to stay somewhere nearby. Did we have any places to recommend for the gourmet tourist on a trip to the Hudson Valley? We had more than a few, and sent her many links. She visited all of them.
It turns out that her extensive trip encompassed Saratoga Springs down to Tarrytown. The four page article (published April 30th) really celebrated our local area, and one page listed us together with Tuthilltown Spirits, Damon Baehrel at the Basement Bistro, Bedford Post Inn, and Stone Barns, as "Five places to visit in the Hudson Valley". WOW!

The Chef, The Publisher and the Baby Snapping Turtle

It's been a busy Memorial Day weekend here at The Stone House, and we met many wonderful people. Chef, cookbook author and television personality Sara Moulton and husband Bill came to stay.
“Other TV chefs may own famous restaurants and perform with theatrical flair,” noted TV Guide’s Herma Rosenthal, “but Moulton’s the one you can actually picture popping over to help you fix the lumpy gravy or the fallen soufflé.” Find out more about what Sara is up to, and pick up some great recipes at saramoulton.com .

Also up for the weekend was publisher Jill Schoolman, who runs her own publishing house archipelago books, a not-for-profit press devoted to publishing excellent translations of classic and contemporary world literature. Her spring 2011 catalogue, which you can see in the middle photograph above, features a cover photograph by Jill herself.

Our third featured visitor is a newly hatched Snapping Turtle we found in the garden this morning, trying to head down the bank towards the Esopus Creek. The shell was still soft, and it looked tiny on the palm of our hands. We set it down to continue on its way...

New Flowers, Old Lens

One evening recently I decided to take a stroll around the garden.


I had a old Dallmeyer lens on my camera, maybe 80 years old.


The soft, warm tones of the old lens seemed to give the new blooms an etherial glow in the damp evening light.


Sometimes it takes an old lens to show us this precious world in a new light. (Sam)