Getting the flavor of ... Going from farm to table in New York

Going from farm to table in New York

“Four-season farm” Blue Hill at Stone Barns demands to be experienced year-round, said Joe Yonan in The Washington Post. Located in Pocantico Hills, N.Y., the farm was opened to the public so New York chef Dan Barber could show diners at his Blue Hill restaurant in Manhattan how their food is raised. On an ‘insider’s tour,’ visitors can walk through the 22,000-square-foot greenhouse and explore the livestock barns and mobile chicken coops. Then it’s indoors for a tour of a “huge, gleaming kitchen,” and an opportunity to sample liquors infused with homegrown quince, fig, or beet. The kitchen’s daily tasting menu offers a chance to finally see the farm’s output put to the test. Our midwinter visit proved that not even frigid cold crimps the creativity of Blue Hill’s unique take on the “farm-to-table” movement. From the hot beet sliders to “long marrow bones topped with paddlefish caviar,” this operation was clearly onto something delicious.

Contact: Bluehillstonebarns.com

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Cleveland’s renaissance

Cleveland can no longer be derided as a “mistake on the lake,” said Margaret Loftus in National Geographic Traveler. Though Ohio’s most populous city has been plagued by hard times, today it’s in the midst of a revival. Every year, some 14 million visitors come to explore its sites, from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame to the William G. Mather, a 618-foot restored steamship turned museum. Cleveland’s “true gems,” though, are its neighborhoods. Settled by migrant railroad workers, Collingwood is now a “burgeoning community” of musicians and artists. Amid the record stores and art studios stands Beachland Ballroom and Tavern, a former Croatian social hall that now hosts major music acts. In Tremont, home to an “eclectic mix of Old World and New,” you can stop at Lolita to taste whatever chef Michael Symon is cooking up, or hunker down for some smoked kielbasa at Sokolowski’s University Inn, a “Cleveland institution.”

Contact: Positivelycleveland.com