The Birth of the Farm to Table Movement

So many people wrote to ask about The New Boonville Hotel (which I referenced last week) that it seemed like a good time to look up the article I wrote when I first discovered this ambitious farm to table restaurant. As you will see in the following excerpt from Comfort Me with Apples, it was Alice Waters who introduced me to that remarkable experiment.

I wrote a bit about The New Boonville Hotel in Comfort Me with Apples (among other things, about the unorthodox Thanksgiving dinner mentioned below which turned out to be a complete disaster). I also included one of my favorite recipes of Charlene’s.

The scene opens with Alice Waters speaking….

the pasta to the pot, add the sauce and toss to combine. Season with salt and pepper. Serves 4 to 6.

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A couple of weeks ago I participated in a Food Tank conversation about climate change and found that a fellow panelist was wearing a tee shirt made of kelp.

“Seriously,” I asked, “your shirt is made of seaweed? Can I touch it?’

It felt more like silk than seaweed, and I was intrigued. And although it is the most crazily expensive tee shirt I’ve ever bought, I couldn’t resist.

It turns out that Terratella does not only make clothing out of seaweed; they also make tee shirts out of waste from milk, corn and soy. If they’re anything like my new seaweed shirt, they’re seductively cozy and soft.

I just came upon this menu from a lunch held in New York about twenty years ago, and it all sounds so delicious, such a lavishly perfect fall meal, that I wanted to share it with you.

Wouldn’t you like to be eating this right now?

Everyone knows there are no great restaurants on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. And everyone, I have just discovered, is wrong.

Luciolla looks more like a little restaurant in Bologna than a place in New York. The room is small, dark and surrounded by bottles of very fine wine, the service is warm and personal and the food made by chef Michele Casadei Massari is excellent. I have not had better pasta.

Portions are small and it is expensive. But with ingredients of this quality, how could it not be?

Perfectly