Author Archives: HomeandTable

The Other Jersey Shore

TRAVEL

The crowds, the traffic, the tracksuits. Before you talk yourself out of one last summer vacation, follow us on a tour of a far savvier long weekend.
By Scott Edwards

 

Some would say that going to Atlantic City and avoiding the casinos is sacrilege. But The Chelsea, perched right on the periphery, was the ideal home base for our decidedly un-Shore-like Shore weekend.

The summer was passing us by, we realized. Sure, there’d been a wedding or a barbeque almost every weekend since May, but we hadn’t so much as split a bottle of tempranillo on the deck, let alone managed a vacation. We forged a pact, then and there, to free up a couple of days—just long enough for a change of location.

The Jersey Shore was the obvious destination. We both spent parts of our summers there growing up, my wife in and around Long Beach Island and me in Ocean City. More importantly, the drive would not undo us and the forecast was sunny. The problem was, we’d hardly be the only ones feeling that urgency. And, I’d grown weary of the Shore. It had come to mean long waits for food that I always remembered tasting better, relentless traffic and Jersey caricatures crowding the ever-diminishing beaches.

So, we made it our mission to hunt down an altogether different Shore experience, and, in the process, slip past the mobs huddled around the traditional joints. Heading to AC, then, would seem counterintuitive, I know. But The Chelsea became the cornerstone of our blueprint. It sits discreetly on the south end of the boardwalk, just beyond the last (open) casino. You won’t avoid the Rascal traffic, but you will claim a larger swath of the sand for yourself. The still-sprawling beach is an afterthought here. As proof, admission is free.

theChelsea_QueenLuxe

We woke to a sweeping view of a rising sun reflecting off the Atlantic from our 16th-floor room. From that height, even AC looks pure. Top: The rooftop pool lounge at The Chelsea.

Everything else was icing, and we were thick with icing. Between the Miami-esque interior design and the Biggie Smalls that was humming in the lobby when we arrived, The Chelsea exudes a cool-kid vibe, but the embracing kind you find in Zac Efron movies, not the aloof, elitist variety from an actual high school. We woke to a sweeping view of a rising sun reflecting off the Atlantic from our 16th-floor room. From that height, even AC looks pure.

The Chelsea offers beach service—a pair of lounge chairs and an umbrella that’s installed for you—which sounds like a small perk, but not having to lug our own sand-caked gear immediately felt like a deep indulgence. We took advantage as soon as we could, naturally, whiling our first few hours at the edge of the lapping tide without so much as a handful of words uttered between us—or around us.

That night, we drove away from the casinos and pulled into the parking lot of a wine and spirits shop about a mile from the hotel. We entered through a barely-marked entrance on the side of the building, walked past a long bar and sat at the end of a row of 10 two-person tables. Most nights, every seat is filled, we were told, but we were two of a few.

The Iron Room at the Atlantic City Bottle Company is a tasting room of sorts. Mostly small plates are on offer, and they change practically daily. Bar fare, it is not. First off, you’re in a space within reach of a smartly curated liquor store, so trust that you’re going to drink well. We ordered from the bar, but the couple a table over—the only other diners there—told us about a small group buying its wine in the shop and sharing it among themselves the last time they were there.

The dishes came fast once we ordered: a house-made pappardelle ($9) tossed with brown butter, toasted pepitas and parmesan; tuna crudo ($14) paired with house-pickled jalapenos, golden beets and cabbage slaw; za’atar-crusted sturgeon ($17) placed atop a cold soba noodle salad seasoned with herbs, ponzu and soy. Most of it was local, and yet little of it was familiar.

Every plate was clean in five or six bites, but there were two that we lingered over, or tried to, at least: a Korean barbeque hangar steak ($15) with sweet and sour Brussels sprouts and morsels of bacon and pan-seared sockeye salmon ($20) smothered in tzatziki and served on a small pile of succotash made of snap peas and roasted corn so sweet it tasted like it was infused with sugar water.

Forget the soft-serve, we pushed ourselves over the edge with a wedge of flourless chocolate cake that sat in a pool of salted caramel.

Day 2 | Teplitzky’s, The Chelsea’s diner-style restaurant, is old-school Miami in HD. We ate breakfast in an open-air room within view of one of the hotel’s two pools. It was decorated in the fashion of what I imagine the solarium in the shared house on “The Golden Girls” looked like. I say this not as a criticism, because it’s the polar antithesis of every dimly-lit, all-you-can-eat casino buffet I’ve regretfully found myself in. And for that hour over breakfast, I managed to convince myself that we were a lot further from home than a couple of hours.

Virtually every table around us—young families and small groups of twentysomething hipsters—was divvying up the signature dish, The Big Teplitzky: two pancakes, French toast, three eggs, toast or a bagel, hash browns, bacon, pork roll, turkey sausage and a pot of coffee. There’s a running challenge: Double The Big Teplitzky—that’s four pounds of food, allegedly—consume it by yourself in under a half-hour, and it’s yours free. No one tried, that we saw, but lots asked about it.

After a sun-drenched few hours on a sparsely-populated beach, we hit the road and headed south on the parkway for Avalon. We had a dinner reservation at The Diving Horse, a 70-seat BYOB on buzzing Dune Drive that’s only open between Memorial and Labor days. It’s owned by Dan Clark and Ed Hackett, who are also responsible for Pub & Kitchen and Fitler Dining Room, both in Philly.

The décor is spare, way more Pottery Barn farmhouse than rental beach house—dark wood floors and matching chairs, a row of old church pews line the wall on one side of a bank of tables, small lanterns lit with Edison bulbs dot the walls every few feet.

We got there at 6:30 p.m., and by the time we were done ordering, the dining room had filled in around us. As soon as the appetizers arrived, it was obvious we were about to be clued in to what everyone else already knew.

The heirloom tomato salad ($14) with ricotta and mint sourdough croutons ruined tomatoes for me for the rest of the summer, they were that lush. My wife made subtle cooing noises with every spoonful of her Cape Cod mussels and Chesapeake clams ($13), which were served bisque-style in a light broth loaded with roasted corn, shishito peppers and Japanese herbs.
Local connections were everywhere. The ricotta was from Lambertville’s Fulper Farms. There was a Blue Moon Acres (Buckingham and Hopewell, NJ) arugula salad. And the Hudson Canyon swordfish featured mushrooms from Shibumi Farm, in Princeton.

An unmistakably mesquite-flavored Cape May sea bream ($31) followed. (We felt stupid for asking, but every table around us eventually did, too. It’s a meaty white fish, FYI.) I went for the New Jersey fluke ($34) dressed in a cucumber yogurt sauce, which came in a light sweet pepper and zucchini stew. We split plates of Jersey corn ($9) tossed with chili, lemon and olive oil—very simple, very delicious—and beautifully crisp, fried Brussels sprouts seasoned with ginger and lime.

We ate as slowly as we could, hoping it would prolong each course forever. Instead, it felt like our stay lasted about 15 minutes. We left reluctantly, gushed about the dinner the whole drive back to The Chelsea, got up the next morning and picked right back up.

Day 3 | Our last few hours, so we crammed them full: a jog into Ventnor and back along pristine, open boardwalk, a light breakfast at Teplitzky’s (relatively speaking) and a too-brief stint at the rooftop pool lounge. We had it to ourselves, which felt like a fitting conclusion to our off-the-beaten path weekend.

While my wife packed, I roamed Yelp, looking for one last score. It came in the form of an outdated but tidy hole that sits in the shadows of the casinos along Atlantic Avenue. But we weren’t coming to Pho Sydney to be seen or even, really, to be comfortable. We were there for lunch.

Bowls with the diameter of a basketball were hurried over to our corner booth, one filled with pork pho, the other with grilled chicken pho. Both were packed with tender rice noodles, crisp carrot sticks, wilted strips of lemongrass and a handful of crushed peanuts. We ate, we sighed with intoxication. Total bill: 21 bucks.

 Photos courtesy The Chelsea / Dan Pearse Photographers, Inc.

 

[divider]Stay[/divider]

The Chelsea
111 South Chelsea Avenue, Atlantic City
thechelsea-ac.com; @TheChelsea_AC

Rooms from $139
Perks
Roof-top cabana club
10,000-square foot spa
Beach service ($15 a day)
Valet garage parking

Eat
The Iron Room at the Atlantic City
Bottle Company
648 N. Albany Ave., Atlantic City
acbottlecompany.com/food; @ACBottleCompany

Book the chef’s table and the tasting menu. At 65 bucks, it’s well worth it. Might as well splurge on the drink pairing, too. After all, how often are you going to have a wine and spirits shop at your disposal?

The Diving Horse
2109 Dune Drive, Avalon, NJ
thedivinghorseavalon.com; @TheDivingHorse

With only a couple weekends left in the season, your best shot at a prime-time reservation is on a weeknight. And, with a liquor store across the street, there are no excuses for showing up empty-handed. —SE

 

[divider]Coming Up for Air[/divider]

The Jersey Shore has a way of forcing us back into old, familiar patterns. But what if you dared to be different?
By Kendra Lee Thatcher

I wake up exactly eight minutes before my alarm goes off. It’s 5:52 a.m. I give in, toss the indulgent Frette sheets aside and spring out of bed. In an hour, I’ll be surfing!

My bikini’s still damp, but I throw it on anyway and then make a cup of oolong tea. Kristin, my sister, is still asleep, oblivious.
I open the doors to the balcony and the breeze from the bay promptly pushes into our room. The air is sweet and recognizable, comforting. It fills my lungs. I sip and stare out across the water. Aside from the ambient call of the gulls and the subtle lapping of the water, there’s complete silence. Peace, really.

Below is the Water Star Grille, where, last night, Kristin and I drank herbaceous martinis. Feeling no rush, nor agenda, we reminisced, philosophized and savored the sunset.

Ten minutes and counting. I’m pacing, so I decide to just go and be early. I grab my old linen hoodie and my aviators on my way out the door, which I close softly so it doesn’t wake Kristin.

Diane rides up on her vintage bicycle. She’s the concierge at The Reeds at Shelter Haven, the fashionable boutique hotel where we’re staying, and the woman responsible for getting me out on the water this morning. We talk for a bit about Stone Harbor. She makes it hard to resist. This town resonates with her as Lambertville, NJ, does with me, personally and aesthetically.

Before long, Matt, my guide, pulls up, our boards in the back of his SUV.

“Good morning!” he beams. “Ready?”

In the two-minute ride to the beach, I find out Matt not only crafts custom surfboards but he’s also a Bucks native.

And then there she is, Madame Atlantic. At this hour, there’s hardly anyone on the beach. We plunge in, and beneath the surface, it’s a different kind of quiet. I wipe the water from my eyes, push the hair out of my face and then we begin to paddle out beyond the break. I have to remind myself to turn around and face the shoreline because I could keep going.

Balancing on my board, every distraction fades away, and I sync with the rhythmic undulation of the ocean.

The Reeds at Shelter Haven, Stone Harbor, NJ

5 Habits of a Time-Crunched Personal Trainer

HEALTH + FITNESS

Motivation can wane even in the most die-hard among us. But some mild tweaking can refresh your focus and put you on personal-best pace.

By Todd Soura

I started following a workout regimen back in high school. I may not have had the sharpest sense of direction then, but I had plenty of time and energy to figure it out as I went. Twenty-five years later, neither is on my side. I’m a husband, a father of three and a business owner. If my resolve weakens, there are plenty of other priorities that’ll rush in to consume my attention. But a few simple practices prevent that from happening.

Target new goals
I like to do it every three months, but even once a year has a positive effect. Be creative. But, more importantly, be realistic. Run a 5K before you register for a half-marathon. Races are good options because you’re locked into them, but they’re hardly the only ones. Aim to improve your mile time or the weight you can bench press. If losing weight is your goal, focus on your hip or waist measurements, which will give you a more accurate read on your progress than your weight.

Change pace
The less of an opportunity you give your body to adapt, the more substantial your gains will be. If you can comfortably bang out a five-mile tempo run, where you average 65 to 70 percent of your maximum heart rate, try high-intensity intervals, which are designed to push you over 90 percent for very brief stretches. If you have access to a track, warm up then sprint 100 meters. Walk back to where you started and do it again. Aim for 10 sprints. Or, find a hill and run to the top at full-speed. Jog back down and do it again. Repeat five to 10 times, depending on the distance.

Every four to six weeks, change the pace of your weight training. Lift less weight and do more repetitions or lift more weight and do less reps. If your workouts are comprised of isolation exercises with long stretches of rest in between sets (60 seconds or more), replace them with combination moves and no rest.

Change the kind of exercise, too
There’s too much at our disposal to do the same things day in and day out. Plus, as proficient as you may be at cycling, it’s at the detriment to your upper body. Versatility bodes better for your health and fitness. Instead of riding for an hour, swing a 40-pound kettlebell as many times as you can in 20 minutes. Swap out a day of weights for a yoga class.

Eat consciously
I marvel at my wife. She can eat three M&M’s, fold up the bag and stuff it back in the drawer. If I have one, I’m going to devour the entire bag, so I avoid them altogether. Regardless of which of us you fall behind, learn to be aware of everything you eat. When you take a moment to think about it, you’ll start to detect whether you’re hungry or just bored. From there, you can seek out foods that nourish you and fill you up, rather than reaching for the shiniest wrapper.

Stare yourself down
If you find yourself routinely over-booking and, as a result, skimping on your workouts and eating poorly, something needs to change. You are not at the mercy of your iCal. There’s always a half-hour available for a quick workout, even if it means getting up earlier. And there are always healthier things to eat, even if it means packing a chopped salad for your son’s lacrosse game.

Todd Soura is the owner of the Doylestown-based Action Personal Training. 

3 Rules to Live By

SOUL FOOD

Feeling good has a lot to do with what we eat. But it begins with forging the right mindset.

By Rose Nyad Orrell

 

Eating right all the time and working out five days a week is supposed to position you for a long, healthy life. Yet, there you are: stressed and stuck in a rut.

From my perspective as a certified holistic health practitioner, the concept of wellness has been rewritten to suit our goal-oriented nature. Eat this many calories, exert this much energy and none of the rest really matters. But it does. And so does our approach. Balance is key. There’s no one-size-fits-all regimen when it comes to achieving a sound mind and body. But there is a blueprint.

 

Back to basics

Over recent years, our diets have grown increasingly acidic. The most common culprits: fried and processed foods, sugar, dairy, white flour, coffee and alcohol. What they do is trigger inflammation. When that happens often enough, it’s no longer your body’s healing response but its natural state. And when you’re inflamed all the time, you open yourself up to a host of ailments. Tip the balance back in favor of alkaline foodstuffs—veg; most fruit, including blueberries, dates and apples; and certain whole grains, like quinoa and amaranth—in the neighborhood of 80 percent and your body will regain its sensitivity.

 

In defense of bacteria

Probiotics are getting a lot of play these days, but they’re being sold as a cure-all because it accommodates our pared-down version of wellness. In a healthy body, think of the intestines (a.k.a. the gut) as the engine and the probiotics, the fuel. They facilitate the growth of good bacteria, which primes the intestines to more easily breakdown and absorb food. And the more efficient the operation, the stronger the body’s immune system becomes. However, indulge too often in pizza, fried chicken and gelato and the intestines become gunked up with bad bacteria (yes, there are two kinds), which hampers digestion and weakens our immunity. Simply countering that with the occasional Greek yogurt is like trying to cool off by standing in a puddle. Start by eating more alkaline foods, then begin incorporating live-cultured things, like sauerkraut, kimchi, kefir and fermented coconut water. With the foundation already in place, the good bacteria will be free to flourish.

 

Peek under the hood

Our bodies have the incredible ability to adapt—as long as we get out of our own way. The point of the first two steps is lost if they feel like a chore. After all, true wellness, as it’s described by the World Health Organization, is “a state of complete physical, mental and social wellbeing, and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.” Read: This is always going to feel like a work in progress, but a sound mind will keep it feeling like this is the way it should be, rather than this is the way it has to be.

We tend to suppress our emotions so we can deal with them at a later time, when we’re better equipped. Which, of course, never happens. When it goes on long enough, this inner turmoil starts to manifest in physical symptoms. If you’ve been bothered by a persistent ache, or worse, consider what you’re harboring and start to work it out.

And sometimes the sources of our stress are obvious—a dead-end career, a neglected marriage—but no easier to deal with. Change can feel incredibly daunting, but for the same reason we dread it—it’ll change the landscape of our lives—it’s also the single-most empowering act we’re capable of. And in order for this to have any permanence, bold moves are required.

 

Rose Nyad Orrell is a New Hope-based certified holistic health practitioner.

 

Learning to Hate Ice Cream

THE SCENE

To impress upon our intern that making a magazine isn’t all meticulous makeovers and exceptional eating, we tasked him with covering one of the unhealthiest footraces around from the inside, partly for the learning experience, but mostly for the spectacle. What follows is an excerpt from his training log.

GOAL: Uncle Dave’s Ice Cream Jog ‘n Hog,  July 17

May 7

Felt shockingly good for the first time out. Planned to run a mile along the canal and ended up doing closer to two. I think I could have gone even further, but I figured it was better to play it safe.

May 8

Woke in the middle of the night with a cramp in my left calf, and when I reached for it, I realized that pretty much my entire body, from the neck down, was revolting against me. I stayed there, still as I could, for, oh, the next 29, 30 hours or so.

May 11

Feeling close to normal—finally. Since this race is about slugging back a lot of ice cream as much as it is running, figured I’d ease myself back into training by walking to oWowCow for a cone. Form felt fluid and efficient.

May 13

Oh, God! Jogged to oWowCow this time—after a good, long warm-up. Rewarded myself with a cup of Honey Lavender, because it sounded light. A block into my run back, it sat up in my stomach like a baby. And then I hit the bridge. And then the ice cream hit the bridge. The silver lining: Made it back to the office in personal best-time after fleeing the scene of the crime.

May 14

This binging-and-running thing is harder than I anticipated. So, one thing at a time. Headed over to Shady Brook and picked up some pints to practice on—Salty Caramel, Tiramisu, Wilbur’s Cake Batter, Dulce de Leche.

May 15

Was not aware that ice cream hangovers existed. Still managed to get a run in on the canal, albeit a short one. Felt—and looked, I’m sure of it—like a cow walking quickly on its hind legs, udders bobbing around.

May 19

Couple of good runs in a row. And by good, I mean, I didn’t vomit before, during or after. Also: I managed to maintain a pace and poise that couldn’t be confused with a fat kid protecting his hoagie from an angry wasp.

May 23

Today was not the day to start incorporating ice cream back into my runs. After three months of rain, it was sunny and 90. Positively, the ice cream was pretty damn refreshing. I couldn’t eat it fast enough. Negatively, a gang of bees, attracted by my sticky face and hands, forced my pace on the run back. Karma for the fat-kid metaphor.

May 28

Three weeks into my training and I’ve put on six pounds. I’d like to say it’s muscle. So, let’s say it’s muscle.

May 30

Seven pounds. I’m nursing a sore hamstring.

June 1

Scrolled through the galleries of last year’s Jog ‘n Hog. Half the runners look like they’re having the time of their lives. The others look like they want to be anywhere else doing anything else.

June 5

Legs are feeling sound again, or, at least, less like I just stepped out of some Ramsay Bolton torture device. Attempted my first, full-on Jog ‘n Hog practice run—5K, with a break for a pint at the midway turnaround. Would have been more realistic if I hadn’t carried the pint with me, it hadn’t melted and a gaggle of ducks hadn’t intimidated me into handing over all but the first gulp. They, however, fled afterward without any trouble. New mantra: Be the duck.

Photo courtesy Uncle Dave’s Ice Cream Jog ‘n Hog

It’s You Against the Sun

THE LIFE STYLIST

A DIY idea that’ll inspire the reimagining of your backyard patio or deck. And, how to keep your skin supple while you savor the summer.
By David J. Witchell

It feels like a lifetime ago that I’d slather myself with baby oil then head outside, armed with my foil reflector, and bake under the summer sun for hours at a time. I don’t know what I was thinking. Even not knowing what we know now, I’m a blonde, fair-skinned guy.

I love the outdoors. That hasn’t changed. But I’m much smarter now about how I spend my time in it. The reflector’s long gone, and the baby oil’s been replaced by sunscreen. That was just common sense coupled with maturity. And a skin-cancer scare. Harder to come by was an outdoor space where my family could enjoy all the best parts of a sun-drenched afternoon without being sapped and baked in the process.

Our backyard patio is especially narrow and long, so finding an appropriately sized dinner table wasn’t any trouble. Finding one, however, with an accompanying umbrella that safely reached everyone around the table was impossible. An umbrella that size would have been too large anyway. And then it hit me. I ordered a few small sails online, erected some tall cedar trees that had toppled over in the yard and strung up the sails between the trunks and the rear of the house to create a taut, overlapping canvas roof. Total coverage, and it’s a conversation piece.

David J. Witchell is the co-owner of David J. Witchell Salon & Spa, in Newtown and Lahaska,and The Boutiques at 25 South, in Newtown.

Photos by David J. Witchell

[divider]Radiant, Not Radioactive[/divider]

These days, I suppress the pale and pasty with Dr. Dennis Gross Skincare Alpha Beta Glow Pads, applied weekly. For more comprehensive coverage at the salon, we turn to Jane Iredale, who created her makeup and skincare collection with the singular aim of nourishing the skin with every application. If she can work that kind of magic with makeup, the sun’s a nonstarter. Here, she offers a routine that’ll enable you to savor and survive the summer. —DJW

Face first
Wear at least SPF 15 on your face, neck and ears every day. I use PurePressed Base Mineral Foundation, which also has concealer, powder and broad-spectrum sun protection (SPF 20). If I’m going to be severely exposed, I’ll apply the Dream Tint Tinted Moisturizer (SPF 15) first and then the foundation. I’ve never burned with that combination.

Hand in hand
Don’t neglect your hands. The HandDrink Hand Cream (SPF 15) protects and hydrates. It’s also gorgeously fragrant. I pop it in my purse and reapply throughout the day.

Head’s up
Be diligent. The sun is responsible for 80 percent of the signs of aging. Reapply your sunscreen every couple of hours, and even more often than that if you’ve been sweating or swimming. And don’t assume that a mineral makeup will protect you. Look for the SPF rating on its label.

The New Innovators

TRENDING

We know you’re eyeing up a whole lot of nothing, whether it be by the pool or the ocean, but there’s a lot that’s about to go down. We’re not saying that you need to be there for all of it (for now), but you should at least get to know the major players so that you can hit the ground running once you return your lounge chair to its upright position.
Portfolio by Scott Edwards

Ashley Smalley | Owner | The Selvedge Yard | New Hope

The brimming displays of the N3rd Collective.

The Selvedge Yard is distinctly cooler than I am, but I still felt a kinship with every inch of its 600 square feet from the first time I lingered within its walls—the Conrad Leach iconography prints, the midcentury blueprints doubling as wallpaper, the Silver Piston Indian Head pendant and chain, the red button-down made from shop-rag fabric that Ash pulls down and holds up close so I can appreciate the stitching, which is done by a 1930s Merrow sewing machine—and the $175 price tag.
The shop opened last summer, but it was an illustrated lifestyle before that. Ash’s husband, JP, has worked in all facets of fashion. Seven years back, looking for a creative outlet beyond his work, JP started The Selvedge Yard, the blog, with the intent to become the Internet’s denim aficionado. “And I got bored shitless within like three weeks,” he says. So he grew his scope and latched onto something more intimate—“All the things,” he says, “that have turned me on throughout my life, that make me who I am.” Which, of course, distinguishes him from none of the countless other bloggers. What does: “I grew up in a house with Harleys, and pot and dobermans. And a lot of the icons for me, growing up, were Evil Knievel, and Jungle Pam and Linda Vaughn. Even Fonzie.” Straightaway, there was a connection.
JP and Ash are big on community. They live in New Hope, too, and like to refer their customers to their favorite spots around town. When they opened the shop, they called upon their massive online community, as they refer to it, filled with artisan designers, to help them stock it.
“I look around and I don’t see just product,” JP says. “I see people’s faces, I see relationships.”
And just as JP’s life has grown to encompass Ash, they’ve begun to incorporate women’s clothing into The Selvedge Yard. Now that they’re both getting what they need out of the shop, you and your other half can too.

 

Michael (pictured) and Dino Kelly-Cataldi | Owners | Dino’s Backstage & The Celebrity Room | Glenside

Beneath the charcoal and chocolate surfaces, the red wallpaper that looks like tufted leather, the shimmering chandeliers and the larger-than-life portraits of Jane Russell and Jean Harlow, beneath the $1.5 million-, yearlong-renovation, Dino’s Backstage & The Celebrity Room comes down to pure devotion.
When Michael and Dino got together 18 years ago, both were scraping bottom. Michael had just closed his shop and Dino lost his restaurant. Slowly, they began to lift each other up. Dino got a corporate job. But Michael was never going to abandon his singing. In time, Dino came to realize that his love of Michael would lead him back to the unthinkable. This won’t be his restaurant, though. It’ll be theirs.
“We’re taking a leap of faith here,” Dino says. “If it doesn’t work, it doesn’t really matter because we still have each other.”
“I love the sentiment of that,” Michael counters. “But I’ve never been so sure of something.”
When it opens in early June, Dino’s will be an entirely unique breed, a midcentury-era supper club, complete with a decadent dining room and a seductive cabaret lounge. “I’m sort of thinking, like, 1948,” Michael says. “Why, in my mind, 1948, I’m not quite sure.” Either way, it’s meant to invoke a day when going out was an indulgent affair, when all involved, right down to the hosts, could exit the grind and slip into a virtual reality where anything felt possible for a few hours. And usually was.

 

Elizabeth Cassel | Owner | Baby Scout and Scout Salvage & Vintage Rescue

Cassel’s been picking for several years now. She knows where to look and when. And on a typical haul, she figures that 20 percent is exceptional. The rest is passable. She was selling the exceptional stuff before she could unload it from the truck and move it into her Old City shop, Scout Salvage & Vintage Rescue. Granted, it was a good problem to have, but it was still a problem. Sometimes it wouldn’t even make it that far. She’d snap a pic of her find onsite and post it to Instagram, where it was almost always snatched up before she made it back.
So Cassel grew her ranks. She rounded up some friends from The Clover Market, where she also sold, and together, last October, they opened the N3rd Collective in her old storefront. She describes it as “part-boutique co-op, part-small business incubator.”
As the collective took off, Cassel, five months pregnant when it launched, had her first child. And she happened upon her next frontier in the process: Baby Scout. We talked in early May, while her son napped. The concept was just taking root then. She’d decorated his nursery, floor to ceiling, in vintage Sesame Street, and a new world exposed itself: kid-friendly vintage. “He has some really funny vintage T-shirts that are waiting for him to grow a little bit bigger,” she says, with a laugh.
Cassel envisions everything from clothing to bedroom furniture, functional as it is fashionable, as has become Scout’s reputation, comprising the collection, which she’ll sell online. That’s likely the direction for Scout too. By the time you read this, Scout will likely be gone from the collective. It’ll live on, fear not. But she’s a mom now, and time is fleeting.

 

Sarah R. Bloom | Visual Artist | Narberth

The last 18 months have been a rollercoaster for Bloom. On the breakneck descents, she screams to get off. But once she’s safely stowed back in the bay, she steels herself to go again. And again.
“The last year has been a great year for me as far as attention goes with work,” Bloom says. “It’s also been, like, emotionally, the worst year of my life. It’s a very interesting dynamic.”
The onslaught of attention started with a two-minute profile in a documentary series called Wastelands. It posted on a Thursday night in January 2015, and by midday the next day, The Huffington Post and The Daily Mail had requested interviews. Before the year was out, Bloom was named Philadelphia magazine’s favorite visual artist and one of the “28 Badass Women You Should Be Following On Instagram.”
What drew them to her: Self-portraits that are, at turns, vulnerable, dark, funny, combative, gripping. In 2006, she was invited to join a Flickr group called “365 Days,” where its members took and posted self-portraits every day for a year. Bloom figured she’d last a week. But she fed off the support and started to look at herself differently. Midway through Year Two, she began shooting herself amid the ruins of old buildings, as she’s pictured here.
“I was thinking a lot about aging at that point, or starting to, and starting to notice things about my own body that were changing,” she says. “It felt like an apt metaphor to use the abandoned spaces as, like, a reflection of my inner state, and then, eventually, my physical state.”
A couple years back, Bloom, still shooting daily, began framing her years with themes, for added purpose. This year’s: “Feminist Manifesto,” she says with a knowing laugh. She’s pairing black-and-white portraits with quotes from legendary feminists and, conversely, absurd comments made along the campaign trail. Should be no shortage of inspiration this summer.

 

David Jansen (fifth from left) | Owner/Chef | Jansen | Mt. Airy

Grilled Norwegian salmon, potato and oyster fondue.

When Jansen left The Fountain at The Four Seasons after more than two decades there, his mind was on his three kids, not another restaurant. He spent the next five years being a full-time dad, coaching his youngest daughter’s soccer and softball teams, making them dinner, describing it, in the end, as “the best decision I made.”
But a chef with Jansen’s pedigree—he entered the professional kitchen 35 years ago, at 14—was always going to return cooking. That time came last October, when he toured a rundown, 300-year-old stone building along Germantown Avenue, the latest in a long list of potential restaurant sites. But this one held his attention. It’s close enough to his Chestnut Hill home that his daughter comes around most days to do her homework upstairs, at the charcuterie, cheese and raw bar. And his son works there. (His oldest daughter’s a college sophomore.)
Jansen always claimed ownership of The Fountain, but he was never able to make it truly his own, not like this. But it’s still hard to tell, naturally, where The Fountain ends and Jansen, the restaurant, begins—the perfectionist, French-based cooking techniques, the hyper-attentive service. The white tablecloths are still pronounced, too, but the formality’s been shed. And the menu’s more agile, though hardly cutting-edge. Jansen may have been away for a while, but he hasn’t forgotten who he is. “I don’t do foams,” he says. “I do good sauces, good soups. I cook fish properly.”

Photos: (Ashley Smalley/The Selvedge Yard) Josh Dehonney; (Michael Kelly-Cataldi/Dino’s Backstage & The Celebrity Room; Elizabeth Cassel/N3rd Collective; David Jansen/Jansen) Matthew J. Rhein; (Sarah R. Bloom) courtesy Sarah R. Bloom

A Curated Life

HOME DESIGN

Respected as they are for their style and their resourcefulness, Ginger Hall and David Teague are even more particular about what they bring into their Solebury home. The result is a pure extension of them.
By Scott Edwards  ·  Photography by Josh DeHonney

For the better part of an hour, the conversation comes easily as we move from room to room. Then we head outside to take advantage of the fading, unseasonable warmth, pull up chairs on the flagstone patio and start to play a game. The house is burning down. What are you saving? Silence. Punctuated by concerned looks.
In a town loaded with vintage, David Teague and his wife, Ginger Hall, are maybe its most widely revered collectors. Their scavenging’s taken them beyond the flea markets and estate sales across the Mid-Atlantic to some off-the-grid corners of Japan and Europe. His Lambertville, New Jersey, store, America Antiques & Design, has been a valuable resource for Ralph Lauren and his ilk for years. Ginger’s eye is just as keen. For a while, she stocked a corner of the store with dresses that were frequently cherry-picked by the bohemian label, Free People. Early last year, she took over the second floor and opened her own women’s boutique called Compromise Lodge.

 

They live across the river, along a pitched stretch of picturesque road in Solebury Township. “It’s a real farmhouse,” David says. Then he immediately clarifies himself. “It’s a farm worker’s house, as opposed to a plantation.” Relative to their neighbors’, it’s a small home. Relative to any home, it’s small. Two bedrooms, one bathroom. And, really, it’s one bedroom because Ginger’s claimed the other as her boudoir. But the physical limitations have only honed their resourcefulness. Nothing is an afterthought.
“I think because the house is so small, we both have a sensibility in editing,” Ginger says. “We buy things as we find them, not as we need them. We just learned that otherwise, you don’t get the right thing or you pay too much if you’re too eager to find it.”
“We’re afforded the luxury that we can always use the gallery as a way to feed this,” David says. Or purge it. “Someday next month, we may find a really cool pair of lamps and say, ‘Oh, my god. That would be even better in the kitchen. Let’s swap them out.’ We’ll take these lamps out, put them in the shop and make a profit on them.”
“It’s a small footprint-thing,” Ginger says. “I hate all those terms—I’m sorry to interrupt—but it is. When you really make a commitment to live small and kind of stick to it, that dictates everything you bring in and don’t bring in. Like, I sell clothes, but I can’t keep as many as I want. I don’t have the space. It’s a very thoughtful process. It’s nice if it’s made by someone you know or just handmade in general.”
They have a longtime writer friend who, on his last visit, said something that resonated with them: “I love your place. It’s so truthful.”

Quantifying the unquantifiable
Back to the fire’s-ravaging-the-home challenge. The trouble, it’s become apparent, is that they play this game all the time.
“It’s kind of our litmus test to bring something into the house,” David says. “It has to be that kind of thing that you would grab on your way, jumping out the window, if there was a fire. We have hundreds and hundreds of things in the store that obviously we’re drawn to, otherwise we wouldn’t have purchased them. Some of them, when you sell them, it’s hard to say goodbye. But the things that are here are the things that we couldn’t say goodbye to. So, that’s a tough question for us.”
“I’m really sentimental about stuff,” Ginger says. “There are so many things that, for different reasons, I feel very attached to.”
To define their criteria, once and for all, David says: “It doesn’t come home with us unless it’s really kind of special, and has a great story and it’s rare.”
Nonetheless, eventually, they come up with answers. Ginger names the steel lamps that David made that sit on their nightstands. He forged four altogether shortly after they bought the house about 15 years ago, reluctantly sold two of them for a huge price and promptly realized he’d never part with the other two, an instinct that’s only solidified since the death of the friend he made them with.
David leaves us and returns a moment later with the smallest shoe I’ve ever seen. “You love that shoe,” Ginger says to him. It’s a girl’s or a very petite woman’s brown leather shoe with a black, stacked-leather heel. David figures it’s about 125-years-old. Again, he reluctantly gave up its mate to a close friend who hounded him for it—and then turned around and sent it to John Galliano to get him to come to his show at New York Fashion Week. (It worked.)
Needless to say, Ginger and David don’t stop—can’t stop—there.

Fashion follows function
The boudoir may sound like an indulgence—and Ginger admits that she feels like it is—but the lone closet in the master bedroom is about a foot deep and a couple feet wide. David lined it with shelving and uses it to store his shoes and accessories. A narrow stairwell arrives at a two-foot by two-foot landing on the second floor. To the left, the bedroom. Straight ahead, the only bathroom. And to the right, the boudoir. Clearly, this is the only functional arrangement.
In lieu of closet space, there’s a massive “breakdown armoire” from Germany (named as such because it breaks down into several pieces) and a curvaceous Brazilian dresser in the bedroom that came in through a window with most of the rest of the furniture up here. In the boudoir, a stack of embossed leather suitcases from the thirties sits against the far wall. “My clothes are in there, yeah,” Ginger says. “It’s a commitment. But it feels normal, I don’t know.”
The mirror hanging over the vanity next to them is 18th-century Italian. The rest of the room is arranged just like a boutique, right down to the tall display case that houses her jewelry and the freestanding clothes rack. An S-shaped loveseat sits in the middle of the room. And a miniature, 19th-century Swedish chandelier hangs from the ceiling. Its partner hangs directly across the landing, over the bed from Buenos Aires.
Most of the dining room—for all intents, the home’s central throughway—is occupied by a dining table that David made from a 200-year-old board that once comprised half of a family bed in Burma. It’s bracketed on its two long sides by industrial-looking steel braces. On top sits a giant clam shell, which happens to store wine bottles nicely within the grooves of its opening. They can seat eight in here, David says, but it’s tight. They do most of their entertaining in the warm weather, when the patio and the studio are at their disposal.

Home away from home
Fond as they are of their home and its contents, Ginger and David are most comfortable in the former sculptor’s studio behind the home and, maybe even more so, in the intimate cove wedged between the two.
They planted pine trees on the one side when they first moved in that now stand 20 feet tall, easily. The ones on the opposite side grew on their own accord. They create the effect, along with the house and the studio on the other sides, of sealing the patio off from the outside world.
The fire pit at the center is a 19th-century Victorian flower urn that David found in Massachusetts. Scattered around it sit several white metal lounge chairs of various sizes and shapes. On top of a few of them are pillows made from stuffed old Japanese mailbags and German hops sacks. There’s a framed five-foot by five-foot white board attached to the backside of the house. Directly across the patio, a projector’s fixed in a studio window. It’s an easy scene to envision: balmy summer night, sparks floating up through the air, quiet conversation, the occasional burst of laughter, David’s arty movies playing in the background.
With its bank of salvaged windows spanning the entire far wall, the studio has the feel of a pavilion. It’s a long, wide-open space. To the right, a large projection screen, in front of which sits a midcentury modern-looking couch. Behind that is a comfy queen-size bed with a pillow-y, white down comforter. And behind that, now all the way on the far left of the room, is a big cast-iron, wood-burning stove. They just installed a heating and air conditioning system, but the lack of it was never much of a deterrent. “I’ll walk through the snow to come out here,” David says. “We don’t have a fireplace in the house, so I love having a fire.”
In the fall, when the apple tree just beyond the bank of windows is dropping apples faster than they can collect them, they’ll lie in that bed at night, the stove radiating a few feet away, and listen to the deer devour the apples littering the ground.
The building, David believes, was erected sometime in the thirties or forties and converted into a sculptor’s studio about 20 years later.
“I loved what this was,” David says, motioning over his right shoulder, to the house. “But this building,” nodding toward the studio, “is what really, really spoke to me. When I came out to Bucks County originally from Philly, I was drawn toward the architecture, toward the barns. I rented probably four or five different barns.”
Just as valuable as the aesthetic appeal was the space to set up a workshop to build his furniture and restore their home.
“This is like a 15-year project for us,” David says. “It’s a pleasure. It’s not a job … trying to improve upon it and respect the life that it had.
“I don’t know that we’ll ever be done, done, done. But I think we’re getting close,” he says. “I want to do a little bathroom [in the studio]. Eventually, in our retirement, [the studio] will be a complete home. And maybe we’ll rent one or the other. And then do some traveling and get away from some of these winters up here.”
“You don’t want any strangers [renting],” Ginger says to him.
“I don’t want any strangers,” David concedes. “It looks good on paper.”

The Best Thing I Ever Ate (Summer Edition)

LOCALLY SOURCED

By Lynne Goldman · founder + editor, Bucks County Taste

It was the middle of August. A friend had come to stay with us, and we were showing her some of our favorite spots. That’s how we arrived at oWowCow Creamery. I’ve been a fan since it first opened in Ottsville seven years ago. I know all the flavors by heart. But on this day, an unfamiliar one caught my eye through the glass: Sweet Buttered Corn. A lick and I was stunned. It tasted exactly like fresh Bucks County corn, all, well, sweet and buttery.

When I was asked to write this piece, I circled back and asked John Fezzuoglio, oWowCow’s owner and ice cream maker, how the flavor originated.

“We’re always looking for something seasonal, and to try to invent a flavor around that particular item,” he said.In this case, None Such Farms, in Buckingham, sought him out and asked if he could work with its sweet white corn. He started with a cream base, swirled in the butter flavor, then in went the sugar. From there, he swirled in cooked corn and added coarse pink or gray salt.

“The salt,” he said, “adds a bright sparkle. And the butter melds the flavor of the corn and the creaminess of the base.” The gradual incorporation helps keep the flavors distinct.
The Sweet Buttered Corn will be back this summer, mercifully, but only for a couple of weeks. I’m already bracing for the withdrawal.

Photo courtesy oWoWCow Creamery

The (Almost) Closed Loop

GRASSROOTS

First there was a small farm, which became a bigger farm. And then came a market. And now, a restaurant. It’s taken 10 long years, but Double Brook Farm and Brick Farm Market and Tavern finally appear poised to change the way we eat. For real this time.
By Scott Edwards  ·  Photography by Josh DeHonney

Brick Farm Tavern chef Greg Vassos, right, with Robin and Jon McConaughy—and some of Double Brook’s newest residents. Top: The fashionable Brick Farm Market.

When fine dining meets farm-fresh at Vassos’ inspired hands.

This all started with a modest enough ambition. Robin and Jon McConaughy wanted to close the gap some between their young family and its food sources. The Omnivore’s Dilemma was just about to be published, and they’d read an excerpt in The New York Times Magazine, which drew the same disgusted reaction from both of them. Soon after, they started looking for a little more property on which they could spread out.

“The original idea,” Robin says, “was to find a piece of land where we could have a couple of animals and show our kids where their food is coming from, and they could have some chickens that they would presumably feed. Which has never happened. Ever.”

Beyond a backyard garden, neither Robin nor Jon had any experience with farming—Jon worked in finance on Wall Street and Robin owned a sports media company—but what they were imagining was less a farm than it was an elaborate hobby. They landed on 60 acres in Hopewell Township, New Jersey, and built their home—a turn-of-the-century farmhouse on the outside, a model of modern energy efficiency on the inside. Then they were connected with an Angus calf that had been rejected by its mother. They named her Elsie and nurtured her to a robust 1,400 pounds. When the time came to slaughter Elsie, everyone they asked wanted a share. More cows followed. Robin and Jon started staging farm stand-style sales in their barn. The hobby was hurtling toward something much bigger.

“It just mushroomed out of control,” Robin says.
“But I think that somewhere along the way, we looked at, if we truly are going to be farmers, what makes the most sense,” Jon says. “So, it was in those early years that we decided, well, if we’re going to do all this, we probably should connect all the pieces, and we should have the restaurant and the market and the farm.”

Jon refers to it now, 10 years later, as a “vertical model” or a “closed-loop, sustainable food system.” In theory, it’s pretty basic. There’s a market and a restaurant. Both are stocked almost entirely by the farm, from the microgreens to the merguez. That cuts way down on the marketing and distribution concerns that plague the modern farmer. In practice, however, it’s rife with challenges—challenges that plague the other farmers, too. In other words, it’s an improvement, but it’s far from ideal. More on that in a bit, though.
Once Robin and Jon began acquiring more land, they turned their sights toward the market and the restaurant. They bought both properties, which sit about a mile apart from each other, around the same time, six years ago.

“The plan was—and for various reasons, it’s good that it didn’t work out this way—,” Jon says.
“—our sanity,” Robin interjects and laughs.
“—the market and the restaurant would open together.”

Brick Farm Market opened three years ago in a fashionably retrofitted 1930s Chevy dealership located in the heart of Hopewell Borough. The restaurant, Brick Farm Tavern, opened in a meticulously renovated 1822 farmhouse just outside of the borough in November. Sustaining both at the same a few years ago, when there was still so much to figure out with the farm, likely would have sunk them. They see that now. Opening the market alone enabled them to get a better foothold, which included establishing an audience for the restaurant. Two weeks before it opened, Friday and Saturday nights were booked solid a month out, and that remains the case.
During those three years between openings, another critical piece fell into place. After months of detours, the McConaughys constructed the second USDA-inspected, on-farm slaughtering facility in the entire country. It’s significantly streamlined their operation. It’s also satisfied a concern that has roots in the farm’s impetus. They could humanely raise their animals, but, with so few options available to them, they could not ensure that they’d be slaughtered that way.

The Double Brook Farm slaughterhouse is designed according to the recommendations of Temple Grandin, the famed animal science scholar, every aspect of which is aimed at calming the animal right up to the end.

“To us, it is the most important thing about our farming operation, being able to humanely take these animals to the final destination, basically,” Robin says. “Even if you’re squeamish, which I am—I made myself watch the slaughter one day—I just couldn’t have been prouder of our guys and the way they do it. It’s totally quiet. It’s totally calm.”

The microgreens are grown hydroponically, then transplanted to a greenhouse behind the restaurant so they can be picked fresh.

What sustaining looks like
Double Brook Farm, today, encompasses roughly 850 acres, 500 of which the McConaughys own (they lease the rest), spread across several parcels, all but one of them in Mercer County. Their staff measures about a hundred strong, the great majority of it divided between the market and the restaurant. The mission statement, though, remains relatively unfazed by the staggering growth: Provide tasty, nutritious food in the most sustainable and humane ways available.

With each year, they inch a little closer to that ideal of a completely closed-loop operation. It’s an admirable aspiration, but it’s not that realistic.

“People want salt, as it turns out,” Robin says. “And vanilla. And pepper.
To remain true to their cause, they’ve learned to prioritize their decisions once they move beyond their immediate reach. Sourcing locally is second-best. If they need to look further, they’ll evaluate based upon the practices. The flowchart establishes an order, but the decisions it produces rarely come so easily.

A more glaring opening in their loop than the salt is the beef. Raising cattle, they realized a couple years back, was not sustainable, not for them. They had over 300 head of cattle then divided among seven herds that were rotated daily. The farmers who tended to them were logging about 150 miles a day because the herds grazed between three to 10 miles apart from each other, and the farmers were visiting each one at least twice a day.

“You’re basically doing it all day,” Robin says. “And then, whenever a farmer would get hurt or something would happen, it would be because we were moving cattle in a trailer from this 30-acre lot to that 150-acre lot. It just consumed us.”

So even though they got their start with Elsie, the McConaughys were learning, gradually, not to marry themselves to any preconceived perceptions. They moved all of their calves and cows down to Lakota Ranch, in Virginia, which adheres to the same all-natural and humane treatment. The only difference is that its several hundred acres are continuous. The beef that’s sold at the butcher counter at Brick Farm Market and featured on the tavern’s menu comes from Thistle Creek Farms, in Central Pennsylvania, which has been cultivating pasture-raised steers, including those from Lakota, for more than 25 years.

“Now we drive about 150 miles a week, instead of seven days a week, to meet halfway at the slaughterhouse,” Robin says. “That is the one piece that we don’t slaughter ourselves, is the cows. That does give us pause, but it is really the best-possible and way more-sustainable solution for us.”

A decade in, there is one amendment to the mission statement: and do so in an economically viable manner.

“We made the realization probably two or three years ago that that needed to be part of the equation,” Jon says. “As we listed our pillars of sustainability, economic sustainability wasn’t initially on there. Everything was a fun experiment, but not necessarily thought out in the way of, OK, how is it eventually going to make money? A model isn’t a model if it can’t be an economic model as well.”

For the better part of the last hour, we’ve been sitting around a table set for four in the dining room furthest from the tavern’s kitchen. The walls are adorned with paintings by the Pennsylvania Impressionist John Fulton Folinsbee, who is Robin’s great-grandfather. The next room over is decorated with a series of prints that she brags she picked up for 50 bucks at the Golden Nugget.

Later, as Jon and I pull up to the slaughterhouse, we’re discussing how realistic the concept of a profitable, sustainable-minded farm is. Before the tavern opened, they were supplying a number of New York restaurants.

“If we weren’t within an hour’s drive of 20 million people [between New York and Philadelphia], would it work? I’m skeptical that it would,” he says. “I think proximity makes a big difference.”

As do resources, of course. Jon and Robin, thanks in large part to their lucrative, former careers, were uniquely positioned to venture down this path and weather the onslaught of obstacles they’ve encountered along the way. Still, it’s been 10 hard years just developing the infrastructure so that they could arrive here, the farm, the market and the tavern driving each other. Without one, none of it really works. But it’s still too early to tell if it works all that well with all three.

Robin, Jon and I leave the restaurant and head for the market, Robin climbing into her Tesla, Jon and I into his Audi SUV. Just along the horizon, Jon motions toward a large barn that contains towering walls of hydroponic heads of lettuce and tables loaded with bok choy. In the surrounding 25-acre field is where the vegetables are grown. On the other side of the restaurant, there’s a fenced-in plot that’s been handed over to Tama Matsuoka Wong, the co-author of Foraged Flavor. “She’s cultivating some weeds,” as Jon puts it, that’ll be used at the tavern. With so much so close, what could go wrong?

Logistics first, cooking later
Our notions of farm-to-table eating, and even farming itself, are deeply romanticized. Once we started catching on to how bad the conventional set-up was (and still very much is)—the sugar-laden processed foods, the factory farming—it was a natural reaction to get as far away from all of that as we could, to get back to the land, to start eating pure again (or, really, for the first time). But we’re not that much better informed now about how our food is created or where it comes from. For someone so recently burned, we were quick to throw our trust behind a bunch of marketing terms—organic! grass-fed! free-range!—and picturesque magazine spreads. (Thank you.)

The reality: “Farming is relentless,” Robin says.

“Even for these two outlets, the market and the restaurant, we go through a lot of animals. And vegetables,” Jon says. “Yeah, it’s rotational grazing, but there’s 2,000 chickens that have to supply the 300 a week we need to keep this operation going.”

More numbers: two Berkshire pigs, two whole lambs and 35 chickens. That’s what the tavern went through in a week in May, according to its executive chef and partner, Greg Vassos, who describes the synchronicity that’s needed to pull off farm-to-table dining night in and night out as “very chaotic.”

On any given day, the tavern’s susceptible to a freak storm, a broken-down truck, an ill farmer. And then consider this: Brick Farm Tavern is the only restaurant in the country with its own slaughterhouse.

“It’s a juggling act because we’re getting whole pigs, whole lambs, whole chickens,” Greg says. “There are a lot of different parts to the animal, so it’s a lot to figure out.”
And that constant planning, between Greg and his chefs, between Greg and the farmers, between Greg and Double Brook’s butcher, encompasses that night, the upcoming weekend, the following week, the following month even. Killing an animal will never be taken lightly when all involved feel a personal and professional responsibility to see that every viable part is utilized.

“The farm-to-table movement, I think the hardest part is having the chef fully understand what that means, using the full animal,” Jon says.

The slaughterhouse is located at the end of a long, potholed, dirt driveway behind a sprawling field where chickens strut in all directions, near and far, under the close watch of a big, white sheepdog that sits atop a prominent outcropping toward the front of the field. Near the entrance, there’s a muddy pigpen. Most of the lambs, once they’re weaned, are raised nearby too. The idea is to foster a sense of familiarity right up until the end.

From the outside, the building looks like any other generic farm structure. Just as we’re about to go in, Jon acknowledges a bucket at the foot of the door that I overlooked. Inside, there are two lambs’ heads. “The USDA comes and collects the heads,” he says. That would be the most dramatic thing I’d see. Inside, it’s empty. And spare.

Before this was built, they were spending about $100,000 a year to slaughter their animals. That’s down to about $20,000. The building’s solar-powered, so almost all of that cost is labor. What that means, basically, is that they can match and usually even improve upon the price of conventionally farmed chicken, turkey, lamb and pork.

If Greg’s name sounds familiar, it’s because he owned a short-lived restaurant in Pottstown called Racine, which was a critical darling. Racine was farm-to-table—Greg himself sourced the ingredients from the neighboring farms. But, he says, there’s a big difference between that and this. His learning curve, even with that experience, was steep. “Very, very steep” is actually what he said. On one hand, you’re cherry-picking all the best veg and parts of the pig and cow. And with the other, you’re being told there won’t be enough tomatoes to go around an hour or two before dinner service, and you’re figuring out what to do with short ribs. And ground beef. So much ground beef.

“I feel my duty as a chef is using what’s available, and making something special out of it, rather than me telling them, ‘I need this. I need that,’ ” Greg says. “This job, I think, is the ultimate dream. If you’re going to do farm-to-table, this is the way to do it.”

 

Shifting the paradigm
After we leave the market, sitting at a stoplight, I ask Jon what he’d be doing if he wasn’t driving me around.

“The average day is still sort of connecting the pieces, probably more from an infrastructure side,” he says. “I’ve been the general contractor for the entire project, and it’s been a lot of construction over the last four or five years. But the real reason I got into this is farming. So my days are slowly starting to shift from manager conversations and construction to being out on the farm.”

In piecing together his own operation, he’s visited countless other farms. In the beginning, it was just the likeminded ones, but then he grew curious and needed to see how the other half, the conventional farms, lived.

“I wanted to see why they’re doing it. And, just how bad is the situation,” Jon says. “I think it’s easy to blame people and point fingers. But I think you really have to see it first before you make those assumptions.”

We drive past one of their fields where ewes are paired up with their lambs, all of them nestled in the grass around a pair of giant, brown donkeys. Are those donkeys? I ask. “Yeah,” he says. “They protect them.” Really? “I think, actually, the donkeys are just protecting themselves.”

I know you said that you were moved to undertake all of this, or maybe a smaller version of it, but to make even that kind of commitment, it seems as though the seed was planted long before. Was there a part of you always kind of pining for this lifestyle?

“I think if you were to ask Robin, she would say no. I’ve always sort of had the desire to get into farming,” Jon says. “When I got into finance, I always sort of perceived it to be a means to an end.

“Now, a different question would be, after being in farming for 10 years, is it what I anticipated? Not yet, so far. We asked ourselves, especially a year or two ago, could we have done anything differently? I don’t think we could have. If you don’t connect [the farm, market and restaurant], it’s not profitable enough. And there’s no easy way to connect them without trying to get them up and running at the same time.”

For all their effort, their kids, now 13 and 16, only seem interested in the farm when they’re friends are over. But even though Robin and Jon may have started out wanting this for them, it’s their eventual grandkids they’re doing the heavy lifting for now. Jon was right when he said that a conscientious farm alone was never going to shift the paradigm. But a self-sustaining market and restaurant could show us the way.

By Invitation Only (Sort of)

TRAVEL

A new Connecticut restaurant with huge ambitions is betting on the lure of exclusivity.

Backman’s signature is scratch-made pasta. The menu will also heavily feature locally sourced foodstuffs.

Because we always want what we can’t have, we want a dinner reservation at The Restaurant at Spicer Mansion, a luxe inn in Mystic, Connecticut, that’s due to open Memorial Day weekend. Trouble is, unless you’re a guest, the only way you’re getting one is by invitation.

The Restaurant is aiming to restore the rapidly fading interest in fine dining by taking a run at it in a rather dramatic fashion, by recreating the finer points of yesteryear’s traditions. Think canapés and cocktails in a grand salon prior to the dinner service. From there, guests will be escorted into one of three Victorian-era dining rooms, where they’ll be seated at tables set with Italian hemstitch linens and Baccarat crystal. Tableside preparations will follow, naturally.

The six-course tasting menu ($115; add another $75 for the wine pairing) will change nightly and pull heavily from nearby farms and waters. Beyond picking herbs from Spicer’s own garden, executive chef Jennifer Backman will be working closely with the Spicer’s sister resort, Ocean House, in Rhode Island, and its on-staff food forager. Backman left another Spicer sister resort, the Weekapaug Inn, also in Rhode Island, to take this position.

And it’s a position that holds a lot of promise in the eyes of Daniel A. Hostettler, the president of Ocean House Management. He sees The Restaurant at Spicer Mansion as the east coast’s answer to Thomas Keller’s French Laundry, which is pretty widely considered the top restaurant in the country.

With that, an invitation feels a lot less likely. —Scott Edwards

Photos courtesy Spicer Mansion