Tag Archives: The Farm Cooking School

What The Farm Cooking School’s Relocation Means for You

DIY

Don’t worry. Your drive’s probably even shorter than it was. And with that convenience comes even more incentive to grab your apron and put those new knife skills to the test.

By Kendra Lee Thatcher

Ian Knauer and Shelley Wiseman, our trusted guides in this bountiful but sometimes-confounding new landscape.

While you were having a good ol’ time last month, what with all the eggnoggin’ and mistletoin’, one of our most creative and entertaining kitchens picked up and moved about 15 minutes downriver. News of The Farm Cooking School’s relocation to Gravity Hill Farm in Titusville, New Jersey, came as a bit of a surprise. Its chef/owners, Ian Knauer and Shelley Wiseman, appeared to be planting roots at Tullamore Farms, with talk of additional Airbnb rentals there and programming that catered to those overnight guests.

Gravity Hill, though, offers what Tullamore could not: a more central location. Lambertville (and New Hope) sits about 10 minutes to the north and I95, about 10 minutes to the south. There’s also a larger movement unfolding there, in which The Farm Cooking School will be playing a prominent role. Whereas, at Tullamore, Knauer and Wiseman were the farm’s one and only draw, for the most part. Coinciding with the move, Roots to River Organic Farm is taking over Gravity Hill’s fields and its onsite weekend market, where Knauer and Wiseman will be selling prepared foods. (Roots to River owner Malaika Spencer is a former Gravity Hill apprentice.) The impetus for all of this? A new facility called The Barn at Gravity Hill, which’ll be used for workshops and retreats with the aim of turning the farm into a sort of locally-grown hub.

Knauer started The Farm Cooking School about four years ago. From its inception, he and Wiseman nurtured a loyal following of aspiring cooks and enthusiastic eaters through a user-friendly—actually, friendly, period—approach to locally sourced cooking that preaches fundamental techniques and constant enjoyment. Their quaint teaching kitchen at Tullamore became known, through both an extensive roster of classes and regular dinners, as the place to savor elevated food of almost every kind in decidedly unpretentious ways.

Most of us have entered this brave new world through a farmers market only to then discover we’re pretty much on our own to piece the rest of it together. Sure, there’s no shortage of blogs, cookbooks and shows, but little of it is personalized to our experience, living here in this moment, and none of it is interactive. Which makes Knauer and Wiseman practically necessary, whether you’re simply curious (craft an authentic French brunch) or all-in (butcher a side of venison and make terrine with it). And now, with some breathing room, you can expect the subjects and dinners to only become more adventurous—Northern Central European cooking, real-time recipe testing. After all, this is unchartered territory.

Photos courtesy The Farm Cooking School / Guy Ambrosino

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How to Not F*** Up Your Turkey

With the counsel of a few seasoned pros, we amp up the flavor (and the moistness) while also simplifying a notoriously overwrought recipe.

By Kendra Lee Thatcher

Thanksgiving 2002. My best friend, Lisa, introduces me to what will become my new holiday obsession. The evening is a perfectly orchestrated scene from Martha Stewart’s playbook. Summoned to the dinner table, we gather around the glistening turkey, a fire roaring behind us, Bruce Springsteen roaring over the fire.

Until tonight, I’d only known flavorless, white breast meat drowned in gluey gravy. With ninja-like swiftness and precision, Lisa grips a leg, rips it from the carcass, places it on my plate, then repeats the process and places the other on hers. Sisters in legs. Not really. I stare at mine for a good while, trying to figure out the best way (read: the least embarrassing way) to go about this. Finally, I look over at Lisa, who’s already polished off hers. No help there. Screw it. I pick it up and start gnawing away like I’m at Medieval Times. The skin, caramelized and crisp, seduces me at first bite. The dark meat’s so, so moist and laced with herbs, nutmeg and orange. This is what turkey’s supposed to taste like?! How did I make it into adulthood without realizing this?

Every year since, I’ve had dibs on the leg. It won’t be so clear-cut this year, though, because I’ll be playing the role of Lisa for the first time. Those legs aren’t naturally that moist, and nutmeg-y and citrus-y. Which means I’m in trouble. So I called around and asked a few friends who should know, flat-out, “How do I not f— up my turkey?” The following is the step-by-step plan I assembled from their advice and tested during a recent trial run.

Step 1: Buying
Convenient as those massive grocery store-birds are, shell out for a fresh, local, heritage turkey. They tend to be smaller and more manageable.

“The smaller the bird, the less time in the oven. The less time in the oven, the juicier the meat,” says Ian Knauer, who established The Farm Cooking School in Stockton, New Jersey.

I bought an 11-pound, Lancaster-raised turkey at None Such Farm Market in Buckingham. I had it quartered, based on the recommendations of Emily Peterson, the host of “Sharp + Hot” on Heritage Radio, and Matthew Martin, the owner/chef of More Than Q BBQ Company. The butcher broke down my bird into two breast-wing and leg-thigh segments, bones-in, skin-on and odds and ends packaged to make stock with.

Step 2: Prepping
Pour yourself a glass of wine. Proceed.

I’m a fan of adding fat under the skin. So when Ian reiterated this, I felt completely validated. I mashed up zesty-herb butter and massaged it into the meat. But I didn’t stop there. I then slathered the reserve fat from smoked bacon all over the skin and seasoned it with salt and pepper.

Also: “Lightly trussing the quarters will ensure the skin stays on and the juices stay in,” Matthew says.

I mixed brandy, fresh orange juice and star anise to roast and baste the turkey in. I picked that little cocktail up from Diana Paterra, the owner/chef of DeAnna’s Restaurant and Bar in Lambertville, NJ, and now I’ll never use another.

Step 3: Roasting
Preheat your oven to 425 degrees. In two large roasting pans, place a “veggie rack” comprised of carrots, parsnips, onions and citrus and cover it with a bed of herbs. Add your breasts to one pan and the legs to the other. Pour the brandy-OJ-star anise mixture evenly over both pans and then stick them, uncovered, in the oven.

Step 4: Timing
Never—seriously, nev-er—lose track of your bird. Roasting it hot and fast is the way to go, but it requires constant attention. It’ll take about 30 to 40 minutes for the turkey to turn golden brown, which seals in those juices that make so much of the difference between a remarkable turkey and a blah bird. (Note: The breasts will cook about 10 minutes faster than the legs.) At that point, pull the pans from the oven and brush the turkey with the drippings. I then reduced the heat to 375—my oven runs a little hot—and basted every 20 to 30 minutes for the next hour or so.

In an hour and 45 minutes, my turkey had hit the sweet spot—crispy on the outside, tender on the inside—so I slid it out and let it sit for another 45 minutes, as per Diana’s counsel. From there, I sliced it up with an extremely sharp knife, as per Emily’s counsel, arranged the pieces on a platter and drizzled them with the remnants of drippings.

I still reached for the leg out of instinct, but, really, there was no boring bite with this turkey. And that’s not to say that I’ve mastered Thanksgiving. The turkey, it turns out, is actually a very small piece of that headache. But, dismantling the intimidation was as critical as any step in this, ultimately, fairly simple recipe.

Weekend Getaways for Food Geeks

TRAVEL

Whether you want to develop your knife skills or eat (and drink) really, really well, these three destinations will allow you to do it free of distraction.

We all travel for food anymore, whether it’s driving past the local grocery stores to hit an out-of-the-way Whole Foods or night market-hopping in Thailand for a week. It all counts. In fact, the term “culinary tourism” was dropped in 2012 in favor of “food tourism” because it was deemed too elitist. Regardless of what it’s called, business is booming. And it’s believed to be only in its infancy, in large part because of the money that’s being generated—tourists are spending, on average, 25 percent of their travel budgets on food and drink, according to the World Food Travel Association—and now invested to entice us to blow even more. Not to mention, food is the linchpin of local culture. Always has been. Only our interest in it is new. So, in the spirit of savoring every experience, near and far, gourmet and grassroots, we’re offering up three weekend getaways, all within driving distance, that cater to the serious eater (and cook, if you’re game) in each of us. Yeah, they tip more toward indulgence, but we figured you’ve got a handle on filling up your weekends at home with farmers markets and trending brunch spots.

—Scott Edwards

The Farm Cooking School | Stockton, New Jersey
Driving time from Philadelphia: About an hour

Ian Knauer, rounding up dinner. Top: Knauer and Shelly Wiseman.

This is farm-to-table cooking as preached by the guy who wrote the book on it. Literally. Ian Knauer, the school’s founder, is the author of the revered cookbook, The Farm—Rustic Recipes for a Year of Incredible Cooking. It was while writing that book that he discovered the small, artisanal towns along the Delaware River in central Bucks and Hunterdon counties. Shortly after it was published, he rented a small stone house on a grass-fed cattle farm and spent the winter renovating it. Come the spring, he invited Shelley Wiseman, a colleague from his days at Gourmet magazine, to join him, and together they opened the school. Serious as their credentials are, the classes and dinners they stage year-round cater as much to excited eaters as ambitious home chefs. Last fall, they hosted their first weekend-long program. (There are three Airbnb apartments on the farm, including a one-bedroom over the school’s kitchen.) Knauer and Wiseman led a “Best Dishes to Bring to a Party” class. That night, they brought their guests (and their dishes) to a potluck dinner at a nearby farm. This summer, they’re planning to repeat such a weekend about every six weeks. thefarmcookingschool.com

 

Ocean House | Watch Hill, Rhode Island
Driving time from Philadelphia: About 4 hours

Tastings, tutorials and custom-crafted dinners are all covered at the inn’s new culinary center.

The already-culinary-minded resort—there’s a food forager on staff—opened a 3,000-square foot Center for Wine and Culinary Arts last fall. The wide-plank walls and flooring and exposed posts and beams are from an early 19th-century Connecticut tobacco barn, but a demo kitchen tricked out entirely with Gaggenau appliances is straight out of the future. The aforementioned forager, Paul McComiskey, along with the chefs from the Ocean House and its sister resort, the Weekapaug Inn, lead a daily roster of complimentary tutorials that delve into local sourcing—Ocean House is perched along Rhode Island’s craggy coastline, so that includes seafood, too—and cooking technique. There’s a fee-based monthly series of interactive classes for those who like to dirty their hands as much as fill their stomachs. The center’s also home to Ocean House’s 8,000-bottle wine collection, spread between two cellars. Jonathan Feiler, the resort’s director of wine education, partners with McComiskey to design bespoke wine dinners. That’s about as of-the-moment as a menu gets. oceanhouseri.com

 

Inn at Windmill Lane | Amagansett, New York
Driving time from Philadelphia: About 3½ hours

The real indulging at Windmill Lane comes in private.

Plans are in the works to stage a second round of Wine Harvest Weekends this fall, where the inn collaborates with neighboring vineyards Channing Daughters and Wölffer Estate to offer in-depth tours, tastings and a dinner. But the VIP access runs year-round. The inn’s concierge will book the personalized tours, arrange a car service to get you to and from and even send you on your way with a basket lunch. After drinking wine all afternoon—tasting wine, we mean—it’s going to be too tempting to resist settling into your exceptionally cozy confines for the night, especially once you’ve got a fire roaring. The inn’s thought that part through, too. The in-room iPad is loaded Incentient, a digital concierge service that enables you to order takeout from an impressive selection of local restaurants—Meeting House, Fresno, East Hampton Grill, among others. Your dinner will be delivered to the inn’s kitchen, where it’ll be plated on china and then brought to your suite. You land the best seats in the house, and you didn’t even have to slip the hostess a twenty. Or put your pants back on. innatwindmilllane.com

Photos courtesy (from the top): The Farm Cooking School / Guy Ambrosino (2), Ocean House, Inn at Windmill Lane.