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Last weekend, Eat Well welcomed the changing of the seasons with the fifth annual Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture Harvest Fest in Pocantico Hills, NY. The leaves in the Hudson Valley were just beginning to change color and autumn greeted us with a crisp and cool morning.

Throughout the day there were a variety of workshops, a farmers’ market featuring many local vendors, hayrides, music and other farm activities–and of course lots of local seasonal food!

In true Eat Well style, we participated in as many tastings of the fresh, local food as we could handle–beets with homemade dill yogurt and corn roasted with herbed butter from the Blue Hill stand; a scrumptious winter squash harvest soup from Ladle of Love; artisan cheeses from Consider Bardwell Farm; bread from Balthazar Bakery; and fresh Honeycrisp apples from Red Jacket Orchards. We also made sure to stop by and chat with Rick and Michael of Mast Brothers Chocolate, who’d concocted a special harvest chocolate especially for the occasion- [Autumn] bark – a decadent bag filled with pieces of dark chocolate bark complete with cranberries, pumpkin seeds, pistachios, pecans, almonds, and a touch of maple syrup. What more could you ask for!

We were excited to attend some of the workshops being offered and caught the tail end of a workshop with Craig Haney, livestock manager of Stone Barns. He taught us a neat trick about egg freshness. Fill a container with water and drop in your egg. If it sinks to the bottom, you know it’s fresh. If it floats, the egg is no good. Simple, right?

Following Craig was Emma Hoyt, greenhouse assistant from Stone Barns, who taught a workshop on how to make your own sauerkraut. She emphasized the simplicity of the process- all you need is cabbage, salt, and a jar! Stick with a ratio of one tablespoon of salt per quart of cabbage and pack the cabbage and salt down into a jar until the salty brine water covers the cabbage. Put the lid on but don’t screw it all the way and let it sit on your counter for a minimum of three weeks to let those bacteria do their job, and voila, you have sauerkraut! She recommended Sandor Katz’s book, Wild Fermentation, for those interested in experimenting with even more fermentation projects.

Finally, there was an informative demo from from Kristin Egan, the pastry sous chef from the Blue Hill restaurant at Stone Barns. Baking has always intimidated me, but I was put at ease during her instructional apple cake workshop. She provided us with a lovely beginner’s guide on the best way to ensure a good emulsion (the mixture of two ingredients that would otherwise not mix). Kristin stressed the need to start with the butter and the eggs at room temperature and discussed the importance of being patient with the batter to prevent a broken emulsion.

As the day wore on, the sun came out to play and we were excited to partake in the commencement of autumn in the Hudson Valley. The Harvest Fest was a beautiful occasion and a successful way to bring the community together to share in local food at this bountiful time of year.