A Hudson Valley Feast

Traveler contributing editor Margaret Loftus eats her way through the bounty in New York’s Hudson Valley.

The Hudson Valley is known for many things–Franklin D. Roosevelt’s home, the Vanderbilt Mansion, lots of wineries–but my husband and I recently went there to check out the food scene I’d heard so much about. This fertile swath of valley stretching from New York’s Westchester County northward to Albany is home to the Culinary Institute of America (CIA), an incubator for the region’s deep pool of top-notch chefs, and a thriving locavore movement.
 
Eating locally is embraced wholeheartedly at the 19-room Buttermilk Falls Inn & Spa, our comfy digs on the west bank of the Hudson River. The rambling 75-acre estate, with a main house that dates back to the Revolutionary War and a handful of carriage houses, sources the ingredients for its hearty breakfasts and afternoon tea from its own organic vegetable and herb garden, orchard, beehive, and heritage breed chickens (there are also peacocks, Angora goats, and some impossibly cute llamas). A commercial kitchen is in the works that will soon expand the inn’s offerings to lunch, dinner, and cooking classes. 
 
Fueled by a tasty breakfast of scrambled eggs laced with goat cheese and fresh herbs, we hiked across the Walkway Over the Hudson, which opened in October to commemorate the 400th anniversary of Henry Hudson’s river trip. Once a key link from New York City to New England factories, the Poughkeepsie-Highland Railroad Bridge stood idle for some 30 years until a local citizens’ group raised the $39 million from public and private funds needed to convert it into a linear park. It’s now the longest pedestrian span in the world, beautiful to look at, with its lattice of trusses and struts, and even cooler to walk across. From its peak, the whole valley unfolds and you get a sense of what inspired the expansive landscapes of the Hudson River School painters.

Across the river in Hyde Park, the all-brick CIA campus looms large.

Tours are available for the public, but we chose to snoop around on our own, getting glimpses of the action through glass windows into classrooms and the bakery. The staff at the information desk met my inquiry about reservations for lunch or dinner at one of the four student-staffed restaurants with restrained incredulity, “Today?!” Try months in advance. We’d have to settle for a snack at the informal Apple Pie Bakery & Café, where a long line snaked out the door. Let me just say the sticky bun was worth the wait, in fact it may have been worth the four-hour drive from Boston.

We spent the afternoon putzing around historic New Paltz, a university town whose New Agey shops, secondhand record stores, and many dreadlocked inhabitants give it a sort of Santa Cruz-East feel. Back at the inn, tea and cookies were waiting, and so was a soothing facial at the sleek, eco-friendly spa, warmed by solar and geothermal energy.

After all, it was spa week–a biannual (in the spring and fall) special when facials and massages are just 50 bucks.

Feeling lucky, I gave the CIA another try and was able to score a last-minute reservation at the school’s “casual” St. Andrew’s Café, where students serve up classics, like duck confit, sourced almost entirely from regional ingredients. Our server was super conscientious, expounding on the café’s sustainable philosophy and plying us with extra helpings of the chef’s stellar fava-bean spread and freshly baked bread. The wine list is a nice concept: 20 wines from around the world (oddly, only one from New York), all priced at $20. Dinner–puree of parsnip and celeriac soup, herb-marinated chicken with stewed white beans–was reasonable too, and sublime. Next time, I won’t take any chances: I’m making reservations.

You can follow Peggy on Twitter at @pegloftus

Photos: Above, Culinary Institute of America; Below, Margaret Loftus