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After nearly one year in business, pastry chef Bruce Young of Blue Gate Farm Bakery shows off a tray of baguettes that, when baked, will sell out fast to customers of this thriving French bakery in Sharon.
Leila Hawken
After nearly one year in business, pastry chef Bruce Young of Blue Gate Farm Bakery shows off a tray of baguettes that, when baked, will sell out fast to customers of this thriving French bakery in Sharon.
SHARON — Local French pastry buffs do not mind a bit that the lines are sometimes long at the Blue Gate Farm Bakery in Sharon. After a few years of offering baked goods at a variety of area farmers’ markets, the bakery settled down and opened for business nearly a year ago.
Located on the Sharon side of the Housatonic River where Routes 7 and 4 meet, the bake shop is the work of pastry chef Bruce Young, along with his wife, Yobana, both owners of Blue Gate Farm in Warren. They paused for an interview on Thursday, March 21, after a busy day of preparation for Friday’s sales.
“We’re a small community in Warren,” said Bruce Young, who recalled the beginnings in 2020 at a farmers’ market behind the Warren General Store, later adding a similar farmers’ market in Washington Depot, and then others. Young grew up in Warren and he and Yobana still live there in his boyhood home that had been built by his father.
A Washington Montessori schoolteacher during the week, Yobana welcomes customers at the bakery on weekends. She also handles the bakery’s business details.
Transition from farmers’ markets to retail location came suddenly, according to Young, who recalled the day that he pulled into the gas station and convenience store that stands along Route 4 on the Sharon side of the river just west of Cornwall Bridge.
“I stopped for gas and ran into Liz Macaire, a long-time acquaintance,” he said. She pointed to the building across the road and recommended that he look at it. He remembered that she insisted that he needed to open his bakery there “immediately,” so 48 hours later, he was open for business.
“We haven’t had a slow day since we opened,” Young reported, pleased that the line of customers extends out the door, and that people are sometimes waiting in line before the bakery opens in the morning.
Baked goods are all baked on site. Breads include traditional, European, and the baguettes are done to French weight and size standards. Sourdough is naturally fermented. Multigrain and variations seasonally rotated.
Croissants are made on site. “I start with a scoop of flour, water and yeast, and very expensive French butter,” Young said. The French butter works the best for laminating pastry.
Hard rolls are made fresh every morning, Young said. “I cut and weigh and shape every one of them, about 85 each day.
“I’m pretty fast,” he added.
Young said that he arrives at the bakery each day at 3 a.m., working six days a week. The schedule is necessary in order to fill the bakery shelves with the variety that is sold on the busy weekends.
Area towns have their own designated rolls. “We always have a local roll,” he said. The Cornwall roll is topped with a pistachio ganache, for example.
On a Saturday, Young expects there to be seven types of breads available, and always baguettes. Blue Gate bakes varieties of tarts, and regional French specialty items, including short-crust pastry with black cherries, walnuts, or red plums as a few examples.
Delicate barquettes, shaped like small boats, are filled with lemon curd or fresh fruit as some of the choices. French caneles, local to the Bordeaux region, are a frequent feature.
“We have an astonishing variety,” Young said. “We do what we do best.”
The coffee comes from Sacred Grounds in Sherman. Choices include latte, cappuccino, or espresso. Hot chocolate is made with Lindt chocolate truffles topped with handmade marshmallows.
There is no indoor seating, but customers are welcome to find a spot outdoors to enjoy their purchases. Many summer season patrons walk over from the Housatonic Meadows campgrounds for warm pastries and coffee in the mornings, or some prefer the fresh breakfast sandwiches.
“I’ve been cooking since I was 14,” Young said. He lived in England for nine years working for a French chef whose father was a baker from whom he learned much. He noted that he has been largely self-taught and is always learning.
An unusual companion to a bakery operation, a design and décor note is added by Ivy’s Collective, stylishly occupying the other half of the building’s interior. In high spirits from having acquired pastry before the bakery sells out, visitors can shift gears and view an array of antiques and collectibles. Prices from a few dollars to higher. Ivy’s is owned by former New Yorkers, Ivy and Daniel Kramp, and managed by Liz Macaire, merging talents to create an ever-changing display in an unrushed country environment.
Both the Blue Gate Bakery and Ivy’s Collective are open Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays, from 7:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. (the bakery closes earlier if things sell out).
Abstract art display in Wassaic for Upstate Art Weekend, July 18-21.
WASSAIC — Art enthusiasts from all over the country flocked to the Catskill Mountains and Hudson Valley to participate in Upstate Art Weekend, which ran from July 18 to July 21.
The event, which “celebrates the cultural vibrancy of Upstate New York”, included 145 different locations where visitors could enjoy and interact with art.
On Saturday, July 20, The Wassaic Project hosted numerous community events. Will Hutnick, the director of artistic programming, said “We’ve been a part of it since the beginning, this is the fifth year of UPAW.”
Most of the action was based at Maxon Mills, the seven-floor grain mill located in the heart of Wassaic. On exhibit was work from 30 artists, 18 of whom were past residents of The Wassaic Project. “Artists can come and do a residency here, meaning they live and work with one another for a couple months at a time,” Hutnick stated.
The first floor held work by Petra Szilagyi, who uses dirt and linseed oil to construct images of paranormal concepts, most of which include bats. They reflected that a recent trip to a fifth sense competition in Vietnam was the influence behind the exhibit.
Across the floor was Tiffany Smith’s interactive installation which incorporated plants and wicker chairs, all of which were objects associated with her Carribean upbringing. “The room being filled with plants is symbolic of hurricane prep which often included bringing the plants from outside into the house,” Smith said.
As visitors made their way up the narrow wooden stairs, music could be heard from behind the walls. The echoing music was Daniel Shieh’s installation, entitled Mother’s Anthem, which played a recording of the American Anthem in 30 languages. The languages ranged from Spanish and Italian to Navajo and Bengali.
Each floor was filled with artwork of all mediums, including painting, fibers, collage and photography. Rachel Bussières, who switched her concentration after watching the 2017 solar eclipse, uses varying light sources to produce lumen prints. During the wildfires, she recounted that she “made a new exposure each day to capture the changing air quality”.
Luciana Abait also incorporates the natural world into her pieces, instead using maps. An environmental activist originally from Argentina, Abait’s work highlights “environmental fragility, specifically the impacts it has on immigrants.” Her installation that is currently on display at Maxon Mills, takes the form of a mountain range built solely from maps of the US and Argentina.
Throughout the day, visitors could “Arm Wrestle 4 A Popsicle”. Winners had the choice of 3 playfully flavored trout-inspired popsicles - Nightcrawler, Power Bait, and Salmon Roe. Artist Katie Peck, who spent the day in costume as a rainbow trout, encouraged guests to step up and try their hand at an arm wrestle.
Shibori Indigo dyeing, group meditation, and dance workshops were open for community members of all ages as well.
While the daytime activities fostered appreciation of fixed art, a dance party until midnight at The Lantern Inn offered guests a space for performative art.
When describing the environment of The Wassaic Project, Smith emphasized, “It’s all community, it’s all love.”
A serene scene from the Amenia garden tour.
AMENIA — The much-anticipated annual Amenia Garden Tour drew a steady stream of visitors to admire five local gardens on Saturday, July 13, each one demonstrative of what a green thumb can do. An added advantage was the sense of community as neighbors and friends met along the way.
Each garden selected for the tour presented a different garden vibe. Phantom’s Rock, the garden of Wendy Goidel, offered a rocky terrain and a deep rock pool offering peaceful seclusion and anytime swims. Goidel graciously welcomed visitors and answered questions about the breathtaking setting.
Amenia Finance Director Charlie Miller welcomed visitors to his Bog Hollow Road garden in Wassaic, a manicured expansive yard with well-placed garden beds framing a far-reaching view. He said he plans carefully each winter for the next spring’s improvement.
The organic, environmentally responsible Maitri Farm was next, a lesson in coordinating agriculture with natural balance. The farm stand and a walk among the greenhouses brought visitors together.
Near the center of Amenia was the garden of Polly Pitts-Garvin, offering a chance to visit a robust vegetable garden with raised beds to be envious of and a remarkable absence of any insects or usual vegetable garden problems.
At Chez Cheese, the vast garden acreage surrounding the 1850s historic home of Joan Feeney and Bruce Phillips in Millerton, visitors could begin at refreshment stations where walking tour maps of the 15-acre property were available. There were streams and ponds with docks, and a dozen bridges arranged around the landscape. In the 19th-century, the property had been the home of the Wilson Cheese Factory, inspiring the name of the estate.
The Amenia Garden Tour was supported this year by Paley’s Garden Center in Sharon.
Gary Dodson working a tricky pool on the Schoharie Creek, hoping to lure something other than a rock bass from the depths.
PRATTSVILLE, N.Y. — The Schoharie Creek, a fabled Catskill trout stream, has suffered mightily in recent decades.
Between pressure from human development around the busy and popular Hunter Mountain ski area, serious flooding, and the fact that the stream’s east-west configuration means it gets the maximum amount of sunlight, the cool water required for trout habitat is simply not as available as in the old days.
This is not a new phenomenon. It does seem to be getting worse, though.
Gary Dodson and I convened where the creek makes its final run into the Schoharie reservoir, part of the New York City water supply system, on a semi-broiling Thursday afternoon, July 11.
The goal was simple. Catch smallmouth bass, which abound in the lower section of the river.
This was hot stuff — as in an 80-degree water temperature.
The air temperature was actually slightly less at 77.
After negotiating the intensely slippery rocks, festooned with treacherous algae, the first major pool presented several difficulties, with a back eddy competing with a main flow and several large trees draped about the whole thing.
I hit on the simplest strategy, which was to flip a weighted attractor fly called a Tequilley into the start of the eddy so it would proceed slowly but steadily into the maelstrom, sinking all the while.
This worked. A proper adult smallmouth, with bronze coloring and vertical stripes, took the thing.
The point-and-shoot camera finally died, however, and I was not going to try to fumble my phone out for a nice but routine fish photo.
Why not?
Because I guarantee the fish would have made a sudden, last-moment bolt for freedom, causing me to drop the device into the drink.
Gary moved downstream while I continued trying to annoy the residents of the pool, succeeding a couple of times with different colored Wooly Buggers.
Then we all got bored and I moved off, where Gary was catching rock bass and cussing them out for not being something else.
I have to admit, they are not the most compelling critters. Something about the red eyes.
This latest trip was dominated by extremely tedious and distasteful Harry Homeowner activities, but on both Wednesday and Thursday mornings I prowled Woodland Valley Creek. By “morning” I mean “dawn,” because that was when the water temps were down to a barely acceptable 64.
I made the acquaintance of several stocked browns and of a handful of their wild cousins. The wild fish are smaller and nimbler.
The successful ploy was an Adams wet fly, size 16, drifted behind something big, like a Parachute Adams or Stimulator.