Ramps Festival This Weekend

I'm not setting out to become 'Events Central' for What To Do postings here in Sullivan, but I am partial to what Victoria Lesser and Joseph Lennon are doing at the Old North Branch Inn. This weekend if the First Annual Ramps Festival (sponsored by a newly formed Slow Foods group here), and the Old North Branch Inn is planning a number of events featuring Ramps. (Ramps are a very short-seasoned wetlands sort-of-leek that are very tasty.)

I'm reposting their email with the info:

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The North Branch Inn is doing it again. 

On Saturday May 3rd we will host a Ramp Dinner with guest chef Peter Yurasits.  This follows the success of our first Guest Chef Dinner last Tuesday with Heather Carlucci-Rodriguez.

Peter Yurasitis will be preparing a three-course dinner featuring ramps, the short season wild leek found in our area.  The cost is $40, beverages are not included.

Peter’s cooking career began in the South of France where he worked as a private chef.  In the early 90’s he launched Fine Food Affairs, a catering business in New York, concentrating on local foods.  He describes his style as New American influenced by his Provencal experience.  The menu will highlight not just ramps but other local products.  Peter is very familiar with our local farms; he shares a house in Callicoon Center with Andrea Ratimorszky and their son Lukas.

Peter will also be conducting a Taste Workshop at the Old North Branch Inn as part of Slow Food Upper Delaware River Valley's 1st Annual Ramp Festival on Saturday May 3rd at 1:00pm.  Because of these events we will not be open for regular business. 

For reservations call the Old North Branch Inn at 845 482-5925 or email josephlennon@earthlink.net  Seating is limited and reservations with a $20 deposit is required. 

If you are unable to make this dinner we have more in the works including a return by Heather Carlucci-Rodriguez from Lassi June 17, Amanda Freitag from the Harrison July 15 and Anita Lo from Annisa and Bar Q July 22.  This list is in formation and we are not yet taking reservations for these events.

We are currently open with our off season hours: Friday 5pm-10pm, Saturday 9am-10pm and Sunday 10am-6pm.  We're serving beer, wine and light fare. Please come by for a visit!   Reminder: this Saturday May 3rd, because of the Ramp Festival events we will not be able to serve our regular menu.  Please bare with us as we work out the logistics for these dinners.

   

We look forward to seeing you soon.

Victoria Lesser and Joseph Lennon

The Old North Branch Inn

869 North Branch Rd.

North Branch, NY 12766

845 482-5925

www.theoldnorthbranchinn.com

Comments

[C. Woodward 'Woody' Woodchuck III]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_leek

How about a "ramp" up in Sully prices this year?

Hee Haw!

CP

[BaxFan]

The Ramps Dinner is sold out.

[CP]

The North Branch dinners have been completely oversubscribed, and to someone who has seen quite a few businesses come and go over the last 5 years, this is very exciting.

What SC needs the most is meeting places and comfortable places to hang out.

Thanks for posting this David.

[JC]

The elitists are now faced with wars they are losing badly and that will bankrupt our country. They are faced with food riots around the globe, which will not endear them to anyone. They have created a ludicrous national debt via profligate government spending with an equally ludicrous trade deficit to match as our country has been transformed in a matter of a few decades from the world's greatest creditor nation to the world's greatest debtor nation. They have created tens of trillions in entitlements that cannot possibly be paid without reducing benefits or raising taxes. They have driven oil to levels that will decimate the entire world economy, including their own companies, despite abundant domestic reserves of oil. They have caused bubble after bubble that have each popped and now they are out of assets to falsely inflate, so people are starting to realize that they have been had and want to do something about it, which may well lead to revolution. They have created hundreds of trillions in derivatives that no one understands and that have virtually no collateralization, threatening the entire world financial system. They have ruined all confidence and trust in the financial system with scheme after fraudulent scheme, to the point where banks no longer want to, or are able to, be banks, creating a credit-crunch that worsens and threatens to annihilate bank capital at an ever-increasing pace. They have inflated the people of our country out of their wealth, and these hapless, beggared citizens have nothing left to spend to drive the US economy which is now doomed to a catastrophic failure that will lead to a hyperinflationary recession followed by a deflationary depression the likes of which has never been seen before in the annals of US history. They have destroyed the real estate industry and have put millions of people, both US citizens and illegal aliens alike, out of work, further exacerbating the faltering economy. They have plans to nationalize all the financial losses from the fraud and profligacy of Wall Street which will turn us into the next Weimar Republic. After all that, they have the nerve, the unmitigated gall, to suggest putting the Fed in charge of the entire US financial system when the Fed is the root cause of virtually every problem we have with our financial system. While all this transpires, the President and our Congress stand by picking their noses. The older elitists got overly anxious and tried to do too much too fast because they wanted to see their plans succeed during their lifetimes. Their own pride and impatience has been their downfall, and now they are about to see their plans ruined for decades instead by some of the most bumbling, clueless and arrogant henchmen we could imagine, if they are not sooner torn to shreds by the angry, fuming, broke, hungry masses. We hope they enjoy the monstrosity they have created. It will eat them alive. They wanted to create order out of chaos, but all they will get is the latter

[C. Woodward 'Woody' Woodchuck III]

Have a ramp?

*burp*

...Woody

[Mary Ellen]

Too much stress, not enough fiber.

[donald trump]

Racino comes to the Big Apple.

Save on gas!

theDonald.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/05/nyregion/05track.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

NY TIMES:

Short on Cash, State Hastens Plan for Casino in City

by DANNY HAKIM
Published: May 5, 2008
For New Yorkers, a casino will soon be a mere subway ride away.

Or a racino, to use the gambling industry’s term: a gambling emporium built into the Aqueduct thoroughbred track in Queens that will include 4,500 video slot machines, but no table games.

Desperate for revenue, the state has put plans to develop a racino at Aqueduct on the fast track. While the plan has been at various stages for years, state officials are aiming to choose among the three bidders vying to develop the racino in a matter of weeks, though final agreements among state leaders often prove elusive in Albany.

But given the weakening economy and widening budget deficits, the state is motivated to expedite the process, and a bidding group led by the developer Stephen L. Green and the operators of the Hard Rock Cafe chain is even promising to open a temporary racino by the end of this year.

At stake is the $10 billion to more than $20 billion in revenue that the state will reap over the life of what would be a 30-year lease, depending on which bidder is making the projections, as well as an upfront licensing fee.

“We would hope that in roughly a year we’d have a facility open,” said Paul Francis, director of operations for Gov. David A. Paterson. There are several racinos in the state, but none at the three state-owned thoroughbred tracks: Aqueduct, Belmont and Saratoga.

Like many issues decided in the capital, the bids are secret — beyond what details the bidders were willing to release — and the winner will be chosen behind closed doors by the so-called three men in a room who run the state, Governor Paterson and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, both Democrats, and the Senate majority leader, Joseph L. Bruno, the state’s top Republican.

Because the process is private, it will not be clear to what extent merit or political influence and campaign contributions affect the decision making. The secrecy, Mr. Francis said, “will help the policymakers make a decision on the merits of the proposals rather than on a political campaign that seeks to promote the merits of one bid and the demerits of an alternative proposal.”

The bids range in ambition. All of the bidders are proposing renovating the aging facilities with enough of a gloss to entice a flurry of traffic before considering a second phase of development. The state will raise $250 million through a bond offering for the construction project.

Connecticut’s Mohegan tribe, which operates the giant Mohegan Sun resort and casino, is part of a bidding group called Capital Play, which has an ambitious plan to transform Aqueduct over the next several years into a Mohegan-style entertainment complex. The group even talks of extending the AirTrain from the nearby Kennedy International Airport to the Aqueduct site. Their bidding group includes Extell Development, a major Manhattan-based real estate developer, and Plainfield Asset Management, a large hedge fund.

But the group’s upfront bid is on the low end, a $250 million investment that includes a $100 million licensing fee and $150 million to redevelop the site. The state is already counting on a $250 million licensing fee to balance the budget.

To sweeten the pot, the group is promising to spend an extra $25 million to $30 million a year on marketing above the state’s requirements, which it believes will bring in substantially more revenue over time. The group also says it intends to spend an additional $700 million on a second phase of development within a couple of years, which would be used to add a hotel and mall.

“You have to build a hotel, and retail, so it becomes a Mohegan-style complex, so it’s not focused on gaming as much as entertainment,” said Karl O’Farrell, the president and chief executive of Capital Play. “There will be good-quality restaurants, nightclubs.”

“We want it to be J.F.K.’s waiting room,” he added.

Another bidder, Delaware North, has a more scaled-back but also more immediately lucrative proposal. The group, owned by the Jacobs family of Buffalo, would pay the state a $370 million licensing fee upfront, though it would not use more than the state is offering through its bond sale to develop the site.

The group envisions a racino similar to a popular one it operates in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., which is attached to a harness racing track, and would include a large parking deck.

“It’s going to have a lot of electricity, a lot of lights and a lot of entertainment,” said William J. Bissett, president of the gambling and entertainment division of Delaware North. “It’s going to feel like a place you want to be.”

The third bidding group includes Hard Rock International, which was acquired by the Seminole Tribe of Florida in 2006, along with the real estate firm SL Green.