Tag: Local Foods

Man teaching outdoors with wood-fired oven and students

World-Class Chef Daniel Humm To Visit Adirondacks for Day of Conversation on Sustainable Agriculture Future in the Region

Written by Isabella Susino on 09/30/2026. Posted in Adirondack Harvest Members, Events & Festivals.

By T.J. Brearton | Contributing Writer

Biodiversity starts on our plates. That’s the philosophy of renowned chef Daniel Humm, a Relais & Châteaux member and UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador for Food Education, and why he’ll be in the Adirondack Park on October 6, 2026.

“Humm is a rock star in the culinary world,” said James Brangan, co-chair of the Champlain-Adirondack Biosphere Network. “We hope his visit will put a spotlight on the agricultural opportunities in the Adirondacks, while highlighting our rich cultural and natural heritage.”

Chef Humm will be part of an exciting, unique event curated by Paul Smith’s College – a food “tasting” at Tucker Farms, followed by a robust panel discussion at Paul Smith’s Visitors Interpretive Center, and finally to a sugarbush forest for a conversation with “Maple Mike” Rechlin and some sweet treats.

Truck filled with harvested potatoes in a field — Harvesting a bumper potato crop at Tucker Farms. Photo by Richard E Tucker.

The event will highlight the dynamism between food service professionals – chefs, bakers, hospitality professionals, other food system stakeholders – and food producers.

“Chefs focus on seasonal, local cooking,” said Robert Dumas, Director of the Paul Smith’s College Institute of Adventure Hospitality and Food. Daniel Humm – one of the best chefs of his generation – is no exception. Humm earned his first Michelin star at age 24, and during the Covid-19 Pandemic, turned his fine-dining Manhattan restaurant, Eleven Madison Park, into a commissary kitchen that prepared more than a million meals for frontline workers and underserved communities. Humm made history when he reopened with a fully plant-based menu, and the restaurant went on to be the first and only plant-based restaurant to earn three Michelin stars. Today, he partners with Magic Farms in Hoosick, NY, where produce is grown exclusively for his seasonal menus.

This seasonal, local cooking, Dumas says, is the key to a more sustainable food system. It’s not about getting tomatoes any time of year, but working with nature and the local environment.

Defining a “sustainable and equitable food system”

The Adirondacks are part of the Champlain-Adirondack Biosphere Reserve, one of only 28 such reserves in the United States.

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) works closely with the Champlain-Adirondack Biosphere Network (CABN) which covers over seven million acres—including the Lake Champlain watershed, Adirondack Park, and Green Mountain National Forest. Combining a massive protected wilderness with a large human population, the Champlain-Adirondack Biosphere Reserve is a model for balancing nature and communities. At over seven million acres, it’s the largest protected area in the eastern United States, supporting roughly 200 bird species, 58 mammals, 1,400 plants, and thousands of aquatic and terrestrial life forms.

Unlike remote wilderness areas, over 400,000 to 650,000 people live inside the reserve across small towns, villages, and working farms, making it a living laboratory for sustainability. And, sitting within a single day’s drive for roughly 60 million people in the U.S. and Canada, it’s an accessible hub for conservation education. The region, too, holds deep cultural roots for original native stewards, including the Mohawk, Abenaki, and Huron-Wendat nations.

CABN works to connect local communities, agencies, and scientists. It focuses on sustainable development and environmental conservation, and it does so in collaboration with the Champlain Valley National Heritage Partnership, to promote sustainable futures across the shared landscape.

One of the ways to do this is through food.

“Humans relate to their environment through agriculture and food,” said Benjamin Brosseau, Director of Communications at Paul Smiths College.

Or to put it another way – “Everybody eats,” Chef Dumas said with a laugh.

Cooking class with chef and participants in a kitchen — Chef Robert Dumas leading a culinary training at Paul Smiths during the peak of maple season. Photo by Isabella Susino.

Bottom line, our relationship to food is fundamental. And so, an event of this nature truly impacts everyone in the region. Fine-dining in New York City that shifts focus to more sustainable plant-based, local, and seasonal food sources is just one lens. As global food systems endure shocks from a changing climate and geopolitical activity, locality and seasonality are shifting from preference to necessity. It’s a profound opportunity to reconnect with our rich culinary history, and to move forward together – a world-class chef coming together with local expertise at a UNESCO event.

The event: a day of good food, deep conversation, and our Champlain-Adirondack heritage

Chef Humm’s Adirondack tour will begin at Tucker Farms, one of the oldest farms in the region. Started in Gabriels, NY in the mid-1800s, the farm’s high elevation makes it ideal for growing vigorous, top-quality, disease-free seed potatoes. On October 6, 2026, Chef Humm will meet the Tucker family in their historic barn to break bread, with Paul Smiths culinary students and faculty joining in for a “potato-centric” meal.

The afternoon panel discussion, open to the public and taking place from 1-3 PM at the Paul Smiths College Visitor Interpretive Center, will explore the challenges, achievements, and future opportunities of the Champlain-Adirondack Biosphere Network, including details about the Food Futures Lab, the latest in a network of “living laboratories” where people work with nature to conserve biodiversity and advance sustainable development.

That evening, Humm will visit Paul Smiths College’s Sugarbush and the on-campus “Sugarshack” for a tasting of Paul Smith College’s maple syrup. The tour will be hosted by “Maple Mike” Rechlin, a Paul Smith’s lecturer on maple sap and syrup production.

Paul Smiths Sugarbush sign in a snowy forest — Paul Smith’s College manages two demonstration sugarbushes to showcase traditional and modern sap collection systems. Photo by Isabella Susino.

The main course: A conversation with Chef Daniel Humm & the Champlain-Adirondack Biosphere Network

Four panelists will join Humm for the discussion moderated by Dumas: SUNY Potsdam professor and archaeologist Dr. Hadley Kruczek, small-farmer Aaron Caiazza of Kate Mountain Farm, Jim Brangan of CABN, and Cornell Cooperative Extension of Essex County Executive Director Elizabeth Lee.

Aerial view of rural farm with greenhouses and gardens — Aerial view of Kate Mountain Farm capturing the diversity of pastured/forested livestock, vegetable production, sustainable forestry and more. Photo by Kate Mountain Farm.

The conversation will range, with questions abounding. What did our indigenous peoples focus on culinarily? What do our 19th-century communities have to teach us about modern farms, foodways, and the relationships between people and land in the Adirondacks and beyond?

What about today’s small farmers? Or anyone who wants to get growing? Caiazza transformed his family property from timber harvest into livestock and vegetable production. CABN’s “Biosphere in Your Backyard” initiative highlights local projects, people and places supporting sustainable development, and Lee’s role with Cornell Cooperative Extension of Essex County helps identify new agricultural opportunities for the region and potential funding sources for sustainability projects. Humm has spoken at global forums, including the UN Climate Change Conference and Global Citizen Summit, alongside world leaders, advocating for sustainable and equitable food systems, so he’ll be right at home here.

Dumas sees it as a chance for food service professionals to dialog with food producers, chefs, bakers, hospitality professionals, together with agricultural producers, economic development professionals, all mixing with Adirondack community members interested in great food, local agriculture, and a resilient future.

“We’re building upon a partnership that started in 2024 with Humm’s visit,” Brangan said, “where we’ll discuss food systems, biodiversity, and opportunities for collaboration.”

In-person registration for the panel discussion is currently full, but a live stream of the event will also be broadcasted via the Paul Smith’s College YouTube channel.

What is biodiversity and why does it matter?

Biodiversity is the wide variety of all living things on Earth, including animals, plants, fungi, and tiny microorganisms. The word comes from “bio” (life) and “diversity” (variety). It covers everything from tiny bacteria to massive trees and whales, and how they all work together in nature.

The rich mix of life gives us the air we breathe, clean water, and fertile soil for food.

Human activities such as monocropping, deforestation, pollution, and overfishing put intense pressure on Earth’s variety of life.

There is no one solution; there are many. Growing in our relationship to food, understanding the relationship between the land, its animals and plants, and our plates, is one of those ways. It is also perhaps the most delicious.

Children smiling outdoors near a tree with sap collection equipment

Rooted in Learning Program Wraps Another Year, and Starts Looking Toward 2027

Written by Isabella Susino on 09/29/2026. Posted in Ag in the Classroom, Farm to School.

By Tim Rowland | Contributing Writer

Over the past year, elementary students in three Essex County schools have learned to shop at farmers’ markets, watched syrup producers tap maple trees, and eaten vegetables that they have raised themselves in their classroom.

Some have even learned to like beets.

Educating students about the benefits of healthy, locally-grown foods involves many things, and is at times rewarding and at other times challenging — but it is always interesting.

Cornell Cooperative Extension of Essex County‘s Ellie Hoffman and Kate Graziano spent the past school year visiting classrooms in AuSable Valley, Boquet Valley and Ticonderoga school districts as part of a Harvest NY grant-funded program called Rooted in Learning, which was folded into CCE’s Agriculture in the Classroom initiative.

Food is the most fundamental building block of human life, and proper nutrition is essential to learning. Yet important as it is, food is not typically taught in schools, and too often not in homes, either.

Children making smoothies with carrots in classroom — Fourth graders at Ticonderoga Elementary juice root vegetables as part of an Agriculture in the Classroom lesson. Photo by Ellie Hoffman.

Rooted in Learning educatesd students about where their food comes from via local farms and farmers. Frequently it would be a revelation to children to learn that the food that magically appears on a cafeteria tray might be produced just a few miles from their school.

The goal going in, Hoffman said, was to give kids a different way of looking at something they encounter every day without thinking much about it. “We wanted to really highlight that in a new way for them, to make them think about food and where it comes from and the food that grows in this area and how it’s grown,” she said.

Just as important, Graziano added, was reaching the teachers who would carry those lessons forward long after CCE Essex’s educators had moved on to the next classroom. “Learning about agriculture, learning about local food can be just a regular part of the school day,” she said. “It can be incorporated with math, science, language arts — it goes with really everything.”

The program ran on three legs: monthly Agriculture in the Classroom lessons, farm field trips where students visited working farms, and pop-up farmers’ markets held on school grounds. This latter event was a pilot that Hoffman called “a farm field trip in reverse,” with farmers bringing their tents, tables and products to the kids instead of the other way around.

Boquet Valley saw roughly 100 students through the classroom lessons, AuSable Forks about 45, and Ticonderoga about 90. But the markets, open to every elementary grade rather than just the classrooms CCE Essex visited monthly, pushed the program’s real reach closer to 600 students across the three districts.

Children baking together with a metal mixing bowl — Second graders from Boquet Valley Lake View Campus pose with butter made during an Agriculture in the Classroom lesson. Photo by Call of the Loon Productions.

It was the markets that produced the year’s clearest surprise. Graziano recalled a teacher who polled her class before one market and found that nearly all of the students had never been to a farmers market in their lives.

Farmers learned too, as they modified their displays to accommodate a younger audience. It left an impression on kids as well, both by design and by happy coincidence. One market happened to land on the same day as a school field day, meaning farm tables shared space among the bounce houses and relay races. “It created this impression that a market is a fun thing to do alongside the other field day activities,” Hoffman said, “that it was just as exciting and worthwhile.”

Farmers noticed the same thing from the other side of the table. Several returned for a second market after the first, and Hoffman said the format seemed to work because the idea of tabling at a farmers’ market was familiar, even if the audience was unique.

“It was a nice balance between something familiar and something new for the kids, too,” she said, and one that let students meet personable growers like Rachelle Waters of AHA Mushrooms or Dan and Kimmy Rivera of Triple Green Jade Farm on the kids’ own turf.

Other producers found creative ways to become involved. Jenna Mulbury, co-owner of Northern Orchards, supplied multiple varieties of apples for Agriculture in the Classroom lessons, each with different tastes. Kids identified sweet, tart or — picking up on a trend toward more authentic fruit — “applely.”

Man and girl mixing ingredients in a classroom — Dan Rivera of Triple Green Jade Farm helped Boquet Valley students mill their own flour. Photo by Call of the Loon Productions.

Through Agriculture in the Classroom, young students also learned what it was like to grow a crop of microgreens, watching them mature in classroom windows and tasting the finished product. It wasn’t always a success: Radish microgreens proved a little too peppery for young taste buds. But celery and carrot microgreens were better, and broccoli microgreens turned out to be the surprise hit of the school year.

Butternut squash soup was a “meh,” so educators changed tactics, switching to roasted squash cubes dusted with pumpkin pie spice, which won points on smell alone. And a beet-tasting lesson expanded from raw beets alone to include a batch of homemade “ABC juice” — apple, beet and carrot — a nod to the idea that a vegetable a child rejects in one form might win them over in another.

That lesson, Hoffman said, doubles as the year’s biggest takeaway about what actually stands between kids and a healthy diet. It isn’t simply competition from processed food and its marketing budgets — it’s expectation. “There are expectations, both spoken and unspoken, that kids will or will not like certain things,” she said. “And kids absorb that.”

An adult telling a kid, “you probably won’t like this,” can do more to close a child’s mind than the food itself. The moments both educators found most encouraging were the ones where a student tried something anyway, sometimes precisely because a braver classmate had gone first. “It’s kind of like a positive peer pressure,” Graziano said.

Looking to the coming year, CCE will continue to focus on the three C’s: classroom, cafeteria and community. The first two, Graziano said, got plenty of attention this year, through lessons and cafeteria partnerships on local food procurement. The third — what happens once a lesson leaves the classroom and follows a student home — is the piece both educators want to build out next.

That effort starts this fall with take-home packets that include a short recap of each classroom lesson, discussion questions parents can raise over dinner, a coloring sheet and recipes using whatever produce a particular lesson featured. “We want to keep that lesson and those ideas alive at home,” Graziano said.

In this regard, Farm to School will live on beyond the classroom walls, and broaden the perspectives not just of the kids, but families as well. Students might get their parents to try a healthy recipe, implore them to pull over at a farmers’ market or raise a few vegetables in the backyard. It wouldn’t be the first time adults learned a little something from the kids.

Chicken Cake event poster with hand-drawn illustrations

Chicken Cake Pop-Up at Keene Arts Center

Written by Isabella Susino on 08/20/2026.

Last year’s emerging artists show was an incredible community event that captured the unique spirit of this region and the people inspired by it. The gallery was filled to the brim with people who are passionate about local food and art. We are excited to harness this energy again as we celebrate the intersection of talented local artists and thoughtfully prepared food. This year’s show is curated by Ali Della Bitta, an art professor at SUNY Plattsburgh.

We will be serving another iteration of local chicken, vegetables, and cake inspired by the season, meant to be enjoyed within the setting of the show. There will also be local beverages to pair!

Please email cookeeboybrand@gmail.com to reserve your chicken, and let us know how many orders you would like. Each plate comes with a generous individual portion, and we recommend sharing with friends in the spirit of conviviality that defines these events. If you have a party of two or more, we recommend getting a mix of both breast and wing and drum and thigh options so you can experience the best of both.

We hope you can join us for Chicken Cake at the Keene Arts Emerging Artists Show. We look forward to welcoming you to the gallery and feeding you.

Best,
Zach Clemans & Kyra White

Landscape Paintings x Oboussier Baking

Farm garden with rows of onions, lettuce, and spinach

Adirondack Garlic Festival

Written by Sunwarm Gardens on 08/10/2026.

ADIRONDACK GARLIC FESTIVAL
The first annual Adirondack Garlic Festival is right around the corner! Join us on Sunday, September 20, 2026, 12-6pm at Kate Mt Park in Vermontville, NY for a full afternoon of live music, activities for all ages, farmers and craft vendors, food and drink.
I’m really happy with the way things are coming together,” says festival organizer Ellen Beberman. “The musical lineup of Jeezum Crowe, Slough Creek and Zip City Blues is going to keep things moving throughout the afternoon. Meanwhile, we’ll have workshops on all things garlic: growing it, cooking it, making it into decorative braids, or even using it in paper. And of course, there will be plenty of snacks and fresh items to purchase at the farmers market, original crafts, and even a beer garden offered by Hex and Hop Brewery.”
Admission to the festival is free. The event is an all-volunteer project of the Tri-Lakes Regional Farmers, a group sharing knowledge, time, and marketing to support farming in our area. Franklin Supervisor Brown says, “Kate Mt Park is a perfect location for family events like this. The Town of Franklin is proud to host the festival in what we hope will become a fall tradition.”
Donations to support the festival or to become a business sponsor are warmly encouraged. Adirondack North Country Association is accepting tax-deductible donations at adirondackgarlicfest.com/donate, or by check to Adirondack North Country Association, 67 Main Street, Suite 201, Saranac Lake, NY 12983, with the notation “garlic festival.”
Franklin Supervisor Brown says, “Kate Mt Park is a perfect location for family events like this. The Town of Franklin is proud to host the festival in what we hope will become a fall tradition.”

CCE Franklin Animal Day at the Orchard

Written by CCEFranklin on 07/28/2026.

Enjoy a full day celebrating agriculture, community, and the start of the fall season at Prairie’s Orchard! Meet alpacas, goats, sheep, baby calves, ponies, and other farm animals, browse local artisan vendors, participate in hands-on youth activities, enjoy delicious food from Adirondack BBQ, and listen to live music by Shawn Legacy.

Woman picnicking on a farm with food and drinks

Echo Farm Multiple Course Dinner

Written by Isabella Susino on 06/18/2026.

Experience the passion behind our farm by joining us at a relaxing picnic or our season finale – Asado. Take in views of the mountains, cows grazing, songbirds or catch up with your neighbor at Echo Farm this summer. Behind the dinner series is a team of professional chefs, bartenders and servers who are all inspired by the freshness and authenticity of ingredients. If something isn’t grown or raised here, you will know it! Rustic appetizer platters, dessert options and curated cocktails (as well as beer and wine) can be ordered at the greeting station or bar.

Tickets provide you entry to Echo Farm and a fixed menu that includes the meal. Vegetarian options will be available and effort will be made to accommodate allergies and sensitivities within reason. All menu items are built around ingredients grown and raised here and are 100% organic. Food will be served on compostable serviceware. Service pets on a leash are allowed.

We hope to see you there!

Timeline for celebration:
3pm Farm Tour
4pm Nosh
5pm Dinner