Somewhere around 3:30am on Sunday morning, I woke up to the wafting smell of chicken stock and braising rabbit.  You see, I had put both the stock and the rabbit up Saturday afternoon – both on low heat, respectively.    By the early morning hours, the stock neared completion and the rabbit was ready.

I let the dogs out and proceeded to take the rabbit out of the pot.  Now, when I put it in the oven, it looked like this:



However, when I took it out, it just melted in my hands.  Even though it was 3:00 in the morning, I found myself picking at the tender meat and reveling in its deliciousness.  I took the meat off of the bones and shredded about half of it, leaving the thighs intact.  I then took the braising liquid and reduced it with an arrow root slurry into a gravy (with the herbs and veggies removed: fennel, carrot, onion, garlic, rosemary, thyme, bay leaves, juniper berries, orange slices and black pepper corns).   Now the braising liquid consisted of the disintegrated brunois of smoked pork belly, red wine and duck stock.  

I put both meat in one Tupperware and the gravy in another and went back to bed.  

Sunday morning, I strained the chicken stock, reserving the shredded chicken meat.   Then I cleaned the kitchen and got ready to meet my MySpace friend Erica, who just happened to be in Poughkeepsie for the day.  I picked up Erica with every intention of showing her a snapshot of the beauty and bounty the Hudson Valley has to offer.  

We first made our way to New Paltz, home to SUNY New Paltz.  Known for years as the Hippy state school (at least when I was college-age), the town of New Paltz is now a clash of Hippy and Yuppy – with a little bit of old-time locals thrown in for good measure.  We toured the New Paltz farmers market, where we picked up some fabulous fresh goat cheese rolled in cinnamon and cranberries; some amazing whole-grain cranberry loaf; the last of the organic carrots; some to-die-for chocolate peanut butter goats’ mile fudge, and some New York Maple Syrup (really good stuff).

After strolling through the town, we headed off to Rosendale, a progressive artist community about 15 minutes outside of New Paltz.  We visited the cheese shop and discovered some delicious baklava, aged gouda, and a smattering of other fantastic cheeses.  

Then we headed over to the Rosendale Café for lunch.

We both began with a cup of the Ginger, Apple, Carrot soup.  Not sure what to expect, I found the soup to be a curried carrot soup with fresh ginger and apples pureed into it.  


I ordered the lunch special, a chickpea and brown rice curry that came with a mesculn green salad with Japanese ginger dressing.





We waited a long time between courses.  Our server, a gruff looking young guy in his early twenties, was working alone.  For a long while, we were one of three tables.  Next to us sat four college students, three girls and one funny looking guy with a faux-hawk and football jersey.  Our waiter spent quite a bit of time talking to the girls at that table, paying particular attention to one of them, in particular.

I encouraged Erica to try the Mexican Brownie Sunday (dark chocolate brownie with chocolate ice cream).  However, from the second I ordered it, I regretted my decision as I feared it would keep us there for at least another half hour.  After about five minutes, I told him we were in a hurry, paid the bill and used the restroom.  When I came out, I walked up to the bar to check on our brownie.  The cook said it was about ready, so the server brought it out to us quickly.




I hope Erica felt that it was worth the wait.  When we finished, I boogied back to Poughkeepsie (making a few wrong turns, but basically flying back – just in the nick of time – so Erica could make her train (and then bus) back to Pittsburgh.  

Today, I made a salad for lunch with mesculn greens, tomato, mushrooms, radish and homemade Dijon vinaigrette and topped it with shredded rabbit.  My lunch felt downright decedent!  

Oh, and I still ehave plans for the rest of that rabbit –stay tuned.