A shop-window display for Valentine’s Day with an appropriately dark if not necromantic streak (appropriate for Hudson that is) can be viewed at Gail Peachin’s antiques shop, Fern (610½ Warren Street). Here Peachin has strung together dozens of anonymous old photo-album snapshots of couples, turning them into an original tribute to love, friendship (and, just suggestively, the way of all flesh). They make you wonder, not only about love and death, but if people were better looking back then. “No,” Fern neighbor David Dew Bruner said, “They were all just better groomed.” –Scott Baldinger
The need for authentic ethnic cuisine (particularly Asian) in this town is so acute that, for me at least, it expresses itself in fever dreams –and hopeful blog posts about fleeting ventures such as a couple of Indian dishes at our local fried chicken joint. At the debut of Red Dot’s weekly gourmet Chinese food night, I got the sense that I’m not alone in this desire: The excitement in the air was palpable, and nary a table was to be had. And the food was incredible: refined dim sum such as pork and winter mushroom dumplings and boiled dumplings tossed in red chili oil, entrees of delicately crispy fish in a puff and crispy batter and shredded pork in a “fragrant and spicy sauce.” (Even the menu’s locution sounded genuine.) Every detail in chef Michael Chesloff’s s lineup came out wonderfully, from the sticky rice to the subtly seasoned Chinese broccoli. Red Dot owner Alana Hauptmann says she is thinking of continuing the weekly event on Tuesdays, a day the restaurant has traditionally been closed, so it will be a double blessing.–Scott Baldinger
Trusting information from a press release sent out just a few days ago by Acres, Hudson’s fledgling food co-op, I mistakenly reported in a previous post that the market it started this Saturday would feature produce such as “vegetables, apples, and cider” and would “bridge the seasonal gap until the Farmer’s Market resumes in March.”
Well, egg (or Camembert!) on my face! As it turned out there wasn’t even a pale onion or wizened potato in the place, just a cheese vendor, a tamale vendor, and a smoked-chicken vendor, none of whom were selling anything that could be considered foundational parts of the food pyramid, delicious though their offerings were. When I asked Acres Co-op director Peter Pehrson about the absence of vegetables (the lack of which is what the USDA points to when it called Hudson a food desert ), I was told “Maybe they heard you were coming and decided not to show up.” Who knew that tubers could be so touchy! (Another person raising money for the co-op at the front desk added that a few might be available next week.)
To get your recommended daily dose of vegetable matter every day, and without defensive remarks, head on down to Lick (253 Warren Street), which is now chockful of exotic items such as arugula, lettuce, kale, mushrooms, and herbs, and Bruno’s (227 Warren Street) , which regularly carries bananas, avocados, and rare local delicacies such as eggs, sweet potatoes and red onions. Or you could go back to ShopRite, get your basics and and be entertained by shop clerks like the one below. Not to sound like the dreaded Mitt Romney, but praise be to the free enterprise system! –Scott Baldinger
Just when the post- holiday, temperature- hitting- below 10-degrees blues started to hit, the following warming news popped into the inbox: Starting this Saturday Acres, Hudson’s nascent food co-op, will be hosting a weekly indoor food market that “bridges the seasonal gap until the Farmers Market resumes in March.” An encouraging sign that Acres is on track and getting ready to roll, the market will include purveyors such as Breezy Hill Orchards and Migliorelli Farm (vegetables, apples, cider); Berkshire Mountain Bakery; North Wind Farms (organic meat); Block Factory Tamales; Tierra Farm (nuts, nut butters, coffee); and Amazing Real Life Food Company (cheese), with more to follow. And plenty of tubers, we can be sure. (702 Columbia Street, 10 a.m. -2 p.m.) – Scott Baldinger
Top and bottom left: handbags by Moe Nadel and various house gifts at culture and commerce. Top and bottom right: mugs at Hedstrom and Judd; ceramic colander and cutting board at Mix.
Frankly, it’s hard to keep track of all of the sophisticated, sharp-looking products by local craftspeople being sold in Hudson. In just a one -block radius (the 400 block) there were more than enough to fit into the confines of a simple blog post; to make the task more manageable, at least for now, I’ve limited selections to smaller items that one can carry out in a shopping bag (but not so small as to get lost in one).
Culture and commerce’sSherri Williams, devoted to furnishings and lighting by gifted Hudson Valley designers such as Rob Williams, Steven McKay and Jules Anderson, turns out also to have lots of smalls on hand. Softest and most pliable are hand-knotted netting and leather handbags by Moe Nadel, who lives up the street and who was recently featured in a Register Star article. Williams also has a whole table of nifty easily transportable items such as wooden candle holders, ceramic vases, and trays, all made in these parts. “I never even heard of the word ‘smalls’ until I came to Hudson” she says, “but it’s pretty much what it’s all about this time of year.” (The store is at 428 Warren Street, 828-9219.)
Close by at Mix (438 Warren Street 828-1707) pottery by Jane Arnold and cutting boards made of cast concrete, acid finished steel and butcher block by Joshua Howe are among many locally produced offerings. At Hedstrom and Judd (401 Warren Street 671-6131) mugs in cooly mod colors were fired up in the farther reaches of Columbia County (Spencertown to be exact). –Scott Baldinger
In 2008 and 2009, but skipping 2010, Sam Pratt gave the town of Hudson a terrific gift: Hudson Under $100. A compendium of cool, relatively inexpensive stuff to buy in town, with great photos, it’s like a whole section of a slick city magazine put together by one person. Happily it’s returned this year, better and more voluminous than ever, with 70 plus items so far and more to come in the next few days.– Scott Baldinger
Yet another Helsinki Hudson wonder on an otherwise quiet weekday eve, David Jacobs-Strain (who played to a small but appreciative audience last night), brought tears to my eyes so often with his beautifully modulated, exquisitely played and arranged folk/blues songs that I had to put a tea compress on them (my eyes) when I got home. Evocative of woodsy Oregon vistas and funny encounters with girls, Strain’s music is peppered with a nippy wit and a true showman’s sense of how to deliver a song. I admit it, I left the club verklempt.
With this revelation, as well as the upcoming Duncan Sheik and Steve Earle performance dates coming up, it’s becoming evident that Helsinki is really hitting its stride. Once again, much thanks and appreciation for bringing such talent, be they famous or less well known, to our modest little hamlet.–Scott Baldinger
The rumor du jour is that Ian Schrager, the legendary hotelier and real estate developer who once reportedly offered Holcim a tidy sum for their waterfront property, has purchased the Warren Inn (terrific photo above by Tim Heffernan). Could Andre Balazs, another fab frequenter of these parts, be next–either with the St. Charles or the still vacant hotel project on Warren and 4th , currently the cornerstone of a mystifyingly blighted corner of Warren? And will Schrager be keeping the free HBO? –Scott Baldinger
Wow I’m impressed. The good folks at Helsinki Hudson have snagged one of my favorites: Duncan Shiek, an artful pop singer-songwriter (Phantom Moon and “Barely Breathing,” an early hit that I recently heard playing on the loudspeaker at ShopRite) who is also a Tony Award- winning composer of youthful yet luscious- sounding musicals (Spring Awakening and most recently The Nightingale, which work-shopped this summer at Vassar College’s Powerhouse Theater. Both were collaborations with lyricist Steven Sater, who will not be coming up, sorry to say –he’s in Los Angeles working on a new musical with Burt Bacharach.) Sheik will be performing December 17 at 9, and the tickets are a mere $18. –Scott Baldinger
Let’s just say that someone gave you a wall and told you to fill it up overnight with a good collection of art. And on a very limited budget. You could do a lot worse than scoping out the galleries of Hudson, where, during a recent tour up Warren, I found numerous reasonable artistic efforts at prices that ranged from $25 dollars to only a few times more than the cost of a newfangled one-cup coffee-brewing machine.
A logical place to start is the Terenchin Gallery (533 Warren), where a series of three colored drawings by John Rudge, a contemporary of Francis Bacon, is only $700. At the newly arrived Roshkowska Gallery (538 Warren), there is a bin of unframed prints and drawings off to the side of the impressive early “nonobjective” paintings of a fellow named Emil James Bisttram. (Another bin, this one labeled Holiday Specials, is at J. Damiani, 237 Warren.) If you have nice shelving or coffee table, the Davis Orton Gallery (114 Warren) has a show of self-published photobooks that span the under $100 range, and there’s a lot of cool new art pottery by ceramicist Robert Pesce at David Dew Bruner (610 Warren). –Scott Baldinger
