reviews: By Jan Greenberg, Hudson Valley Magazine, September 2006
From Farm to Table
More and more local chefs are turning their backs on big suppliers and teaming up instead with Hudson Valley farmers to bring the best and freshest ingredients to their kitchens. It’s a win-win situation. The biggest winners? We diners.
Brian Kaywork/Madalin’s Table, Tivoli
It’s been a full house at Tivoli’s Madalin’s Table since its Memorial Day opening. The somewhat nonplussed but happy owners—Joseph Cicileo, Anthony Cicileo, and Domenic Scarpulla—work the front of the house, while Brian Kaywork heads up the busy kitchen. He is a Culinary Institute graduate who received most of his hands-on training as sous chef to Natalie DiBenedetto, chef-owner of the much-missed Mina in Red Hook. “Figgy was my guide to the Valley,” he says. “She always wanted to keep local and seasonal. It’s hard to find people who are truly committed to that.”
Happily, the restaurant’s owners are enthusiastic about supporting their local farms, some of which are within walking distance of Kaywork’s kitchen. From Hearty Roots, Benjamin Shute and Miriam Latzer’s organic farm up the road, he gets just-picked lettuces, tomatoes, and seasonal vegetables. “I love dealing with Benjamin and Miriam,” he says. “They have a special touch.”
Ken Migliorelli’s farmstand — a short drive south at the entrance to the Kingston/Rhinecliff Bridge — is a source for leafy braising greens. “I stop there every day,” Kaywork says.
For poultry, there’s Northwind, where Richie Biezynski raises chickens, ducks, geese, turkeys, and sometimes — for the lucky few who know to ask — rabbits. His produce is so popular that when he threatened to stop raising chickens (“I was exhausted, just burned out,” he says) — some of his clients offered to send him to the Caribbean to cool off. He didn’t go. He still raises poultry that tastes of the earth, the sun, and the “hormone-free, simple health food” that he feeds them.
For Kaywork, fall is the most exciting time to be cooking. “That’s when the tomatoes and corn of late summer overlap with fall squashes. There’s just so much! It’s an amazing adventure to be in the kitchen.” original review
