Home on The Grange

When you wake up on a Tuesday morning with the lingering smell of woodsmoke in your hair, you just know the previous night had been a good one. In this particular case, Monday evening included a scenic, 30 minute drive south, a spectacular view of the dusky Catskill mountains, a stunningly beautiful event space and a dynamite dinner.  

Yeah, it was a win for sure. Especially for a couple who generally miss fun pop ups due to our usual work schedule and the fact that most of these types of events are hosted on weekends.

Time and time again, I’ve seen the social media posts highlighting what looked to have been the perfect night at some tucked away locale featuring a gorgeous meal prepared from local ingredients and two things have always been consistent – 1. I had already missed the event and 2. Even if I had known in advance about the event, I would not have been able to attend because of my side hustle.

But that all changed last night…

Last month I got lucky when someone I follow on Instagram featured information about a Supper Club event being held in Coxsackie on a Monday night. I quickly clicked through and reserved two seats for my beau and me for 10/23, not even caring that the menu details weren’t available at the time of booking. It didn’t matter – we were going somewhere fun on a Monday night!

The dinner was hosted by The Grange and organized by A Notte Events, with food prepared on site and over flames by badluckbbqnyc. The menu, which I accessed about a week prior to the dinner, was right up our culinary alley, bone marrow aside, and we arrived at the location at 6pm excited and hungry. We parked and headed towards the barn which was on our left, while our eyes took in the glorious mountains on the right.

In terms of cooking, the action was just beyond the doors to the barn with multiple wood fueled fires providing tantalizing aromas. We were welcomed with beverages, with featured options of negronis and cider being offered, along with passed small bites, both of which we sampled repeatedly. The mousse was outstanding, served on a tartlet crust that was hard to completely identify, but even more difficult to resist. So good!

As we nibbled and sipped, we took a few moments to access the second floor back deck where we chatted with other guests and congratulated ourselves for getting out to do something fun on a stellar autumn evening. Yeah, us!

We were invited to take our seats at the long and oh-so-pretty table shortly before 7pm. We opted for mid table where we were able to enjoy conversation with folks in every direction. The table was absolutely lovely – mismatched plates, colorful glassware, flowers and, most appealing, yummy bread and copa to get us started.

The first course delivered to the table was the only item which I approached with hesitation – the marrow bones. For whatever reason, I’ve never found them appealing and believe that my relationship with them is similar to the one I have with bananas. I will prepare them for others (namely, Jeter or my children), but I’m not going to indulge. Because I am an adult, I did spoon some of the marrow onto a slice of the aforementioned bread and sampled it, but I certainly did not do justice to an item which seemed to be very much enjoyed by the other diners.  Regrettably, I also passed on the opportunity to drink a “smoky old fashioned” from the hollowed out bone, a practice known as luging, which seemed kind of cool.

Maybe next time.

The food was served family style and each dish complimented the others with bold yet balanced flavors of citrus, spice and salt and fat. The ribbons of celery with pickled grapes and almonds offset the full mouth feel of the bone marrow perfectly, while the sweetness of the roasted potatoes and the smoky ratatouille were the ideal foils to the tender and succulent pork.  I mean, everything was just so damn good!  

White and red wines were poured during the dinner service, while a lovely Amaro accompanied the Basque style cheesecake with which we finished our meal. At just about 9:00, we walked to the car completely satisfied with our evening. It was a really good Monday – and if you hesitate to go out on a Monday night, remember that 9/11/01 was a Tuesday. I find that knowledge to be pretty motivating. Maybe you do, too?