Rhinebeck, my adopted hometown and weekend destination of choice, is located about 90 miles due north of Manhattan. It’s idyllic in the summer, but it’s not exactly a beer-lover’s paradise. Supermarkets and gas stations carry your standard six-packs, but for something special, you gotta burn about 12.1 miles of petroleum on a journey to Discount Beverage Center in Hyde Park. As someone who regularly browses the “single and fancy” section of Whole Foods Beer Store for the novel odd bottle, this means finding a car, or spending a few days of relatively-uninspired beer quaffing. Enter Grand Cru Beer and Cheese Market. I stumbled upon this shop while stocking up on treats at the phenomenal Calico Bakery for a trip to my grandmother’s house, which is located somewhere in central Pennsylvania. In a very dry country where they don’t sell six-packs. You heard me. To buy beer, you must purchase by the case at a distributor, or suss out a bar which will sell six-packs of Bud, or maybe Yuengling, if you’re lucky.

I’d been pondering how and how much to stock up for the trip, so when I wandered past the barely two-week-old Grand Cru, I initially thought I was experiencing a case of very life-like wish fulfillment. Single-and fancy-looking bottles lined the walls, including one from Pretty Things, Saint Botolph’s Town Brown Ale ($7.50; read my review of their Fluffy White Rabbits Hoppy Triple). Saint Botolph’s was a dangerously drinkable, malty, roasty dark beer. It suffered from being too cold since I stuffed it in a freezer in effort to quickly chill it and promptly forgot while cooking memorial day tacos. Don’t freeze it unless you’re craving a brown ale popsicle. I also picked up an intriguing-looking porter from a Norwegian brewery called Nogne O ($8.75, 1PT .9 oz). This was a superb example of a pitch-black, chocolately porter with a foamy-milkshake head. Really a winter style, but one I could drink it all year long. Stone, Smuttynose, Delerium Tremens, and Anchor Steam were some of the other bottles I recognized in the shop, and if I hadn’t been in such a hurry to get on the road to PA, I would have gladly lingered over beer and cheese in their cafe area, or taken home a growler. If you’re in the area, and you like beer, your course of action should be clear.

Grand Cru Beer and Cheese Market
Sun-Thurs 10am-7 pmalthough they might be open later if people are hanging out in the the cafe
Fri-Sat 10am-9 or 9:30

I didn’t have the slightest interest in going to farmer’s markets when I lived in the country. Since I moved to the city, I can’t resist them. I’ll wader around squeezing peaches, plucking tomatoes, staring at piles of waxy red peppers, and day-dreaming about all the things I can slather with jewel-toned jam. Lately when I visit upstate I’ll usually stop at a farmers market, hunting for something I can’t find in the city, because it’s closer to the source.

A couple weeks ago at the Montgomery Place farm stand outside Red Hook I spotted a bucket of “our own” pink pearl apples, all pale green with just a faint flush under the surface. The sign assured me that this apple was beautiful on the inside, so I took one home and nerded out over what I’d just bought.

Pink Pearl is an heirloom apple, first developed in Northern California in 1944. An heirloom, or antique plant is typically an older variety that was never grown for large-scale agricultural use, and that relies open open pollination from insects or wind. Heirloom apples tend to be less attractive, or abundant, or hardy than supermarket moneymakers like Granny Smith and McIntosh, but there are hundreds of varieties (there used to be thousands), many boasting unique colors, textures and flavors.

Despite its dull exterior, my pink pearl apple had crisp, juicy, white flesh ribboned with gorgeous streaks of pink. Its taste was precariously balanced between sweet and tart, but in a good way, like lemonade. These apples ripen in late summer, before you’re even thinking about of apples, and only hang around for three or four weeks, so it’s not likely that I’ll get another Pink Pearl this year. That is, unless someone’s got the lowdown on a stash here in town.

Montgomery Place Orchards Farm Market
intersection of 9G and 199 in Red Hook (about 100 miles north of NYC) (845) 758-6338
Next to Bubby’s Burritos!

As country roadside burrito stands go, they don’t make ‘em better than Bubby’s. This teeny trailer with its green, hand-drawn “Burritos” sign appears sometime in May, near a farm stand at the intersection of Route 199 and 9G in Red Hook, NY (upstate, not Brooklyn). The vegetarian menu boasts just four items, all made-to-order: burrito with guacamole ($6.50), burrito without guacamole ($5.50), cheese quesadilla ($4.00), and auguas de frutas ($1.00). The guac burrito is a satisfyingly fat bundle of rice, beans, lettuce, tomato salsa, cheese, sour cream and guacamole wrapped in a toasted tortilla. Everything tastes fresh, and just a bit of chipotle hot sauce, available at the counter, adds some welcome heat. A couple of picnic benches suffice for seating, and the crowd–if you dare call it that–is a mellow mix of locals, daytrippers and Bardies (hippie-ish students from the art school up the road). The husband and wife team that run Bubby’s split their time between upstate NY and their cafe in Mexico, so come autumn the trailer disappears, not to return until next summer. HIghly recommended stop for lunchtime munchies if you’re in the area.

Bubby’s Burritos
intersection of Route 199 and 9G Red Hook, NY
open during the summer Tues-Sat 11-5
If the weather is stormy, or portends storminess, they may be closed. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

I’ve been a hell-or-high-water morning coffee drinker every day for eight years. I drank it from deli-carts, from Starbucks, from the best coffee joints in the city, and from freeze-dried Flavia packs at work. I drank it black, no sugar, while working, from paper cups I wouldn’t chip my teeth on in buzzed distraction. Lately I noticed I’d been sipping less, but I still wanted that daily cup, like a bitter benediction for another ordinary day.

This week, when I walked past my usual morning coffee spot three days in a row without stopping, my abstention wasn’t planned. I’d long suspected that maybe I didn’t really love coffee, but this new realization–maybe I don’t have to drink this today–was surprising. I could have predicted the next thought though, because it’s the same one I had when I first stopped smoking: so now what do I do instead?

Luckily I had picked up some artisanal teas from Harney & Sons during a recent visit upstate, and this was my answer. Founder John Harney has been a master tea blender for 25 years, and his company is the high church for gourmet tea. Harney & Sons crafts over 100 varieties, many of them kosher and organic, available in looseleaf tins, teabags, or gorgeous nylon sachets. They even sell art-teas, tea-spiked flowers that bloom when steeped in hot water.

All of Harney & Sons Teas are available to be taste-tested in their serene tasting room and tea shop in Millerton, New York. Millerton, a village of cute shops and ramshackle outskirts just under cityslicker radar  is located about two hours north of NYC and sprinting distance from the Connecticut border. If you’re nowhere near the tasting room I might suggest ordering their premium teabag sampler cube (20 bags/$7.50) online.  I’ve been digging the Tropical Green blend. This pineapple-flavored green tea smells like a citrus flower when it brews, and it’s a welcome break from the morning cup of joe. As a bonus, the tea is beautifully packaged and lovely to display in a box or tin.

(Mat.Vox.com reports that their Earl Gray makes him want to mainline bergamot. That’s love.)

Harney and Sons
1 Railroad Plaza Millerton, NY
Also available online at www.harney.com

The road to Krumville might be the longest few miles you ever drive. County Route 2 unwinds past redundant woods, ponds, and abandoned barns, the Catskill mountains bobbing ever-closer in the near distance. You know you’re getting close to The Country Inn when your usually-intrepid companion says with a hint of irritation, “So WHERE is this place?” and you say “I think it’s just up ahead,” but there is doubt in your voice.

Just hang in there because it’s worth the trip. The Country Inn sits on a hillside overlooking an algae-coated pond, and inside is all lodged-out, wood-lined and adorned with objects like a giant mounted fish and hanging mottled softballs. A neglected pool table and a dusty fireplace both await discovery. A few things belie the casual appearance, though. Local-types hunch over the bar sipping beers out of exotically-shaped glasses and the names of 500 or so beers available in bottles line the back wall, heavy on Belgians and lambics. The menu, while brief, features beyond-dive fare such as escargot, duck, and trout. It’s like a secret beer-snob society plunked down in the woods.

We opted for locally-brewed Evans ales, (on tap and a steal at $4.50); both a pitch-perfect pale ale and a very hoppy brown ale. For dinner, burgers ($9) with beef from Fleisher’s of Rhinebeck ($3 extra), which supplies locally-raised, grass-fed meat–the adorable Frankie’s Spuntino is one of many city restaurants that shop there. The burgers arrived unadorned except for a single lettuce leaf and our extras, sauteed mushrooms and onions, on hearty CD-sized buns. The grass-fed beef was delicious but extremely lean and getting it cooked beyond medium is probably not a great idea; but it was a pleasure to eat a burger without feeling like I was courting a heart attack. I somewhat missed the crunch of pickles or onions, though they might ultimately distract, so next time I might indulge in some smoked bacon on top. The onion rings, suffice it to say, were perfect–not overly battered, and sliced thin enough to bite through. The desserts parading by looked tempting but I ordered a Corsedonk ($6) which arrives in its appropriate glassware. To me, this is better than ice cream, unless someone devises Corseonk-flavored ice cream, in which case I’ll have to rethink that statement.

I’ll put it this way, when I’m fighting my way through Times Square on another miserably hot day the happy place I go to in my mind will be the patio of The Country Inn at dusk with a Belgian and good company. Here’s a tip: bring a designated driver so you can make some headway through their beer list and still get down the mountain.

The Country Inn, on Route 2, Krumville–which is not a town, exactly… just check their website because I can’t explain it.  Wed-Sat 5pm-10pm, Open Sun at 3pm. They usually close in January so if it’s wintertime better call ahead.