Meatless Monday: Vanilla at its Best

“Ain’t nothing like the real thing,” sang Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell in 1968. That’s true for most things, especially vanilla, as every baker knows. Since 1888 the Baldwins of West Stockbridge, Massachusetts have been producing the real thing – some of the finest vanilla extract you can ever hope to taste.

  

According to the history found on the Charles H. Baldwin & Sons site, founder Charles Baldwin “peddled extracts all over the Northeast while his wife stayed home and raised the family, tended the farm and packed up the orders to ship to her husband for distribution.” Charles H. Baldwin & Sons moved to its present location, a former carriage house on the banks of the Williams River, in 1912.  Earl Baldwin Moffatt (fifth generation Baldwin) and his wife Jackie continue to make vanilla extract in a solid copper percolator nicknamed “the still,” using Bourbon vanilla beans from Madagascar and following Charles Baldwin’s advice, “Never tamper with the recipe or use inferior beans.”  The vanilla extract is aged in oak barrels over 100 years old, creating a dark, rich and flavorful product. Indeed, these oak barrels are the first thing you see when setting foot into the Baldwin establishment. The Baldwins have fans the world over, including Martha Stewart, who paid a visit to the store in 1999. 

The Baldwins also produce a variety of other extracts, Baldwin’s Table Syrup (developed by Charles’s son Earl in 1922), and Stavon Stove Polish. The main floor of Charles H. Baldwin & Sons is a retail store where Baldwin artifacts are on display, and the current Baldwin products are available for purchase, along with a full line of baking supplies, old fashioned candies, toys, greeting cards, books, games, gifts, goods made in the Berkshires, and items of local interest. There is even a very reasonably priced photo booth (with props) to create a memento of your visit.

I have been fortunate enough to visit Charles H. Baldwin & Sons on a number of occasions. [My sister and her family live just up the hill in Richmond.] Just this past weekend  I redeemed a Christmas gift certificate. Can you guess what I got? [Hint: It starts with a “v.”] I use this sublime liquid in everything from brownies to Claire’s Moroccan Sweet Potatoes. Nothing would taste the same without Baldwin’s vanilla.

The next time you are in the Berkshires, check out West Stockbridge. This picturesque town will provide a welcome break from the hustle and bustle of the more well-known attractions in the area. Charles H. Baldwin & Sons is open daily year-round, there are a variety of shops and eateries, and parking is easy; you only have to park once to experience the entire downtown. 

You can also buy vanilla extract and a number of other items from the online store. It’s not quite the same as paying the Baldwins a visit, but at least you’ll end up with the “real thing.” There really is nothing like it.

I often blog on food, food issues, or topics related to growing things on Monday in support of Meatless Monday, one of several programs developed in the Healthy Monday project, founded in 2003 in association with Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Communications. Meatless Monday’s goal is “to help reduce meat consumption 15% in order to improve personal health and the health of our planet.”

Saturday Short Subjects: Little Spruce Finds a Home

A home for a spruce tree, a home of his own. Where would a spruce tree find a home?*

Little spruce began his life in a small tube, one of many Colorado Blue spruces (Picea pungens) destined to be distributed by the National Arbor Day Foundation. He came to us some years back as an Earth Day present for recycling an ancient air conditioner.

We planted little spruce in a pot, placed him outdoors in our sunniest spot, watered him well, fed him, and watched him grow. We transplanted him a couple of times, always knowing that someday his roots would need to be in the ground. Our .07 acre lot was simply not big enough to support another tree. 

But where would this spruce tree find a home?

This year it was obvious that the time had come to plant little spruce permanently. Luckily I now knew just where to turn for help. My friends at URI (Urban Resources Initiative) suggested Beaver Ponds Park, on the west side of town and promised to move little spruce there if the Beaver Ponds Park volunteers were interested.

Indeed they were and they had a perfect spot in mind – in a little grove of new conifers, one red cedar and two white spruces that were planted by URI during Rock to Rock. 

On Wednesday, URI intern Jancy came by in her truck and drove little spruce to the grove across town.

On Thursday, Nan and Bill, stalwart Friends of Beaver Ponds Park, transplanted him.

Doesn’t he look happy? We certainly are.

Thanks to everyone who made this move possible.

Have a great Saturday and a perfect weekend.

Why Saturday Short Subjects? Some readers may recall  being dropped at the movie theater for the Saturday matinee — two action-packed feature films with a series of short subjects (cartoons or short movies, sometimes a serial cliffhanger) sandwiched in between. Often the short subjects were the most memorable, and enjoyable, part of the morning. That explains the name. The reason behind these particular posts is that we are all short on time. My Short Subject posts should not take me as long to write or you as long to read (or try).

*Apologies to the late Margaret Wise Brown, author of the beloved children’s classic Home for a Bunny. 

Meatless Monday: The Heirlooms of Old Wethersfield

Just off I-91, between the city of Hartford and the suburban sprawl of Rocky Hill, lies quiet Old Wethersfield, a popular destination for tourists and schoolchildren wishing to get a glimpse of colonial American life through such attractions as the 1715 Buttolph-Wiliams House, the setting for The Witch of Blackbird Pond.

The home of Comstock & Ferre Co., the oldest seed company in New England, the town is also a mecca for organic gardeners. The heirloom seed company was having a party for its 201st birthday when we happened to pull into town yesterday. There were musicians, period re-enactors, vendors, and speakers passionate about issues related to GMO crops, including Bill Duesing, Director of CT-NOFA. 

Comstock & Ferre started in 1811 as Wethersfield Gardens, which was sold to Judge Franklin Comstock and his son William in 1838.  Inspired by the Shakers of Enfield, Connecticut, who were the first to package and sell garden seeds in colorful packets, William adopted the practice and plied his seeds in lidded display boxes of his own design to shopkeepers throughout New England and as far west as the Mississippi. In 1845, William took on a partner — Henry Ferre. William Comstock retired in 1871, and the growing company was operated late into the 20th century by four generations of the Willard family. 

Its newest owners are the Gettle family – Jere, Emilee, and daughter Sasha, who also own and operate Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds in Mansfield, Missouri (their home and first business) and the Seed Bank in Petaluma, California. Baker Creek Founder Jere Gettle planted his first garden at 3, and in 1998, at the age of 17, printed the first small Baker Creek Heirloom Seed catalog, which now offers 1300 varieties of seed in its beautiful 196 pages. The Gettles collect seeds from around the world and only sell non-hybrid, non-GMO, non-treated and non-patented seed. They work extensively to supply free seeds to “many of the world’s poorest countries” as well as to school gardens and educational projects in the US. Their mission is to “educate everyone about a better, safer food supply and fight gene-altered, Frankenfood and the companies that support it.” You can read more about the fascinating family here, here, and here.

The Gettles’s dream for the grounds and eleven buildings of the Comstock & Ferre property is to “erase modern influences around the company and return it to something that William Comstock or Stephen F. Willard could recognize, if they were to walk through the doors. Comstock will be a type of living history museum dedicated to agriculture and our diverse inheritance of heirloom seed varieties that are in danger of extinction…”

Old Wethersfield is a short drive from New Haven and is worth the trip just to visit Comstock & Ferre. In nice weather you could easily spend a day with so much to see and do and a wide range of eating options near the attractions (as well as places suitable for a picnic). Just remember not to visit on Saturday if you want to step inside Comstock & Ferre. 

You can also peruse the Comstock & Ferre and Baker Creek Heirloom catalogs and shop from them online.  

I often blog on food, food issues, or topics related to growing things on Monday in support of Meatless Monday, one of several programs developed in the Healthy Monday project, founded in 2003 in association with Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Communications. Meatless Monday’s goal is “to help reduce meat consumption 15% in order to improve personal health and the health of our planet.”