A birthday! This Friday March 10, we celebrate a year in Stissing House. It's because of you all that we’ve survived the trials of opening, so thank you for carrying us to this milestone. We’ll be blowing out a candle this Friday.
Easter Sunday. On Sunday April 9, we’ll be hosting an egg hunt for kids at 9:30 am followed by a breakfast upstairs for junior participants (no charge). Please email us if your kids would like to join the hunt so we can hide enough prizes for all.
We’ll be serving our usual menu for brunch and dinner in the tavern with a few festive specials. Reservations for Easter open March 12th.
An Everlasting Feast. Join us on March 18 to celebrate Tamar Adler and the publication of her latest cookbook, An Everlasting Meal Cookbook: Leftovers A-Z. We'll be serving a Feast of her recipes that journey through the life cycle of broth, crusty bread, cheese and more.
Book your ticket here.
While we anticipate spring’s green shoots and peas, we’re adding a few lighter dishes to the menu. At brunch, look for our homemade gravlax or sesame bagel (Turkish style) with farm cheese, herbs, olives and veg. For dinner, try our brothy mussels steamed in the wood oven.
When you order the pastry basket at our new brunch service, you’ll understand our love for Jesica Clark and Willow Vale Farm. Willow Vale is just down the road in Stanfordville, NY where Jes weaves baskets, of all shapes and sizes, using willow grown on their farm. While Jes’s heart lies in making baskets that are both beautiful and functional, they understand the vital role willow plays in our larger ecological landscape and their greater sense of purpose lies in teaching others about the vast benefits of this diverse shrub.
Jes grew up in the Bronx, “a country person trapped in a city person’s life.” Their parents emigrated from the Philippines, and they always found opportunities, like fishing at Orchard Beach, hiking in Fahnestock State Park or visiting Greig Farm, to be outdoors. When Jes attended Horace Mann in NYC, they spent as much time as possible at the school’s outdoor education center in Washington, CT, and committed to the idea of escaping the city as soon as possible. Jes went to Vassar College in Poughkeepsie and during college they volunteered at the Poughkeepsie Farm Project (PFP leases land from Vassar) and WWOOF-ed (look it up!). Those experiences, along with a longtime love affair with plants and nature, directed Jes toward farming post-college.
Jes spent nearly a decade in various apprenticeships, community garden projects and farm management roles, and then found themself back at Poughkeepsie Farm Project as the assistant farm manager. On a particularly tough day, they recalled that Trout Unlimited leased acreage from Vassar to grow willow for stream bank restoration projects. Jes was drawn to that willow grove and found themself going back often for a quiet respite. On their own time, they began to research Trout Unlimited, willow shrubs and ultimately basketry. In late 2012, Jes purchased the five acres that are now Willow Vale Farm and in 2013 they took their first weaving class with Bonnie Gale, a willow weaver in the Catskills.
Jes made only a handful of baskets in the five years following that first class. A sort of forced patience, largely due to low farmer wages and difficulty in procuring willow for weaving projects. In 2017, Jes resumed classes and one of the first they took was with Steen Madsen, a Danish willow weaving historian. They’ve learned from Anne Mette Hjørnholm, Peter Dibble, and Jenny Crisp – and find a lot of inspiration from Ane Lyngsgaard, Eddie Glew, François Desplanches and those who studied at l' École Nationale d'Osiériculture et de Vannerie in Fayl-Billot, France (French basketry school). While Jes might have had a slow start to their basketry practice, their education was thoughtful and deliberate.
In 2022, Jes stopped vegetable farming to pursue willow basketry full time. They’re doubling willow plantings on the farm to enable them to make more baskets and offer more classes. Plantings are another lesson in forced patience as it takes 3-4 years to get a workable harvest. In the meantime, Jes will continue to manifest their vision. First, to craft beautiful willow baskets that demonstrate skill and the full life cycle of planting to harvest to your hand. Unlike pottery and woodworking, basketry has been long overlooked as a craft. Second, to underscore the vast benefits of willow shrubs: the dense root system’s capacity for carbon sequestration, its role as a pollinator plant, its importance in riverbank repairs and healthy rivers and its role as a food and building source for beavers that are vital to watershed areas.
Jes’s coveted basketry classes are sold out on their website, but we’re happy to share they’ll release additional 2023 workshop dates soon. Follow them @willowvalefarm to snag a spot.