P. Allen Smith held up an eight-tine, orange plastic pitchfork sized for a Munchkin before a photo set -- a couple of straw bales and a big plastic P. Allen Smith Garden Home branded backdrop. "American Gothic?" he suggested. "Grant Wood?"
Nobody was buying.
It's ironic. There are several full-scale photo backdrops at spots around Smith's Moss Mountain Farm -- the century-old oak tree in the front yard, the farmhouse, the flower garden, the edible garden, the view over the river to the north.
In fact, a moment later, Smith lifted a small kid -- that is, of the Alpine goat variety -- and was joined by Beekman Boys Josh Kilmer-Purcell and Brent Ridge of Sharon Springs, N.Y., for more photos.
The Boys were the reason for the occasion. Moss Mountain Farms put on A Night With the Beekman Boys on July 24. For $90, guests listened to music, drank beer and wine, ate an outdoor buffet dinner under the old oak tree, and listened to Smith and the Boys talk home-and-garden.
For the New Yorkers, the occasion was the release of the Beekman 1802 Heirloom Vegetable Cookbook. The three first met five years ago when the Boys founded a charity auction of heirloom vegetables on the floor of Sotheby's -- The Art of Farming, they dubbed it.
Dinner included dishes made with several local ingredients -- roasted chicken, corn and tomato salad, pork tenderloin, grits, cornbread and blueberry cobbler.
High Profile on 08/03/2014