SPAC is griddle hot! Yaddo, wide open.
Hochul touts new affordable housing initiative.
Welcome to the Daily Dispatch, the future of Spa City news straight to your inbox.
In this edition:
Top: SPAC is hot, like physically hot.
Mid: New NYS affordable housing program
Bottom: Yaddo, wide open
SPAC turns up the heat with a griddle-themed BBQ night
In the forecast for Oct.7: an unusually warm fall evening and a new spin on grilling from a barbecue master.
This exciting Positively Saratoga news is brought to you by our friends at Saratoga County Chamber of Commerce.
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CulinaryArts@SPAC is heating things up on what is already expected to be an unusually warm fall evening. The BBQ — 6 p.m.-9 p.m. on Tuesday, October 7 — is being held in honor of Steven Raichlen and his hot new cookbook, Project Griddle: The Versatile Art of Grilling on a Flattop.
“The griddle is the hottest-selling backyard gadget, gizmo or piece of equipment you can buy right now,” says Culinary Consultant Pam Abrams, one of the event’s producers. “Steven Raichlen, who’s sort of a barbecue master, has helped popularize it, and written a great book that not only has wonderful recipes in it, but really teaches you a technique that you probably aren’t familiar with.”
With last week’s downpours a thing of the past, SPAC plans to make the most of the clear skies currently expected the night of the party. “We’re going to have our cocktail hour outside at the Julie Bonacio Family Pavilion, where we’ll also be setting up the outdoor kitchen to cook right off the griddle,” Abrams says. “People can watch, and bars will be set up down there.”
After their aperitifs al fresco, guests will head upstairs into The Pines for dinner.
“We always set up a communal dining room, usually round tables for 10 people to sit, first-come, first-serve,” Abrams says. “One of the nice things about this program is that it’s a chance for people in the community to meet each other and not just come with friends. Unlike at a restaurant, it’s a little bit more of a communal gathering experience where we encourage people to talk to each other — and do it over a meal.”
WAMC’s Joe Donahue will lead a lively post-dinner discussion (“he’s a master interviewer,” Abrams says) with Raichlen — for an upcoming broadcast — followed by dessert and book signing in the lobby.
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The event marks the first for Saratoga Reading Rooms’ executive chef, Kevin London, since he became SPAC’s newest Culinary Consultant and took on the task of bringing a book like Project Griddle to life — turning recipes meant for a family into an elaborate, SPAC-worthy soirée. Abrams, meanwhile, is on hand for the crucial task of scouting out each party’s theme.
“I’m always looking for trends, something new — whether it’s a culture or an ingredient or a particular cuisine,” she says. “Then I find somebody who has taken a deep dive into the subject, and written about it or cooked it or built a restaurant around it. We bring that expert up as our guest and then let the food speak for itself.
Food people are some of the most creative people I know, and I’m grateful to SPAC for providing a stage for them to perform.”
For more information and to buy tickets, visit spac.org.
Keep reading about fun things to do this fall!
Color tracking peak foliage: where to travel when
All aboard… if you dare: Ghosts Trolley Tour rolls back into town
New Book Festival party taps into fall’s buzziest new aesthetic
Bela Fleck and Ruth Reichl are 2 of the Book Fest’s hottest tickets (literally)
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Governor touts new housing choice
New York State Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, announced the launch of “MOVE-IN NY,” an affordable homeownership program she championed, which was piloted with the creation of three new starter homes in the cities of Schenectady and Syracuse, and in the Town of Newcomb. The program is now expanding statewide to build up to 200 additional starter homes, a press release from the governor’s office said at the end of September.
The pilot program in the first three communities was a collaboration between New York State Homes and Community Renewal, and Champion Homes, a manufactured housing company based in the town of Sangerfield in Oneida County. The three-bedroom, two-bathroom, 1,500-square-foot homes, which include a porch and a garage, were manufactured in a factory and then installed on vacant land owned by local land banks.
The homes took six months to complete and cost approximately $250,000 to build and install — which is up to three times faster and nearly half the cost of comparably sized homes built using traditional construction methods. The homes will be sold for less than the cost of construction to low and moderate income homebuyers.
“With the cooperation of our local partners in urban, rural, and suburban areas of the state, the MOVE-IN program will help address the rising cost of housing and enable more New Yorkers to afford a home of their own and achieve the dream of homeownership,” Hochul said in a statement.
Keep reading about housing in Saratoga Springs:
RISE’s Finley Street project jumps a couple hurdles
First interview: Habitat for Humanity’s new ED, Sharon Horton
Yaddo opens up — briefly — to more than 1,000 awestruck visitors
The storied artist retreat’s first Open House in years offers a rare peek inside its mansion, a place usually reserved for creative greats.
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SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY — As the post-rain sunshine heated up on Saturday, hundreds of people — about 1,200 in total — lined up outside of the historic Yaddo mansion on Union Avenue to attend its first open house in three years. The generous and rare opportunity included a peek inside not only the mythic mansion, but several other buildings on the grounds as well.
It took an army of 150 volunteers to keep the open house running like a well-oiled machine, from the first tour at 8:30 a.m. through the last one at 4:30 p.m. Guests were guided and directed from room to room on the first and second floors inside the mansion, before heading out to the West house — where Katrina Trask lived after husband Spencer Trask’s death — and then to see the newly completed Saratoga Studio, a live-work space on the north side of the property. Each tour ran about two and a half hours.
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“I have visited the Yaddo grounds on numerous occasions, but I have never been able to explore inside the building,” says consulting winemaker Barbara Frank, who attended the Open House with a friend after originally being put on a waiting list. “The Tiffany windows were spectacular, and the beauty of the architecture was wonderful to witness.”
The Trasks founded the Corporation of Yaddo in 1900 with the idea of artists having a private retreat in which to create with “uninterrupted time and space.” That unwavering seclusion has created a formidable mystique over the years — as has the tragic story of the couple themselves. (All four of their children died young, for starters.) Saturday’s tours centered around the Trasks, with highlights including a look inside the couple’s bedrooms, the dining and music halls in the mansion, restored Victorian architecture, and Tiffany & Co.-stained glass windows and mosaics.
“We are so lucky to have Yaddo in Saratoga,” Frank says. “It is a great example of overcoming tragedy to create something truly exceptional. One of the docents said that rather than describe all of the artists who created the art in a particular space, he preferred to highlight that there is no other space in the world where there has been such an amazing concentration of artists over an extended period of time.”
“Yaddo has always been dedicated to the idea that artists need time, space and freedom to create work that resonates far beyond these grounds,” said Elaina Richardson, President of Yaddo, in a statement before the big event. “It is a joy to welcome our neighbors and supporters into the mansion, to share not only its beauty and history but also the sense of community that sustains the artists who come here.”
More than 7,500 artists — including Truman Capote, Sylvia Plath, David Foster Wallace, John Cheever and Leonard Bernstein — at all stages in their careers have revolved through Yaddo, spending between two weeks and two months at a time there working on their personal disciplines.
Proceeds from the weekend, including the sold-out VIP preview tour and reception on Friday evening, will directly support Yaddo residencies for writers, visual artists, composers, filmmakers and performance artists from around the world.
Keep reading about Yaddo!
For the first and only time this year, Yaddo swings open its gates
