Fable dinners are überlocal—“If we do not raise the food served at Fable, it is sourced from less than 20 miles away,” says Denise. There is one exception: The unsalted butter from Evan’s Farmhouse Creamery in Norwich, west of Oneonta—something so creamy and delicious, it requires two slices of bread to fully appreciate it. Every Saturday Denise bakes the no-knead bread based on a venerable New York Times recipe. Fable entrees are always meat culled from animals on their farm so fish is not an option. For 2010, Denise added rabbit to the menu after she began working with New Zealand and California rabbits this year. “For homesteaders or back-to-the-land people, they are the easiest animal to raise,” says Denise. On busy nights, young ladies from local families help serve but usually the Warrens’ daughter Katey helps out. Adirondack water is served and local and organic beer and wine is available.
The menu for July 3 is titled A Catskill Barbecue and features victory vegetable skewer appetizer, a main meal of country pulled pork, mountain sausages, and Catskill sauced chicken with sides of sunset potato slaw and Delaware slaw, followed by Shandaken strawberry pie with goat milk strawberry ice cream and lemon verbena biscotti.
The personal ethos of local community extends to the Warrens’ farmers market choices of Oneonta Farmers Market on Main Street, Pakatakan Farmers Market at the Round Barn on Route 30, and Callicoon Farmers Market in Sullivan County. Asked if they’ve ever sold at any of the New York City Greenmarkets, Tom answers, “We never entertained the New York City markets. We like doing our small local farmer’s markets. One hour and twenty minutes is the farthest away.” The Warrens—like celebrated Virginia farmer Joel Salatin, featured in Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma—do not ship products but ask that interested people contact them for a list of stores that distribute Stone and Thistle products. The recent farm revitalization with focus on local foods, made into a movement by author Pollan and Salatin, is perhaps threatening to lapse into a faddish trend, fueled by rising price points and fixation on boutique cuts of meat. The Warrens, like numerous other farmers, have been quietly farming for a decade in the way that Pollan and Salatin have made famous during the past three years.
Fable/Stone and Thistle Farm is not nationally known, but it is certainly recognized in the Catskills by the Watershed Agricultural Council-funded Pure Catskills and the grassroots organization Farm Catskills. In 2004 the Warrens were selected to be part of the Catskill delegation to Terra Madre—Slow Food’s yearly international meeting of food communities. In 2005, Stone and Thistle Farm was awarded a $27,500 Value Added Producers Grant from the United States Department of Agriculture to process and market grass-fed and certified-organic goat milk yogurt.
Meat products from animals raised on pasture in small batches is more expensive than industrial counterparts, something the Warrens are keenly aware of because “we are asking people to rethink food—to eat consciously—which means paying more,” says Denise. Selling directly to the consumer helps keep their price point down. The Warrens do supply products to Marlowe and Daughters butchers in Brooklyn, but adding the middleman raises prices higher. Tom refers to the recent Times article about boutique meats—some producers are asking $8 per pound for ground beef. Stone and Thistle charges $4.95 per pound for ground beef. To facilitate direct consumer relationships, Stone and Thistle has a farm store open seven days from 9am to 6pm, just steps from Fable. On Saturday nights, the store is open to departing guests to stock larders with frozen retail cuts of pig, cow, lamb, goat, and chicken, Kortright Creek Creamery goats’ milk, and goats milk yogurt and goat milk fudge with or without walnuts.