Fall Weekend of Color, Texture and, Wine

Color, Texture, Food and, Wine

This past weekend I ventured up to Millbrook, NY by way of the beautiful and never ending up and down all around the hills, route 22. I love going on adventures, it inspires me and my interior design world seeing colors, texture, and combinations, which then I translate into client’s interiors. This event in Millbrook was put on by Orvis- Outdoors at the Sandandona Shooting Grounds. It is the oldest place for controlled hunting in the United States. I love the outdoors so I thought this might be a fun event. First thing I tried was shooting clay pigeons. How exhilarating (and I don’t even like guns) to hit the target dead on not just once, but twice! I quit while I was ahead. The next stop was the dog training tent. People brought their “fine bred dogs” and I had my good ole mutt……but beautiful mutt…Willy. On to the dog training. Wow these dogs would sit, stay, heal and, go when suppose to and, would stop on a dime mid stride on their way to get to the “bird” if their trainer blew a whistle. Pretty impressive. Oh well Willy…you’ll never be a hunting dog but you really know how to herd a soccer ball! He’s part Australian cattle dog.



Future hunting Dogs

Next on our agenda was to eat. I love food!  I had Chicken Jambalaya…sorry didn’t take a photo I ate it so fast, but, it sure hit the spot with the little spiciness and a beautiful color mixture of yellow rice and red peppers. With our bellies full we moved over to the game cooking tent. Chef Phil Crispo put on a wonderful presentation of how to cook game such as venison and pheasant. The food was incredible! I was so impressed with him and, along with his great sense of humor, he sure had my attention. He went into detail of a new style of cooking called sous-vide,however, I believe it has been around for awhile it just resurfaced. Sous-vide is French for under vacuum. Food is put in air tight plastic bags and allowed to sit in water temperature of approximately 145degrees, higher for vegetables. This allows the meat or veggies to cook and, the food will never over cook, it just rises to the water temperature and stops. Amazing….I never heard of it. It’s great for entertaining because the slices of meat can sit in the water till when you’re ready and then, sear them up in frying pan to give  a nice crust just before serving.

Enough of food….its making me hungry. The bird falconer was next. These birds are absolutely amazing how they can hunt down a small rabbit and bring it back to their owner for dinner. Wish I had one of those when I don’t have the time to go grocery shopping. No, never mind then I’d have “de-fur” it……yuck!

Lastly we moseyed over to the tents of jewelry, clothing, guns, boots, beer and wine to purchase. The wines were great, and a nice representation of the Millbrook area. The clothing was all beautiful plaid wools, yummy leather vests and, gorgeous tall leather boots. Anyone have a hunting lodge that needs an interior designer? I’m ready! We headed home and, I took a nice little snooze after wine tasting on the way down the windy road of route 22 dreaming of all the beautiful colors and textures that I had encountered and how I am going to bring them forth into client’s homes. Life is good.



Wine tasting



Home….The Most Important place in the World

Terri Reilly ASID allied-TR Design