{"id":59114,"date":"2016-12-05T18:00:19","date_gmt":"2016-12-05T23:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/upstater.com\/?p=1903"},"modified":"2017-01-04T15:07:40","modified_gmt":"2017-01-04T20:07:40","slug":"global-palate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/upstater.com\/global-palate\/","title":{"rendered":"Global Palate"},"content":{"rendered":"\"dsc_0897-1\"\n

Nirmala Narine knows how to wield a machete. It\u2019s just one of the many tools mastered by the South American-born founder of Nirmala\u2019s Kitchen<\/a>\u2014a company dedicated to the art of \u201cfusing cultures through food.\u201d For the past 13 years, Narine has trekked to the furthest reaches of the planet\u2014climbed the highest trees, hacked through the densest forests, and sailed to the remotest islands\u2014in her quest to bring the world\u2019s vast array of spices to foodies everywhere. With her TV show Nirmala\u2019s Spice World <\/i>and her many travelogue-cookbooks, Narine explains exactly what to do with those spices: how to store them (in tins, never plastic or glass) and how a particular spice can be used for skin care or healing. She shows how adding a bit of the exotic\u2014Indonesian white pepper<\/a> or Australian wattleseed, for instance\u2014to seasonal produce gleaned from the farmers\u2019 market, or even one\u2019s own backyard, can transform local ingredients into dishes that are truly out of this world.<\/p>\n

Narine does all of this from her 15-acre farm and agroecology center in Highland. The property, once the grounds of the Wishing Well Ranch, includes fields and gardens, a 12,000-square-foot Dutch barn with horse stables, a 5,000-square-foot farmhouse and many outbuildings; all creatively \u201creincarnated\u201d into the base of operations for a multipronged, thriving local business with global flair. Although her company now reaches around the world, connecting small farmers to diplomats and ancient traditions to modern kitchens, its roots go deep, and are much more humble.<\/p>\n

Cloves and Chili Peppers <\/b><\/p>\n

\u201cAll my life I feel I\u2019ve been transported by spices,\u201d Narine says. Her farmhouse kitchen\u2014the heart of her operation\u2014is pristine (in fact, the name Nirmala means \u201cpure\u201d) and very well equipped. There are two sinks, two cooktops, a double-wide refrigerator with French doors, abundant white marble countertops, and seemingly every cooking utensil that\u2019s ever been invented, from the primitive to the cutting edge. Narine\u2019s culinary skills and Ayurvedic training, however, began much more simply.<\/p>\n

\u201cGrowing up in Guyana, cooking was all about survival,\u201d she says. With no running water or electricity, she learned to read and write, and cook, by oil lamp. Narine helped her mother, a rice farmer, prepare meals over an open fire using their hands and the one, very versatile, utensil they did have: a machete. \u201cMy father was a sugar cane cutter and all his old machetes became our kitchen tools\u2014we killed chickens with them, we cut wood with them, we cut papayas and cleaned fish\u2014that was the tool for us,\u201d she says. \u201cThat\u2019s why I\u2019m on TV with a machete all the time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Narine\u2019s family, who are of Indian descent, lived in a small village at the edge of the Amazon. Her grandfather, a Hindu pundit and scholar who always kept cloves in his front pocket, lived with them. From a very young age, Narine watched and listened as her grandfather utilized his traditional Ayurvedic training to create healing poultices and remedies out of ingredients culled from the surrounding jungle. Villagers came from all over the region to be treated for a wide range of health issues. Narine was his assistant, grinding spices and blending them exactly as he instructed, always tasting what she mixed. \u201cAs a kid I put everything in my mouth\u2014I tried everything from ancient Indian spices to the barks and leaves brought to us by the neighboring Arawaks,\u201d says Narine, referring to the indigenous people of Guyana.<\/p>\n

Her business acumen, and her tendency to roam, were also evident at an early age. In her community, seeds were saved and harvested from one year to the next. \u201cThere was nothing like Lowe\u2019s or Home Depot,\u201d she explains. The desire to help buy shoes for her younger brother pushed Narine into entrepreneurship. She cultivated a patch of habanero peppers for seed, dried her harvest, and then packaged the seeds in lotus leaves, tied with banana sucker strings. \u201cI was determined to sell,\u201d she remembers. Narine turned traveling salesgirl and began selling the packets to her neighbors and then the neighboring villages, and then the villages beyond that. Even though they would take years to emerge, the seeds of a savvy entrepreneur with a thriving global business were sown.<\/p>\n

A Global, Local Farm<\/b><\/p>\n

When she was 10, Narine\u2019s family moved to New York City. A career in marketing sent her on business trips all over the world, but the farther she went, the closer she came to her roots. Wherever Narine traveled she was drawn to local farms and spice plantations, learning new cultivation techniques and tasting flavors unique to the regions she visited. One day, she visited a clove plantation. She climbed a tree and was chewing cloves when the scent reminded her of her grandfather and his front pocket. \u201cThe aroma opened up a whole new chapter in my life,\u201d she explains. She realized there was a bigger calling for her.<\/p>\n

Narine returned to some of the local farmers she\u2019d befriended and began buying their spices and then packaging them for small markets and cultural events. Nirmala\u2019s Kitchen grew from those first sales through specialty food stores and spread into markets on six continents. With that success came two books and her television show for the Z Living Network, Nirmala\u2019s Spice World<\/i>, now in its fifth season. Along the way she\u2019s traveled to 167 countries, been bitten by a cottonmouth snake (\u201ca lifetime of yogic breathing saved me,\u201d she says), tasted monkey (no, it didn\u2019t taste like chicken, more like lean pork), and collected stories, recipes, and culinary traditions from almost everyone she\u2019s met along the way.<\/p>\n

She purchased the farm in Highland eight years ago. Narine had been living in New York City but she missed farm life. She wanted a more permanent base for her network of \u201cglobal, local farmers.\u201d Narine was attracted to the abundance of local produce in the Hudson Valley\u2014the apples, peaches, and Malabar spinach, among other things\u2014and loved its scenic beauty. It was the first\u2014and only\u2014property she looked at in the area. The original farmhouse had been renovated by its former owners to include a two-story living room and kitchen. Large windows overlooked the surrounding pasture and four bedrooms provided ample space. She knew she had found the center for her global operation.<\/p>\n

The Soul of Cuisine <\/b><\/p>\n

Over the ensuing years, the farm has evolved to accommodate Narine\u2019s growing vision. Its grounds now produce some of the local ingredients\u2014honey, lavender, and blueberries\u2014that go into Narine\u2019s beauty products, chutneys, and jams. Goats roam the former horse paddocks (she makes soap from their milk) and she grows lotus flowers in the pond. The former tack house has recently been transformed into her newest venture: a spice shop, designed to provide local access to her international, holistic products.<\/p>\n

The farm supplies the ingredients for her operation, but her kitchen still provides the spice. It\u2019s where she tinkers with new recipes and leads classes for Nirmala\u2019s Kitchen Cooking School. It\u2019s also where she prepares her Spice Suppers\u2014intimate tasting feasts served to international diplomats and local dignitaries. There is no set menu; the meals she prepares are created from the spices of her guest\u2019s homeland and seasonal, local produce. Regardless of the ingredients, the suppers always have the same result: \u201cWhen you bring people together around a dinner table they talk about food, they talk about culture, there\u2019s nothing to fight about,\u201d Narine says. \u201cSpices are the soul of every cuisine.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Nirmala Narine knows how to wield a machete. It\u2019s just one of the many tools mastered by the South American-born founder of Nirmala\u2019s Kitchen\u2014a company dedicated to the art of \u201cfusing cultures through food.\u201d For the past 13 years, Narine has trekked to the furthest reaches of the planet\u2014climbed the highest trees, hacked through the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":278,"featured_media":1735,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1060],"tags":[1582,1706,1707,1708,1701,1709,1710],"yoast_head":"\nGlobal Palate - Upstater<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/upstater.com\/global-palate\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Global Palate - Upstater\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Nirmala Narine knows how to wield a machete. 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