A Candlelit Meal at Stissing House

RECS #32: Our quick trip to the Catskills.

Dear friends,

Conor and I woke up on Sunday morning to cold air leaking through the thin walls of our airstream and the crunching of snow under footsteps outside. It was the last day of our very brief trip to the Catskills. The whole campground was blanketed in about four inches of powder, and part of me secretly hoped we wouldn’t be able to leave. I didn’t feel like I’d spent quite enough time in front of the fire or staring at the stars. The roads, however, were salted and cleared, so we packed our bags and drove back to the city. This was our third time at AutoCamp, and our fourth trip to the area. We celebrate our anniversary this upcoming weekend. I’ll save my most sentimental thoughts, but I’m grateful to have found a place that we can return to over and over again. Each time feeling better and sweeter than the last.

READING: My reading list over the past couple weeks has been sparse. I read a lot of disparate information about Trump and Musk and U.S.A.I.D and tariffs and confirmation hearings and the F.A.A. and D.E.I. and Gaza and A.I. and, most recently, bell bottoms. And, of course, I’ve been indulging in longer, more thoughtful pieces of analysis about our world—of the not-quite-distant past and the present. I also finished “The Spy Who Came in from the Cold,” which was thrilling and poignant in its insistence that there is no black and white or universal sense of morality. I’ve just also just begun Danzy Senna’s “Colored Television,” and I’m eager to be reading something about LA.

Warm, cozy vibes at Stissing House.

EATING: On Friday night, after spending the day meandering through Hudson, we checked into AutoCamp, I threw on my new Nikki Chasin sweater, and we hopped back in the car for our hour-long drive to Stissing House in Pine Plains. This restaurant had been on my wishlist for a while—alongside The Four Horsemen, I Sodi, Semma, and many others—mostly because of its wood-burning fireplaces and candlelit tables. And while yes, the meal wouldn’t have been the same without those things, the food, to my delight, surpassed the atmosphere. Our waiter brought Conor and I “anniversary bubbles” to begin, but we followed that up with a glass of red wine each. I ordered the steak and Conor, my dear pescatarian, ordered their pot-roasted winter vegetables. The former was tender and rich; the latter was earthy and cozy. We agreed, though, that our favorite part of the meal was the restaurant’s daily special: a green spaetzle smothered in a three cheese sauce. The little dumplings, made with parsley and dill, were chewy and meltable. We practically lapped up the creamy, salty sauce with our tongues. Other standouts from the weekend are the breakfast sandwiches we had at Kitty’s in Hudson, the pork belly-lettuce-and-tomato I had at Miss Lucy’s Kitchen in Saugerties, and the s’mores we ate after dinner each night. There are still so many spots in the Hudson Valley that I want to try, most of which are listed in this Google Map.

Breakfast sandwich from Kitty's, PLT from Miss Lucy's, and s'mores. Yum.

CONSUMING: We did, at last, watch “Emilia Pérez.” It is as incoherent and melodramatic as every Letterboxd review says, and it is more shallow than even I could’ve anticipated. It is a movie in which so many decisions are made and not a single one of them is adequately explained. I will say that it was a romp. We watched it on the tiny little TV in our airstream on Saturday night, a few glasses of wine deep and our bellies full with chocolate. The weekend before, we watched “The Substance,” which was a lot more fun and impressively gross. Both Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley were terrifying and physical and tragic. However, despite its message, I didn’t often feel like the film went any further than skin deep. Other highlights of the past couple weeks include Doechii’s performance at the Grammy’s (there is no video anywhere on Youtube, so her Tiny Desk Concert will have to suffice). “Denial Is a River” has wiggled its way into my brain and been on repeat ever since. Also, thanks to Lydia and Andrea, I’ve finally boarded the “Las Culturistas” bandwagon. Bowen and Matt, like all my favorite podcast hosts, are funny and lovable. Their chemistry with one another makes it so that it doesn’t matter what they’re saying, I just like hearing them say it.

Goodbye to a sweet, snowy weekend.

SAVORING: Without being too sentimental, I’m so grateful to have found someone who I not only enjoy traveling with, but who also complements me, and treats my neuroses with patience. There were, I’ll admit, at least a few tears shed one afternoon—a byproduct of my weeks-long, Trump-induced exhaustion. He did not judge or patronize. He listened. He hugged me. And then, we continued on hiking. By the time we got back to the car, I was laughing all over again.

Until next time,

Erin