Carsie Blanton in Concert: Creative Revolution         

Saturday, July 13 • 5 to 9 PM

An Intimate Summer House Concert Featuring
Acclaimed Singer/Songwriter & Activist Carsie Blanton
Celebrating the Birth of The Kirkside Virtual Food Hub

• Tickets: $55 for Local Summer Picnic and Concert
• Cash Bar Featuring Local Beers & Spirits
• Happily accepting donations for the Kirkside Virtual Food Hub

Only A Handful of Tickets Left! Tix on sale until 3 PM! 

A Reveling Rebellion

The word Spillian means to revel in Old English. It comes from the same root word as rebel and frivol…delightful reveling rebellion is in our blood. This summer, in the mountains that have birthed protest music that has changed the world, we’re offering a unique chance to rebel with piped piper extraordinaire, Carsie Blanton.

And in that spirit, we’d like to celebrate a small but important bit of rebellion fighting against the corporatization and globalization of the food industry: an emerging project to bring our Catskills farmers, restaurateurs, and hoteliers so we can all thrive. The Kirkside Virtual Food Hub will break the craziness of food going from Delaware County to NYC just to come back for sale, and build truly fresh, truly local food, its story and connections to our residents and visitors so we all can thrive. The Kirkside Virtual Food Hub is a brainchild of The MARK Project and its flagship effort to invent new ways to bring community and visitor resources together in learning and play at the Inn at Kirkside.

5 PM: Join us for a summery picnic featuring flavors from our local farms by our Chef Christian Van Etten, featured local beers and cocktails, and exciting news about the Virtual Food Hub.

7 PM: Carsie and her fab cat bass player will join us for a 7 PM show that will have you roaring to change the world.

The Menu!

• Greek Lemon Potato Salad with Mint (V | VG | GF)
• Smoked Pulled Pork Sliders on House-Made Parker House Rolls, Red Onion Jam, Kimchee & Arugula
• Zucchini Fritters with Smoked Trout, Corn Crema, Pickled Scallions (GF)
• Zucchini Fritters with Smoked Carrot, Corn Crema, Pickled Scallions (V | VG | GF)
• Sweet Sesame & Lime Cabbage Salad (V | VG | GF)
• Elote Charred Corn Salad (V | GF)
• Chef Christian’s Bruschetta Salad with House-Made Baguettes (V | VG | GF without baguettes!)
• Blackberry Corn Cobbler (V )

Featured Cocktail: The Trout Tale 
Local vodka, mint from our garden, seltzer, and a splash of local maple syrup.

The Music: Carsie Blanton

Carsie Blanton is a songwriter with hooks, chutzpah, and revolutionary optimism. “It is possible to face the world as it is – rapidly heating, ruled by grifters, ravaged by profitable wars – and still have hope,” she says of her newest release, After the Revolution, produced by Grammy-winner Tyler Chester. “Not the narrow, grasping hope you might hang on an election or a billionaire, but a patient, zoomed-out hope.” Inspired by artist-activists including Nina Simone and Woody Guthrie, her catalog careens through American popular song from folk and swing to pop-punk protest anthems.

With her unique mix of humor, craft, and social critique, Blanton has amassed a small menagerie of viral hits (Rich People, Shit List, Fishin’ With You) and a dedicated fan base. In addition to fifteen years on the road with her band, Blanton volunteers as a political organizer, and was recently published in The Nation. 

“Beautiful, militant anthems.” – Ken Tucker, NPR’s Fresh Air

“Carsie Blanton is fighting fascism with big hooks and an even bigger heart.” – American Songwriter

The Kirkside Virtual Food Hub

A next-gen vision for how our local farmers and our local restaurants can strengthen one another and the region. For over 150 years, the Catskills’ economy has been largely driven by independent small farmers and hoteliers. In this era of corporate food, it has become very (even at times absurdly) difficult for restaurants to get food from local farms onto their tables, despite best intentions and efforts. The Kirkside Virtual Food Hub will be a solution to this: bringing these communities together with a powerful set of digital and transportation tools that will build connections and resources, including:

• Develop forecasting tools for farmers to anticipate restaurant needs and plant to order rather than on spec, removing a layer of farming risk and building their resilience.
• Strengthen restaurateurs’ abilities to elegantly reflect the seasons and terroir of the Catskills in their menus and better understand and reflect the stories of this place and why local food matters.
• Cut the ‘grow in the Catskills, ship to NYC and ship back to the Catskills’ current distribution channels and provide direct transport of local foods to local tables in the moment at peak freshness.

This is an initiative of the Inn at Kirkside, a flagship effort by the regional community foundation, the MARK Project, transforming the historic Kirkside Estate into a hotel/restaurant with an integrated educational program that provides experiential learning to aspiring professionals in the hospitality and tourism industries, encourages and cultivates entrepreneurship, serves as a model of green technologies, and supports the local food producing system. You can check out the Virtual Food Hub visioning plan here!

Spillian is proud to be partnering with the Virtual Food Hub; we believe that it’s a seriously cool vision to strengthen the area, both economically and culturally, and build environmental and social equity for our local community.