Hit the road and end this summer with these great food destinations in mind! ALEX’S BAR & GRILLE I have been enjoying Alex’s Bar and Grille in North White Plains for more than a decade. Proprietor Alex Ahmetaj has matured this restaurant beautifully. You can sit in the warm dining room with its cozy nooks and crannies or take a seat in the bustling bar/lounge. The classic Italian American fare coming out of Chef Nick Demaj kitchen are hearty and pleasing. Check out the Oyster

She calls the business Flotsam, a maritime term for what floats to the surface after a shipwreck. The things left behind that still have somewhere to go. It is a fitting name for a studio built entirely on wood that someone else gave up on. Amy spent a decade at sea, most recently as a mate for the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Living in Boston between voyages, she kept noticing furniture put out on the streets for trash pickup.

Let's start by talking about the unique venues that the CIA has to offer. First, Anton Plaza, which sits in front of Roth Hall, a broad stone terrace perched above the tree line, where the ground falls away to reveal the Hudson River, the mountains, and the grand estates dotting the far shore. A long white pergola runs along one side of the plaza, a colonnade style structure with climbing greenery draped over its open lattice roof, and a gazebo anchors the overlook at the pla

I walked into the Newburgh Food Show at Adams last month, I wasn't just there as a journalist. I was there as my mother's daughter, taking in the whole experience and looking for something new. The food show itself was built for grazing. Vendors set up across the store to sample everything from small-batch pickles to fresh mozzarella, and the energy in the room made it clear these are people who love talking about what they make. Here's who I met.

If you have ever needed a reason to break out of the mid-week slump, Great Life Brewing in West Park has one for you. Actually, they have several: wood-fired pizza, an oversized Chicken Parmies, cold pints, and an open mic that welcomes musicians, poets, comedians, and anyone else brave enough to grab the microphone. Wednesday nights launched this June, and already they are giving people something to look forward to in the middle of the week.

When I visited, that philosophy was visible in the simplest way: a mountain of ground mushroom compost alive with worms, insects, and pollinators, a living ecosystem with nothing artificial pushing it along. Sixteen acres stretch from the farmhouse down to the river. A geodesic dome keeps beets, kale, Swiss chard, and herbs growing year-round. Lemon trees thrive there too, over a hundred lemons last year, along with figs and even bananas.