New Canaan's downtown becomes a giant art gallery

BY JUSTIN MCGOWN jmcgown@westfairinc.com

Storefronts in New Canaan will become even more stylish during the summer thanks to the efforts of the Carriage Barn Fine Arts Center, the New Canaan Chamber of Commerce and almost 75 artists as shops, restaurants, and businesses throughout the town will display paintings, etchings, photos, and sculptures in their front windows until June 24.

“For 15 years we’ve been doing this exhibit, but it’s really evolved and grown,” said Hilary Wittmann, the executive director of the Carriage Barn Arts Center. “This year we have about 70 businesses that are part of it, and about 15 pieces of art in windows throughout town.”

Wittmann highlighted the diversity of art and businesses involved.

“It’s really the businesses that have storefronts and windows that lend themselves to something like this, so the art is everywhere you go,” Wittman continued. “The boutiques and clothing stores, and the home goods stores to everything like the Dunkin Donuts right here and the real estate offices participate. Merrill Lynch is our presenting sponsor and their offices on Pine Street probably have 10 or 15 pieces of art in all their windows. Almost everyone gets involved. For us this a great way to have presence and awareness downtown. A lot of people discover the Carriage Barn through the Art in the Windows exhibit each year and then they get involved with other things that we do in the gallery.”

The art in the windows is all for sale and can be purchased by scanning an accompanying QR code. Prices range from $100 to several thousand dollars, depending on the relative profile of the artist.

In addition, a section of South Avenue between Elm Street and Morse Court will be periodically blocked off throughout the exhibit. A booth for the Carriage Barn will offer arts and crafts for children while artists will be able to set up tables and sell additional works.

Ashley McNeal, a New Canaan resident and artist was among those who set up a booth to sell their creations during the launch event on June 3.

“It’s an honor to be involved in the New Canaan community,” McNeal said.

“It’s fun it’s engaging, it’s exciting.”

McNeal is a self-taught artist who has lived in New Canaan for five years. She specializes in paintings on wine bottles and shares her methods in classes. While most of her work is on canvas, she said she was attracted to bottles because they provided a smaller scale format to work in, and her piece in this year’s event was also painted on a bottle.

Stephen Dori Shin, co-owner of the Adirondack Store & Gallery on Elm Street, was pleased with the paintings placed in their storefront. A pair of equestrian paintings by the Argentina-born artist Dolores Aldecoa, each valued at $4,000, fit perfectly with the store’s mix of upscale and antique offerings according to Shin.

“Our profile is very rustic,” Shin explained. “So, we’re looking at anything to do with a sort of luxury lake house or a lodge, everything in here sort of has that feeling. We’re very lucky because Dolores Aldecoa’s art fits in so perfect.

Everything else in that window is Black Forest antiques, so it’s all wood and carved antlers, and one of her paintings is a hunting scene. We couldn’t believe how perfectly it fit in with the theme of our store.”

Boudica Matik, the manager of the Adirondack Store’s New Canaan location, noted that the success of the event can also be partially attributed to it being a collaborative process.

“They show us the brochure showing us which pieces are theirs and what they feel strongly about,” Matik said. “They want us to know what their art is, so artists love this event as well because they’re connecting to individuals who might not have seen their work before this week.”

“All these events are really appreciated by the businesspeople,” Shin added. “It does bring people to town. The restaurants, and the stores, the town really supports brick and mortar which is really refreshing.”

BY BILL HELTZEL Bheltzel@westfairinc.com

ADutchess horse farm is not a horse farm, a judge has ruled, when it comes to Chapter 12 bankruptcy.

On May 24, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Cecelia G. Morris granted a request to dismiss a Chapter 12 petition filed by Barbara Giordano Leonaggeo, the operator of Juggernaut Farms in Stanfordville.

Leonaggeo and her husband, Roger, have been operating a horse farm on the 24.1-acre property for 50 years, according to her affidavit. They breed, train, appraise, and board horses and offer riding instructions.

Leonaggeo petitioned for Chapter 12 protection in February and declared

$1,260,403 in assets and $214,092 in liabilities.

Chapter 12 bankruptcy is a streamlined process that is less expensive and less complicated than the traditional Chapter 11 reorganization and is tailored specifically for family farmers and family fishermen.

Two creditors challenged the bankruptcy. M-M2 RE Holdings 1 and M-M2 RE Holdings 13, of Salt Point, claim they are owed $258,645 secured by the homestead and the stable area.

The creditors, who had filed a foreclosure action in Dutchess Supreme Court, argued that Leonaggeo is exploiting Chapter 12 for the automatic bankruptcy stay that suspends lawsuits and other efforts to collect debts.

They claimed she has not operated a farm for at least three years because she has not bred any horses in that time, the boarding income is negligible, and she has no plans to harvest her cedar trees.

They also claimed she has inflated the value of her properties.

To qualify as a family farm under Chapter 12, Judge Morris ruled, the farm must produce regular income and include activities such as farming, dairy farming, ranching, tillage of soil, raising crops and producing poultry or livestock.

Courts also consider whether a debtor bears the inherent risks of farming, such as cyclical weather.

Some courts have treated horse breeding, boarding and training as service-oriented businesses that do not produce agricultural goods for consumption and are only marginally affected by the uncontrollable conditions traditional farmers face.

Other courts have ruled that the horse business does involve farming risks, Morris said, but in those cases the farms also grew feed and raised horses to maturity to sell as livestock.

Here, Judge Morris found, Leonaggeo does not produce crops or livestock and is “largely providing a service.”

The judge also noted that Leonaggeo’s plan to pay creditors relies on a speculative sale of the stable area.

“Where the value of the property to be sold is heavily debated and unsubstantiated,” she said, “it would be hard for this court to find the probability of payment to be reasonable.”

Leonaggeo is represented by Rochester attorney David H. Ealy. The M-M2 creditors are represented by Wappingers Falls attorney Mary K. Ephraim.

BY JEREMY WAYNE

“You think you’ve tried it all?” asks affable Ghanaian-born chef Lawrence Ofori at his new restaurant in Peekskill. The question is of course rhetorical, as Ofori, a finalist on the 36th season of the Food Network’s “Chopped” series, makes clear by deed as much as by word at Ofori’s World Cuisine in Peekskill. There, inspired by his grand mother’s cooking, he unashamedly plun ders the world’s larders to bring exciting new tastes to the table. While many of his dishes are – at least to Peekskill palates –unfamiliar, even exotic, his watchwords nev ertheless are “simple, fresh and flavorful.”

The concept of global cuisine is rein forced on the restaurant’s rather charming logo, a world map that on closer inspection is a miniature collage of vegetables.

Alongside staples like Caesar salad, chicken Parmigiana and a solid burger –you might call this the American section of the global menu – sit snacks and lighter bites like guacamole, tacos and tortillas. They are fine and more than dandy – as is a gimmicky-sounding, but actually deli cious, coconut-crusted shrimp in piña colada sauce.

The experience for making these quick and easy crowd-pleasers was garnered no doubt from the food truck Ofori ran in Jefferson Valley before hitting the big time, so to speak, with a real, full- size restaurant kitchen of his own. (He saw the “For Rent” sign outside what was to become Ofori’s, as he walked to church in Peekskill one Sunday morning and knew that was where the future lay.) It was something he could only have dreamed of when he came to this country in 2008 and took his first job as a work – just call me a “snobster.”) In the dish called Mama G Oxtail, a slow braised African stew, in which I detected a touch of curry powder or possibly berbere, the rich meat fell from the bone. And I loved Adabraka kenkey, a ball of ever so slightly funky-tasting, fermented white corn, served with a beautiful, fried red snapper along with more than a dash of hot sauce –Adabraka being a district of Accra, Ghana, from where I imagine the dish, or at least the recipe, originated.

As for a side of jollof rice, that West African staple consisting of long-grain rice cooked with vegetables, it had me right speaking, while chef-patron Ofori believes he knows his market better.

What chef Ofori does know is that man cannot live by kenkey or jollof alone, so along with all the culinary treats there’s also live, very loud entertainment some weeknights and on weekends, with the bar staying open until 3 a.m. on Friday and Saturday nights.

The bar, by the way, offers a good though not extensive range of premium spirits, as well as national and international beers and ales, served using the Bottoms Up draft beer system. If you haven’t yet seen Bottoms Up in action – spoiler alert, the beer is pulled from the bottom up – it is reason enough alone to visit.

Ofori’s World Cuisine also hosts private events and offers a catering service.

A great believer in diversity and bringing people together, chef Ofori sees his new enterprise as just that – somewhere where people of all backgrounds can meet over truly global cooking. Well, you can please all of the people some of the time and some of the people all of the time (to rework poet John Lydgate’s famous saying, as taken up by former President Abraham Lincoln,) and my sense is that this is what the restaurant is going to do. You also have to praise him – at the risk of making Ofori sound like a Bond villain – for his global ambition.

A hero rather than a villain, he’s a supernice guy and a great chef with an infectious joie de vivre to boot. Go give this unique restaurant a try.

For more, visit www.oforisrestaurants.com.