On Thursdays, ex-Brooklynite Suko brings you insider tips from her corner of upstate: the town of Northeast and its environs, in Dutchess County. Today: hiking, and dining, in Pine Plains.

Pine Plains Platter

Taking advantage of this snowless, warm winter, I recently went for a hike in Pine Plains. The Nature Conservancy has great hikes at the Thompson Pond Preserve, a flat, roughly four-mile loop and a steep 1.25-mile hike to the top of Stissing Mountain, where you can also climb the fire tower and have a 360-degree view of the valley below.

After the hike I was surprised to find the local café has undergone new ownership and has a new name. No longer the Mountain Cow, The Pine Plains Platter (2987 Church Street, Pine Plains, 518-398-0500) is familiar yet a little different. Flooded with sunshine on a brisk Sunday afternoon, it’s an exceptionally pleasant place for lunch and conversation.

Partnered with the folks at Black Sheep Hill farm, the meats and dairy are locally sourced. A breakfast burrito with crispy home fries goes for under $6, and they have a selection of sides to stay or for take out. I admit to being a bit neurotic about my locavore and meat-eating habits. I’m about 80-90% vegetarian for environmental, ethical and health reasons, and generally only eat meat from farmers I know, so it’s wonderful to have affordable, tasty options in a local cafe.

Hudson Valley agriculture is still a long way from regional food sovereignty, so I understand the global seasonality of my veggie side dish, buttery brussels sprouts, cauliflower and asparagus. If it’s coming from California and Mexico, does the seasonality matter? But as a gardener/farmer who rarely cooks out of season or HV farms, I have to note the mix.

Asparagus is a perennial plant that only makes sense to cultivate outdoors. Its season is short, three to four weeks, and falls in May. I’ve heard of farmers in the area getting a jump on the season as result of heating the soil with a flame weeder, but it’s one of those foods that is abundant when available, and that’s it.

Brussels sprouts take 120 days to reach maturity, so if they’ve made it though all the challenges of the growing season, drought, flooding, hail, deer, you can be lucky and harvest well past the first hard frost and maybe into the solstice. Cauliflower could easily pair with brussels sprouts. It prefers the cooler weather, so you can usually get an early summer and then again a late fall crop.

I’m pretty sure this Pine Plains/Millbrook colonial is the most expensive house we’ve ever written up, out of reach of probably all of our readers. But of all the listings that popped up under Pine Plains, this one looked most like the dream, albeit the super WASP-y, horse farm, upper crust dream. Five beds, three-and-a-half baths, over 300 acres, great views, kitchen to die for. Price tag: $9,995,000. No problem, right? I’ve got it right here under my mattress!

Route 82 is a main drag out of town, but the times I’ve been down it, it hasn’t been that busy. So if you’re looking for a spot within the village of Pine Plains, and some rental income, this Pine Plains Greek revival is worth a look. You’ll have to look hard, though — a scarcity of photos are available for your perusal. The place is currently used as a three-family, but convertible back to one, and it comes with a membership to the town beach! Stats on the jump.

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Unsolicited real estate tip: take your exterior photos at twilight with the lights on. Doesn’t that make this Gallatin farmhouse look so inviting? And take the interior photos when sunlight is streaming in, as they’ve done here. You can tell this is one of those places that’s been added on to bit by bit since it was built in 1840. At this point, it has four beds, one-and-a-half baths, more than 2,700 square feet, nice views. And over two-and-a-half acres. Feels like a good deal, though I wonder if it feels rambling inside, the way many of these places that started off tiny and grew gradually often do. Has a couple of outbuildings, always a plus in my book. Perhaps guests could stay in the electrified garden shed? Stats on the jump.

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Does it help to name a house? Some would think so, and certainly calling this Pine Plains farmhouse Mulberry Cottage adds to its charm and distracts a bit from its address, right smack on Route 82 (admittedly a smaller road than nearby 22, so not by any means a deal breaker). The description really undersells it (or else they’re preparing you for disappointment). They call it a “small place in the country with potential for expansion and in good condition,” but it has four bedrooms, over 2,500 square feet and a pool. Taxes are a little more than $500/month. It’s about a three-minute drive or 20-minute walk to town, close to Stissing Pond. Personally, I’d paint over that wood paneling, but some might find that charming, as well. Stats on the jump.

7548 Route 82, Pine Plains (H.W. GUERNSEY REALTORS INC.) GMAP
Asking Price: $395,000
Beds: 4
Baths: 2
Square Feet: 2.528
Year Built: 1930
Taxes: $6,854
Features: Pool, security system, fireplace

Does it help to name a house? Some would think so, and certainly calling this Pine Plains farmhouse Mulberry Cottage adds to its charm and distracts a bit from its address, right smack on Route 82 (admittedly a smaller road than nearby 22, so not by any means a deal breaker). The description really undersells it (or else they’re preparing you for disappointment). They call it a “small place in the country with potential for expansion and in good condition,” but it has four bedrooms, over 2,500 square feet and a pool. Taxes are a little more than $500/month. It’s about a three-minute drive or 20-minute walk to town, close to Stissing Pond. Personally, I’d paint over that wood paneling, but some might find that charming, as well. Stats on the jump.

7548 Route 82, Pine Plains (H.W. GUERNSEY REALTORS INC.) GMAP
Asking Price: $395,000
Beds: 4
Baths: 2
Square Feet: 2.528
Year Built: 1930
Taxes: $6,854
Features: Pool, security system, fireplace

Someone recently lodged a complaint that we don’t cover real estate east of the Taconic. We object! In fact, we took a long drive down Route 22 the other day, all the way from the Berkshires until we hit the Hutch, and we can tell you there are lots of interesting outposts on the way. Let’s start with Pine Plains, because, as it happens, there’s an actual town there, with a main street that we wouldn’t exactly categorize as bustling, but you can certainly get your groceries there and some other amenities, too. Definite curb appeal, non-snobby, very sweet, and a good lamp store, too.

So, transportation: 30 minutes or less from the Wassaic Metro-North station, and about the same from the Amtrak station at Rhinecliff. I consider that a nice bonus. Pine Plains’ population is somewhere around 2,500. According to a 2003 article from the NY Times, Pine Plains is horse country, but also has a nice lake, the only stoplight for miles, and the lovely views from Stissing Mountain. The town isn’t in the mountains, but I could spy nice mountain views from certain spots. I didn’t visit it myself, but apparently Pine Plains also has one really fine locavore restaurant, Agritourismo.

There are five hamlets within the town of Pine Plains, and we’ll take a look at those as well. The real estate snapshot as of this writing is pretty interesting: there are 18 houses on the market between $100K and $200K, and 17 over $800K — must be some horse farms in the mix, which we’ll save for Friday real estate porn.

I love Susan Orlean so much I can’t even be jealous of her bucolic-literati lifestyle. She seems so above trendiness that reading about her Columbia County home in the New York Times made me even prouder to be a part-time Upstater. I get the sense that she’s not a follower of fashion, just a person of good taste.

The article is in promotion of Orlean’s new book, “Animalish,” which is a fine excuse for all of us to salivate over her petting zoo. Her 55 acre property is home to “one dog, three cats, eight chickens, four turkeys, six guinea fowl, one fish and two snow-white ducks.”

If you had the space, what sort of farm animals would you adopt?