Tortillaville: Why Don’t We Do It in the Road?
Most restaurant start-ups are a triumph of fuzzy-headed optimism over statistical evidence. Brian Branigan and Allison Culbertson have been down that road. Years ago in New York City, Allison founded Void, the first multi-media lounge (in addition to serving drinks, they showed art films and computer edited shorts). Brian became a partner a few years into the project, and they’ve been partners ever since. They’ve built their grandiose castles in the air. This time they just wanted to keep it simple.
Multi-faceted entrepeneurs, the couple already own a number of businesses. Allison has Olivia on Warren, a shop where she sells the jewelry she designs and makes, though she intends to give that up soon in favor of selling on-line, through a web-based enterprise she calls Ruth Beattie. (Allison, who was adopted, explains that she recently learned that Ruth Beattie was her birth name. “Like the beach glass I use in my jewelry, I’m giving the name a second life,” she says.) The couple are also partners in Hudson Design, a full-service graphics consultancy. “We live in Catskill, work in Hudson, and vacation in Athens,” Brian jokes.
Actually, they winter in the Florida Keys, and every year, as they make their way south on the endless, two-lane road that connects each of the islands in that archipelago, Allison listens to Brian’s hunger-fueled refrain: “Anyone with a fish taco stand along here would make a killing.”
Cut to one day last spring. As they were driving to Rhinebeck, they passed the corner of 9 and 9G, near the Kingston Bridge, and saw an apparently spotless stainless steel trailer/concession stand with a For Sale sign on it. They followed up and learned that the owner had had it made for his son, who, it turned out, had other plans. On a whim, they bought it, then one whim led to another. “On Mother’s Day, my nephew served fish tacos,” says Brian, “and instantly we knew what we were going to do.”
Tortillaville’s first address, where these pictures were taken, was on a strip of grass directly across from the train station in Hudson. This weekend the couple are pulling up stakes and rolling their restaurant up the hill to a lot on the corner of Warren & 5th. Come November, they intend to move again, hitching their wagon to the back of their car and driving it down to the Keys, where their plan, presumably, is to “make a killing” selling fish tacos by the side of the road. Meanwhile, they have been selling them (and other, related dishes, as well as fruity Mexican sodas) in Hudson to a growing throng of regulars, who are clearly taken with the $3.50 fish tacos and $5 beef, chicken, or tofu burritos, and specials such as the garlic shrimp burrito, $7, as well as with the freewheeling ambience. When we visited last Saturday, Tortillaville had been open just fourteen days, yet some customers said they’d been there four times. From all appearances, the return visitors each brought along either a friend, Dad, the dogs, or the kids. The atmosphere at the shared picnic tables was unusually loose and convivial.
The couple are confident relocation is only going to enhance that. “When you come here,” Brian says, “you leave Columbia County and enter a place that is free and clear.” Tortillaville, he claims, “is not just a place to eat, it’s a state of mind.”
Tortillaville
Southwest corner of Fifth & Warren Streets, Hudson
Wednesday - Sunday, noon - 6 p.m.
Except in downpours.
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Posted by Marilyn Bethany on 06/30/09 at 12:44 PM • Permalink
Year Two: Project Sprout Continues to Flourish
“Part of the job is eating on the job,” says Sam Levin, snapping off and handing me a leaf of his favorite—an unfamiliar red “braising green” which, in its delicious raw form, has a spicey, wasabi-like taste. Exam week is coming up at Great Barrington’s Monument Mountain High School, which is why, according to Levin, only he and his fellow-sophomore Dakota Malik (to the right of Levin in the photo) showed up after the last class on a recent Friday afternoon to work in the Project Sprout vegetable garden. Normally, he says, there would have been a dozen or more student volunteers from all grade levels, as well as assorted parents and faculty.
Though Project Sprout’s 12,000 square-foot organic vegetable garden is on school property, it is not just another extra-curricular laid on by the powers that be—comparable, say, to the French Club or the basketball team. Now in its second year, the initiative was founded by students and is funded solely through their efforts. So far, they have raised $60,000, including $11,000 from a benefit Pig Roast held this past Memorial Day Weekend at Route 7 Grill, and a $7,000 “Jennie’s Heroes” grant from the TV talk-show hostess Jennie Jones. This last will enable them to buy movable hoop houses, thus extending their growing season so they can provide the school cafeteria with fresh vegetables year ‘round. Though the recipient of the Jenny’s Heroes grant is Levin’s guidance counselor and the school’s chief adult champion of Project Sprout, Mike Powell, the grant proposal was written by Levin himself, a skill at which he has become adept.
In fact, it was Powell to whom Levin went with two friends at the beginning of his freshman year with an unformed idea about starting a student-run garden that would provide vegetables for the cafeteria and, he hoped, lead his fellow-students to share in his passion for the natural world. The others had their own agendas—Sarah Steadman, then a junior, is a gardening enthusiast, and Natalie Akers, a sophomore at the time, had been clamoring for fresh vegetables to be served in the school cafeteria.
“Together we began refining the idea and figuring out the details,” Levin says. “We met with local farmers and gardeners, landscapers and designers, teachers and groundskeepers. We got a big boost from Project Native, native-plant specialists in Housatonic. We met in between classes and during lunch, after school and before school. Within weeks, we had a plan.”
The first year, they started small with a 50 x 70-foot plot on an abandoned soccer field next to the elementary school. By last fall, they were able to provide potatoes and salad greens to the school cafeteria and still had enough left over to give away a thousand pounds of produce to low-income Berkshire County families. Prior to Project Sprout, the school cafeteria, where 350 - 400 students buy lunch each day, sold a pathetic six salads on a good day. When Project Sprout salad is offered, that sorry number shoots up to 70.
On the assumption that the garden will continue to win hearts, minds, and appetites, Project Sprout expanded its vegetable plot fourfold this year—with a lot of help from a neighboring farmer, Sean Stanton, and his plow. This Spring Mike Powell’s father built a couple of handsome garden sheds for storing equipment. The kids now have planted an orchard next to their vegetable plot. And neighboring school districts have begun requesting advice on how it is done. Asked how much money his school district is saving on groceries because of Project Sprout, Levin just shrugs. “I don’t remember,” he says, as if that were the least of it. “But one of the math classes figured that out.”
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Posted by Marilyn Bethany on 06/23/09 at 06:08 PM • Permalink
The Guru of Indian Cooking Comes to Cornwall
In a world where the term “celebrity chef” is used to describe anyone who has ever cooked in front of a TV camera, Madhur Jaffrey is the real deal. Since publishing her first book, An Invitation to Indian Cooking (Knopf) in 1973, she has earned her celebrity by cooking (winning five James Beard Awards), writing (more than 15 books including, most recently, Climbing the Mango Trees: A Memoir of a Childhood in India), and acting (appearing in more than 20 films, including Merchant Ivory’s Heat and Dust.) She is the featured speaker at the Cornwall Library’s Food Glorious Food Festival on Saturday, June 20, at 2 PM. ($20 admission benefits the library)
If you’ve cooked Indian food at home or gone to a curry-themed dinner party, you owe a debt to Jaffrey. As Jonathan Reynolds wrote in The New York Times in 2003, “People who I thought knew nothing about cooking enjoy a hands-on relationship with her food. If Julia Child almost single-handedly brought serious French food into American homes, and Marcella Hazan brought other-than-meatballs Italian, and Jane Grigson miraculously salvaged some British food from unpalatability, then there is no question that Madhur Jaffrey not only changed the way this country views Indian food but also affected the way restaurants do, too—more than anyone.”
Food Glorious Food is an all-day affair that begins at 9:30 AM with a sale of cookbooks and used “batterie de cuisine” as well as the de rigueur silent auction (you can bid on a lunch for four at the Conde Nast cafeteria with Gourmet editor in chief Ruth Reichl, the ever-generous Austerlitz weekender.) You can bring your knives to be professionally sharpened by Nick Jacobs, shop the Cornwall Farmers’ Market, and attend a cocktail party ($20) with hors d’oeuvres prepared by local residents who will have the recipes available for sharing.
Food, Glorious Food Festival
June 20
Cornwall Library
30 Pine Street, Cornwall, CT
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Posted by Dan Shaw on 06/16/09 at 11:37 AM • Permalink
Berkshire Grown Restaurant Week 2009
The Point in Great Barrington
One of Berkshire Grown’s fundamental missions is to support the farm-to-table movement, helping farmers and restaurant chefs understand each other’s needs and schedules so that recipes can be developed, menus planned, and customers offered dishes made with locally-raised food. The annual spring Restaurant Week (Sunday, June 7 - Thursday, June 11) provides an opportunity for chefs to make a concerted effort to serve locavore cuisine and allows the rest of us to sample specially designed prix-fixe menus at 24 restaurants for $25.09. To take advantage of the special menu, you need to be a member of Berkshire Grown and, conveniently, all of the restaurants will be selling the $40 memberships, which allow you to order two $25.09 dinners on any night at one of the participating restaurants.
Berkshire Grown Restaurant Week Participants
Note: Restaurants will most likely be keeping their regular hours; reservations are advised.
Allium, Great Barrington
Baba Louie’s, Great Barrington
Berkshire Harvest Restaurant, Lenox (*opening June 9)
Brix Wine Bar, Pittsfield
Cafe Latino, North Adams
Cafe Reva, Pittsfield
Castle Street Cafe, Great Barrington
Chez Nous, Lee
Gala Restaurant & Bar, Williamstown
Gramercy Bistro, North Adams
Helsinki, Great Barrington
John Andrews, Egremont
La Terrazza, Lenox
Mezze Bistro + Bar, Williamstown
Napa, Great Barrington
Pittsfield Brew Works, Pittsfield
The Point, Great Barrington
The Old Inn on the Green. New Marlborough
Red Lion Inn, Stockbridge
Route 7 Grill, Great Barrington
Sloan’s Tavern at Cranwell, Lenox
Stagecoach Tavern, Sheffield
Swiss Hutte, Hillsdale
The Williams Inn
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Posted by Dan Shaw on 06/03/09 at 07:39 AM • Permalink
Another Fork in the Road: A New Diner Off the Taconic Parkway
Overqualified diner chefs Figgy DiBenedetto and Jamie Parry
“Lunch is the new dinner!” exclaims Jamie Parry, who once cooked fancy French food at three-star Montrachet in Manhattan before heading to the culinarily ambitious Swoon in Hudson. Now he’s making scrambled eggs, pancakes, cheeseburgers and club sandwiches at Another Fork in the Road, a new “finer diner” on Route 199 in Milan, about a mile west of the Taconic State Parkway.
Another Fork in the Road does not serve your run-of-the mill club sandwich ($6.50). This one’s made with local mushrooms, paprika mayo and local turkey “I drive down to Millbrook for the turkeys,” says chef/owner Figgy DiBenedetto, who is attempting to source locally as much as possible when she’s sure of a steady supply of menu staples. For the burgers ($7.50), she’s using locally-raised beef and hoping that the weekday-contractor crowd will be willing to pay a slight premium for a better burger and hand-cut French fries ($2) made from real potatoes. “I want people to understand that the best way to preserve our rural environment is to support local farms which means you may have to pay a little more for food,” she says. “But it’s worth it in so many ways.”
Neither DiBenedetto, who attended the Culinary Institute of America, nor Parry ever expected to be short-order cooks. “Jamie and I are still working out the grill thing,” she confesses. Earlier in the decade, when she owned the Red Hook fine-dining restaurant Mina, she was praised for her use of Hudson Valley ingredients and was asked to cook one of the prestigious Friday luncheons at the James Beard Foundation in New York City. She and her husband, John, whom she met at the CIA, closed Mina three years ago when they decided to have a child and knew the demands of the restaurant business would make it tough to be good parents. And then tragedy struck when John was killed in a motorcycle accident. Now as a single mom, Figgy decided that opening a breakfast-and-lunch spot called Another Fork in the Road was the best path for making a living doing what she loves while spending afternoons and evenings with her three-year-old son. “We may open one night a month for dinner because Jamie and I love to do that type of cooking,” she says.
She wants the diner (which was the ill-fated La Cienega and before that a diner called Another Roadside Attraction that had lines out the door every weekend) to be a hangout, and she put two big sofas smack in the middle of the dining room and hung chic sheer curtains on the windows to soften the spare architecture. The diner serves breakfast all day, and lunch is available from 11:30 AM with soups, sandwiches— pulled pork ($7.50) and Croque Monsieur ($7.50)—and hot plates such as North Wind Farms fried chicken with mashed potatoes ($10), Mac N’ Cheese ($7), and Veggie Shepherd’s Pie ($8). After one week, the diner already has regulars, including Susan Orlean, The New Yorker staff writer, who lives in Pine Plains. “It’s gotten great word of mouth” says Orlean. “Funny how good food can really get attention. “
Another Fork in the Road
1215 Route 199; 845.758.6676
(about 1.4 miles west of the Taconic State Parkway)
Thursday - Saturday and Monday: 7 AM - 2:30 PM; Sunday 8 AM - 3 PM
Closed Tuesday & Wednesday
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Posted by Dan Shaw on 05/27/09 at 04:06 PM • Permalink
The Return of the Farmers’ Markets
Across our region, several of the major farmers’ markets are back in business for the season. What might you find this weekend? Various lettuces, spring mix, mesclun, arugula, kale, chard, broccoli rabe, asparagus, rhubarb, peas, mushrooms, spring garlic and herbs. You can also shop for milk, cheese, poultry, meat, fish, honey, maple syrup, wine, flowers, bread, pickles, jams, pies. There will also be lots of bedding plants for your garden and cut flowers. In Rhinebeck, by tradition, they will be giving free seedlings to moms for Mother’s Day.
Berkshire Area Farmers’ Market
Old State Road/Berkshire Mall parking lot, Lanesborough
May 2 - October 28
Wednesdays & Saturdays 8 AM - 2 PM
Great Barrington Farmers’ Market
At the historic train station behind Town Hall.
May 9 - October 31
Saturdays: 9 AM - 1 PM
Hudson Farmers’ Market
6th and Columbia Streets
May 10 - November 22
Saturdays: 9 AM - 1 PM
Lenox Farmers’ Market
Main Street at Triangle Park (across from the Mobil Station)
May 8 - October 9
Fridays: 2 - 6 PM
Otis Farmers Market
2000 East Otis Road
May 9 - October
Saturdays 9 AM - 1 PM
Rhinebeck Farmers’ Market
Rhinbeck Municipal Parking Lot on East Market Street
May 10 - Thanksgiving
Sundays: 10 AM - 2 PM
Stuyvesant Farmers’ Market
Railroad Station at Riverview Street
May 8 - September
Fridays: 4 - 7 PM
OPENING LATER IN THE SEASON
Great Barrington Nutrition Center Farmers’ Market
94 West Avenue
June 3 - September 2
Wednesdays: 3 - 6 PM
Litchfield Hills Farm-Fresh Market
Route 202, Litchfield
June 13 - mid-October
Saturdays 11 AM - 1 PM
Millerton Farmers’ Market
Dutchess Avenue
May 23 - Columbus Day
Saturdays: 9 AM - 1 PM
Millbrook Farmers’ Market
Front Street & Franklin Ave
Memorial Day - October
Saturdays 9 AM - 1 PM
Norfolk Farmers’ Market
Route 44 & Shepard Road
June 6 - October 31
Saturdays: 10 AM - 1 PM
North Adams Farmers’ Market
77 Holden Street
July 12 - October 25
Saturdays: 8 AM - noon
Sheffield Farmers’ Market
Main Street
May 22 - Columbus Day Weekend
Fridays: 3:30 - 6:30 PM
Chatham Farmers’ Market
15 Church Street (Route 203)
June - October
Fridays 4 - 7 p.m.
Hudson City Farmer’s Market
North 6th and Columbia Streets
May 9th - November 21
Saturdays, 9 a.m. - 1 p.m.
Kinderhook Farmer’s Market
7 Hudson Street (Village Green at Route 9)
June 6 - Mid-October
Saturdays 8 a.m. - noon
Stuyvesant Farmers’ Market
55 Riverview Street
May 9 - Mid-October
Fridays 4 - 7 p.m.
Hillsdale Farmer’s Market
Town Park behind Town Hall (Routes 22 & 23)
June - October
First and third Saturdays, 9 a.m. - noon
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Posted by Dan Shaw on 05/07/09 at 06:19 PM • Permalink
Where to Dine on Easter Sunday?
How do we feel about Easter dinner in a restaurant? Well, it depends on the restaurant. The holiday calls for tablecloths, linen napkins, spring lamb or ham, and a sense of occasion. More than a few restaurants in our region fit the bill (such as the Red Lion Inn, above), and they were were still taking Easter reservations when we checked in with them on April 6. Easter is one of the last holidays where stores don’t open, so it’s a wonderful day to take a drive and enjoy a leisurely meal that someone else has prepared. If you’re looking for another type of dining experience on Easter, check our Restaurant Listings (which are based on anonymous visits by the staff of Rural Intelligence, which does not accept free meals.)
Blantyre
Lenox, MA
If you like tradition, you’ll like Blantyre where men are required to wear a jacket and tie in the dining room at Blantyre. This uber-elegant Relais & Chateaux hotel will be serving a special three-course meal for $75, and you can bring the children as long as they over six-years-old. Lunch: 12:30 - 2 PM.
Reservations: 413.637.3556
Cranwell
The grand old resort will be serving a lavish buffet brunch in the mansion ballroom from 11 AM - 4 PM. There will be everything from top round of lamb with minted chardonnay sauce to peel-and-eat shrimp and a create-your-own omelette station. Adults: $45; children under 12 $24.95; children under 5 are free.
Reservations: 413.637.1364
John Andrews 
Egremont, MA
It would be difficult for chef/owner Dan Smith to improve upon his regular, exquisitely eclectic menu (fried oysters with anchovy-mustard vinaigrette, Lila Berle’s organic mountain lamb, papardelle with wild boar ragu), so that’s what he’ll be serving on Easter Sunday along with a few specials. And though Easter is late this year there could be chilly, and you may want to ask for a table by the fireplace.
Dinner: 4 - 8 PM.
Reservations: 413.528.3469
The Old Inn on the Green
New Marlborough, MA
With intimate dining rooms illuminated only by candlelight, the Old Inn has a romantic Masterpiece Theatre ambience [left]. Thankfully, chef/owner Peter Platt serves audacious contemporary food, but in deference to tradition he promises that his Easter menu will include leg of lamb and baked ham. Dinner: 2 - 8 PM. $40.
Reservations: 413.229.7924
The Red Lion Inn
Stockbridge, MA
You certainly wouldn’t feel out of place wearing a flowery Easter bonnet in the landmark hotel’s Victorian dining room, while working your way through a four-course meal that might start with a shrimp-and-artichoke bisque and end with strawberry rhubarb shortcake with Highlawn Farm cream. Dinner: noon - 4 PM. Adults: $39; children under 12: $19.95. And if you want to spend the night, the Red Lion has an amazing room special for just $85.
Reservations: 413.298.5545
Serevan
Amenia, NY
It always feels like coming home when you step into this 19th century farmhouse, where chef/owner Serge Madikian prepares earthy, esoteric dishes such as Katafi-crusted halibut and roasted monkfish with squid tabouli. “I’m Armenian, and we always eat fish for Easter so I will have lots of fish on the menu,” he says. Brunch: 11AM - 2:30 PM. Dinner: 5 - 10 PM.
Reservations: 845.373.9800
Stissing House
Pine Plains, NY
The only time I ever had Easter lunch in a restaurant was at Provence, the pioneering bistro in SoHo, which was owned by Michel and Patricia Jean, who own Stissing House in Pine Plains. Everything tasted like the essence of spring in the French countryside, and it is sure to taste that way this Sunday. They will be serving lunch only on Easter, with the regular lunch menu and several seasonal specials such as spring lamb, stinging nettle risotto and spring garlic soup.
Reservations: 518.398.8800
Swiss Hutte
Hillsdale, NY
There’s something literally fantastic about the Swiss Hutte, a half-timber 19th-century farmhouse that’s been in continuous operation as an inn for over fifty years. Tucked in a hidden valley amid gardens at the foot of Catamount ski slope, it feels half a world away. It is closed for vacation until Friday but we’re guessing that they will repeat last year’s menu that included all their usual fine fare, plus such specials as prime rib, Boston cod, and roast leg of lamb. Zurich-born owner-chef Gert Alpert knows his way around modern food, but for those feeling nostalgic, there’s always top-notch wienerschnitzel, rosti, and spatzli on a back burner. Dinner: 1 - 6 PM
Reservations: 518.325.3333 or 413.528.6200
Terrapin
Rhinebeck, NY
What could be more appropriate for Easter than dining in a renovated 1825 church? Chef/owner Josh Kroner plans to serve his usual multi-culti fare—such as barbecued duck quesadillas and pork tenderloin with Thai coconut-orange curry—as a $29.95 prix fixe menu beneath the soaring ceilings of the former First Baptist Church [left]
Dinner: 1 - 8 PM.
Reservations: 845.876.3330
The White Hart
Salisbury, CT
Within walking distance of two churches, this classic 1806 New England inn will serve a special a la carte Easter menu in the Riga Room. The fare ranges from escargots and grilled asparagus to sauteed antelope medallions and baked Virginia ham. Lunch & Dinner: noon - 7:30 PM.
Reservations: 860.435.0030
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Posted by Dan Shaw on 04/05/09 at 05:03 PM • Permalink
Tasteful and Tasty: Another Side of Hancock Shaker Village
For a sect that valued the spiritual above all else, the Shakers certainly had a knack for getting their physical world just so. No object was too mundane—a barn, a tool, a dishtowel—to escape an inspired re-imagining. Which leads one to wonder how they handled that other everyday art form: the preparation of food.
Fortunately, the Shakers were ace record keepers, so most of their recipes have survived, forming the basis for a cookbook, The Best of Shaker Cooking, by Amy Bess Miller (first published in 1970 by Macmillan, since reissued by Hancock Shaker Village, Inc.; $16.95 at the museum shop). Recently, Michael Roller, chef/owner of two Pittsfield catering concerns, Samel’s Deli and MRM Hospitality, used this volume as an aid in developing new menus for the Hancock Shaker Village Harvest Café and the Village’s up-scale catering service, Savory Harvest Catering, both of which now claim him as top toque.
“My impression is that the Shakers focused on food as an art,” says Roller. “They didn’t just do things to get them done; they did everything with flare, and they really were kind of advanced, letting the ingredients speak for themselves. Their food was very sophisticated for the time. My style is very similar.”
The café at Hancock may be accessed without paying an entrance fee, and it’s well worth a visit just to check out what Roller is doing there. Executive chef at Blantyre in Lenox for six years (including the glory year when it won its fourth Mobil star), he has taken the café menu a giant step beyond what anyone has a right to expect from a tourist-destination dining facility. In season, Roller will use food from the Village farms as much as possible to make the salads (i.e., baby spinach, hickory-smoked bacon, hard-boiled eggs, sliced mushrooms, red onion and croutons with a Dijon-herb vinaigrette; $5.95), and sandwiches (an open-faced roast beef on grilled farmer’s bread with a Shaker mushroom sauce, crispy shallots and mesclun greens, $6.75) that promise to make the Harvest Café a destination in its own right.
Roller’s forte, high-end catering, will continue at the Village, which has long been a venue for meetings, parties, and weddings. “For the catering, we are completely contemporary with our menus,” he says. “We try, when appropriate, to go with the Shaker influence, but it’s not mandated. We’re not going to do chicken pot pie for a wedding.”
The menus for two recent events at the Village illustrate Roller’s point:
Menu 1:
Amuse-Bouche: Ginger Beets
First course: Lobster Croquettes with Sautéed Lobster and Sorrel Sauce
Entrée: Roast Rack of Lamb with Marjoram Jus, Creamed Corn, Asparagus, and Buttered Crumb-Topped Potato Pie
Dessert: Shaker Mountain Blueberry Pudding with Apricot Ice Cream
Menu # 2
First Course: Cod Fritters with Butter Poached Shrimp, Parsley Sauce and Equinox Farm Greens
Entrée: Top Sirloin of Beef with Cracked Pepper and Cider Sauce, Parsnip Cakes and Asparagus
Dessert: Chocolate Bread Pudding
The view from the tent platform at Hancock Shaker Village.
The event venues within the Village include the Community Room in the modern entrance/museum building, which convincingly replicates a Shaker meeting hall, accommodates up to 80, and has direct access to the outdoors. Just outside this room, on the edge of a meadow, there is a tent platform, which, when set up, accommodates up to 350. Overlooking the cutting and vegetable gardens with a panoramic view of the distant village buildings beyond, one can easily envision an early evening summer wedding there, with guests freely roaming the grounds. It would be at once spectacular and impeccably restrained, in that Shaker way.
Hancock Shaker Village Tomato Pudding
Serve as a side dish with grilled chicken, beef or seafood.
Recipe by Michael Roller, adapted from The Best of Shaker Cooking, by Amy Bess Miller
Serves 6
6 T. butter, divided
1 c. choppped onion
4 c. canned chopped tomatoes, cooked down to 2 c
1/4 c. light brown sugar
1 1/2 c. sourdough bread cubes, cut in 1/4-inch dice
3/4 c. Panko bread crumbs, coated with 1 T. olive oil
1 T. fresh garlic, chopped
2 T. fresh basil, cut into a chiffonade
salt and pepper to taste
4 T. olive oil
2 medium, ripe tomatoes (red, yellow or both), sliced 1/4” thick
Grated parmesan cheese to taste (optional)
Melt 2 T. butter and sauté onions and garlic until very tender.
Add the tomatoes and brown sugar and simmer until the mixture is thick.
Meanwhile toss the bread cubes in the remaining butter, spread in a 9 x 10 baking pan or gratin dish, and toast in 325° oven until lightly browned.
Spoon tomato mixture over the bread cubes.
Place sliced tomatoes over the pudding, sprinkle with salt and pepper, basil, and panko. Drizzle with olive oil and optional parmesan cheese.
Bake @350° for 30 - 40 minutes.
Per Serving: 275 Calories; 21g Fat (68.1% calories from fat); 3g Protein; 20g Carbohydrate; 1g Dietary Fiber; 31mg; Cholesterol; 210mg Sodium
Harvest Café
10 a.m. - 4 p.m. daily until Memorial Day, then 10 a.m. - 5 p.m.
Hancock Shaker Village
34 Lebanon Mt. Road (Rte 20); Hancock; 413.443.0188
Savory Harvest Catering at Hancock Shaker Village
Private-event coordinator: Laura Wolf; 413.443.0188 x213
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Posted by Marilyn Bethany on 03/31/09 at 12:33 PM • Permalink
A Sports Bar, The Press Box, Takes Over Burger’s Old Space
Perhaps it’s a sign of our downwardly mobile times. Perhaps it’s just Pittsfield shaking off a designer polo that never really fit. In any event, the shrewd professionals behind Jae’s Spice recently bought Burger from the same folks who sold them Spice a year ago, and the new owners have knocked it down a peg or two. No more upmarket-family-restaurant pretensions, no more $14.99 wagyu beef burgers, no more milkshake-like cocktails. In their stead, $2 beers in a can (blasts from the past like Schlitz and Pabst Blue Ribbon), a more-than-decent-if-un-exotic-burger, a pool table, a 24-stool bar, and seven televisions on which to catch any game cable t.v. coughs up. No dessert. No wine by the bottle. No frills. A throwback? Maybe. The place even takes its name, The Press Box, from an old neighborhood restaurant, now long-gone but once a Pittsfield institution. Are the new owners sending a signal to “real” Pittsfieldians that its finally safe to come in? Whether that was their intention or not, last weekend’s crowds suggest that the message got through.
Baseball cards as coasters and a staff wearing referees’ stripes reinforce the sports-bar theme, as does the wings-and-burgers menu—plus salads that even Sasha and Malia might not mind. My Chopped Salad with Chicken, $7.95, was so pale, the First Daughters could never accuse it of being the dreaded “green.” But only a fool such as I would order a salad in a joint like this. The Press Box Burger ($7.95) is more to the point and more than respectable—no gray whatsoever, just a dark, crispy grilled exterior with uniformly pink meat throughout. Best of all, key to any successful burger, a bun with sufficient character to hold up to the last bite. Like all optional additions, the grilled onions are an extra 99 cents—maybe just a penny shy of what anyplace else would charge, but a nice touch, nonetheless.
The Press Box
297 North Street; 413.997.4646
Monday - Saturday 11:30 a.m.- 11 p.m.
Closed Sundays until Sunday sports season kicks back in
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Posted by Marilyn Bethany on 03/12/09 at 09:29 AM • Permalink
Weekend Indulgence: Oysters & Champagne at Rubi’s
Matt Rubiner, Great Barrington’s celebrated cheesemonger, never planned for his espresso counter to moonlight as an oyster bar. Since last year, he has been special-ordering fish from a premiere wholesaler for his customers to pick up on Fridays, and many of them have been getting oysters. One day, one of the regulars came for his shipment at Rubiner’s shop on Main Street and walked around the back to his Rubi’s Cafe. “He sat down, shucked them and knocked them all back,” says Rubiner, who applauded the gentleman’s style and decided that he should serve oysters—and champagne or wine—every Friday and Saturday from 4 - 6 PM. It was an immediate, word-of-mouth hit. “We sold out all our oysters the first Friday so we had nothing to serve on Saturday,” says Rubiner, who gets a lot of customers on their way to and from the movies. “On Valentine’s Day, people came in and ordered dozens!” (If you want to order oysters to take home. Rubiner and his crew will give you a lesson in shucking.) He offers only a few varieties each week and tries to make sure each has a distinctive character. Recently, he’s had Winter Points and Beausoleils and Summersides from Nova Scotia. He sells them all at $2 a piece with a mignoette sauce on the side. “It couldn’t be simpler,” he says.
Rubiner’s Cheesemongers & Grocers
264 Main Street, Great Barrington; 413.528.0488
Store Hours: Monday - Saturday 10 - 6; Sunday 10 - 4.
Café Hours: Monday - Friday 7 - 4; Saturday 8 - 6 and Sunday 8 - 4.
