Farming: The Mid-Life Crisis Career Option
Roberto Flores’s face is a familiar one in the Berkshires. For 15 years, he owned and operated Seven Hills Inn, a 60 room mansion hotel next door to The Mount in Lenox, which he sold last spring. But he’s a fresh face at the farmers’ markets in Sheffield and Millerton, where he’s been selling baby bok choy, mizuna, baby turnips, radishes and assorted greens since May. “You can come to my table and make a really great salad,” he says. Flores, 43, is living out his (and, perhaps, your) fantasy. Until this spring, Flores’s only agricultural experience was mowing the neighbors’ lawns as a kid and helping in the extensive vegetable garden in Ashley Falls, MA, planted by his partner, Maria Nation, who cooks out of her garden all summer long and had dubbed her property Good Dogs Farm. 
“We have a contest every summer to see how long we can go without going to the grocery store,” says Flores, who did not start thinking seriously about farming until this winter. He had spent last summer finding new venues for the 19 weddings and conferences that had been booked into Seven Hills before the sale. (The new owners wanted to turn the old mansion into a private residence again.) “We sent some of the brides to Ethan Berg’s Winthrop Estate and some of them to Cranwell,” he says. “I really did not feel free from the inn until the last wedding happened in October.”
Flores decided to take some time off to consider what to do next, because he had been coerced into becoming an innkeeper by his father. “I had been in Bank America’s training program in Houston when my father told me he’d bought this inn at a real estate auction and sent me up north to run it with my sister who was living in Lenox,” recalls Flores who grew up in south Texas. “I was so cold at first. I wore my ski pants until April.” Gregarious and sensitive, he mostly liked being an innkeeper, keeping tradition alive for Seven Hills’ clientele who liked the Catskills-style service with full meals and entertainment. “In the 1950s, Seven Hills was the only resort in the area that did not discriminate against Jews,” he explains. But as the old-timers, who would come for a week or two, faded away or bought second homes, the new generation of guests only wanted to stay for a night or two. “And then when the Comfort Inns and Days Inns opened, it really did us in. We kept things alive by doing as many as 26 weddings a year.”
It wasn’t until snow was covering the two-acre meadow between Maria’s vegetable garden and the Housatonic River that Flores settled on the idea of becoming a farmer as his third career. With farmers living on either side of him, he knew that if he tilled the fallow meadow that he would have rich loamy, chemical- and pesticide free soil for growing crops. He consulted with nearby farmers including Dominic Palumbo, Laura Meister, and Ted Dobson. “They all told me that I had to get some experience and get my hands dirty,” he says. He wasn’t willing to wait an entire year to start his new business. So in March, Flores flew out to Ojai, California, a valley rich with groves of orange, olive and avocado trees, which has been called the Berkshires of California. He bunked with Maria’s sister, Jane Handel the co-publisher of the magazine Edible Ojai, and introduced him to Peter Wilsrud of Avogadro’s Garden Farm, who let Flores work by his side for six weeks so he could ask questions every step of the way. “When I went out to California, I was planning to grow only a few simple things—garlic, onions, potatoes—but Peter convinced me to grow a bit of everything. He told me I had to grow white turnips called haruki. I cut them up for people at the market, and they go nuts. If you marinate them, they become addictive.” (You slice the turnips, marinate in a couple of tablespoons of rice wine vinegar with lime zest, coarse salt and pepper; chill for a an hour.)
As he walks through his one-and-a half-acres planted with carrots, potatoes, arugula, haricots vert, fava beans, pumpkins, and tomatoes, Flores has the quiet confidence of someone who has been working the land for decades. He explains that even as newbie, he shares the exact same challenges and goals as veterans like Palumbo. “We have the same soil and weather,” he says. “We grow things to bring to market.” (He’s also been selling to local businesses like Berkshire Harvest Restaurant, John Andrews, and Stage Coach Tavern.) He says he has a deep sense of satisfaction from his new work. “Growing food is such a healthy thing to do in every way,” he says. “It’s such a right thing to do.”
While farming is strenuous, it’s not as stressful as being an innkeeper which was a 24/7 job. “I don’t miss getting calls to plunge toilets at 2 AM,” he says, grinning. Farming has changed his outlook on the weather, too. “I hated the rain when I was an innkeeper because it would ruin a wedding,” he says. “But now I am thankful every time it rains.”
Good Dogs Farm
Ashley Falls, MA
Sheffield Farmers’ Market - Fridays, 3:30 -6:30 p.m.
Millerton Farmers’ Market - Saturdays 9 a.m. - 1 p.m.
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Posted by Dan Shaw on 06/30/09 at 06:22 PM • Permalink
At Long Last, It’s Strawberry Season Again
Bonnie & Ron Samascott at the Lenox Farmers' Market on May 29
If you’re a regular at the Lenox Farmers’s Market or Hudson Farmers’ Market, you’ve already had a taste of summer. For the last couple of weeks, Bonnie and Ron Samascott of Samascott Orchards in Kinderhook have been selling their incredibly juicy and sweet berries from their 1,000 acre farm in Columbia County. They promise to have berries every week from now until the end of June, which means you should take every opportunity you can to make strawberry shortcake, strawberry jam, and strawberry ice cream. If you want to pick your own berries (and peas) at Samascott, you have to wait until June 11. If you want to pick strawberries today, you can head over to Mead Orchards in Tivoli, NY which opened for the season on June 3 and where you can pick daily from 3 - 7 PM.
Our other favorite pick-your-own farms were not open as of June 3, but they will be any day, so call or check their websites. (The farms’ websites are not always up to date so it’s usually better to call.)
Pick-Your-Own Farms
Green River Farms, Williamstown, MA; 413.458.2470
Ellsworth Farm, Sharon, CT; 860.364.0025
Mead Orchards, Tivoli, NY; 845.756.5641
Samascott Orchard, Kinderhook, NY; 518.758.7224
Thompson-Finch, Ancram, NY; 518.329.7578
If your favorite pick-your-own farm is not listed here, please leave a comment and tell us about it.
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Posted by Dan Shaw on 06/03/09 at 05:22 PM • Permalink
Dominic Palumbo: The Egghead Organic Farmer with a CSA & a Fan Club
Dominic Palumbo is an organic farmer in Sheffield, MA, whose acolytes admire his mind as much as they relish his meat, pork, eggs, chicken, and vegetables. “The honest, unpretentious way Dominic goes about the business of farming, his devotion to tradition, and his unimpeachable integrity make him the touchstone for the locavore and Slow Food movements in the Berkshires,” says Great Barrington cheesemonger Matt Rubiner, who believes Palumbo’s liverwurst is “unrivaled” and his pancetta “as good as any in Italy.” Palumbo is co-leader of Slow Food Western Massachusetts and was a speaker at the Slow Food/Terra Madre conference in Italy, last fall. (His talk begins about one-minute into the video above.)
Palumbo, 53, arrived in the Berkshires some two decades ago as a weekender. “I didn’t come here with the intention of farming,” he says. But he knew horticulture because he was running a landscape business in New York that specialized in penthouse and brownstone gardens. When he heard that the Greenmarket in New York was having trouble finding purveyors of organic food, he decided to try growing vegetables in Sheffield. “To get into the Greenmarket you had to explain everything you were going to plant and what it would yield. I formulated a plan for a farm that did not exist,” he says. “For eight years, I hauled vegetables down to New York City every week. I started growing mesclun. At that time, mesclun was coming from France!”
Slowly, he started adding animals to the farm. Initially, he got chickens and then sheep because he thought they could eat his grass instead of his having to mow it while providing him with food. Now he has a little bit of everything—sheep, dairy cows, cattle, pigs, geese, goats—which makes Moon in the Pond seem like one of those mythical family farms from old children’s books. He has no qualms about bringing his animals to slaughter—he becomes rhapsodic when talking about the sublime flavor of capretto, which is baby goat—but he has deep respect for all his animals and treats them humanely during their lives. “You learn so much about human nature from animals,” he says. “Do you know why children are called kids? Because they behave like baby goats! You learn why a person is called cocky or pig headed.”
Palumbo can be as stubborn as a mule, which endears him to many foodies such as Lester Blumenthal of Route 7 Grill in Great Barrington. “What I respect most about Dominic is his ability to not compromise and always stay on the best possible path for growing things the correct, uber-organic way,” says Blumenthal. “Dominic has inspired me and plenty of others to embrace Slow Food. I would not own a farm-to-table restaurant if not for Dominic, who has been a great source of ideas, motivation and insight.”
He spreads the gospel about organic farming through his apprentice program at Moon in the Pond and by working with farmers and chefs. “The difference between Dominic and other organic farmers is his willingness to teach,” says chef Jeremy Stanton of the Fire Roasted Catering Company, who has plans to open a Berkshires butcher shop specializing in locally raised meats. “He is so full of knowledge. His Scottish Highland steaks are by far the best steaks I have ever tasted. But he charges a lot for them, and they are so worth it.”
Moon in the Pond has a reputation for not only high quality but high prices. One way Palumbo has made this more palatable is by having a CSA for meat and vegetables: you can purchase “Bacon Bucks,” which guarantees you beef and pork at the best prices. You can buy meat at Moon in the Pond all year-long (call ahead to make sure someone is there to help you) and during the summer at the farmers’ markets in Great Barrington (Wednesdays), Sheffield (Fridays) and Millerton (Saturdays). You can buy his cured meats at Rubiner’s, but only close friends get his raw milk that he says tastes like melted ice cream. “There is something exceedingly meaningful about drinking raw milk,” says Sheffield neighbor Maria Nation, who trades her fresh baked bread for milk. “This is the purest form of nurturing we experience outside of breast feeding a child. It is primal. Dom is one of the few farmers I would trust to deliver this primal experience.”
Palumbo is confident that prices for locally raised food will come down as demand increases. “That’s what happened in the supermarkets. You can find organic everywhere now,” he says. Still, he is not comfortable with the perception that eating well is a privilege, but he has no patience for people who say that they can’t afford good food. “How can you afford not to? Think about that,” he says. “I take to heart that food is not a luxury item. It is the center of everything I stand for. There is a moral imperative in producing organic food.”
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Posted by Dan Shaw on 04/15/09 at 10:21 AM • Permalink
Wild Hive Farm: Living the Locavore Life
Don Lewis has raised the bar for anyone who wants to run a community-oriented small-town cafe serving locally grown food. A baker who uses only Hudson Valley grains that he mills himself, Lewis has made his Wild Hive Farm Cafe and Bakery, which he opened last November in Clinton Corners, a paradigm of the Locavore Life. Lewis, who grew up on farm in Middletown, NY (which is the subject of a children’s book by his brother) has been making his living as a baker for decades. “I’ve been selling at the New York City greenmarket and other farmer’s markets since 1982,” he says. “About ten years ago, I found a farmer in the Hudson Valley who agreed to try growing grain for human consumption.”
Initially, Lewis bought pre-milled flour from farmer Alton Earnhart in nearby Millbrook. (Their collaboration was celebrated in a New York Times story in September.) “The first time I stuck my hand in it I realized it was entirely different than any flour I’d ever worked with,” he recalls. In the beginning, only 8 percent of the flour he used was local. Now, 100 percent of the organic flour he uses is local and he mills it all himself (and you can buy bags of it to bake with yourself at his cafe/store.) Lewis started out as a beekeeper and his initial baking efforts were honey-based pastries. “My grandmother was a big influence,” he says. Over the years, his repertoire has expanded to include sweet and savory baked goods ranging from onion rye and challah/brioche to Mediterranean spinach pie and rugulah that literally melts in your mouth. “We use our own yogurt cheese in the dough for the rugulah,” he says. “We only use local ingredients.” Everybody says that, but is it really possible? “Yes, we build the menu out of what’s available,” he says proudly. “We stick to the boundaries—I don’t like to call them limitations—and we have storehouses full of carrots, beets and watermelon radishes.” (His favorite winter salad is julienned watermelon radishes with salt, pepper and apple-cider vinegar.) For salad greens, he relies on three nearby farms: “Little Seed in Chatham has pea sprouts, Conuco in New Paltz has sunflower sprouts, and Sorkolo in HIghland has other lettuces.” Besides his own baked goods—including pizza and guilt-free cinnamon buns—he carries cheese from five local dairies as well as local eggs, apples, pears and dried beans. He plans to get a glass freezer for organic and grass-fed meat and become an old-fashioned, newfangled neighborhood grocer.
Although he has decades of experience as a greenmarket retailer, running a cafe and shop is a new challenge. “I love it,” he says. “I had known this space forever. It was once a general store and various cafes and I knew how much the town needed a gathering place. And I needed to expand my baking and milling operation so it all came together. The community is really excited by the regeneration of this space and they love being able to get a hot loaf of bread on their way home from work.”
Wild Hive Farm Bakery & Cafe
2411 Salt Point Turnpike, Clinton Corners, NY; 845.266.5863
Tuesday - Sunday 8 AM - 5 PM (cafe closes at 4 PM)
Full breakfast and lunch menu Friday - Sunday; tea, coffee, baked goods, soups and salads Tuesday - Thursday
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Posted by Dan Shaw on 03/05/09 at 04:51 PM • Permalink
Food Shopping: In Praise of Otto’s of Germantown
Designer Carey Maloney of M (Group) normally writes our Rural Restoration Blog in the Style Section, but this week he delivers a paean to his local grocer instead.
215 Main Street in Germantown was the home of the Central Market from 1927 until two years ago when the doors closed. Now—I bear glad tidings!—Otto Leuschel has filled the void brilliantly with the new Otto’s Market.
With Otto’s we’ve regained not just a key source of sustenance, we’ve got our community headquarters / bully pulpit / country-networking site back. Locally this is major news—the relief among the neighbors is palpable…
(Disclaimer: I am not a Foodie. One of my talents, self-proclaimed and probably not to be envied, is being able to feed myself for days on end from a Mobil station. It ain’t pretty—my sodium count shoots north and my self-esteem dives but I take perverse pride.)
So I approach Otto’s Market from my personal vantage. Otto passes muster for me with daily donuts (homemade!) and the Times, the Post, and F[inancial] T[imes] Weekend. A tour of the shelves on my first visit—eyes brimming with tears of joy—found Pace’s Picante Sauce from Texas (OMG!) and Tea Tree Oil. I don’t need Tea Tree Oil (boy, I need Pace’s), but how reassuring to know it is there. A sign of thoughtful merchandising. I saw that my upstate world could again be complete. The Mobil station is relegated to supplying gas and Lotto (I am the target market ‘cause I got a dollar and a dream. Tonight’s jackpot—$105 million!).
Hermes has given his (more substantial) stamp of approval to the produce. Everyone approves of the meat market / butcher. (Talk about not-my-thing—I never go to a butcher. I head right to the already plastic-wrapped / pre-priced steaks. No way I repeat that awful moment in 1982 when the blood covered man at Lobel’s at 82nd and Madison announced that my two lamb chops would be $38.) But if I did want high end meat, I would go to Otto’s.
Otto stocks baked goods (my thing) from Our Daily Bread in Chatham and fresh eggs from the Germantown Community Farm—can’t get fresher or closer than that. Cheeses come from The Amazing Real Live Food Company, whose goal is “to make vital products that honor our body as a living organism and promote its good health”. ExxonMobil can’t make that statement (why do I say that? XOM makes plenty of statements that are less factual than that one would be.)
Plus check out those shelves—full of stuff! Saves a long drive and allows for socializing and shopping. Works for me.
There are a couple of little tables and a counter at the window to perch and drink coffee and eat a sandwich and watch the Germantown world pass by.
Otto’s Market fills our food marketing void and, more important, fills the void in our little community. Check it out.
Otto’s Market
215 Main Street, Germantown; 518.537.7200
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Posted by Marilyn Bethany on 02/17/09 at 04:03 PM • Permalink
Olde Hudson Wants To Do Your Shopping For You
“I was bored,” says Dena Moran when asked why she decided to open an antique-furniture/body-and-bath shop in Hudson in 2001. In Manhattan, she had worked with her husband Dick Moran in the domestic textiles business—designing, merchandising and selling. Initially, their house in Claverack had been a weekend place, but, “It completely seduced us,” she says. “We had flexible schedules, so every weekend, we’d stay longer. Finally, I decided it was time for a change. Then I discovered that being up here was fun but doing nothing was not. So I started the store in a tiny location with a mixture of everything I wanted in my own home.”
Within six months, Olde Hudson had outgrown both its original premise and its original premises. By the time she moved it to its present location on the north side of Warren Street, Dena found herself growing more interested in an aspect of the business that had begun almost as an incidental sideline with a small inventory of non-perishable food items—pastas, olives oils, jarred-spreads. “The turning point,” she recalls, “was after the move, when I bought an open-air refrigerator and started selling cheese.”
“I introduce a new cheese every other week,” Dena says. Among her best sellers: an Ossau-Iraty from the Pyrenees—“It’s a raw sheeps-milk cheese with a wonderful nutty flavor, but it’s not tangy like most sheeps-milk cheeses— it has a very smooth finish.” Another crowd-pleaser: a triple-creme, Rochetta, from the Piedmonte in Italy, which is made from three different milks—cow, sheep and goat.
Today, in addition to artisanal cheeses from around the world, Olde Hudson carries beef from the same purveyor that supplies Peter Luger’s famous steakhouse in Brooklyn, fresh breads from Grandaisy (formerly known as the Sullivan Street Bakery) in SoHo, Pastosa ravioli from Bensonhurst, and sopressata and fresh Italian sausages from another Brooklyn resource. They carry a full-range of top-of-the-line lamb, pork, veal, poultry, as well as fresh fish, a recent addition. It is among the few things in the food inventory that they have shipped to them. Most of her fresh stuff comes from New York City. “If you call me for a special cut of meat or fish, I can do that,” Dena says. “I’ve had special orders for monkfish, catfish fillets, flounder, and halibut. You have to pre-plan a little bit, but you’ll get what you want, and you’ll know that what you are getting is the best. The fish is purchased at auction, and I receive it the following day.” It always arrives on a Friday afternoon and is gone by the next morning.
“Unless you taste the olive oils from different regions and countries, you’ll never appreciate the differences between them. You need to take a sip without bread. In the summer, I do formal tastings, but at this time of year I’ll offer a customer a sip if I have a bottle open.
While Dena buys some things locally (Ronnybrook ice cream and milk, for example), she says, “I’m open to bringing in items regardless of where they are from. I can’t compete with the farmers’ markets, so I offer an alternative.” Her fish is as local as possible—salmon from the Bay of Fundy is one best seller, Block Island swordfish another. Cod and sushi-grade tuna are popular, too. In summer, when demand is higher, they carry sea scallops, which Dena describes as “fantastic; fresh, delicious, and sweet,” and shrimp.
Call it “local,” one step removed.
But why not just go the whole locavore route, “shake the hand that feeds,” and buy grass-fed beef from a local farmer. Dena says, “Our beef is grass-fed but it has a corn finish. Pure grass-fed beef tastes entirely different. The corn finish gives the meat more grain, so it’s juicier. The flavor is phenomenal.”
“It’s important for people to recognize that I am a local business, too,” she says, “This is about enjoying the good things in life and sharing them with others. It’s a great experience.”
Olde Hudson
434 Warren Street, Hudson; 518;.828.6923
Winter hours: Thursday - Tuesday 11 - 6
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Posted by Marilyn Bethany on 02/05/09 at 10:01 AM • Permalink
Peace, Love & Chocolate in Stockbridge
Peace, Love & Chocolate sounds like the name of a shop run by an old hippie, but Ali Aronoff is more of a hipster. A personal trainer and chef who’s lived in Stockbridge for fifteen years, she opened a chocolate boutique six weeks ago in The Mews next door to the Red Lion Inn. “I’ve always loved chocolate,” says Aronoff, who has dedicated herself to selling as many locally-made chocolate products as possible while also offering the best fairly-traded global imports. She has gotten advice from Joshua Needleman at Chocolate Springs in Lenox and sells his truffles and chocolate-covered pretzels. She carries chocolate dipped macaroons ($4.95 for four) and candied popcorn from Tutti Baking in Lenox. “I am just collecting things that are over-the-top fabulous,” she says.
Ali won me over three times in one visit (and I am not even a chocoholic). First, she offered me a piece of chipolte flavored Béquet Goumet caramel ($.45) from Montana—one of the only non-chocolate items in the store—that was melt-in-your-mouth luscious with a pleasant hint of spice. Next, I had an exquisitely rich hot cocoa ($2.65) topped with dense chilled whipped cream that was served in a very pretty cup and saucer. Finally, I had a piece of John Kelly fudge ($2.25) sprinkled with sea salt that was a revelation—perfect for someone like myself who generally prefers savory to sweet.
The shop has a homey feel because Ali’s husband, Jonathan Aronoff, a psychologist with an office nearby, often stops in and her children, Jacob Cum, 9, and Meghan Cum, 12, like to hang out in the store after school. Ali hopes to cater to chocolate connoisseurs who “discuss chocolate as if it were wine” and will appreciate a “ridiculously expensive” $11.95 bar of Amedei chocolate from Tuscany. She wants to attract curiosity seekers who can sample six different pieces of handmade chocolate for $11.95, choosing from jewel-like confections such as Chocolate Springs’s Green Tea Bonsai dark chocolate and Knipschildt‘s Apricot Basil. “Knipschildt is based in Norwalk, Connecticut, and he is really phenomenal,” she says. “I love his Grand Marnier chocolates that look like the top of the bottle.” Her enthuiasm is as genuine as it is contagious, and as she surveys her stock she can’t help but finish every sentence with an exclamation point. She picks up a wrapped cube of Fiddle Fern Fudge ($1.25) that is made up the road in Alford by Catherine Sullivan. “It’s fudge with no bells or whistles,” she says. “It’s simply fantastic!”
Peace, Love & Chocolate
36 Main Street, Stockbridge, MA; 413.298.0020
Monday, Wednesday, Thursday & Sunday 10 AM - 6 PM; Friday & Saturday 10 AM - 8 PM
Closed Tuesdays until Memorial Day.
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Posted by Dan Shaw on 01/22/09 at 10:21 AM • Permalink
Fa-la-la-la Flavor: Berkshire Mountain Bakery’s Holiday Bread
Over two decades, Berkshire Mountain Bakery has built its reputation on hand-crafted sourdough and whole grain breads. So it’s somewhat surprising to find founder Richard Bourdon rhapsodizing about his Old World Holiday Bread studded with rum-soaked dried fruits. “I think it’s a stollen,” says Boudon who exudes a laid-back intensity, “but I’m not really sure what defines a stollen. I guess I could go to Wikipedia and find out.” Bourdon, who was born in Canada, learned his craft in Holland. He manages to replicate traditional holiday flavors, summoning up forgotten memories, while maintaining his reputation for producing healthy, delicious breads. “It took me a while to come up with this recipe,” he says. “I had to find ingredients that are festive and clean. It’s next to impossible to find pure almond paste.”
The almond filling is the luscious center thread of Berkshire Mountain’s Holiday Bread, which is available at the bakery’s red-brick headquarters in Housatonic and regional stores such as Guido’s and McEnroe’s. “It’s folded into the center,” he says, slicing a piece that reveals golden raisins, candied ginger, apricots and a pocket of the almond filling. “People in Holland scoop the almond filling out of the pocket with a knife and schmeer it on the slice. Maybe that’s where the world schmeer comes from,” he says, raising his eyebrows as if he were one of the Marx Brothers. “You should heat the slice, and you can schmeer either before or after you warm it.” He will continue to bake Holiday Breads through New Year’s.
Bourdon, who entered the Berkshires food world via the macrobiotic movement, is a crunchy-granola gourmet. (He is not a certified organic baker because the process is such a “nightmare,” he says. “Only big companies can afford to do all the tracking and paperwork.”) While it’s no secret that Berkshire Mountain Bakery makes the crusts for Baba Louie’s wood-fired organic pizzas, Bourdon also sells his own pizza crusts for home cooks (a slightly different recipe than Baba Louie’s and definitely thicker) and an extraordinary line of frozen pizzas, including goat cheese and pesto, sun-dried tomato and mozzarella, garlic with three cheeses. (I always keep serveral in the freezer.) You pull them from the freezer, put them on the middle rack of a pre-heated 425 oven and twelve minutes later you have, depending on the time of day, lunch, a great hot hors d’oeuvre, or dinner. Since most people in our region can’t get a pizza delivered at home, a Berkshire Mountain Bakery pizza in the freezer is the next best thing. Actually, on a snowy night when you don’t feel like cooking, it is the best thing in the world.
Berkshire Mountain Bakery
367 Park Street (aka Route 183), Housatonic, MA: 413.274.3412
Monday - Friday: 9 AM - 6 PM.
Saturday: 9 AM.- 5 PM
Sunday: 11 AM - 5 PM
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Posted by Dan Shaw on 12/17/08 at 10:54 AM • Permalink
Paige’s Picks: Gifts for the Foodies on Your List
I suspect that non-cooks wonder what in the world to give those of us who are culinarily-obsessed. Cookbook? New gadget? Basket of delicacies? These are all good ideas—but how do you take them from “good” to “impossibly clever”? For me, simpler is better, and, as with every other aspect of life in our region (save, perhaps, shoe shopping and ethnic dining), there are a plethora of buy-local options when holiday shopping for cooks.—Paige Orloff
Craft sales are ubiquitous this time of year, but they usually only last a day or two. The Spencertown Academy “Handmade Holiday” gift sale will continue through December 21 at the Columbia Country arts center. Anyone who entertains would appreciate local potter Mary Anne Davis‘s modernist, colorful creations, which are a fixture on local dinner tables for good reason: they are elegant, sometimes whimsical, and come in a dizzying range of colors, from wild to earthy. Though her work (all handmade in her Spencertown studio) can be pricey, smaller pieces—a tiny bowl, a cream pitcher—are affordable. Clarke Olsen’s handmade cutting and serving boards (many under $20) would be beautiful as stand-alone gifts or in combination with a selection of artisanal cheeses from Rubiner’s.
Ah, Rubiner’s—Great Barrington’s elegant palace of cheese and specialty foods—has not only great edible gifts, (and lovely boxes in which to gift them) but also some off-the-beaten-track non-cosmetibles. The marble mortar-and-pestle sets (available in three sizes, in black or white marble $50 - $120) are beautiful, sculptural, and useful for everything from crushing spices to making guacamole—and serious cooks can never have too many. A nice stocking stuffer is something I’ve never seen anywhere else: packages of Fortmaticum Cheese Paper especially for wrapping up cheese. Any serious cheese-head will tell you that confinement in plastic wrap equals death-by-asphyxiation for fine cheese, so this is one of those items that proves that the best gifts often cost the least ($9.95).
Bizalion’s is also known for its cheese and charcuterie, and a bottle of their exclusive, in-house olive oils is always a welcome gift. I cannot imagine anyone who would not appreciate an Opinel knife. These clever folding knives have been made in the same town in France since the 1890s. For friends who needed cheese knives in their weekend place, I bought one #6 Opinel, a small cleaver, and a lovely parmesan knife—the whole gift cost less than $30. Bizalion’s also has hard-to-find Italian mezzaluna knives for $19.95, and a wonderful stainless steel Parmesan grater, designed to be used at the table, for only $12.95. If you want to give your friends a culinary treat, Bizalion’s is offering pre-orders for special holiday ingredients, ranging from fresh Italian truffles (around $100/ounce) to guinea hen, pheasant and duck for Christmas roasts. Owner Jean-François Bizalion’s home-made cassoulet is available for $25/person, or you can buy all the ingredients to make your own. They even have rendered duck fat so you can make your own duck confit.
Most cooks like nothing more than exploring a new ingredient or a new cuisine, and in our neck of the woods Polish food counts as exotic. I must have driven by Maria’s European Delights in Great Barrington dozens of times, always wondering what was hidden behind the strip-mall storefront. When I gave into my curiosity, I discovered a treasure trove of Polish (and other eastern European) specialty foods. Owners Maria and Krzysztof (pronounced “Christoph”) Sekowski opened the shop about a year ago, but they’ve been living in the Berkshires for over thirty years, first as weekenders and then, starting in 1986, full time. Krzysztof worked for twenty years as an engineer at Rising Paper in Housatonic, but when the mill closed, the Sekowskis decided to open their own market. For gifts, they have a delicious range of kielbasa guaranteed to expand your horizons when it comes to this succulent variety of smoked sausage. Whether the long, skinny kabanosy or the thicker krajana, mildly flavored with large chunks of tender pork inside, they are all delicious, and the Sekowskis, proud of their product, are delighted to offer samples. Says Krzysftof: “I know these butchers personally from Brooklyn.” The store also offers a range of sweet and savory breads, frozen pierogis, smoked fish platters, stuffed cabbage and a huge selection of condiments from jams to pickled vegetables. Non-Polish speakers may need translation for some of the labels, but the Sekowskis are happy to oblige.
I’m not so into electronics—most of the electrified gadgets I need I already have. But if you know a serious cook who doesn’t have a Cuisinart food processor or a KitchenAid stand mixer and you can afford such largesse, get thee to Different Drummer’s Kitchen in Lenox immediately. You will be showered with love and thanks, not to mention fantastic baked goods or homemade pesto.
Of course, you can almost never go wrong with a cookbook. Any of the region’s independent bookstores should be able to guide you to new and interesting titles (such as A Platter of Figs and Other Recipes by David Tanis), but if you want something less expected, pay a visit to Rogers Book Barn in Hillsdale. This humble temple to bibliophilia is one of my favorite local places to lose an afternoon. Though it has a small cookbook section, I’ve never failed to find a title—or three—that I wanted, including some terrific first editions. Be sure to doublecheck that it’s open—like many local businesses, hours change seasonally, and winter hours are more limited.
Do you have other suggestions for hidden treasures for cooks and the people who love them? Leave a comment, and share your secret sources.
Spencertown Academy
Route 203 P.O. Box 80, Spencertown; 518.392.3693
Rubiner’s Cheesemongers & Grocers
264 Main Rd Great Barrington; 413.528.0488
Bizalion’s Fine Food
684 South Main Street, Great Barrington; 413.644.9988
Maria’s European Delights
67 State Road, Great Barrington; 413.528.3456
Different Drummer’s Kitchen
374 Pittsfield Road, Lenox; 413.637.0606
Rodger’s Book Barn
467 Rodman Road, Hillsdale; 518. 325.3610
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Posted by Dan Shaw on 12/11/08 at 02:53 PM • Permalink
Thanksgiving: Give Thanks for Top-Notch Take-Out
"Freedom from Want" by Norman Rockwell
Anybody planning on serving raw celery next Thursday? Didn’t think so. The ante has gone up since the simple times portrayed at left. Today’s Thanksgiving dinner is a much more ambitious enterprise, which is why it begs for at least partial takeout. Cooking a turkey is taxing enough (okay, maybe for some of us, even that’s too taxing). Then add all those must-have sides (What? No mashed white potatoes, in addition to the sweets and the dressing?!), plus all that baking!? Here’s what some of the splendid professional cooks in our region are offering to take off our over-challenged hands and into their own far-more-capable ones:
The Berry Farm
2309 Route 203, Chatham; 518.392.4609
The Berry Farm will be offering mostly baked items—pumpkin bread, zucchini and banana breads, cookies, scones, pies. They also have homemake soups, such as potato leek, heirloom tomato, and squash.
The Bottle Tree Grocery
1415 County Route 7, Ancram; 518.329.0444
At the Bottle Tree Grocery in Ancram, chef Tim Cocheo, formerly chef de cuisine at Wheatleigh in Lenox and at Waltze in NYC, is offering butternut squash soup with rosemary and orange, a molasses-brined organic turkey, a chestnut-shitake stuffing (either vegetarian or with sausage); a sweet potato gratin with cranberry, celery, and onions; roasted root vegetables with thyme
carrot, parsnips, potato, yellow squash, zucchini, and shallots; and blue cheese creamed spinach.
Cricket Creek Farm
1255 Oblong Road, Williamstown; 413.458.5888
Cricket Creek Farm in Williamstown has three-berry crisp, cranberry walnut rolls by the dozen, Indian Pudding, and while you’re at it, why not pick up some of their home-made butter and oatmeal, too.
Farm House Bakers
5 Phillips Road, South Egremont; 413.528.0324
Farm House Bakers will be at Dewey Memorial Hall on Route 7 in Sheffield on Saturday, November 22nd from 9:30 - 1, with pies, cakes, and cookies. If you want their amazing sweet potato biscuits, you’ll have to special order them in advance. (Incidentally, Dewey Hall will continue its Saturday Market through December 20th.)
Gigi Market
227 Pitcher Lane, Red Hook; 845.758.1999
Gigi’s has a huge take-out menu with many special items for Thanksgiving including turkeys of all sizes, which they sell as is, brined and oven ready, or fully cooked (these should be reserved in advance—everything else is expected to be available up to more-or-less the last minute). Hot hors d’oeuvres include pumpkin-and-brie risotto puffs and acorn squash fritters with a maple glaze; cold hors e’oeuvres, baby beet tapenade with croustade, and bacon-&-cheddar deviled eggs. Among the many sides are maple-pumpkin polenta, butternut squash crema, herbed stuffing with dried cranberries and walnuts. And desserts: all sorts of seasonal fruit pies, cobblers and rustic tarts. Sides and pies can be picked up prior to Thanksgiving either at Pitcher Lane or by arrangement, in Rhinebeck. On Thanksgiving Day, pick up until noon at Gigi Market only, where the picturesque farm space is available as of this writing for parties of 25 or more. (Interested parties should call 845.758.8702.)
Berger’s Specialty Foods at Guido’s Fresh Marketplace
1020 South Street, Pittsfield; 413.442.9912
Berger’s, the deli at Guido’s in Pittsfield, prefers that you pre-order so you’ll be certain they haven’t run out of what you want; on the other hand, if you don’t mind gambling, neither do they. You can waltz in as late as the day before Thanksgiving and you’ll probably find most of their sides and desserts in the deli-case. (Don’t count on finding a last-minute turkey, however, and certainly not one that’s pre-cooked.) They recommend starting with a mini baked Brie stuffed with just fruit or nuts too, followed by butternut bisque with apples, then either turkey or ham (oven-ready or pre-roasted by them) with such sides as butternut squash cooked with fresh sage, garlic, white wine, extra virgin olive oil, vegetable stock, and Reggiano Parmesan; Yukon gold potatoes with milk or cream, fresh herbs, Manchego cheese, and LOTS of garlic; “rainbow” carrots cooked with shallots, olive oil, fresh herbs, and chopped garlic; wilted radicchio, green beans, onions, & Reggiano Parmesan; sweet potato puree with butter, toasted pecans, fresh thyme, and maple syrup; and two types of stuffing—wild mushroom or Bartlett pears, toasted pecans, dried cranberries, and organic apple juice; plus all the usual desserts and Peach Praline, too.
The Marketplace at Guido’s Fresh Marketplace
760 South Main Street, Great Barrington; 413.528.9255
The Marketplace at Guido’s in Great Barrington wants you to order your turkey (precooked or oven-ready) by Thursday, November 20th; for all other prepared dishes (and there are scores of possibilities), you’ve got until 5 p.m. on Sunday, the 23rd. Among the twists on traditional delights: corn chowder; spinach-and-roasted red pepper casserole; caramelized carrots with orange; basmati-and-wild-rice salad with dried cranberries; rosemary whipped-cream biscuits; and a chocolate bark assortment. But this brief excerpt does not begin to do justice; check out their website for the full menu.
Haven Cafe & Bakery
8 Franklin Street, Lenox; 413.637.8948
Haven is specializing in sides and desserts and needs all orders by November 20th for turkey gravy, sausage stuffing flavored with Grande Marnier, maple-ginger roasted root vegetables, Yukon gold/butternut squash gratin with pecan crust, orange-spice cranberry relish, mashed potatoes with celeriac, apple-and-sage stuffing, pumpkin-bourbon cheesecake, and cranberry-almond caramel tart, as well as all the more usual desserts.
Red Devon
108 Hunns Lake Road, Bengall; 845.868.3175
The all-organic Red Devon in Bengall has got the whole meal covered. Call now and they’ll fax or e-mail you an order form for everything from an artisan cheese platter with grapes and crostini to start, to home-made pumpkin ice cream for dessert, and every conceivable traditional thing in between, including oyster-mushroom soup, roast turkey (or, if you prefer, oven-ready), giblet gravy, cranberry-orange compote, sausage-sage cornbread stuffing, roasted brussel sprouts, kale with warm bacon vinaigrette, parker house rolls, etc. Only troubling detail: you need to place your order by noon on November 20th.
The Old Inn at the Southfield Store
162 Norfolk Road, Southfield; 413/229.505
You have until Saturday, November 22, to place your order,and you can reserve a 12 pound free-range Hudson Valley turkey either fully roasted or uncooked. There are, of course, pies—such as apple crumb and southern pecan—as well as an autumn salad with frisee, endive, radicchio, beets, bacon, walnuts, apples, blue cheese and red-wine vinaigrette. The tantalizing sides include fricassee of autumn vegetables, mousse of spiced sweet potatoes, cranberry citrus relish, and pear, chestnut and sage stuffing. All orders must be pre-paid and picked up between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. on Wednesday, November 26, or Thursday, November 27.
Beté Avon Kosher Catering
48 Russell Street, Great Barrington; 413.528.5225
If you want to serve a pure glatt Kosher dinner for 8 to 10 people, this caterer will do the whole megillah for $330: “beyond belief” challah rolls, sweet-potato-leek soup, honey-glazed turkey, giblet gravy, rustic bread stuffing wtih sundried cranberries and sausage, rosemary roasted carrots and potatoes, haricots verts, cranberry-orange compote, pumpkin pie, and triple chocolate fudge brownies. You can also order à la carte but there is a $180 minimum and all orders must be made by 5 p.m. on November 20. Pick up in Great Barrington before 12:30 p.m. on November 27. Delivery can be arranged for an extra charge. For a menu, email: betavonvatering@aol.com.
McEnroe Organic Farm
Route 22/44, between Amenia and Millerton; 518.789.4191
It’s hard to believe but McEnroe’s says that you can order the day before if you are really that unsure about your holiday plans. You can get organic turkeys, Heritage Bronze turkeys and even deep-fried organic turkeys. You can start the feast with organic chopped liver, mini crab cakes or butternut squash soup. The sides range from southwestern jalapeño cornbread dressing to whiskey glazed organic jewel yams. Besides pies for dessert, there are blueberry or raspberry crumbles and pumpkin cheesecake. Open Thanksgiving Day from 10 a.m.- 2 p.m.
Country Bistro
Academy Street, Salisburyl 860.435.9420
This popular cafe famous for it soups will sell you almost everything but the turkey if you order by 5 PM on Sunday, November 23. The holiday soups are corn chowder, butternut bisque and wild mushroom, and the sides range from creamed pearl onions to roasted garlic mashed potatoes. There are traditional pies as well as a super-rich flour-less chocolate cake and a pumpkin cheesecake. You must pick-up everything between 3 and 6 PM on Wednesday, November 26.
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Posted by Marilyn Bethany on 11/17/08 at 07:33 AM • Permalink
