Shopping: The Best Granola in the Berkshires - And Beyond?
Michele Miller making BOLA Granola in Great Barrington this week
Like so many of our culinary discoveries, Michele Miller’s BOLA Granola entered our consciousness when we saw it on the shelves at Guido’s. Miller, a Berkshires native who has been cooking professionally since 1974, decided to try marketing her own granola less than two years ago. It’s now being sold in stores across New England, including Whole Foods, and it was just named by the magazine Everyday with Rachel Ray as the “best traditional” granola sold in supermarkets in the USA.
Hudson Valley Restaurant Week: Special Menus for Mud Season
Going out to a favorite restaurant is a sure cure for Mud Season Melancholy, and Hudson Valley Restaurant Week (which runs now through March 28) comes just in the nick of time. A host of restaurants we love—including La Puerta Azul in Salt Point, Red Devon in Bangall, and Stissing House in Pine Plains—are offering three course, prix-fixe menus for $20 at lunch and $28 at dinner.
Openings: A Photo Exhibit Salutes Berkshire VeteransOn Friday night, March 12, at the Lichtenstein Center for the Arts, patriots of all stripes turned out for the opening of the Berkshire Veterans Photography Project. Photographer Bill Wright, who served in the Air Force during the Gulf War, has been taking heroic portraits of men and women who have served in uniform for our country, including 99-year-old Margaret Haggerty who was an Army nurse during World War II. |
The Wandering Eye: Pancho 1994-2010Regular readers of the Wandering Eye had come to know Pancho, Carey Maloney’s chihuahua, as the blog’s comic leitmotif. Now Pancho’s funny, little light has gone out. His torn up master (though who mastered whom will always be in question) has given his sidekick a proper send off—“a New-York-Times-style obit, above-the-fold, with a picture.” He was a very good boy. |
Recipe Archive: Lamb for Passover & EasterInstead of the traditional brisket for Passover or ham for Easter, Paige Orloff hit upon a simple lamb preparation that adapts equally to either celebration. Highly flavored with garlic, rosemary and oil-cured black olives, the lamb goes nicely with mina de maza (layers of vegetables and matzoh) and tzimmes on Passover. For Easter, Orloff suggests a potato gratin, asparagus, and arugula salad. |
Community: A Contest for CreativesThe folks at Berkshire Creative are co-sponsoring an initiative with Crane & Co., the esteemed Dalton, MA stationers. In an attempt to broaden their base of freelancers, even as they goose their product lines, the 200-year-old firm is seeking sophisticated ideas from the region’s pool of freelance artists, illustrators, designers and copywriters, who will be rewarded with freelance work. |
RI Selects: In the Museums & GalleriesAdmit it: You’ve always wanted to read your neighbor’s mail. If your neighbors happen to be artists Karen Arp-Sandel and Suzi Banks Baum, here’s your chance to do so without committing a federal offense. Berkshire Art Kitchen kicks off Women’s History Month with Fe-Mail: An Exhibition of Mail Art, featuring a three-year “Postal Discourse” between Baum and Arp-Sandel, consisting of over seventy-five mixed media postcards sent through the U.S. mail. |
AgriCulture: The Making of a Farmer, Chapter IIIn the Making of a Farmer, Part I, Mark Scherzer told us of a childhood and young adulthood passed in profound alienation from nature. Now, in Part 2, he relates how, by following Peter Davies’ lead, he was gradually seduced by gardening, particularly vegetable gardening, which, he finds, exceeds ornamental gardening when subjected to the rigors of cost-benefit analysis. |
