Food

Discover the best food, farms, and dining in the Hudson Valley, Berkshires, and Litchfield Hills. Rural Intelligence shares local restaurant reviews, seasonal recipes, and stories celebrating regional flavor.

Food

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

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Food

AgriCulture: Behold, the Lamb of God

Peter Davies is a dealer in world textiles and kilim rugs, particularly those from Turkey, a destination he knows well and for which he also is a travel consultant. His partner, Mark Scherzer, has his own law firm, specializing in health law. For most of the past decade, the pair

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Food

AgriCulture Gets the Last Oink

On Friday, April 10, 2008, The New York Times ran an op-ed with the incendiary title, "Free Range Trichinosis," to which our AgriCulture co-columnist Mark Scherzer, a free-range pig farmer himself, shot back the following assurance of on-going vigilance at Turkana Farms, as well as a measured counter-argument.

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Food

AgriCulture: Consider the Egg

With both Passover and Easter upon us, it seems an opportune time to consider the egg. Pop anthropology tells us that the egg is a symbol of rebirth, hence its association with the festivals of Spring. Surely there's something to this, but if it's just about

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Food

Pavlova: A Dessert That Dances

Well, maybe not. But the pavlova—an airy meringue concoction invented either in New Zealand or Australia, sometime between 1926 and 1935, as a tribute to the ballerina Anna Pavlova who toured both countries several times during that period (believe it or not, the debate goes on)— is so light

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Food

Succulent & Secular: Lamb for Easter or Passover

Though I love the comfort foods of winter, spring is welcome in my kitchen, and not just because it means less cursing as I carry in boxes of groceries. If my first-favorite food holiday is Thanksgiving, Easter and Passover are close runners-up (though I observe neither, I enjoy celebrating both)

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Food

Railroad Street Youth Project: A Cause for Rebels

Last week Matt Rubiner of Rubiner's Cheesemongers in Great Barrington attended a fundraiser in New York City for Railroad Street Youth Project. He writes: "Railroad Street Youth Project is a Great Barrington-based organization that provides a safe haven for the at-risk youth of southern Berkshire County (and

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Food

Carole Murko Cooks Up a TV Pilot in Stockbridge

Like many people who once had big jobs in the big city and traded them in for country life, Carole Murko has been on the reinvention tour. Since arriving in the Berkshires from Boston where she had a successful career in finance, she has worked in real estate and as

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Food

Rice and Beans: Reduce, Reuse & Recycle

One of the most frequent—and most confounding—requests I've received since writing for Rural Intelligence is to serve up a plan for an entire week's worth of dinners. I am not, however, a Monday-meatloaf, Tuesday-turkey kind of cook. Even if I wanted to limit my

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Food

Jeff Loshinsky's Soupe au Pistou

Caterer Jeff Loshinsky's most recent cooking class this season, held on February 19 at the Vince Mulford Gallery in Hudson, focused on Hearty Soups and Chowders. Below is a recipe for one of the soups he featured that night, a vegetable soup with pistou, which is a pesto-like

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Food

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,

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Food

Let Them Eat Pie

Late winter and early spring means birthday season for my family: beginning on Valentine's Day with my husband, our little clan's birthdays then follow in succession through the end of March (save my son, whose outlier August birthday is the source of much consternation, at least

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