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Food

Alana Chernila: The Homemade Pantry from a Homegrown Gal

The best very best trips to the farmers’ markets are expeditions of discovery. There, amidst the familiar greens, beans, and tomatoes, sits a knobby root vegetable that you may have heard of – or even enjoyed in a restaurant – but you have no idea of what to do with it, much

By Editor

Community

Rural Intelligence Returns! Publication Resumes on May 3

Rural Intelligence, the four-year-old online culture-and-lifestyle magazine for Berkshire, Columbia, Dutchess and Litchfield counties that has been on hiatus for the past six months, will resume publication at the beginning of May. Mark Williams, who lives in the Tyringham Valley of Massachusetts, has purchased Rural Intelligence from its founders, Marilyn

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Community

Passages: A Farewell from Marilyn & Dan

From the start, Rural Intelligence was an experiment. Our goal to create an online culture-and-lifestyle magazine that would unite four counties in three states was and remains, as far as we know, unique.  We are proud of the work we've done and that we've succeeded in

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Food

West Street Grill, A Hardy Litchfield Perennial

West Street Grill, A Hardy Litchfield Perennial

By Lisa Green

Food

St. Andrew's Café, Greener and Sharper Than Ever

By Kathryn Matthews For all appearances, St. Andrew's Café at the Culinary Institute of America (CIA) in Hyde Park is one of those restaurants where time-stood-still, with décor that features carpeted floors; a brown-and-ochre color scheme;  floor-length floral curtains; and white-clothed tables.  The student servers sport collared, long-sleeved

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Community

Pie Contest in A Box: Competitive Baking with a Soul

Two years ago, Gina Hyams was helping organize the pie contest for Hancock Shaker Village's annual Country Fair, and she was knocked out by the passion of the participants. "People were so excited to be judges," she recalls, noting that the panel included The New Yorker&

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Food

Celebrity Chef Lydia Shire Debuts at Tanglewood

by Sally Helgesen Lydia Shire has been to the Boston restaurant scene what Alice Waters was to Northern California: a creative force, influencer-in-chief, modernizer, experimentalist, provocateur and muse. Now Shire brings her outrageously delicious cuisine to the Berkshires as guest chef at Tanglewood’s opening night Gala at on Friday,

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Food

Brick House Pub: A Nirvana for Hungry Beer Geeks

For the past few years, Leland Kent (right) and John Flynn (left) worked as bartenders at the no-frills Brick House Pub in the Great Barrington village of Housatonic. "We always talked about how we would make it better if we were in charge, how we'd serve really

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Community

20 Questions for "Moonchildren" Director Karen Allen

Moonchildren, a play by Michael Weller set over the course of the 1965-66 school year in an unnamed college town, has been called "a masterwork by one of our great writers."  Actress (Raiders of the Lost Ark, White Irish Drinkers) and director Karen Allen, who mounted a well-received

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Food

Eat, Plant, and Learn to Love Good Food at Katchkie Farm

By Betsy Miller Liz Neumark, CEO of Great Performances, a catering company based in New York City, had been catering for more than two decades when she took to joining CSAs, and gradually fell in love with locally-grown produce.  “For the first time in my life,” she says, “I knew

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Community

The Second Annual Hudson Pride Festival June 17 - 19

One year ago, Hudson became the undisputed LGBT capital of the Rural Intelligence region with the inaugural Hudson Pride Parade and Festival. Galvanized by the surprising and groundbreaking election of Hudson High School seniors Charlie Ferrusi and Timmy Howard as prom queen and king (who were recruited at the last

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Community

Lift Ev'ry Voice Arts and Heritage Festival

by Tresca Weinstein Berkshire County’s Lift Ev’ry Voice arts and heritage festival doesn’t officially begin until Sunday, but it’s already bringing the community together. “This has been one of those projects that is very unifying—there’s a place that has been made for everyone,” says

By Editor