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Berkshire Tidbits: Spooky, Spirited & DeButchery

By Judith LerneriBerkshires Columnist
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Hancock Shaker Village's autumn dinners will offer a Latino twist this month.

CHP in Great Barrington Celebrating Mass 2015 Food Day

Thursday, Oct. 29; 10:45 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.
Friday, Oct. 30; 10 to 11 a.m.

Although Massachusetts Food Day nationally is — sort of, technically, officially — on Oct. 24, communities all over the commonwealth are staging their events on days convenient for them.

Great Barringon's Community Health Programs/CHP, 442 Stockbridge Road/Route 7, is hosting a "Spooktacular" of morning events for kids on Thursday, Oct. 29, and a pumpkin walk on Friday, Oct. 30.

Thursday there will be a cooking class from 10:45 to noon, Halloween pumpkin painting from noon to 1 and a reading of Julia Donaldson's book "Room on the Broom" from 1 to 1:30.

Friday's pumpkin walk takes place on its new walking trail that will be hung with child-decorated jack-o'-lanterns.

The event is free and all are welcome, especially families with children 7 and younger.

Food Day, seeks to bring together Americans from all walks of life to push for healthy, affordable food produced in a sustainable, humane way.

 

Becket Yoked Parish Hosts
Monthly Community Breakfast

The Yoked Parish of Becket presents its monthly breakfast on the last Saturday of every month from 8 to 11 a.m. All are welcome. Menu consists of homemade scrambled eggs, pancakes, French toast, bacon, sausage, ham, hash, home fries, fresh fruit, juices, tea and coffee.

At Becket Federated Church, 413-623-5217, 3381 Main St. across from the Becket Washington Elementary School, just past the intersection with Route 8. Adults are $6; children under 12, $3.

 

Chez Nous Wine Dinner Features
Chateauneuf du Pape & Rhone Valley Wines

Saturday, Oct. 31
6:15 p.m.

Spirited Wines of Lenox will bring Eric Bonnet, co-owner and winemaker of Domaine de la Bastide Saint Dominique, to Chez Nous, 150 Main St. in Lee, to present and speak about Chateauneuf-du-Pape, the region in the southern Rhône Valley of France, his family's vineyards and winery there and the complex wines they produce, during a six-course wine pairing dinner.

Chez Nous chefs and owners, Rachel Portnoy and Franck Tessier, have crafted a menu up to the standard of the wines. Tessier will create classic French regional dishes with his own spin, a contemporary, fresher spin.

"Wine dinners are about the wine," Portnoy pointed out. "The menu comes after the wine. I design the menu around the wines."

She said learning about the special wines, "is part of the fun of a wine dinner."

"Everything is two or three notches up from what we usually do. We want to highlight the best that we can do."

"We make everything here ourselves," Tessier said, explaining how he cures and smokes bacon and makes sausage. "People may find it boring," but I love it! I love to make it. I love to serve the classic foods to people. It is my training."

Cervelle de canut, a classic herbed cheese spread with shallots, olive oil and vinegar. A rolled, stuffed ballottine but of salmon, not fowl, which will be garnished with red salmon caviar, house-made crème fraîche and citrus. Portnoy will make a brioche featuring local pork sausage made by Northeast Family Farms. And red wine and cognac-marinated-and-braised beef ribs in a spicy red wine reduction and red currant sauce, traditional and seasonal as chilly weather sets in.

Dinner is by reservation only. The cost is $85 plus tax and gratuity. Contact Chez Nous at 413-243-6397 or via the website for information and to make reservations.

Braised beef Grand Veneur, the beef course at Chez Nous' traditional French wine pairing dinner Saturday, Oct. 31.

Menu

  • Welcome: cervelle de canut with housemade herbed fromage blanc and crostini
    2014 La Bastide St. Dominique Côtes du Rhône Blanc
  • Organic Scottish salmon ballottine with salmon caviar and creamy citrus sauce
    2014 La Bastide St. Dominique Chateauneuf-du-Pape Blanc
  • Warm brie with black truffle with Equinox Farm arugula salad
    2013 La Bastide St. Dominique Côtes du Rhône Villages Rouge
  • House made saucisson in brioche with pistachio sauce
    2013 La Bastide St. Dominique Chateauneuf-du-Pape Tradition Rouge
  • Braised beef shortribs Grand Veneur/Provence style in green peppercorns and red currant reduction
    2012 La Bastide St. Dominique Chateauneuf-du-Pape
  • Apricot and crème fraîche panna cotta in blackberry sauce with apricot macaron

    2013 La Bastide St. Dominique Beaumes de Venise Muscat

Just a heads up. Next week, the first week in November, Chez Nous will start the seventh year of their weekly cooking-demonstration-wine-pairing-full-meal Thursday evenings, "Manger! Boire! Eat! Drink! Manger! Boire!" dinners, $35 plus tax and gratuity, are beloved by their followers and go on through mid-February when the restaurant closes for a break until its April reopening.

"Look for them on our website and our Facebook page," Portnoy said.

Details in next week's Berkshire Tidbits column.

 

Hancock Shaker Village's Spirited Supper
Features
Craft Beer & Cider-Pairing

Saturday, Oct. 31
4 to 9 p.m.

There is a new, up-to-date twist to this year's autumn dinners at Hancock Shaker Village in Pittsfield. To highlight the Shaker tradition of spirit-making, a Latino-flavored dinner with nods to regional ingredients is being paired with regional craft beers and hard cider, a festivity now so popular in our area.

The final spirited dinner this season will take place on Saturday evening, Oct. 31.

At 4, longtime interpreters Jeffrey Brace will gather guests at the visitors' center for a tour of three or four sites including the Village gardens with their many varieties of apple trees at their autumn best, the Shaker cider press in the lower level of the restored Tannery building and the food preserving areas behind the kitchens on the lower level of the Brick Dwelling.

"This village had its own cidery," Hancock CEO Linda Steigleder said.

"They had alcohol. They made alcohol. They sold alcohol. In fact, Shakers had an industry of any kind of food substances they could create," Steigleder emphasized.

Brace will take visitors upstairs to the first floor meeting room where he will talk about Shaker spirituality, their craft in alcohol and food and present a small concert with Shaker dancing then to the Believers' dining room

Then, everyone will go to the candlelit Believers' dining room where chef Cris Morales and his new catering company Memorable Cuisine out of Spencertown, N.Y., will serve a combination plated sit-down and buffet dinner paired with a guided sampling of three Jack's Abby of Framingham craft lagers supplied by Domaney's Liquors and Fine Wines of Great Barrington, as well as a hard cider yet to be determined.

Steigleder was quite clear.

"We're totally trying not to be just Shaker here at this village. With our Spirited Dinners, we're trying to celebrate farm-to-table and craft beer."

"You know, the Shakers are quite adventuresome. In fact, the Shakers were constantly changing and very interested in good food, in plying their palates with everything they encountered. They were just regular people."

The event and dinner are by reservation. The price includes the program, dinner and beer/cider tastings, tax and gratuity: $75 for adults; $70 for Hancock Shaker Village members; $55 for children under 12; $50 for members. Extra glasses of beer are $10.

For reservations or information, Shawn Hartley Hancock at 413-443-0188, Ext. 221, or Ext. 0 for reservations, shancock@hancockshakervillage.org or the website.

Menu

  • First Course: roasted poblano corn chowder
  • Entrees: grass-fed beef tenderloin in adobo sauce with avocado leaves or roasted turkey meatballs with a tomatillo sauce
  • Accompaniments: red and white Mexican rice; cactus salad with queso fresco
  • Dessert: flan and/or lime tres leches cake

 

Halloween DeButchery Festivities
at Valley Variety in Hudson

Saturday, Oct. 31
5:30 to 9 p.m.

Valley Variety, a one-of-a-kind home, lifestyle shop that regularly produces special dinners and food events in Hudson, N.Y., has teamed up with The Meat Market of Great Barrington and Local 111, the cutting-edge farm-to-table restaurant in Philmont, N.Y., to produce a Halloween party/dinner featuring a butchering demonstration before dinner crafted by guest chef Josephine Proul, executive chef and owner of Local 111.

At 5:30, The Meat Market's head butcher Max Gitlen will demonstrate butchering by separating half a pig carcass into its primal, subprimal and better and lesser-known retail cuts while discussing various cuts and their preparations with Proul.

Proul and Valley Variety owner and DeButchery dinner producer Chuck Rosenthal both assure that those who do not wish to watch butchering have plenty of quiet spots in the shop, including the kitchen, where they can sit comfortably, chat, sip wine and eat hors d'ouvres until dinner.

While dinner guests proceed to their meal, made from the other half of the demonstration pig, butcher Gitlen will proceed to package the just-butchered cuts so guests have the opportunity to buy them after dinner.

Proul will have earlier taken those cuts and cooked them into the nose-to-tail dishes of the evening. Hudson Wine Merchants has chosen wines to complement her menu — a light starter wine, a red and a white for dining.

Dressing up is encouraged. Costumes are suggested but optional. However, The Meat Market recommends that Berkshirites, especially "dress to impress!"

The cost of this event, the pig breakdown and dinner is $95 inclusive. For more information and to reserve your tickets go here or call Valley Variety, 518-828-0033.

Valley Variety tells us that the menu is subject to minor change.

Menu

  • Sips and Bites: Apple and smoked trotter with autumn squash a allspice and crispy pork rillettes bignet with spicy mushrooms and pickle mayo
  • Starters and Main: pigs ear and jowl with beets, mint and peanuts sweet and sour rhubarb, lard biscuit and black pepper shaved loin braised shoulder, pear butter, pecan puree, corn pudding and cured cabbage
  • Sweets and Treats: pumpkin and quince hand pie, white chocolate sauce and pork cracklin's cocoa shortbread with bacon crunch

 

Big Elm Brewing/Eat on North
Beer Tasting & Dinner Postponed

Sunday, Nov. 1

Updated on Friday, Oct. 30

Eat on North executive chef Brian Alberg has informed us that Sunday's tasting and dinner has been postponed until some unspecified date after the first of the year.

"We hope to revisit it in a few months when there can be more time to drive interest," he said.

The restaurant and brewery had planned a four-course menu paired with some of Big Elm's brew (Crawfish etouffee served with collards and dirty rice and American Lager, for instance.) A tasting hour with featuring charcuterie and local cheeses was to be followed by the sit-down dinner, with brewmaster Bill Heaton speaking about his beers.

Let Hotel on North and Eat on North know if a Big Elm Brewing beer tasting and pairing dinner is an event you want to attend. Call and speak to Alberg or leave him a message at 413-553-4210.

 

Cooking at The Chef's Shop Series
November Classes Set in Great Barrington

Thursday, Nov. 5 & Thursday, Nov. 12; 5 to 7 p.m.
Sunday, Nov. 1 & Sunday, Nov. 22; 3 to 5 p.m.

The "Cooking at The Chef's Shop" series, taught by Julie Gale, chef and owner of At the Table Cooking School in Hillsdale, N.Y., and other guest chefs, continues with four classes in November: two on Thursday evenings and two on Sunday afternoons.

People who take Gales' cooking classes should be prepared to pitch in. Her classes are hands-on.

The Sunday, Nov. 1, class, "Gluten-Free Gourmet," covers gluten-free cooking. Gale will be making Brazilian cheese rolls, quinoa salad with roasted squash, and Korean sweet potato noodles with beef.

Michael Ballon, chef and owner of Castle Street Café in Great Barrington, food columnist and author of two books with lots of easy-to-follow recipes, will be teaching the Thursday, Nov. 5, class on how to cook chicken three ways.

On Thursday, Nov. 12, guest chef Elaine Khosrova, a Hudson Valley food writer and editor, will be baking Thanksgiving pies.

On Nov. 22, the Sunday before Thanksgiving, Gale and her students will make four Thanksgiving side dishes: tarragon creamed pearl onions, rutabaga with caraway, jalapeno corn soufflé and cranberry-kumquat sauce.

The Chef's Shop offers class students a 10-percent discount on purchases made on a class day. Cost is $60 per person for a single class, $150 for a series of three. Payment is required in advance with a 48-hour cancellation policy. For more details or to reserve a place in any classes: 1-800- 237-5284, 413-528-0135 or Email@TheChefsShop.com.


Tags: berkshire tidbits,   food,   judith lerner,   

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MassDOT Project Will Affect Traffic Near BMC

By Brittany PolitoiBerkshires Staff

PITTSFIELD, Mass. — Prepare for traffic impacts around Berkshire Medical Center through May for a state Department of Transportation project to improve situations and intersections on North Street and First Street.

Because of this, traffic will be reduced to one lane of travel on First Street (U.S. Route 7) and North Street between Burbank Street and Abbott Street from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m., Monday through Friday through at least May 6.

BMC and Medical Arts Complex parking areas remain open and detours may be in place at certain times. The city will provide additional updates on changes to traffic patterns in the area as construction progresses.

The project has been a few years in the making, with a public hearing dating back to 2021. It aims to increase safety for all modes of transportation and improve intersection operation.

It consists of intersection widening and signalization improvements at First and Tyler streets, the conversion of North Street between Tyler and Stoddard Avenue to serve one-way southbound traffic only, intersection improvements at Charles Street and North Street, intersection improvements at Springside Avenue and North Street, and the construction of a roundabout at the intersection of First Street, North Street, Stoddard Avenue, and the Berkshire Medical Center entrance.

Work also includes the construction of 5-foot bike lanes and 5-foot sidewalks with ADA-compliant curb ramps.  

Last year, the City Council approved multiple orders for the state project: five orders of takings for intersection and signal improvements at First Street and North Street. 

The total amount identified for permanent and temporary takings is $397,200, with $200,000 allocated by the council and the additional monies coming from carryover Chapter 90 funding. The state Transportation Improvement Plan is paying for the project and the city is responsible for 20 percent of the design cost and rights-of-way takings.

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