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Whole fish are often served for Chinese New Year to connote completeness. This photo of a fish steamed with scallions and ginger taken on a business trip to China by Grace Gao.

Berkshire Tidbits: Chinese New Year Banquet, Food Events

By Judith LernerSpecial to iBerkshires
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It's midwinter and full of food delights! Events, holidays and special deals on delicious foods.


Yogurt-marinated wings at Bombay Grill in Lee.

For football fans, Sunday is Super Bowl in more ways than running through a stadium field with a pointy-ended ball. It's super bowls and bowls and platters and pans of gooey and rich, crunchy and spicy, salty, smoky, savory and sweet everything comfort foods. I'll go into local wings later.

Monday, Feb. 8, is the beginning of the 15-day Chinese Spring Festival or Chinese New Year when food offers symbolic help for health, prosperity and overall good fortune in the coming year. I arranged to have a banquet with friends at Panda House in Lenox on Chinese New Year's Eve.

We planned a number of seafood dishes including two kinds of whole fish because seafood is auspicious, whole fish symbolize completeness and shellfish are opulent. Besides soft shell crab, shrimp over baby bok choy and seafood with crispy pan fried noodles, there was to be steamed whole flounder with ginger and scallions and crispy fried whole sea bass in spicy bean sauce.

These whole fish are served on platters with their head and tail still on. Diners eat the fish off the bones by pulling off the meat with their chopsticks. They are so delicious that the bones are usually picked bare.

Steamed housemade dumplings, which symbolize prosperity, are filled with vegetables and pork or beef. The chef made pickled daikon for us. Also on order were crispy duck with vegetables, eggplant in garlic sauce, Chinese broccoli sautéed with fresh garlic, fried rice with basil and either duck or Chinese sausage -- or both -- and sticky rice cakes filled with pork, mushrooms and cauliflower.

Chef Wei ordered ee fu longevity noodles for us from Chinatown in New York City. You're not supposed to cut these noodles but to eat them whole for a long life. He prepared them with black mushrooms and snow peas.

We were to share oranges, egg custard tarts and sweet sticky rice balls in sweet broth with Chinese meringue. And I brought green Jasmine and white shoumei teas for them to brew.

Chopsticks in Williamstown is always willing to make New Year banquets on request. So is Jae's Bistro in Lenox if you speak with owner Jae Chung himself. And Koii in Great Barrington. Or, just take yourself out for a sumptuous Chinese, Korean or Vietnamese dinner in the next two weeks.

I'll tell you how our banquet turned out next week. Competing with Super Bowl 50 shortened the guest list.

Food Happenings This Week

Haven Bakery & Café in Lenox and Great Barrington has brought back its popular winter supper club preorder take-out menus. Entrées come with soup or salad and cost $22 for one to three dinners ordered, $75 for four dinners ordered, $110 for six dinners, $200 for 12 dinners.

Order by Wednesday, pick up at the bakery on Friday. The staff suggests people can order for different meals and can choose among that week's options. Call Haven, 413 637-8948, to order and get on their list to received upcoming menus.

Here's the menu for the week of Feb. 8:

Alsatian chicken breast with creamy Riesling-onion sauce served with mashed potatoes, roasted shiitake mushrooms and haricot vert

Shrimp and crab cakes with sauté kale with butternut squash and curry aioli

Beef tenderloin with port rosemary sauce, roasted asparagus and roasted fingerlings

Matt Rubiner, owner of Rubiner's Cheesemongers & Grocers is presenting some classes this month starting with an "Introduction to Cheese," $50, on Tuesday, Feb. 9, from 6:30 to 8 p.m. The following Tuesday, Feb. 16, and Saturday, Feb. 20, from 6 to 8 p.m., Rubiner will present wine and cheese pairing seminars, $75.

Tuesday is also Mardi Gras, Fat Tuesday or Shrove Tuesday as it may be called here in the North. The holiday is celebrated by eating rich pancakes with syrup and butter before Ash Wednesday and the six weeks of Lent.

Nancy King, of Great Barrington, wanted to make sure Berkshirites knew of this traditional event. She said one and all are welcome.

"The tri-state corner community of Sheffield, where the conjoined Christ Church Episcopal/ Trinity Lutheran Church is famous for its Shrove Tuesday Pancake Supper, served from 5 to 7 p. m. this Tuesday," she noted. "The men and boys of the parish dish out pancakes made from a secret church family recipe, along with homemade apple sauce and real maple syrup," she said. "Entertainment is provided periodically through the evening and all proceeds benefit the Sheffield Food Pantry."


Taco Tuesday at Eat on North.

And Eat on North, the new restaurant in the new Hotel on North in Pittsfield, has started Taco Tuesday. From 5 to 10 p.m. every Tuesday, for $15, diners can have two tacos of their choice or of the day plus a specialty cocktail — blood orange margarita, pink sangria — or a nip and a Modello.

Valentine's Day a week from Sunday seems to fill all of February with chocolates and sweetness. Catherine's Chocolates in Great Barrington (413 528-2510, 260 Stockbridge Road/Route 7; Monday through Saturday 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., Sunday 10 a. m. to 5 p. m.) has a dedicated Valentine's Day page full of hearts and truffles on their website.

That weekend and the next bracket a public school break week, which has to mean lots more home-cooked meals and dining out — an "eat" week. It's supposed to start out cold and end up warmer with a number of snow flurry days in there. The perfect time for soup.

To end the month with a nice little hop, don't forget to eat something leapy on our once-every-four-years Leap Day, Feb. 29. Try Catherine's Chocolates for delicious, 3-inch milk chocolate frogs.


Chicken soup at Breaking Bread Kitchen
in Sheffield.

More to come! New and moving restaurants. Lots of cooking classes here and there. Six thousand Hamentaschen/Jewish cookies filled with raspberry, apricot, prune or poppy seeds, waiting for pre-order at Congregation Knesset Israel in Pittsfield. Mindful Eating seminars in Great Barrington. Discount dining coupons for Sloane's Tavern at Cranwell Resort in Lenox.

Here's my recipe for comforting chicken soup. I won a contest with it. Fiddle with it to your liking but keep the apple. It sweetens the soup subtly.

FRIDAY NIGHT CHICKEN SOUP

1 whole Empire or organic chicken

good handful whole curly parsley on stalks, well washed, remove before serving

a few whole stalks dill weed, well washed, remove before serving

2 or 3 apples, whole, remove before serving

3 bay leaves, remove before serving

3 carrots, peeled and sliced

1 small parsnip, peeled and sliced (optional)

1/2 to 1 cup peeled, diced turnip or rutabaga (optional)

3 large celery stalks with leaves, sliced

1 pound onions, sliced

2 or to taste whole, unpeeled garlic cloves

1 large leek including the green parts, well cleaned, sliced

1 teaspoon sea salt or 2 teaspoons Kosher salt

no black pepper

pinch of cayenne

water to cover well

garnish finely minced fresh curly parsley and dillweed

garnish: lukshen/noodles, farfel/chopped noodles or mandlen/baked soup nuts, preferably homemade

Prepare soup a day ahead. Soup will be best if all ingredients are organic.

Tie parsley and dill stalks together in a bunch. Bring all ingredients except garnishes gently to a boil. This produces better flavors and textures than bringing rapidly to a boil. Cover. Lower heat to simmer. Cook slowly two or three hours to develop rich flavor. Skim foam if you like; I do not do this.

Chill overnight. Remove most but not all of the congealed fat. A few drops of fat between the garnishes in each soup bowl is traditional. Gently reheat. Remove apple skins — the apple pulp will have melted into the soup — bay leaves, parsley & dill before serving. Serve in wide, flat bowls garnished as desired. Serves 6 to 8.

 


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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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