The Great Barrington Farmers Market took over the train station on Saturday mornings for years, but moved to the fairgrounds last year. This year they have an arrangement with Great Barrington’s fairy godmother, Jane Iredale, who is generously leasing them space on her company’s conveniently located property, with a lot of room for parking.
Much of the food we eat is nutritionally deficient and most packaged food is filled with chemicals that the human system is unfamiliar with at best, and at risk from more often.
Our fascination with plants involves everything about them, including underground tubers, bulbs, and, by extension, the special charm of seed packets -- all of which hold the promise of new growth. Altogether, their appeal is so compelling that when choosing varieties and quantities for the new year’s garden great restraint is often required when purchasing.
So — enough with the food-pyramids and the nutrition admonitions. Don’t tell me how many glasses of this or ounces of that I’m supposed to consume, or the dire consequences if I don’t. From now on I am going to listen to what my own body is telling me.
I have grown enamored of naturally fermented pickles and other vegetables, both for their great flavor and for their incredible health benefits...it is amazing what people did with food before anyone understood the science behind it. Ketchup, marmalade and relishes also used to be lactofermented. Ketchup, originally known as ke-tsiap, was a spicy, pickled fish sauce made of anchovies, walnuts, mushrooms and kidney beans from Indonesia.
There is a fresh menu every day so no matter how regularly you dine at Allium, there’s always something new to taste. "I like food that’s fun and interactive."
-- Allium chef Daire Rooney
Once upon a time, an original box car diner, made in New Jersey in the 1940s, it was brought to Millerton to replace an inn owned by the Hotchkiss family that had burned down. Today, much of the original diner remains the same, so you’re forgiven if you feel as if you’ve entered a time warp.
Chef and owner Christophe Jalbert places a high premium on local ingredients on his menus. In a short time that he has owned the former Route 7 Grill, Jalbert not only developed solid relationships with 40 or more farmers in the area, but the people who come to his restaurants expect locally grown food prepared to show off its high quality.
"The veterans of the 'back to the land' movement who are now in their 70s didn't even know what a business plan looked like when they started out. But younger people today have way more business acumen. We sold the idea of using climate friendly biomass fuels for heating greenhouses by demonstrating that it would help their bottom line."
-- UVM Extension Prof. Vern Grubinger
The first of two reports from the Northeast Sustainable Agricultural Working Group(NESAWG): A centerpiece of NESAWG’s plan is the "50 by 60" program, which plans that by 2060, 50 percent of the food produced in the northeast should be consumed in the northeast. Tom Kelly of the University of New Hampshire envisions a tripling of New England acres under cultivation from 2 to 6 million.
Warren Norstein (Big W), born and bred in Brooklyn, ended up as a barbecue chef in Wingdale by accident. People typically do a double take when they learn that Norstein worked for 16 years as a chef in high-end New York City French restaurants.
The full name of Smith’s restaurant is “John Andrews, a farmhouse restaurant.” Thus it is not surprising that each week Smith presents a special menu highlighting the bounty of a local farm. Recently the menu featured Susan Sellew’s Rawson Brook Farm goat cheese.
The anti-oxidants in leeks are associated with reducing cholesterol production in the liver cells. They also appear to impart anti-bacterial, anti-viral and anti-fungal activities.
We were contemplating the 10 guests that would soon be assembling for our Thanksgiving celebration, and fretting about whether we had enough turkey, stuffing,...
