Syrup and sugared nuts and fudge-like cream … the sap is boiling, and maple growers are expanding in the Berkshires with web shops. You can stop in for a quart or order one from home.
Read articleWe follow food in the Berkshires into all kinds of stories. Around here we can be laid back and experienced at the same time. We have third-generation family farms, and we have Brooklyn chefs looking for a closer tie to the land. Sometimes they work together. Sometimes the chefs are farmers, and the farmers are chefs.
Some are born here, and some have come from around the world, from Malaysia to Australia. They blend a sense of flavor and a sense of humor. Looking purple potato chips? Grass-fed burger with blue cheese? Dumplings and shumai? Strawberries warm from the sun? We’ll find them. Come with us.
Food Stories
Can you feel the sap running today? (March 3 newsletter)
Sweet — That scent in the air like caramel over wood smoke — it feels almost unreal after all this last year, but it’s here. The sap is boiling.
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MoonCloud seasonal cocktails bring warmth home
How about a drink with a kick for a night with frost in the air — a touch of pumpkin, honey spiced with ginger and cloves? At Moon Cloud in Great Barrington, you can pick up a carefully blended bottle to bring home.
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Parisian pastry adapts to the country at the Lost Lamb Bakery
Pumpkin tarts and spicy chocolate mousse … clam chowder and crusty baguette … where does New England meet a French pâtissière? In Stockbridge, Claire Raposo runs the Lost Lamb bakery and cafe.
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The Berkshires Farm Table Cookbook savors local stories
On a warm and quiet day, Elisa Spungen Bildner was sitting with Kim Wells, the farmer at East Mountain Farm in Williamstown. They had walked up into the woods where his pigs forage in summer …
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A-Ok Barbecue spices up take-out in style
She is an Australian artisanal bread baker trained in New York. He is a former Manhattan chef and a butcher — a Russian Hungarian Jew from Connecticut. Together, at A-Ok, they are inventing Berkshire barbecue.
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The Prairie Whale adapts in a Covid world
At the Prairie Whale in Great Barrington, strings of lights are gleaming above the tables on the lawn. Most of the chairs are full on a Friday night, and voices carry over the grass. The diners and the waiters are all wearing masks.
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Round House Bakery closes at Hubbard Hall and regroups in the pandemic
Scott and Lisa Carrino have built a local community around the Round House Bakery Café, and the pandemic has closed their restaurant at Hubbard Hall. They will keep their bakery running at Pompanuck Farm in White Creek.
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Farmers Markets ripen across the Berkshires in summer
A table at the front holds hand-turned bowls. I once saw that dark rippling on creamy wood in an old farmhouse near here, and the man who lived there told me it was spalted maple, and fungi cause that pattern, but they often leave the wood too brittle to work, so […]
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Caretaker Farm grows with the strength of community
“So many people have told me it’s their favorite part of living here, the most beautiful place on earth for them,” says Don Zasada, who farms Caretaker Farm in Williamstown with his wife, Bridget.
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