News & Events mid-November 2010
Berkshire Grown envisions a community where healthy farms define the open landscape, where a wide diversity of fresh, seasonal food and flowers continue to be readily available to everyone, and where we celebrate our agricultural bounty by buying from our neighboring family farms and savoring their distinctive Berkshire harvest.
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NOTE THE NEW LOCATION IN GREAT BARRINGTON: SEARLES SCHOOL GYMNASIUM on Bridge StreetJoin us this Saturday, details here
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Connecting Communities, Farmers and Food
Hear about the success of
Glynwood's Keep Farming® Program
in Chatham, NY. Learn how agriculture there contributes to the local economy, community and the environment.
JOIN US!
Thursday November 18, 2010 @ 7pm
at the New Great Barrington Fire Station
37 State Road, Great Barrington, MA
 Mary Gail Biebel will tell the story of Glynwood's Keep Farming® Program.
A Community Agriculture Partnership is forming. Join with citizens, farmers, land owners, businesses, neighboring towns and the Great Barrington Agricultural Commission to create a working plan to develop our agricultural resources.
or Ben Grosscup, Keep Farming® Regional Representative for Massachusetts Glynwood Center Office: 413-549-1568 bgrosscup@glynwood.org
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SPECIAL for BERKSHIRE GROWN MEMBERS: THANKS to the MAHAIWE THEATER
Special Member Price
SELECTED SHORTS: Funny Food Fictions
Stars Jane Curtin, David Strathairn, and series host Isaiah Sheffer
Saturday November 20 at 8PM
$40 includes reception with the actors
$30 / $25 Members
 Celebrate the holidays with stars Jane Curtin (Saturday Night Live) and David Strathairn (Good Night and Good Luck) and series host Isaiah Sheffer as they perform luscious and hilarious tales of food and love by authors T. Coraghessan Boyle, Roald Dahl and Dorothy Parker.
A chef carries out an outrageous seduction of a leading restaurant critic, the mystery of a wine identification unfurls with a twist, and a lady at dinner is intrigued by the "Greek God" seated to her right. Visit www.mahaiwe.org for more details or phone the Mahaiwe Box Office:413-528-0100.
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What We're Reading
Stephen Colbert and the NY TIMES focused on Domino's Pizza -- why?Read Eating Liberally here to learn about "Domino's Pizza and the USDA: The Bailout You Didn't Hear About"
What do you think about this news? Read these provocative articles and talk to your friends: "While Warning About Fat, U.S. Pushes Cheese Sales"
By MICHAEL MOSS
 "Domino's Pizza was hurting early last year. Domestic sales had fallen, and a survey of big pizza chain customers left the company tied for the worst tasting pies.
"Then help arrived from an organization called Dairy Management. It teamed up with Domino's to develop a new line of pizzas with 40 percent more cheese, and proceeded to devise and pay for a $12 million marketing campaign.
"Consumers devoured the cheesier pizza, and sales soared by double digits..."
READ MORE IN The New York Times
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What We're Reading
Chewswise, the blog by Sam Fromartz
"Cold Frame: the 30-minute spinach induced version"
Sam Fromartz writes that he recently
"took the plunge to garden in the winter. Now, I've grown stuff in the winter before,  like lettuce, which last year made it through 30-inches of snow and produced full heads in March. Or radishes, kale, and other winter hardy crops.
"But this experiment with a cold frame, or small hoop house, was built out of frustration with my inability to grow spinach. For those who live in the mid-Atlantic, or maybe just Washington D.C, you know growing spinach can be tough. Plant it in the early spring and it bolts quickly. Sow seed in late summer for a fall crop and it fails to germinate because it's too hot.
"So I put up this mini-green house. It's very easy..."
READ MORE HERE
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What We Are ReadingTrading cows for birds: More NJ farmers growing sunflowers for Audubon Society's birdseed by MARYANN SPOTO The Star-Ledger
Thanks to Jody Soules of Wild Birds Country Store in Great Barrington. MA for sending us this article:  "Just last November, Gibbs, a 47-year-old lifelong farmer whose family had been in the dairy business since the 1880s, sold his herd of cows. Milk just wasn't lucrative anymore and he was looking for some way to diversify.
"That's when the Audubon Society came to him, suggesting an alternative crop: sunflowers that could be harvested for birdseed. "Sunflowers, with their big-headed, attention-grabbing stalks, are showing up at an increasing number of farms in New Jersey as part of an unlikely alliance between the farmers and the Audubon Society, with the two sides at least temporarily putting aside their past differences in the name of cash and conservation. READ MORE HERE Photo by Robert Sciarrino/The Star-Ledger
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Quick Bites
THANK YOU NORTH BERKSHIRE COUNTY!!!
We celebrated the "Farm to Table" connection at "Getting to Know Berkshire Grown: Celebrate NoCo" on Nov. 8th:
Local hors d'oeuvres were prepared by Baby Cakes, The Clark Café, Gala Restaurant, Gramercy Bistro, Mezze Bistro + Bar, The Red Lion Inn, Wild Oats Market, Williams College and The Williams Inn.
 Farmers and representatives from The Berry Patch, Black Queen Angus Farm, Cricket Creek Farm (pictured), East Mountain Farm, Elmartin Farm, Hidden Pasture Farm, Ioka Valley Farm, Mighty Food Farm, Peace Valley Farm, Square Roots Farm and Sweet Brook Farm were present to talk about their farms and products.
Thanks to photographer Edward Acker, you can see pictures here on host Mezze Bistro + Bar's website.
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MASSACHUSETTS GROWN...and FRESHER!
CHECK OUT MAP-O-LICIOUS FOR FRESH
LOCAL EGGS, CHEESE, MEAT & MORE
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 Stay In touch!
Berkshire Grown's e-newsletter will come out
twice a month, around the 1st & 15th, during the growing season. Please send
information to barbara@berkshiregrown.org, thanks!
Barbara Zheutlin,
Director
Sheryl Lechner, Outreach Coordinator
413-528-0041 |
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