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Lenox Library Hosting 'Spring Tonic'
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The event hints at the green season to come while promoting locally grown products and healthy living. The family activity will include an indoor farmers' market, live bluegrass and jazz music, sign-ups for farm shares and a drawing for a gift basket of farm goodies.
At noon, a panel of health experts will speak on "Eating Healthy at Every Age." At 12:30, the indoor farmers' market will open, featuring local vendors selling their wares and farm shares. Vendors will also have samples, recipes and brochures to give away. Local bluegrass musicians Andy Gordon and Paul Rice and the jazz group Too Human will perform. Attendees who visit all the vendors will have the chance to enter a drawing of a gift basket full of local farm bounty.
Hundreds of people attended last year's Spring Tonic, and this year's plans are bigger and better. The event is free and open to the public.
For further information as a vendor or visitor: 413-637-2630 or shawkes@lenoxlib.org.
Get to Know Your Farmer at Local Food Expo
As spring approaches local farmers are planning their crops and deciding what food to grow for our communities. On Thursday, Feb. 16, from 5-7 p.m. at 107 Main St., North Adams, members of the community are invited to meet many of our local farmers from cheese makers and beekeepers to Community Supported Agriculture and farmers market growers. This is the annual "Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food" event.
Local farming is seeing a come back in our region from people keeping chickens in their back yards to farmers growing produce that's sold in local markets and restaurants. It's the connection to the land, and the community, that helps our local agricultural economy grow. Our local farms also do more than just sell their bounty. Farms work with the local food projects to make sure that what isn't sold does not go to waste but back into our community to feed people who might not otherwise have access to fresh, local produce.
As a core group member of Hoosac Harvest, I'm looking forward to this event that will include Berkshire Farm Apiary, Wildstone Farm, Cricket Creek Farm, Wild Oats Market, Many Forks Farm, Country Dream Farm, Berkshire Grown, Berkshire Food Project, North Adams Farmers Market and more.
Hoosac Harvest will also be present and is looking for community members to help fulfill its mission of a vibrant food system in which all members of the northern Berkshire community participate and have access to locally grown, healthy, sustainably-produced food. Hoosac Harvest currently raises funds to subsidize 20% of the CSA shares at Square Roots Farm, enabling low-income community members to participate fully. We need people power to do more including growing a row in a backyard garden for the local food pantry to a cadre of volunteers to help with gathering unharvested produce from local farms to serving on the core group.
Joins us on Thursday for this free event and meet the farmers, mingle with friends and celebrate the bounty of the Northern Berkshires.
Participating farmers include Wildstone Farm, Square Roots Farm, Cricket Creek Farm, and Country Dream Farm. Also participating are beekeeper, Tony Pisano, Sunshine Bagels, Wild Oats Market, North Adams Farmers Market, Berkshire Grown, the Berkshire Food Project, and more.
Eating For A Cause, Bollywood-Tex Style
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Imagine there was a new place opening up in March. It would serve Bollywood-Tex cuisine. Would you go?
What if it was only open for one night?
What if its chef was the Red Lion's Brian Alberg?
Most people are a little taken aback by the prospect of Indian/Texan culture coming together but Stockbridge's IS183 Art School for the Berkshires plans to jam the two into one night full of color, music, art and yes, food.
"Who doesn't love a barbecue?" says Alberg. He will be working with a diverse range of chefs in the Berkshires to bring the culinary aspect of the event together. For his part, the Red Lion is donating a pig and two lambs to be spit roasted whole. Alberg intends to serve the pig three ways, the lamb is still up in the air (so to speak.)
The event takes place on March 31. Between now and then, we'll visit the six different chefs who make up Alberg's team and get their take on cooking for a cause and unlikely combinations.
Here's are a few menu items so far:
Alberg's Whole Hog, 3 Ways
Grilled Curried Eggplants
Carmelized Paneer Mushroom Tarts
Crisp Vegetable Pickles in a ginger and mustard seed brine
Ghandi's Grit - Skillet Corn Bread.
And that's just a sketch.
The Buckaroo Bollywood Ball starts at 6 p.m. on March 31, at Interlaken (the former Desisto School)
Tickets for the dinner and dance start at $150 per person.
Wild Oats Names New General Manager
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Durfee is stepping into the shoes of Michael Faber, who left last year to manage a co-op in Keene, N.H. He will oversee finance, marketing and operations for Wild Oats Market, which has nearly 40 employees and sales of approximately $3.6 million last fiscal year.
A Berkshires native, Durfee is committed to local food production, sustainable living, and green business practices. He has promoted municipal composting, is very involved in his community through coaching and other volunteer activities, and has extensive experience working on non-profit boards and organizing community events.
"I was attracted to Wild Oats because of my desire to work in a values-driven and socially responsible organization," he said. "I'm looking forward to getting to know the Wild Oats community and working with the staff to build on the successes of the past few years."
Durfee, who currently resides in Shaftsbury, Vt., is a graduate of Williams College and holds a master's in business administration from Cornell University.
He was a senior forecasting analyst for the Vermont Country Store in Manchester, responsible for corporate sales budgeting and forecasting and oversight of the customer database. He also was director of marketing and communication for the Red Lion Inn in Stockbridge and its sister inn, Porches Inn in North Adams, and held management positions with Rodale Inc. in Emmaus, Pa., and Sanyo Electric Co. in Kobe, Japan.
"David's background in business, finance and marketing is a valuable addition to the expertise of the co-op's current strong management team," said Wild Oats board President Alison Kolesar. "We're excited to have him at the helm of our co-op and look forward to continued growth under his leadership."
Wild Oats Market is a member-owned, cooperative-based whole foods market specializing in local and organic products.
Stephanie Farrington of