Mrs. Longcope's Punch

Ann's Christmas party was anchored by her enormous piano at one end of the house and an enormous bowl of Mrs. Longcope's punch at the other. Her brother, Robert, was kind enough to share the punch recipe with me.

4 bottles Mount Gay rum
4 bottles Bacardi rum
4 bottles Courvoisier
3 bottles lemon juice
2 cups peach brandy
and equal amount of Earl Grey tea
1 block of ice

Serves 120

As always, the punch was excellent, conversations flowed and the carols were a joy.

Barrel Conditioned Beer at the Toad

Barrel conditioning meant nothing to me in 1978. What will remain with me always is the taste of a cider drawn from a cask at a farm in Dyfed, Wales late one afternoon that summer. Father Doxsey had volunteered a bunch of boys to help a local farmer put up hay. It was a day much like today: hot, sunny and dry. Our reward was an elixar. Cool, frothy, sour, sweet and an aftertaste which has lingered for decades.

Paul Stokeld's beer engine caught my attention as soon as I walked into the Toad in the Hole in Santa Rosa, California. It was a little early in the season for room temperature beer, but I could not resist. Paul drew a pint of Big Bear Cask Conditioned Stout. It quenched my thirst nicely.

The Toad was a convivial place. There was a long bar populated by several groups engaged in animated conversation. A good selection of vintage British rock was on the sound system, loud enough to be heard but not so loud you had to raise your voice to talk over it. Futbol was on one flat screen, football on the other. A dozen beers were on tap.

Paul's menu featured quintessential pub fare. There was a cornish pasty at the top and I wavered. Ultimately the scent of malt vinegar tilted me toward the fish and chips. I was not disappointed. For dessert I drank a cold draught of Eric's "Lips of Faith" Ale from New Belgium . The peach infusion was magic.

Briq's Root Beer Float

Visits to the A&W Drive In were always a treat. Those heavy chilled mugs with frothy root beer more than compensated for the mediocre burgers. A scoop of vanilla ice cream added to the suds was transcendent. Both were changed in delightful ways: the root beer lost some of its heavy sweetness and the ice cream grew a crunchy crust.

I don't know if A&W still uses glass mugs. I was about to find out when I ran across Briq's Soft Serve on the north side of Wausau, Wisconsin. Classic walk up joint with picnic tables under shade trees. Since I was already primed for a root beer float, I ordered one at Briq's. Apparently the creator of the Briq's version had a passing familiarity with icebergs: the vast majority of the Briq's soft serve ice cream lurked below the surface. No surprise coming from a place which is the "home of the one pound ice cream cone." I ordered a small and it was enough for a small family.



At some point, I will investigate the use of glass mugs at A&W, but only if I don't pass an independent drive in on the way.

Briq's is located just off US 51 on Merrill Road in the general direction of the A&W.

Keegans Ale and Le Canard in Kingston

Gout is a helpful companion. Earlier this month, we celebrated my brother's birthday at the Crab Claw in Saint Michaels, Maryland. I tucked into more blue crab than prudent and Gout came around the next day to remind me to behave. Several years ago in Venice, zuppa di fagioli prompted Gout to persuade me to remain within gimping distance of the Hotel Ala and not ramble off cross country. Thanks to the extra week, I fell in love with a city I might otherwise have dismissed as an interesting museum. Today Gout has focused my attention on the fine ale and rack of lamb I enjoyed yesterday in Kingston, New York.



The evening started around six at the small bar inside Keegans Brewery. A pint of Old Capital (Kingston was the first capital of New York) followed by a pint of Belgian style white beer. The Old Capital was refreshing (and glasses around the bar were refreshed regularly); the white beer was an eminently acceptable local beer but lacked the depth of Blanche de Chambly from Quebec. The vibe at Tom Keegan's place was one which craft brew joints everywhere would do well to follow: super casual and genuinely warm with a nice mix of music set low enough for normal conversation. Everyone seemed to know each other. No one objected to the peanut shells covering the floor.



Dinner at Le Canard Enchaine proved to be an ideal place to finish the day and conclude the week. Chef/owner Jean-Jacques Carquillat met us at the door and led us to a table in the bar. The mood was unabashedly happy. The rack of lamb was one of the night's specials and tasted great. It was served medium rare with a thick red wine sauce and accompanied by sauteed spinach and mashed potatoes. Now that I know where to find Le Canard, I plan to waddle back often.

Easter View on South Mountain

Easter Sunday seemed like a good day for a hike. Early morning light suggested it would be fine; temperatures in the teens suggested otherwise. I had planned on an outing at the Tyringham Cobble. An ascent of South Mountain in Pittsfield proved to be more inviting. The view was inspired.

Bruschetta and Beer

Carolina’s has been at the intersection of Chapman and West In Garden Grove, California for thirty years. For the past several, Tim Ibrahim has been proprietor. He does nothing in half measures. He grew up in the neighborhood and worked in F&B at Disneyland, so he knows his clientele. They expect large portions and big variety. Tim has built the largest assortment of beer in Orange County (about 200 beers). He has dozens of North American craft brews and good assortments of German, Belgian and British beers, as well as novelty beers from around the world.



Be forewarned: the well drink pours are generous and the pasta portions are enormous. You may want to steer toward pizza and beer. Bruschetta is best on freshly baked pizza bread. It is great with a bottle of Orval.

Berkshire Bar Burgers

Great Hamburgers in Pittsfield, Lenox and Lee



There is no better place in Berkshire County to get primed for a hamburger than the intersection of North Street and Linden in Pittsfield. Mark Papas mans the charcoal grill at The Lantern (455 North Street, 413-448-2717). His exhaust fan delivers an aromatic invitation to purchase more effectively than any billboard, print ad or radio spot. The 6 ounce burgers are formed by hand and grilled on an iron grate. They have all the appeal of the best backyard burgers, they are available year round and they can be accompanied by Bass, Blue Moon or Sam Adams on draught or about a dozen others in bottles. The Lantern Bar and Grill has been in Mark’s family for decades. It has a comfortable lived-in vibe with cool jazz on the sound system and a collection of oil paintings and photographic portraits on the walls.



The best burger in Lenox is at Bistro Zinc (56 Church Street, 413-637-8800). Chef Michael Stahler gives every bit as much attention to his burgers as he does to any of the other dishes on his eclectic menu (Shepherd’s Pie made with shredded duck confit and Pei Moules Frites are also on the lunch menu). The 8 ounce patties are made from fresh Angus beef, topped with Tillamook cheddar cheese and two strips of Jones Cherry Wood Smoked bacon and a couple of tempura batter onion rings. On the side you have a choice of either a mountain of fries or a mixed green salad. The bar at Zinc has been a hip place to hang out for the better part of a decade. True to form, it has an impressive selection of French brandies and single malt whiskies. For the burger and beer patron, there is enough on tap or in bottles to satisfy.



Further down county in Lee, you find tasty burgers at Moe’s Tavern (10 Railroad Street, 413-243-6637). But you will need to look hard for them because Moe’s is all about beer. Tavern keeper Josh Cohen’s latest tally is over sixty craft brews in bottles and five on tap (numbers he hopes to double in the near future). Moe’s has been in business for just a few months and has been bucking conventional wisdom by offering little of the ordinary (Budweiser, Miller and Sam Adams are available but move slowly; Coors never crossed the threshold) and lots of the extreme (like Stone Brewing's Arrogant Bastard and Dogfish Head's 120 Minute IPA). He also offers fresh burgers and locally made hotdogs. The Sliders hit the spot. There are three hand formed 2 ounce patties on potato flour buns with basic fixings. That and a bottle of Blanche de Chambly and I'm good.

Berkshire Blue

Barbara Kingsolver has written a new book, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. She has followed up on a theme her friend, Gary Paul Nabhan, developed several years earlier in Coming Home to Eat, namely eating foods which are produced locally. This comes naturally to some. For most, however, the idea is so novel that Nabhan and Kingsolver find wide audiences for their observations on the challenges faced and lessons learned when they committed to eating local.

Nowadays most places which produce food specialize: they make a lot of one thing and little or nothing of everything else. Almost everyone takes this for granted. Organizations like Berkshire Grown are doing their best to raise awareness and promote the benefits of locally produced foods. But they face huge challenges when markets like Guido’s and the customers who shop there, very sympathetic audiences indeed, demand a much wider variety of products than can be supplied locally.

The truth is we want both. We want the local producers to succeed because it makes us feel good. But what we really want is a huge assortment of choices and year round availability. And we assume what we want is not local.



Perhaps this explains why when Guido’s has a dozen blue cheeses, among at least 100 other cheeses, they don't bother to point out the obvious: that Berkshire Blue is "Berkshire Grown." Stilton gets a detailed placard, as do many other notable cheeses. Hidden among them is Berkshire Blue. No introduction necessary, apparently.

Berkshire Blue is made two miles from Guido’s Fresh Market in Great Barrington; the dozen Jerseys cows which produce the milk it is made from graze eight miles up the road at a farm in Alford. You can’t get much more local than that.



Michael Miller started making blue cheese in 1999, after learning how at the Willett Dairy in Somerset, England. For the past nine years, each week he has been aiding and abetting nature in transforming hundreds of gallons of raw, unpasteurized milk into wheels of blue cheese.

It is a hands on, time consuming process, beginning with the cows. They are milked one at a time. Michael is licensed to transport milk: he collects it early in the morning, transports it to the dairy and starts making cheese immediately. Once at the dairy, however, nothing is rushed. On the first day, Michael brings the milk to temperature slowly, then adds starter cultures followed by two blue moulds and finally rennet, an enzyme which causes the milk to solidify. Before the day is done, he will separate the whey (which is returned to the farm and fed to pigs) and transfer the curds to 66 molds. Over the next two days the molds will flipped regularly. When the molds are removed, the wheels of cheese are transferred to a brine tank where they will soak for 12 hours. Michael calls this "giving the girls a bath." The "girls" are allowed to dry for several days and then placed on pine planks where they will age for the better part of two months.



Wine makers talk about "terroir" and their desire to allow the wines to express the characteristics of soil on which the grapes are grown. Some cheese makers have also adopted the word. Michael doesn't believe terroir plays a significant role in Berkshire Blue. More important than the land are the quality of the cows, the grass they eat and the milk they produce. He recognizes that the cows' diet changes with the seasons and this will change the consistency of the cheese. But as an artisan cheese maker, he adheres to the same recipe and adjusts only time and temperature to achieve optimal consistency.



Michael recommends serving any cheese at room temperature. The wedge I had for dessert tonight was a deep yellow punctuated with pockets of sage colored mould. It was firm, the flavor was very mild and fit perfectly with a glass of Hardy's 2002 Botrytis Semillon.

I suspect when he embarked on this adventure, Michael would have been happy to sell all of his cheese in Berkshire County. But there wasn’t enough demand. So, like all ambitious cheeses, Berkshire Blue headed to the big city. In 2001, she (after all, Michael does refer his wheels of cheese as "the girls") was awarded a silver medal at the World Cheese Competition in London and the following year she won the gold there. Since then she received many other awards. Now Berkshire Blue is distributed nationally. She alao maintains a discreet presence in the Berkshires.

Dinner at the Dogfish Head in Rehoboth

Chef Marcel makes the best peas I have had in a very long time. Bright green, al dente, seasoned with porcini mushrooms and black pepper; served hot hot with oyster mushroom ravioli.

Stripped to its essentials, Dinner with Marcel, the chef's prix fixe menu, might have been read from the chalk board in an English pub: peas, steak, and pudding. Even the setting might make an Englishman nostalgic: an alehouse in a seaside town off season. Chefs across the Atlantic might want to take advantage of the strong pound and inexpensive air fares to see how pub fare is being prepared at the Dogfish Head in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware.

Chef Marcel Lavalle and Sous Chef Marc Jordan are doing very good things with food. The peas were followed by a grass fed t-bone steak. (The beef grazed locally in Sussex County and fed on grain used at the Dogfish Head Brewery.) The steaks were served with thinly sliced roast potatoes and chunked carrots prepared in a DFH Indian Brown Ale reduction (a pint of the IBA accompanied this course). We finished the meal with creme caramel in a white chocolate rum sauce.

For fun, we sampled several of the Dogfish draughts: Shelter Pale Ale (an excellent starter), Raison d'Etre (a good reason to lodge nearby), 120 Minute IPA (a massive beer) and Fort (a potent second dessert). There are a couple dozen more specialty brews to look foward to on future visits.

Come on over, lads; learn a thing or two from the dudes in Delaware. It is easy to imagine what I would miss were I in the UK.

No Coors Light at Moe's

For years, the WNOF group in Taipei met at the Mariner’s Pub after dinner on Wednesdays. We arrived around nine, enjoyed a happy hour which lasted until we ventured out into the Zone and went our separate ways. A change of ownership and attitude at the Mariner’s persuaded us to move our party to the Manila, another bar a few doors down the same alley. Perhaps it was just coincidence, but it seemed that before our crew started hanging out at the Manila on a weekly basis, it was not a regular stop for anyone. It was always empty. Then Jackie reserved a table for us up front in the window and when we were there the place looked packed. Later we noticed business at the Manila improved and not just on Wednesdays. You couldn’t see in the windows at the Mariner’s and since none of our crew ever went back, I can’t say what happened to their business.

When Josh Cohen rehabilitated a bar on Railroad Street in Lee, he removed the curtains from the windows. Good call. Now you can see what is going inside from across the parking lot. A couple months ago, I was looking for a place to watch a football game and I could see the flat screens before I was out of the car. The place looked alright, so I went in.



Josh calls the place Moe’s Tavern. While Homer Simpson would feel right at home (it's all about the beer), it is not a typical neighborhood joint, at least not around here. There are three or four decent screens usually tuned to some sporting event, but the volume is off and satellite radio is on. There is a full bar and a very short menu featuring fresh hand formed hamburgers, Wohrle’s hot dogs and a couple different fries. The main attraction, however, is the assortment of craft brews. The latest list had over fifty and the number keeps growing.

Josh went to school with the founder of Dogfish Head, so those beers are featured prominently on draught and in bottles. He brought in my favorite Canadian beer, Fin du Monde, after I asked for it (a great way to make a customer loyal). So far, the discovery I like best is Lagunitas from Sonoma County; try their Czech Pilsner. The biggest miss was Anderson Valley's Winter Solstice: it took courage to drink past the aroma which assaulted my nose when I first lifted the glass (it was an experience akin to eating durian).

There is no Coors Light at Moe’s (but next season Yankees fans may be able to watch their team on an old black and white tube).