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Q&A: Making Berkshire Grown's March Maple Dinner
By Gina Iannitelli, Special to iBerkshires
06:34PM / Saturday, March 16, 2013
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Berkshire Grown's annual March Maple Dinner celebrates the first local produce of the season.

LENOX, Mass. — Berkshire Grown hosts its annual March Maple Dinner this Monday with dishes by six acclaimed chefs featuring the region's sticky, sweet seasonal syrup.

The dinner at Cranwell Resort is a fundraiser for the non-profit as well as for Share the Bounty, another local organization that supports food pantries with farm shares. Berkshire Grown promotes local agriculture through workshops, promotions, advocacy, education and events like the dinner highlighting locally grown and produced food.  
 
The six chefs with ties to the area and Lenox resorts Blantyre and Wheatleigh will present a five-course dinner with dishes that integrate the ingredient in various degrees. They range from a 28-day dry-aged duck breast with kumquat and maple jus, (one of three variations of Muscovy duck), by Wheatleigh Executive Chef Jeffrey Thompson, to a miso-maple bourbon Alaskan cod with maitake mushrooms and green beans by Top Chef Season 3 winner and former Wheatleigh chef Hung Huynh, who is now executive chef at The General in New York City.

Other dishes will be served by Brian Young, executive chef at Tavern on the Green and formerly of Wheatleigh; Chris Brooks, former executive chef at Blantyre and now owner of The Chef at Your Table catering company and chef at Austin Riggs in New York City; Savory Harvest Catering owner Michael Roller, former executive chef of Blantyre; and Shirl Gard, former pastry chef at Wheatleigh and now pastry chef at Old Inn on the Green.

Dinner host Carl Deluce is executive chef at Cranwell Resort and Peter Platt, executive chef and co-owner of The Old Inn on the Green, is producing the dinner.

Platt, also a Berkshire Grown board member, and Executive Director Barbara Zheutlin shared some thoughts on what it involves to organize such an event and the local food movement.
 
Peter, can you give me a little bit of background information on the March Maple Dinner and its mission?
 
Platt: The mission is to make money ... as you may know, we are probably going to lose funding from the state this year so we are looking to make it a profitable event and popular. It's a yearly event and it was my job to put it together this year (in terms of at least finding the chefs) so I thought that in order to mix it up a little bit we would bring in chefs that haven't cooked for Berkshire Grown before, or at least in a long time. And we brought some, you know, so-called celebrity chefs; Hung, the winner of the Top Chef show from season 3, his brothers live here and have a restaurant [Spice Dragon on North Street in Pittsfield], his parents have a restaurant.
 
So how do you go about choosing these chefs and arranging this group of people? Do they need convincing to donate their time or are they all super eager right off the bat?

Platt: They were actually super eager right off the bat so — that was hard to predict. But the only two that are really coming from out of the area are Brian and Hung. They both have families here: Brian married my pastry chef at the time, who's from Pittsfield, so, you know, he doesn't mind coming back to the Berkshires and of course he's got family here and friends as well. So it was easy to get them and nice that they have the time and are willing to put in the time to do it.

And then the other two guys from Blantyre, Chris Brooks and Michael Roller, they were pretty enthusiastic. ... It's nice of them to get involved with Berkshire Grown when neither one of them really has a restaurant; they have their catering companies. And Shirl, of course, she does what I tell her (laughs) and she was happy to participate. And then it was nice that Jeffrey [will participate], from Wheatleigh. Sort of tied the Wheatleigh thing together... I wanted both Wheatleigh and Blantyre chefs to participate, but the chef from Blantyre is out of the country, so he wasn't able to come. But he would have!

Six notable local chefs are cooking for the dinner, including Top Chef Hung Huynh of Pittsfield.

You said there are two chefs that are coming from out of state. Why do you think their ties remain so strong to Berkshire County?
 
Platt: Well, you know, he [Young] is married to a girl from Berkshire County, and Hung grew up here, and they're good friends of mine. So I didn't have to exactly twist an arm. It's sort of in a chef's nature, generally speaking. They're generous people that, when you get to that level, they have a sense of hospitality, and to be able to offer that and give back to the Berkshires and Berkshire Grown is, I think, a very fulfilling thing. I think they're good people and that's just what people do who believe strongly in a region and have family ties, it's win-win. Plus, friends like getting back together again. Everyone only has to do one course, so it’s not a high stress situation where they're responsible for an entire dinner — they just come in, they have plenty of help, they do their one thing, and its easy.
 
So do the chefs have to battle over which course they get?

Platt: I told them to get back in touch with me with what they want to do and it worked out very simply. People chose things different than others and it worked out without having to do any negotiation.
 
That's lucky!

Platt: Yea, that was another one of the easy parts.
 
So Shirl Gard got automatically placed on dessert duty?

Platt: Exactly! We're not making her make duck or anything.
 
How difficult do you think it is to build a menu just based on maple flavorings? Does it seem more of a challenge or an inspiration?
 
Platt: I don't think any of those chefs find that especially challenging. It's a pretty easy ingredient to work with. It's versatile, you see it in different courses. It's not like it's some obscure thing. Everyone knows, they've been in the business long enough where they've used it a bunch of different ways. It's an easy one. It's not like you have to incorporate, you know, sea urchin into your dessert or something.
 
Do you know about how much syrup everyone's asking for?

Platt: Not that much. It's a tasting menu, they're pretty small portions, so I don't think anyone's using more than a gallon, tops, and that would be a lot. I would think that most people could get by without about half a gallon. Depends on exactly how they're utilizing it, but, generally speaking, it doesn't take a whole lot.
 
On a more personal note, in about 10 years, where would you like to see the local food movement in Berkshire County?

Platt: Hopefully more farmers, more acreage in farming, and more overall production. That's about it.
 
 
Barbara, where do you and the rest of Berkshire Grown hope to see the local food movement in five or 10 years?
 
Zheutlin: It's fascinating because there's a group in New England right now, they're at various universities, and they have written, together, a draft of what they're calling a New England Food Vision for the year 2060. I just read this vision and what I think we'd like to see in the next five years is more locally grown food being grown and eaten, and that we would be producing more dairy, meat, vegetables, and fruit that's eaten here. And that we would, as a result, have helped increase the amount of healthy food that's growing, benefitted the local economy, and strengthened our feeling of community.   
 
 
I think that events like [The March Maple Dinner] definitely help that community strengthening that you were talking about.
 
Zheutlin: Yep! There will be farmers as well as all of us eaters at the dinner, and the chefs will be creating this extraordinary meal. What's so wonderful about working for Berkshire Grown is that an event that's made to benefit us and help increase our financial resources at the same time celebrates what we're all about, which is locally grown food and locally produced food. And strengthening the network between the people that eat, the people that make, and the people that grow our food just enriches the Berkshires.  
 
To learn more about Berkshire Grown and Share the Bounty, visit www.BerkshireGrown.org.
 

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