A Chef's Life-Farm To Table Cooking in The Berkshires

Michael Ballon has written a memoir/cookbook, in which he reveals some of his insights and experiences from running the Castle Street Café for 25 years in the Berkshires. The book intersects of a number of very popular subjects: personal memoir, the locavore movement, and ethnic cooking to name but a few. Unlike my first book, The Castle Street Café Cookbook, this new book is not primarily a cookbook, although it does include some recipes. It is part memoir about what it is like to be a chef and run a restaurant in the Berkshires, and it profiles and interviews some of the local farmers I have gotten to know. The book discusses how chefs and farmers interact, how chefs are inspired by farmers, and includes some beautiful photos of local farms, including Indian Line Farm, which was the first Community Supported Agriculture Farm in the Berkshires. The book includes the Cafe s original menu from 1989, the second side of which credits the local farmers who supplied the Café. Long before the phrase Farm to Table became common place, Castle Street Café was serving farm to table cuisine. Some of the topics discussed, and chapters are: Blueberries and the Beginnings of a Chef, In Praise of Braising, Farmers, Foragers, and Deconstruction, Vegetable Chic, No One Likes Kohlrabi, The Chef Has No Clothes On, Familiarity Breeds Content, Timeless Classics and Old Warhorses, A Latke Went to Indonesia, Wrestling with Bones, Gathering the Last Fruits of Summer, Mitzvah Meal, Is fusion Confusion, and Gazpacho for the Soul.

Author Biography Michael Ballon graduated from Oberlin College, where he first began cooking in the student run co-ops. In 1980 he moved to New York City, where he began cooking at Lavin s Restaurant, where he became Executive Chef. Lavin s was one of the first restaurants in New York to have a Cruvinet wine machine, and was called one of the 10 Best Restaurants by Food & Wine Magazine in 1983. Michael moved to the Berkshires in 1984 to become chef at The Williamsville Inn in West Stockbridge, but when the inn was sold the next year, he returned to New York City to work at Woods and Sofi. The Castle Street Café opened in 1989 to immediate and continuing critical review, including New England Monthly, The New York Times, Food & Wine, 3 Stars by Albany Times Union, The Boston Globe, Zagat, and Trip Advisor. In 2011 the Café was named Best Casual Dining in Massachusetts by Yankee Magazine. In 1998, the Café doubled its size with the addition of The Celestial Bar jazz club, which presents top-notch talent 2-3 nights per week year-round. The Castle Street Café caters dozens of private events each year, in addition to major fundraising galas for Jacob s Pillow Dance Festival, Berkshire International Film Festival, the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center, Chesterwood, and Barrington Stage Company. In 2008 Gadd Books published The Castle Street Café Cookbook, a collection of favorite recipes. For 7 years Michael was the Roundtable Chef on WAMC Northeast Public Radio, offering biweekly recipes and seasonal cooking tips throughout the Hudson Valley and much of New England. Michael writes a monthly column for Homestyle Magazine, and appears regularly as a guest chef on WWPL Channel 22 in Springfield. The brand-new Castle Street includes a combination of cooking demos, TV specials, and video clips of live jazz performance at the Café.