In Northampton, Green Street Cafe is being evicted from its place of business by Smith College.
Green Street Cafe, an earnest, passionately French restaurant with the best risotto in town, had a handshake deal with Smith College for years. Parties, lunches, seminars and other college-related functions took place at Green Street, loved by many for its food, its fireplace and its irascible front-of-the-house guy.
Owners John Sielski and Jim Dozmati are the kind of people who treated staff and customers like family. Many young chefs who were trained at Green Street Cafe went on to open their own restaurants in the area. John, who grew up in Hatfield, grew the veggies for the restaurant in his garden in Easthampton. Just last month, when risotto with fresh peas was on the menu, those were John's peas. It was the kind of place where the owners' devotion to food went so far beyond the bottom line that as a diner there, you always felt a little bit guilty that the quality was so high and their dedication was so evident in the attention to detail; fresh flowers, handwritten menus, house-made deserts.
More than a few years ago it was announced that Smith College would be making room for its latest vision, an engineering school for women—the first in the country! Not unlike the original vision of Smith, a college for women! Eventually the school got built and one by one the tenants on the little block crawled away. But not Green Street Cafe. In the shadow of the wrecking ball, the owners hung on, doing anything they could to keep going. They served lunch. They did a Sunday brunch. They tried a subscription pay-up-front system and because of a very loyal following, they managed to hang on for longer than most would have. After many setbacks and a lost opportunity to relocate, they hired a PR consultant from Boston and got a blog, but last week they were served final eviction papers once again. This time it is for back rent of $5,566. A patron offered to pay the tab but lawyers from Smith are saying the payment is not a sustainable solution to the problem.
Restaurant of the Week: Williamsburg Snack Bar, Haydenville
By some wonderful freak of nature, a delicious lobster roll can be had on Route 9 in Haydenville at a roadside stand just east of Lashway Lumber. We're talking hilltowns, we're talking fresh water fish in the Mill River, but this plucky little place defies all that with a proud exterior that might as well be smack dab in the middle of Harwich Port.
Housed in a brightly painted shack with fake crustaceans crawling up the sides of it, the Williamsburg Snack Bar features a menu fine-tuned for speed and instant summer gratification. Over the order window is a giant board with the entire menu handwritten in colored chalk and listing the lobster roll and crab cakes as well as burgers, wraps and more.
Prices are good: under $7 for the lobster roll with chips and a pickle. The lobster roll consists of a toasted white hot dog roll encasing a generous lump of pink lobster meat. And that, not including the chips and pickle, is all she wrote. No mayo, no celery, no nothing. Just lobster. The clam chowder was an authentic New England variety with a respectable showing of clams, some potatoes and not too creamy. To be sitting there across from the sometimes roaring, sometimes trickling, always moving Mill River at a turquoise picnic table on a ground covered with clam shells is to be eight years old, on vacation and just waiting for the next adventure. In this case it is either a soft serve or a trip to Lashway to buy mulch.
In Season: Corn
Corn Pudding
Of course grilling with olive oil and shreds of basil is an excellent way to prepare fresh local corn, as is the five-minute boil. For leftover corn, baking it into a pudding is yet another alternative. This recipe for an old-school covered dish yields good eating.
Ingredients
4 cups corn kernels
1 cup cream
1 whole nutmeg
Chopped chives
White pepper
Butter for lining dish
Instructions
Mix 3 cups corn with cream and spices.
Process in food processor until creamy.
Add remaining whole corn kernels.
Add grated nutmeg and chives.
Pour in baking pan and bake 35 minutes at 350 degrees.
Events
Monday, August 3, 5-8
Hope and Olive Restaurant
44 Hope Street, Greenfield
Next Monday, a rare and amazing foodstuff will be served at a restaurant in Greenfield. It is part goat and part chocolate. Hope and Olive Restaurant will be serving a batch of goat cheese truffles from Sangha Farm in Ashfield. The theme of the evening is livestock. The audience are growers (like you, perhaps) who wish support a program that instructs people who are looking to learn more about transitioning their herd from grain to grazing and perhaps even going organic.
The sponsor of next week's Soup and Game night is NOFA (Northeast Organic Farm Association), and the food will include a variety of homemade soups filled with local veggies. One soup will be yogurt-based, made with yogurt from Side Hill Farm in Ashfield. There will also be fresh salads, bread from Bread Euphoria (local wheat), cheese from Chase Hill Farm in Warwick and Upinngil Farm in Gill, fresh melon from Upinngil Farm, homemade cookies, and coffee and fudge from Northfield Coffee and Books. For more information contact Kate Rossiter, NOFA/Mass Extension Staff, at krossiter@nofamass.org, or (413) 498-2721.
