For those of you who wouldn’t dream of going on vacation without your road or mountain bike, let me say just one thing, the Berkshires! You’ve got hundreds of quiet country backroads, plenty of hills with plenty of climbs, and great local food. Sound like a cyclist’s paradise? Definitely! So load your bikes and head for the turnpike. Hall and I did some research on Strava and Mapmyride to learn what the locals were riding. We found lots of routes with all sorts of conditions. We love a good loop culminating in a great meal at a local restaurant. We started out with a short 20 mile loop from Great Barrington to Alford and back. I accidentally picked a dirt road, but we pushed on anyway and had a great ride. We stopped in Housatonic to visit Lisa Newmann, who is the owner of Cookiehead cookies, which is headquartered in the Berkshires. She gave Hall and me samples of their latest treat the Java Me Up bar. If you haven’t tried Cookiehead’s cookies, the Roaming Gallivants heartily recommend you do; they are great tasting and made from all natural ingredients. The Java Me Up bar has great coffee zing and was a big hit with us, especially for the last leg of our ride back to Great Barrington.
After our ride we went back to Great Barrington had lunch at Martin’s with a good friend Sheela Clary, the brains behind the Crocus Fund. Hall and I need to learn to speak Italian for our trip to Sicily this fall. We agreed to meet so we could be introduced to her acquaintance Francesca from Sicily. We had a great lunch consisting of fantastic Reuben sandwiches. I cannot vouch for the BLT or Eggs Benedict that Francesca and Sheela had, but our Reuben’s were famous. I soon learned that my Italian skills were far less than I hoped, in fact, nonexistent. Apparently three words are not enough to converse in a noisy restaurant with a Sicilian girl, who herself wants to learn English. We will be using Duolingo and then having Skype meetings with Sheela and Francesca to practice our conversational skills. The Roaming Gallivants can’t enter the breach without preparation! We must be able to converse on our own! We shall brook no translator! We shall suffer no charades in attempt to communicate our most basic needs! No pidgin Italian for us… hopefully!
Whilst in the Berkshires, what would a Roaming Gallivant evening be without the evening cheeses?
It just so happens that a world class cheese expert has made his home right here in the Berkshires in lovely Great Barrington. Matt Rubiner, cheesemonger extraordinaire, opened his Cheesemonger and Grocer Rubiner’s. Matt has an extensive collection of domestic and foreign cheeses plus a sizable charcuterie selection.
Rubiner’s Cheesemonger and Grocer meats display cooler in the Berkshires
My heart beat quickened when I spied the amazing spread of salamis, hams, prosciuttos, and other various sweetmeats. I count at least 18 different kinds of salamis, soppressatas, and even some mortadella and ham. Pancetta and prosciutto are also worshipped at this altar. No picnic is complete without a soppressata and a hunk of cheese like a manchego or maybe a nice appenzeller. Maybe we should pick up a little prosciutto and a baguette? The Cheese selection is ever changing, so if you find a cheese you like, better buy two or it may be sold out next time you need to impress your afternoon tea and cheese party guests. We ended up with two lovely cheeses: Robiola due latti and Jasper Hill Farms Harbison. For dinner we bought some amazing pastas: Setaro Bucatini lunghe and one packet of Faella Candele lunghe. After we purchased our cheese we stopped at Rubi’s, which is in the same building as Rubiner’s but around back, for a quick fortification of espresso and pastries. Afterwards we’ll stop at Guido’s Fresh Marketplace for organic greens for salad and whole peeled tomatoes for the Marinara.
Our job as Roaming Gallivants is to enjoy life whatever we are doing and report our findings to you. We had a great day meeting new people and preparing this post for your vicarious reading pleasure. We hope that you can travel with us and enjoy even a little bit of our day with us. Roll with the Roaming Gallivants Style, which we hope you will come to love.
We could use a a few more delis like that (pictured) down here in central Appalachia.
Love it!
The Roaming Gallivants Love You TOO!
Understatement of the century. We all need more delis all the time. Every town should have at a minimum, a real deli and a butcher, to be considered a town.
Travel Faux Pas - Rude gestures in other countries - Roaming Gallivants
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