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HOLIDAY MARKETPLACE THIS WEEKEND
AT BERKSHIRE BOTANICAL GARDEN • PAGE B3
By Leigh Davis
ARE WE THERE YET?
SHEFFIELD—Housa-
tonic Valley Art league will
present a Holiday Art Show
at historic Dewey Memorial
Hall on Route 7.
Receptionfestivitieswillbe
Friday,December2from4:30
p.m.-6:30 p.m. Artwork by lo-
cal artists of the Housatonic
River Valley area will be on
view every Friday, Saturday,
and Sunday in December (10
a.m.-5 p.m.).
The art league is known
for its creative diversity and
quality work rendered in oils,
watercolour, pastel, scatch-
board, etching, collage, and
mixedmedia.Allareavailable
for sale.
The Holiday Art Show is
free and open to the public.
HVAL is a nonprofit orga-
nization which supports art
in local schools.
For more information
please see www.hvart.org.
Photo contributed
‘Winter Village’ by Hans
Heubergerisamongtheart
being displayed.
HVAL to hold holiday art show
‘Big Night’s menu to be
recreated at Fiori restaurant
Iconic food film will also be shown
By Gary LeveilleTHEN AND NOW
The Monument Mills complex in
Housatonichasbeenmakingheadlines
in recent months. The photo shown
[at left] depicts the mill at the peak of
success in the 1920s. Old-timers still
remember the day the textile factory
suddenly closed its doors in October
1956, the apparent victim of southern
competition and labor disputes.
Sincethattime,someofthebuildings
havebeentorndown,othersrenovated.
Duringtheearly1990s,moviedirector
and special effects innovator Douglas
Trumbull developed his “Back to the
Future” theme-park ride here.
As interested
parties now
debate the
best way to
utilize the
agingfactory
buildings,
the future of
Monument
Millsremains
uncertain.
Photos contributed
By Allison Sheardy
GREAT BARRINGTON – On Wednesday,
Dec. 7, Fiori restaurant owners and brothers
Alex and Matt Feldman will honor the movie
“Big Night” by recreating the unforgettable
dinner. The evening will include a screening
of the film.
“We’ve loved the movie for many years,”
Alex said when explaining the inspiration for
the event.
The 1996 film is perhaps one of the best-
known “food films,” that genre that celebrates
both the cinematic and the gastronomic. Big
Night centers around two brothers, Primo and
Secondo, who run an Italian restaurant on the
New Jersey shore in the 1950s.
Despite the brothers’ combined talents, the
restaurant is failing – mostly because Primo
refuses to “Americanize” the authentic Italian
food he so passionately prepares. As a result of
some advice from a competitor, they decide to
place all their bets on one extravagant benefit
dinner, which famed jazz singer Louis Prima
is slated to attend.
Thebrotherspoureverythingtheyhaveinto
planning the dinner, although their honored
guest fails to show up.
Inmanyways,theFeldmanbrothersparallel
those in the film. Alex, the eldest, is the chef,
while Matt manages several different aspects
of the business. Matt attended Johnson and
Wales University for four years, two in the
culinary program and two in business.
Alexalsoattendedculinaryschoolforayear,
but much of his experience was gained from
hands-on exposure, including three separate
trips to Italy. He worked in a different res-
taurant in a different city each time. “I was
in Florence for almost a year – I got to know
the people, the food, how they eat, not just the
recipes,” Alex explained. He also spent time in
Bologna and Piedmont.
The Fiori dinner will feature a prezzo fisso
(fixed price) menu for $50 per person. The
courses at the dinner will mir-
ror those from the film. “It’s my
interpretation of the dishes they
do in the film,” Alex explained. “I
can’t taste the food in the movie,
so there’s some interpretation.
Historical research in how they
prepared food was also involved.”
He added, “We’ll be serving
food from the movie during the
movie.”
For an appetizer, the chef will
serve a mixed appetizer of fried
eggplant, roasted peppers and
garlic, caponata, grilled vegetables, olives,
parmigiano, and bread sticks, along with a
crostini of goat cheese, mozzarella, tomato, and
anchovy, polenta and mushrooms.
Thenextcourseisgarganelliinbrodo,which
arehandrolledpastatubesinasavoryvegetable
broth.
Thesoupcoursewillbefollowedbytimpano,
which consists of penne, meatballs, salami,
hard cooked eggs, and house-made mozzarella
baked inside a pasta crust. This dish is straight
out of the movie, adding another dimension to
the dining experience. In the film, it is a secret
family recipe honored by Primo and Secondo
and the show-stopper of the meal.
“Timpano is described as ‘all the good things
in the world baked into a pastry crust,’” Alex
explained. There is a question of interpretation
here – in southern Italy, the dish involves a
pastry crust; in the north, a pasta one. Because
Fiori is based on northern Italian cuisine, the
dish will be prepared with the pasta crust.
Alex also gave a brief overview of northern
Italian food. “There’s no true Italian cuisine,”
he said. “It is all very regional.” He explained
that northern Italians use more dairy in their
cooking than those in the southern part of the
country – for example, when a southern dish
might call for olive oil, its norther counterpart
would use butter.
The timpano will be followed by a mixed
grill of chicken, salmon, and vegetables. To
finish the night, diners will be served biscotti
and campari-orange granita.
The restaurant, located at 47 Railroad St.,
opened earlier this year. The cuisine is based
on that of northern Italy and features many
house-made items, including bread, pasta, ge-
lato,pickles,andricottaandmozzarellacheeses.
The brothers source as much food locally as
they can while still keeping prices affordable.
Prior to moving to the Berkshires and open-
ingFiori,thebrothersranarestaurantinBoul-
der, Colo. There, they held their first Big Night
dinner. The Feldman brothers plan on the Big
Night dinner becoming a regular event. They
also hold a wine dinner the third Wednesday
of every month, each of which features the food
and drink of a different region of Italy.
“We want the wine dinners to be the whole
culinary package of what you’d eat and drink
in that region of Italy,” Alex said.
The later seating includes a ticket to the
Berkshire Bateria show and a midnight toast.
Reservations are now being accepted for the
Big Night at Fiori. Guests are asked to arrive
by 6:30 p.m. for cocktails; the movie and dinner
will begin at 7 p.m.
“Of course, Louis Prima will be in atten-
dance,” said the brothers, each with a sly
smile. “The current story in that he lives in
Westchester and is friends with our parents,
who are musicians.”
Record Photo
The Feldman brothers, Matt and Alex, will host a ‘Big Night’event Dec. 7 at
theirrestaurant Fiori.The event will include dinnerand a showing of the film.
Photo contributed
Secondo (Stanley Tucci) and Primo (Tony Shalhoulb).
The other day my friend and
I were discussing the topic of
parents over-scheduling their
children. Being the father of two
“tween-age” girls, my friend was
able to recall numerous instances
where “pushy parenting” had
become an obstacle to his children
establishing new friendships with
other children; examples given
of suggested play-dates being re-
buffed due to a child’s overloaded
week of extracurricular activities
and instances where unstructured
downtime was seen as a viable op-
tion only if booked well in advance
and if a hole appeared in little
Mary’s schedule (that is of course,
if there wasn’t a birthday party,
rescheduled game/lesson/practice
that didn’t take precedence).
What I find most troubling
from my own experience of hav-
ing children is an attitude by
some parents that enrolling their
child in as many extracurricular
activities as possible is beneficial
to the child even when the child
himself is resistant to it and
already over-programmed as it.
No longer content with allow-
ing children the freedom to be
children, some parents frown upon
the notion of nothing time; failing
to realize instead that boredom is
often the gateway to spurring on a
child’s imagination, and that new-
found interests and friendships
can be fostered when given time
to flourish. How often we forget
that making something out of
nothing can be a beautiful thing!
Spurred on by our conversa-
tion, I went on to further investi-
gate this notion of “pushy parent-
ing”, only to discover a disturbing
trend where some parents had
begun using DNA tests on chil-
dren as young as one to provide
them with early information on
their child’s genetic predisposi-
tion for success and where baby
immersion classes have become
as important as adult classes - all
based on some misguided notion
that getting a leg up early on the
competition is the way to succeed!
Whether this need to over-
program children is spurred on by
a parent’s own unfulfilled child-
hood dreams, ego-driven desires,
or through simply not knowing
any better, the notion of apply-
ing pressure on young children
to achieve seems destined to
cultivate a world of stress-prone
individuals who lack the capacity
to draw upon their own resources
when faced with filling in the in-
evitable holes that come with life.
So next time you find yourself
signing up your son or daughter
for yet another program, ask your-
self first to who’s benefit is this
really for; perhaps your answer
may surprise you and you may
find that setting free time aside
for your child instead is the most
beneficial thing that you can do.
Pushy Parenting
THIS WEEK Section B
BERKSHIRE RECORD •DECEMBER 2-8, 2011
‘BEIN’ GREEN’ MUPPETS EXHIBIT
OPENS FRIDAY, DEC. 3 • PAGE B3

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