Join Tasting Counter in the Berkshires– 4 Chefs X Blue Barn's UFO Fire Pit –
Join Peter and Ginhee this Saturday, October 12 at Tourists outside by the river for food, drinks, music, and the spectacle of open-fire cooking in North Adams, Massachusetts!Enjoy the fall foliage on a road trip to the Berkshires and take in the beautiful mountain scenery for another grillfest event as we tackle cooking over live fire and battle the blaze with custom fire pits created by Blue Barn Outdoor Living!True to the essence of Tasting Counter, we will be dipping into our storage pantry of our prized house-made TC preserves, including aged misos, preserved lemons, and fermented hot sauces, all of which will be incorporated into the dishes we will be serving!Tickets include all-you-can-eat tastings from four acclaimed, regional chef friends: • Aaron Oster (chef/head of culinary at Berkshire Community College, formerly A-oK BBQ) • Justin Forstmann (Casita Berkshires at MASS MoCA) • Peter Ungar (forthcoming sustainable restaurant in western MA from Tasting Counter) • Tu Le (chef/farmer/founder of 328 North Farm)
The Berkshire Search Continues
Since announcing the decision to launch our next restaurant project in the Berkshires, we've received so many enticing opportunities to expand our land search, countless well-wishes of support, and even requests for private dining. It’s so genuinely heartwarming to be missed… and we miss YOU too! We are so grateful for these connections and the unique possibilities we're hearing from you as we continue our work toward building the next iteration of Tasting Counter in the Berkshires.As we began Tasting Counter in 2015, we knew we were doing something innovative, especially since everyone told us it was a bad idea. What we ultimately aspired to was to transform the hospitality experience for more than just our guests. We invested in our team to build both personal and professional development. We created a shared understanding of not just the physical labor of executing service at Tasting Counter, but also sought to evolve people's capacity for developmental learning based on whole system principles. Through our collaborative work, we witnessed how this directly impacted not just our guests, but also our staff, purveyors, and even our community partners.With this mindset, we're now upleveling what we started at TC 1.0 with this unexpected opportunity to start anew. We have learned so much from our experience in Somerville and we're cultivating ideas to potentialize what we've always imaged Tasting Counter to truly be… a multi-enterprise hospitality venture. One of the many design concepts of TC 2.0 will feature a greenhouse project that will challenge the notion of “local” and “seasonal.” Similar to what we achieved at TC 1.0, we will continue to expand our connection with food and redefine what “fine dining” means in today’s world.
A Family Trip To Remember
We took the entire summer off to travel with our kids during their school break, taking advantage of the unique opportunity to bond as a family. After nearly a decade working on TC 1.0, this trip was a much needed break to rejuvenate, restore, recalibrate, and reconnect with our children and ourselves. So we said goodbye to our Somerville home for a few months to experience the other side of the world, as we intentionally pave the way to become fully engaged in creating TC 2.0 with a fresh start.We fostered family connections with distant relatives, many of whom we haven’t seen in years or have simply never met. We visited Ginhee’s family’s old neighborhood in Seoul, by chance encountering long-ago neighbors who actually remembered her family from over 60 years ago, and also saw Peter’s family’s names etched in the Welcome Wall in Sydney (Australia’s National Monument to Migration). We went even further back in time, visiting ancestral burial mounds from 15 generations ago in Korea, as well as starkly simplistic Jewish cemetery grounds outside of Sydney.We had many other incredible discoveries, especially with food. In Korea, we experienced as many different naengmyeon noodles as possible in Seoul, as well as sampled gochujang in Sunchang wandering from one artisanal producer to another. In Japan, we braved the Tokyo subway system in search of ramen, weaved through crowds at Tsukiji Fish Market, climbed Mount Fuji, and fed deer in Nara. In Australia, we embraced the cool winter weather while hiking around Uluru, explored the oldest rainforest in the world in Queensland, scuba dived in the Great Barrier Reef, and ascended the Sydney Harbor Bridge.These new experiences created space for new connections, awakened our curiosity, and was a welcome pivot from the demands of restaurant life. Although we were a world away, the food connection to our work at TC was always present. We reveled in the seasonal local flavors of each country, rich with history and culture, bringing home a renewed sense of purpose and what lies ahead for TC 2.0. Bon voyage to us!
