Press

Berkshire Eagle, Jan 12 2019: Chez Nous Bistro: A Night Out for a Cause

https://www.berkshireeagle.com/stories/chez-nous-bistro-a-night-out-for-a-cause,561334?

By Dick Lindsay, The Berkshire Eagle

LEE — Good food. Good times. Good cause.

Every Wednesday through Feb. 27, Chez Nous Bistro patrons will dine on the restaurant’s finest cuisine while helping raise money for a different local non-profit, each of the seven nights. After adding up the take from each Community Night, owners Rachel Portnoy and Franck Tessier will donate 15 percent of the net profit to that evening’s beneficiary.

The French-chef husband and pastry-chef wife said the weekly dinners are designed to build support for organizations working to improve the quality of life in the Berkshires.

“This is all about creating a community experience,” Portnoy said.

Added Tessier, “We also want to do more in the winter to attract people.”

Nine years ago, Chez Nous boosted its weekday, off-season business by offering special themed menus on Thursdays from November to May. The event has become so well attended, Portnoy said she hopes the popularity rubs off.

“Those [Thursday] nights showed us people want to get out in the winter,” she said. “It’s like a party here on Thursday and we hope the same happens on Wednesday.”

Chez Nous isn’t planning any special menu for Community Night, but everyone who attends will have their names entered into a raffle for a chance to win a dinner for two at one of the restaurant’s popular wine dinners.

To get the word out about Community Night, Chez Nous and the nonprofits are cross promoting the weekly gatherings.

One of the restaurant’s night managers, Mary Egazarian, notes Chez Nous is lending its logo to each nonprofit and they, in turn, can let the restaurant use their images and logos to promote the fundraiser.

“I love using Instagram, it’s the best part of Facebook and Twitter,” she said. “When we post images of the restaurant, we want to show smiling faces and yummy food.”

Chez Nous prides itself on using locally produced foods and offering a menu that changes with the seasons, as stated on the restaurant website.

The winter 2019 bill of fare includes, herb-crusted roasted New Zealand rack of lamb, pan-seared Massachusetts scallops and winter vegetable and French green lentil shepherd’s pie. From the delectable dessert table, dark chocolate mousse torte, blondie sundae with sea-salt caramel and gingerbread pumpkin spice cheesecake are among the choices.

Jane Ralph said the thoughtfully prepared food is one reason she looks forward to partnering again with Chez Nous. Ralph, executive director of Construct Inc., said the Lee eatery has been an active supporter of the affordable housing organization, taking part in its annual Mayfest. The fundraiser features food and wine tastings from area restaurants and wine producers that last year raised $107,000. 

Construct’s Community Night on Jan. 23 is an opportunity to mark a year-long celebration of its 50th anniversary, according to Ralph.

“We’re all about quality of life. Often the folks we serve are invisible in the community; they don’t want to draw attention to themselves,” she said.

Aside from providing affordable housing, Construct has a variety of support services that include workforce development and adult education.

The Lee Elementary School Parent/Teacher Organization is first up on Wednesday, allowing the PTO another avenue to cultivate new supporters.

“This dinner will give others a chance to help the PTO in their community,” PTO President Jessica Trombley wrote in an email to The Eagle. “People may not understand how much our PTO does for Lee Elementary School. This will give them the opportunity to learn what we do and pay for so the students can have fun while learning.”

Trombley noted the PTO funds all the schools’ student field trips, visits by theatrical groups and other special events as well as sponsoring school-wide programs whose topics include the arts, science and physical education.

Supporting Construct, the PTO and the five other nonprofits just added incentive for Chez Nous’ faithful to come out in the dead of winter.

“We have quite a few loyal customers. They know they’re going to have fun at Chez Nous,” said Egazarian.

“The Wine Blog” reviews Chez Nous-Bodegas Francos Espanola Wine Dinner

http://thewinehub.blogspot.com/2014/10/bodegas-franco-espanolas-is-what-rioja.html

Alchemy Initiative’s review of Chez Nous’ Gluten-Free Baking Class!

http://alchemyinitiative.org/gluten-free-baking-at-chez-nous/

Rachel Portnoy, a pastry chef, and her husband Franck Tessier, a French chef, used to eat a diet filled with gluten. But after learning that Franck’s blood glucose levels were too high and he was at risk of developing diabetes, they cut gluten from their diet. Being chefs and restaurant owners, Rachel and Franck have done lots of research and experimentation to perfect gluten-safe and gluten-free recipes.

stovetop

Rachel graciously welcomed us into their kitchen and shared three of her recipes and the tricks she has gleaned from the last couple years of serious gluten-free baking experimentation.

mixing macaron

We started out with macarons. Macarons are a classic French confection – a ganache, buttercream or jam filling sandwiched between two meringue biscuits. They are light and oh-so heavenly!

French baking is notoriously difficult- requiring delicacy, precision and finesse.  Now French gluten-freebaking… that is a real challenge! Luckily Rachel is super passionate about what she does and she seems to like a good challenge. 
whipped macaron

Rachel encouraged everyone to be hands-on… You have to feel it to know if it is just right. Here we are testing the stiffness of the merengue. Looking good!macaron piping4

Piping was a new technique for most of the class and everyone took a turn. While Rachel’s tray was filled with straight lines of perfectly-sized and shaped circles, ours was of a lovely art piece of learning! They did seem to smooth out as they baked…

macaronsmacaron-passionfruit

We filled half with a passionfruit filling and half with chocolate ganache. Crunchy on the outside, chewy on the inside and just the right burst of sweetness. Divine!macaron1

Blondies were up next. The Blondie Sundae (with rum raisin sauce) is the most popular dessert on Chez Nous’ menu- and they have a gluten or gluten-free option. Rachel’s gluten-free blondie recipe is below.blondies-rachelblondie mixblondie1

Our last dish was profiteroles. A profiterole is a cream puff or choux à la crème- a choux pastry ball filled with whipped cream, pastry cream, custard, or ice cream.
smiling

We got another chance to test out our piping skills- definite improvement!  piping profiterole2

 

So Much to Do in the Berkshires, boston.com

http://www.boston.com/travel/new-england/much-the-berkshires/zWrq7pC6Aa1HBkEo7v5tkO/gallery.html

 

So Much to Do in Berkshire County

 Gallery Preview
1 of 15 Previous Next
  • Massachusetts is famed for its colorful foliage — especially Berkshire County — but there’s more to do in this Western Mass. enclave than merely leaf-peep. From savoring seasonal goodies like apple-pie ice cream to navigating forest adventure trails or a corn maze, here’s how you can experience the treetops and not just admire them while driving by.
    David Wade
    By Carley Thornell
    Boston.com Correspondent
    September 15, 2014 12:59 PM

    Massachusetts is famed for its colorful foliage — especially Berkshire County — but there’s more to do in this Western Mass. enclave than merely leaf-peep. From savoring seasonal goodies like apple-pie ice cream to navigating forest adventure trails or a corn maze, here’s how you canexperience the treetops and not just admire them while driving by.   NEXT

RELATED LINKS

 Gallery Preview

New Edible Berkshires Einkorn Article by Rachel Portnoy

DISCOVERING EINKORN: A GRAIN THAT GOES AGAINST THE GRAIN

February 14, 2014 · 

discoveringEinkorn

By Rachel Portnoy Recipe by Franck Tessier
Chefs and owners of Chez Nous Bistro, Lee

What is einkorn? Why should I eat it? How can I get it? How do I cook with it? These are questions that we are answering over and over again.

Imagine a time when concepts such as slow food, seasonal cooking and farm-to-table didn’t exist. That’s just the way all food was. Can you remember a time before food was sold pre-packaged in dubious plastics, sealed off and cut off from any connection—physical or spiritual—to the nourishing earth that provided it?

I guess it’s this yearning for something real—something nourishing not just physically, but spiritually—that is at the heart of our curiosity about the ancient grain einkorn.

And it is, of course, much more than that: Wheat has been at the heart of Western culinary culture for millennia. The cultivation of wheat was arguably one major factor in early humans shifting from nomadic existence to a domesticated civilization. (Whether the grain was first beloved for brewing alcohol or for baking bread is where the argument lies.) We love products made with wheat; we’ve been raised with them and they are delicious.

discoveringEinkorn2
li Rogosa holding a sheaf of einkorn.

But modern wheat has been transformed into something unrecognizable to its ancestors. It’s been modified into the category of modern foods that depend on intense agricultural interventions in order to survive, and is largely indigestible to many people now. And, although I never had thought of this until I tasted bread and pastries made with einkorn, modern wheat doesn’t have much flavor anyway.

Enter into the picture local farmer, seed-saver and anthropologist Eli Rogosa, a leading authority on the history and cultivation of ancient grains. Eli grows einkorn and other rare and ancient grains, selecting for strength and adaptability to our Berkshire climate, and educates people about alternatives to modern wheat.

Is einkorn wheat? Genetically speaking, no. All modern wheat evolved from wild emmer, though now it has been so intensively crossbred that, under a microscope, its structure appears far more complicated than that of emmer. Einkorn comes from a distinct species, different from wheat, a wild grass referred to as wild einkorn. Eli calls einkorn a “neolithic grain.”

Our bodies literally evolved with these ancient grains as nourishment, and our bodies still find its simple, unhybridized genetic structure easily digestible. The way that it grows makes its nutrition easily accessible, and its nutty, delicate flavor makes it addictive.

So how does einkorn differ from quinoa—another highprotein ancient grain that has gained popularity? Both grains are delicious alternatives to wheat, high in protein and other minerals, but einkorn has gluten and quinoa doesn’t. Einkorn enables us to produce foods that resemble the things we were raised on and still love: wonderful and sustaining breads and pastries, pastas and pizza bases. You have to really play with any of the gluten-free flours or grains to achieve this.

discoveringEinkorn3
Einkorn sourdough

Another advantage to einkorn is that it doesn’t spike your blood sugar the way that wheat and many common gluten-free flours do (rice, tapioca, etc.). Unless you bake with teff flour, amaranth, chickpea, quinoa or bean flours, you are using something with a high glycemic index that can encourage sugar cravings and overeating. The healthier glutenfree flours are more complicated to work with than the rice flours, making it hard to achieve something resembling our favorite wheat treats.

Einkorn, while not gluten-free, produces a natural gluten that is considered “gluten-safe” for many people, and therefore is a fantastic alternative for those limiting their consumption of modern wheat.

So many people are curious about einkorn. Maybe they read about it in the book Wheat Belly, by William Davis MD or maybe they’re hungry for new and delicious “real foods.” This wild plant has survived millennia, and though it (like all wheats, in fact) is not native to North America, it adapts brilliantly to our climate: high yielding, resilient in heavy rains, not susceptible to diseases and mildews.

Under Eli’s careful cultivation, selecting the strongest, highestyielding plants and saving their seeds, harvesting by hand with a sickle and meticulously hulling and preparing the grain, we are the lucky benefactors of einkorn, and millennia of farmers’ conscientious and determined work under this principle. It’s about survival, ultimately: The strongest grains, the best producers, are the ones with which humanity will thrive, inspiring us with their resiliency and integrating us with our history and our earth.

We have a seasonal menu at our restaurant, giving us lots of opportunities to develop new recipes using einkorn. The flour is incredible for baking, but we love working with the whole grain, as well. You can use it in a grain salad, as a pasta or barley substitute in a soup, or prepared—as we often do—in the style of a risotto. Though the key ingredient to classic risotto is rice, many cooks have been using the same technique with different grains (I’ve even seen recipes for finely diced potato “risottos”).

Einkorn’s wonderful flavor and texture, as well as its sustaining nutrition, makes it an obvious choice for a risotto-style kind of treatment, endlessly adaptable to seasonal variations.

Just start with einkorn grain that is soaked overnight, and you will find that it cooks up in the same 45 minutes as a traditional risotto.

ChezNousBistro.com

Rachel Portnoy is a pastry chef and co-owner of Chez Nous Bistro in Lee, Massachusetts, with her husband, Franck Tessier. She arrived in Lee 11 years ago and opened Cakewalk Bakery, which she sold in 2005. She now spends her time running the restaurant and developing recipes for delicious desserts that don’t include modern wheat.

RECIPE

Einkorn “Risotto” with Caramelized Garlic & Oven-Roasted 
Tomatoes Topped with Pan-Seared Scallops and Pesto

Edible Berkshires article, Spring 2013

http://edibleberkshires.com/spring-2013/it-may-be-old-but-young-at-heart/

IT MAY BE OLD, BUT YOUNG AT HEART

May 1, 2013 · 

Back to the Future for Heritage Wheat

itMayBe

Photos by Greg Nesbit Photography

Last winter I decided to spend some time looking into what’s going on with wheat. I’ve been a professional baker for over 17 years, and I was quickly tiring of more and more guests coming into our restaurant claiming wheat allergies, gluten intolerance or—even more stressful for food service—full-blown celiac disease.

I spoke with one consultant about creating a separate baking space for working with wheat, in order not to contaminate our kitchen for any highly sensitive guests, but then I thought that this seemed rather extreme. If we’ve gotten to this point, what’s really going on here? Maybe we shouldn’t be using wheat at all?

We discussed the question with our nutritionist, and she recommended the book Wheat Belly by William Davis, MD, which quickly answered a lot of my niggling questions. It seems that just as genetically modified organisms (GMOs) were introduced covertly into our food system a few decades ago, extreme hybridization over the last 50 or so years has altered the structure of wheat from its natural state (unbeknownst to us cooks, bakers and eaters).

In order to grow and harvest wheat more cheaply and efficiently, the grains were hybridized to grow much lower to the ground; to have sturdier stalks with heavier, easier-toseparate grain heads; to be more disease-resistant; to have higher gluten content (for fluffier loaves, of course!); and in this way to become completely dependent upon synthetic fertilizers and heavy irrigation.

Modern wheat has basically been stripped of most of its nutrition and rendered relatively indigestible in the process. Though I didn’t personally have any symptoms of illness due to wheat consumption, learning these facts made me feel slightly uncomfortable with my baker’s diet of nearly 100% wheat!

(Start your day in the kitchen early with nothing in your stomach, bake until you can’t go anymore without some food, grab a scone or other pastry to keep cranking, maybe make a sandwich later in the day if you can take a break, a few cookies or a piece of bread to curb the hunger during the late afternoon and then go home and make some superfast (because you’re starving!) pasta for dinner…. The irony of most chefs’ diets is that we eat terribly! Thus the presence of a nutritionist in our lives these days; I basically rode a wheat/carb-high rollercoaster every day for 15 years.)

After giving this background, the book refers to a woman, Eli Rogosa, a food anthropologist who has hand-collected original, untampered-with grains abroad, and a grain she grows, Einkorn, which is an ancient ancestor of modern wheat and a much healthier alternative. I started to get really excited when I realized that Eli Rogosa and her special grain were in fact just up the road from us in Colrain, Massachusetts. I quickly sent her an email and received a very welcoming reply.

With Franck Tessier, my husband and chef at our restaurant Chez Nous in Lee, Massachusetts, I drove up to Eli’s farmhouse in Colrain, where we were enveloped in another world and another time: Sheaves of wheat and grain were propped up all around, each with a tag identifying its origins. There were posters about “landrace wheat’s” and maps of the Middle East and Europe. Eli herself, with her sweet and earnest smile, had baked us a loaf of Einkorn bread to taste. It was delicious and surprisingly light. Franck was immediately transported to his childhood in France, where so often he visited his godfather, a bread-baker, and said he hadn’t tasted bread like this since. Listening to Eli describe her work and the origins of this rare grain, we felt incredibly privileged to have access to something so delicious, nutritious and unique. We loaded up our car with grain and flour and drove back down to Lee completely inspired. Eli’s mission is not only working with safer and more natural foods, but literally saving heritage grains from extinction. She is writing a book about her research and regularly speaks about the many ancient grains that she has collected and cultivated. But she says that of all of the ancient wheats and grains she has acquired from gene banks around the world, Einkorn is her favorite.

Her original grain was collected in Europe, and multiple field trials sponsored by the USDA at UMass resulted in great production from the Einkorn plants in the Berkshire climate. It has twice the protein and minerals as modern commercial wheat and, though it does contain some gluten, is considered “gluten safe” for many people who have been dealing with wheat and gluten sensitivities brought on largely by the hybridization and manipulation of modern mono-crop wheats.

The ancient wheats and grains also have the advantage of a very deep root system, making them much more hardy, though they grow very tall (as we all imagine wheat does and should, but it doesn’t anymore!). These deep roots absorb minerals into the plant, and the tall, leafy stalks photosynthesize more nutrients, as well. On top of all of this, it is easily digestible and organically grown. Are you starting to get excited about Einkorn yet?

But does this grain taste delicious? Is it easy to work with? After trying most of my recipes with Einkorn I can state unequivocally that Yes! you can make French (and other) pastries with ancient grains! Its low gluten content makes it like the softest cake flour for pastries (bread made with it must knead for a very long time, and/or be left to proof 24 hours or more in order to come together in a relatively “normal” way, but it’s worth the effort: completely delicious with no carb-craving-induced rollercoaster. Einkorn doesn’t spike your blood sugar the way that modern wheat does).

Pizza dough, pasta, all are perfect and I’ve been learning to bake all over again with this wonderful flour. At the restaurant we made a clear decision to strictly limit working with commercial wheat and maximize our use of the ancient grain Einkorn (we cook the whole grains with seasonal vegetables into an incredible “risotto”).

After all these years of baking and cooking and putting so much care into the sources of our ingredients, we feel blindsided to never have questioned what was actually in that bucket of wheat flour. It’s so liberating to be able to think and act holistically about what we’re doing as chefs. It feels like a missing link has been supplied in our sourcing of healthier, pesticide-free, not genetically modified REAL FOOD to serve at our restaurant.

Zagat, 2011

Zagat Ratings & Review

“Wonderful all around” declare Lee locals of this “delightful” destination where chef Franck Tessier’s “fantastic” French bistro fare is matched by spouse Rachel Portnoy’s “scrumptious desserts”, not to mention her “charming” greetings; an “impressive”, “well-priced wine list” adds to the “good value”, while “marvelous service” “without hauteur” and a setting in a “historic house” with “quiet, romantic corners” add to the “appeal.” Food “24” Service “24”

Awards

Best of Boston, Best New Restaurant in the Berkshires, 2005Yankee Magazine, Editor’s ChoiceWine Spectator Award of Excellence

Berkshire Living

2009In Lee, Massachusetts, Chez Nous has become a favorite among locals and tourists alike. Ingredients—as local and organic, in season, as possible—are painstakingly sourced… Portnoy frequently makes the circuit… amiably chatting… When Tessier takes a break from the kitchen, his jolly energy fills the dining area, and he’s happy to talk for hours about regional recipes and his more contemporary approache to bistro cuisine.

Passport Magazine

They are a study in contrasts. He is happily carnivorous, while she is a dedicated vegetarian. He began studying to be a chef at age 15, while she came to her craft at 26, slightly late for the culinary world. There should be tension, opposition—but instead the gregarious and gifted French chef Franck Tessier and his charming American wife Rachel Portnoy, a superb pastry chef, make magic as the owners of Chez Nous, located in Lee, Mass. And what’s more, they seem to be thoroughly enjoying it.