Berkshire Eagle announced next year’s Tanglewood highlights on Friday:

July 3-4: James Taylor and Carole King perform as part of their world tour.

July 9: The eight-week BSO season opens with James Levine conducting Mahler’s “Resurrection” Symphony.

July 18: At the Shed, Arlo Guthrie and the Boston Pops under Keith Lockhart. At Ozawa Hall, Audra McDonald’s recital “The New American Songbook.”

June 26: Garrison Keillor and the “Prairie Home Companion” radio show.

July 16: Levine conducts a pairing of Mozart’s Requiem and Stravinsky’s “Symphony of Psalms.”

July 23: The BSO and guest singers perform Mozart’s comic opera “The Abduction from the Seraglio” in concert form under Levine.

July 24: Seiji Ozawa returns to the BSO podium in a Brahms program.

Aug. 8: Yo-Yo Ma presents a program of Asian music with his Silk Road Project.

Aug. 15:  Oliver Knussen’s “Where the Wild Things Are” opera given in concert form by TMC students.

Aug. 29: The BSO season closes with Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, conducted by Kurt Masur.

We’re wondering if there will be any pop music this year…more programs to be announced in a few months.

Tickets go on sale Feb. 14.  Information: www.tanglewood.org.

Thanks The 12534 for posting this video and this video on art + antiques destination Hudson, New York.

Pottery Barn ’style expert’ Jeffrey Moss made a recent trip to Hudson to explore is its farms, architecture, antique and curio shops, and watering holes.

We haven’t been to Hudson since the summer, but I’ll be there next Friday picking up Anuj at the Amtrak station.  These pieces have inspired me to pop into some of my favorite shops like Foley & Cox for some browsing and fantasizing about my two-hundred-year-old Dutch colonial on fifty rolling acres…

Photo with Havens article on Hudson, The New York Times

Here’s a quick tour inside the Beacon Cinema in Pittsfield, Mass. led by general manager John Valente.  The Beacon opens tonight with a midnight showing of Twilight: New Moon.

Unless we somehow get sucked into the Twilight mania in the next week, I’m guessing our first film at the Beacon will be Fantasic Mr. Fox or The Yes Men Fix the World.

Remodelista featured a home in Hillsdale, NY today designed by architects Deborah Berke & Partners.

I love its simplicity and the strong, classic New England lines.

Will not include a turkey.  I’ll be cooking a meal for my side of the family on Saturday, two days after Thanksgiving.  We’ll be spending Thanksgiving Day at my sister-in-law’s with her Dutch in-laws where there will be a turkey and lots of other goodies.  Large families in different states (and countries) require that we split the holiday into two meals/occasions.  This turns out to be a wonderful thing.  I get to host one of the meals, which I love to do, and just show up for the other.   Then of course there’s twice the mashed potatoes and desserts…

I decided not to make a turkey since everyone will still be probably eating their leftovers from Thanksgiving Day.  And because Anuj wanted to try something different. 

So what will I be making the Saturday after Thanksgiving?  I recently got my hands on a secret family recipe from our neighbor in Harlem for this:

Brisket!

I’m salivating just thinking of the version our friends made a few weeks ago and have so graciously offered to pass the recipe along.  I’ve never made a brisket and I’m a bit nervous.  It takes a lot of time and prep and you end up with either a delicious, juicy brisket, or dry airline food.  It seems there’s no in between.  My neighbor has promised to walk us through the recipe step by step.  I’ll be taking copious notes.

Now I’ve just got to assemble some dishes.  Any ideas?

(Photo epicurious.com)

A dozen peeled and sliced apples (rome, cortland, macintosh, golden delicious)…

layered with cinnamon and piled high…

topped with brown sugar, flour, more cinnamon and cold butter.

40 minutes later…

seven (going on eight) days of gluttony.

We got a half a cord of wood delivered yesterday.

Only a third of it is seasoned, which we were disappointed to learn, but the truth is, we’ll probably use only a third this winter anyway.  That gives the rest of the wood another year to dry out.

Here’s the way they deliver it:

(by the time I got outside Anuj had already brought the seasoned wood inside the house, so this isn’t quite the entire pile)

And here’s the beginnings of Anuj’s stacked wood pile:

(this is the unseasoned stuff that will stay outside under a tarp for another year)

The pile got about four feet high by the time he was done.

The Berkshire Eagle’s got some video footage of Pittsfield’s new Beacon Cinema.



From what I can tell, it looks beautiful.  Pittsfiled needs its architecture to be revitalized on this level.  I think those are lofts on the upper levels.  The ground level is going to be the The Marketplace Cafe.

Now that the opening’s only a few weeks away, I can start guessing what our first movie will be….that new Nancy Meyers film starring Meryl Streep and Alec Baldwin as exes who fall back in love? (update: that comes out Christmas Day.  Damn.)  The Road? Precious?

What will we do if all they offer are movies like that John Cusack end-of-the-world thing?  Or Twilight: New Moon? Go and enjoy our pastries regardless?

This weekend is the 10th annual FilmColumbia Festival.   The festival is one of the most highly anticipated cultural events of the county (that’s county, folks, not country).  It was started in 2000 by the Chatham Film Club and is currently run by journalist and cinephile Peter Biskind.  This year they’ve got over 30 screenings, panels, readings and parties.

Here’s a peak at some of the lineup:

• Precious, early Oscar buzz, starring Mo’Nique, Mariah Carey, and newcomer Gabourey Sidibe.  Look for a HUGE feature on it in this week’s NYTimes Magazine.
• The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus, Heath Ledger’s last (half-completed) film, directed by Terry Gilliam.  Johnny Depp, Colin Farrell and Jude Law complete Heath’s role in the second half of the film.
• The Men Who Stare At Goats, starring George Clooney.   What is this film? Is anyone as confused as I am? 
• The Maid, this year’s Grand Jury Prize winner at Sundance.
• The White Ribbon, the latest from Michael Haneke, one of my favorite foreign filmmakers.
• An Education, Dogme 95 meets Nick Hornby.  Literally.

There’s also the Coen Brothers, Barack Obama, Queen Victoria and Doctors Without Borders. 

Anuj and I had a great time last year – we saw a few films, including The Class, one of our favorites of the year.

Screenings for this year’s festival start tomorrow night.  Go!  (Or should I say, “Come!”)