Gideon’s, RIP?

I just learned today that Gideon’s is in dire straights. According to its phone message, the restaurant was closed last weekend, but hopes to reopen on Wednesday January 24^th. Apparently EGL (formerly Gideon’s Nightery), which was being spun off from Gideon’s and lately under the management of Vaal London-Kane, is in similar straights.

Well, this is horrible news. The first dinner my wife and I had in North Adams, when she was interviewing for her job as Web Communications Director, was at Gideon’s. The fact that we could get a meal as good as at any foodie restaurant in Boston was a significant factor (OK, a not insignificant factor, at any rate) in making us comfortable about moving out here; the relative ease of getting a reservation, and prices about 30% lower than in the city, was icing on the cake. And apart from our own comfort, the prosperous-seeming restaurant crowd also made us a little more comfortable about North Adams’ economic trend being up now, rather than down as in previous decades. The fact that Bill Gideon’s resume (among others) showed that he could make it anywhere, but he chose to come here, was also a good sign.

Gideon’s was always busy when I was there, but perhaps that was only on Saturday nights. Busy Saturdays are necessary, but not sufficient, for success in the business, so I guess I was “part of the problem” despite eating there every month or two. EGL has been less crowded; it was a great bargain for lunch or a light dinner; my wife gave them a fair amount of lunch business and raved about the food; its chef, Joe Mezza (spelling?) had been sous-chef at Mistral in Boston, a widely acclaimed French restaurant which we had never gotten to, mostly as they were on the high end of our price range.

There is still, of course, Gramercy Bistro, which is close to and similar to Gideon’s. And I understand that Milan at 55 Main is quite good; I have not eaten there. (Although my Italian grandmother has now been dead for several years, I still feel a bit guilty about getting Italian food anywhere else.) But between Jae’s closing up its restaurant in North Adams, and now this, I am not happy about recent trends. (I did finally get to Coyote Flaco on the far side of Williamstown last weekend; it’s unusually good Mexican for New England, and very reasonably priced, but not so convenient from Adams.)

So what to do? I will try to follow the situation with Gideon’s and EGL, and eat there on a weeknight if I get another chance.

Does anyone have any details about what happened? At one level, I’m sure it’s a problem of not making enough money, but how did the problem go down, and what does that mean for the prospects of reopening?

UPDATE: Having heard from a couple of reasonably well-connected (but not directly involved) sources, I believe that Gideon's had plenty of business but was mismanaged to the point its bank felt the need to shut it down. EGL, while apparently less of a going concern, may be slightly more likely to make a comeback. I never did "Drinking Liberally" which has been hosted there, mostly because I'm not a liberal (except in the classical sense), but I see such events as important to the success (cultural and otherwise) of North Adams' continued revival. An arts community needs reasonably priced places for refreshments and entertainment that can attract pinkos, artists, students, dilettantes and groupies, and gays and lesbians, and North Adams doesn't have a surfeit of them.

UPDATE 2: Gideon's phone message no longer says they're hoping to reopen tonight (Wednesday). Also, EGL does not look likely to reopen as such, at least any time soon, although Vaal, its manager, would appear (unlike Gideon, can't say more) to remain viable in the local business community. She just took over the now-shuttered restaurant a couple months ago. EGL was to now, I believe still "owned" by Bill Gideon, not Vaal (that is, to the extent it was not owned by the bank which lent Gideon considerable sums).

Cooking Inspiration

A disturbing number of spring buds and bulbs are sprouting in this very mild winter – disturbing because we must fear that a colder February could kill off most of next spring’s flowers. Nevertheless, there’s not a lot of gardening going on in Zone 5, so for now I will change the topic to cooking.

As a stay-at-home dad with a working wife, I tend to do most of the cooking. With pre-school children demanding their bland favorites, while my wife and I want more flavorful foods, it’s hard to please everyone, and easy to get into a cooking funk. (It doesn’t help that I like rich meaty dishes and only like a few vegetables, while my wife wants low-fat vegetable options, and hates ham and mushrooms.) I think a dinner has to include a meat/protein, a starch, and a vegetable, so I usually have to have more than three dishes to cover everyone’s needs. So it helps if the recipes require a limited preparation time, include more than one of the three food groups, or are palatable to all of the family.

Since my wife and kids got me another old cookbook for Christmas, I have been inspired to find/alter and create several entrees. The inspiration came from the Time-Life Foods of the World series 1971 book American Cooking: The Melting Pot. (Like the rest of the series, it’s a collection of travelogue vignettes, with goofy photos of very square pre-1970s characters breaking bread together.)

For the first recipe, Chicken Paprikash, I had to go online to find various versions since the book only alluded to the dish. From previous experience, I’ve found that mixing a chopped onion with flour and spices, and then frying it, is a lot quicker than making a separate roux, and makes for a thickened and flavorful sauce or stew. So I incorporated this method into the core of the various recipes I found. The next day, I realized that if you eliminated the paprika, replaced the chicken with beef, cooked the meat for longer, and added a couple of sliced vegetables, you would have a very successful Beef Sofrito. Either dish can work for the kids if I go light on the hot pepper; they can eat the meat and sauce with ziti or penne pasta. Here goes [optional ingredients are bracketed]:

Chicken Paprikash

1 lb. boneless chicken breast, sliced thin

2 Tbsp butter or olive oil

1 medium onion, chopped

[garlic, chopped]

[dry or fresh hot pepper]

1 Tbsp flour

1/4 tsp black pepper

1/2 tsp dried thyme leaves

2 Tbsp paprika

8oz. can tomato sauce

1 cup (8oz.) chicken broth

1/4 cup sour cream or ½ & ½

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Toss onion in bowl with flour & spices. Open cans and ready tomato, broth & cream.

[Shake chicken with extra paprika and pepper. Salt only if broth is low-salt.]

Melt 1 Tbsp butter over medium-high heat. Fry chicken until just browned.

Transfer chicken to plate.

Add remaining 1 Tbsp butter to skillet.

Add onion and sauté until beginning to soften, about 3 minutes.

Add tomato, broth, cream mixture. Stir. Boil until sauce thickens enough to coat spoon thinly, about 5 minutes.

Mix in chicken and any collected juices.

Reduce heat to low. Cover with top or colander depending on need to reduce.

Cook until chicken is just done.

Beef Sofrito

1 lb. stew beef cubes

2 Tbsp butter [or olive oil]

1 medium onion, chopped

1 clove garlic, chopped

[dry or fresh hot pepper]

1 Tbsp flour

1/4 tsp black pepper

1/2 tsp dried thyme

1 tsp dried parsley

1 carrot, sliced “paper” thin

1 celery stalk, sliced “paper” thin

8oz. can tomato sauce

1 cup (8oz.) chicken broth

1/4 cup sour cream or ½ & ½

********************************

Toss onion in bowl with flour & spices. Open cans and ready tomato, broth & cream.

Melt 1 Tbsp butter over medium-high heat. Fry beef cubes until just browned.

Transfer beef to plate. (You may choose to slice up beef in spare time during next steps.)

Add remaining 1 Tbsp butter to skillet.

Add onion and sauté until beginning to soften, or brown, about 3-10 minutes.

Transfer onion back to bowl.

Add carrot & celery (or bell pepper) and sauté until soft or browning.

Add tomato, broth, cream mixture. Stir.

Return beef (and juices) to skillet.

Boil at medium heat until sauce thickens to liking. Reduce heat to low. Cover until beef is thoroughly stewed.