Cafe Giulia Opens, Again

Robert Willis is a restless fellow with blue eyes, breezy manners and a knack for reinventing himself. He has been an architect, a photographer, a racer at Lime Rock and a chef. (Yes. A chef in the kind of New York restaurant where customers pay real money for low lights, sausage made of lobster, a whole course in a single teaspoon and the kind of cosseting few people encounter anywhere else in life.) The trick is to know science. And love art. Making food, he says, merges the two. In 2009, Willis, now 59, opened Cafe Giulia — named for the boxy little Alfa Romeo Giulia he races at Lime Rock, a vehicle with less drag than a Porsche, Wikipedia says, but you would not know it to look at it. Then, recently, he closed Cafe Giulia. Too big, he said. Too formal. Too expensive. Too hard. Now he is opening Cafe Giulia again, this time a bit north along Route 44 on Main Street in a tidy spot last occupied by Agapanthus, a gift and housewares shop that, in spite of its smart beige serenity, did not make it. “This is where I wanted to open a restaurant from the beginning,” Willis says. “But it did not work out.” It’s worked out now. Cafe Giulia the second, with its open kitchen, gleamy, 10-burner stove, plate glass front and slick, lime-green light shades can serve 36 diners and will open next week, June 12. “Simple Italian Food” it says in graceful script up front. Local meat and produce, housemade pasta, linguini with clams (“One of my favorite dishes of all time” he says), grilled vegetables, good wine — it’s all on the menu inside. “I always cooked,” Willis says, starting with a Betty Crocker cookbook for kids at age 5. That’s how he learned to spoon hot butter over the yolks of frying eggs to cook the tops without flipping them. As an adult he taught himself (with a little help from Julia Child’s “Mastering the Art of French Cooking”) to wrap food in pastry, en croute, and coax fats and acids into silky sauces. “Eventually, I found out I was more interested in cooking than architecture.” So he volunteered to chop and slice at a restaurant he liked a lot, David Waltuck’s Chanterelle in New York’s Tribeca neighborhood. “I really enjoyed it. I liked the kitchen atmosphere. It was crude, it was fun.” He signed up for Peter Kump’s cooking school at night, keeping his day job, graduated, quit remodeling houses in Westchester and went to work fulltime at Chanterelle, and, later, Bobby Flay’s Bolo, then opening his own restautant, Vaux Bistro, in Brooklyn’s Park Slope neighborhood, a successful spot which he sold before moving to Lakeville in 2002. “I always loved restaurants,” he says. “Wonderful places, theatrical and homely.” That’s the plan for this next Cafe Giulia. Cafe Giulia is at 329 Main St. in Lakeville. It will open for dinner June 12 and will be serving Thursday through Monday, 5:30 to 9:30 p.m. Willis says he plans to open Cafe Giulia for lunch shortly. For reservations, call 860-435-9765.

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Club baseball at Fuessenich Park

Travel league baseball came to Torrington Thursday, June 26, when the Berkshire Bears Select Team played the Connecticut Moose 18U squad. The Moose won 6-4 in a back-and-forth game. Two players on the Bears play varsity ball at Housatonic Valley Regional High School: shortstop Anthony Foley and first baseman Wes Allyn. Foley went 1-for-3 at bat with an RBI in the game at Fuessenich Park.

 

  Anthony Foley, rising senior at Housatonic Valley Regional High School, went 1-for-3 at bat for the Bears June 26.Photo by Riley Klein 

 
Siglio Press: Uncommon books at the intersection of art and literature

Uncommon books at the intersection of art and literature.

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Siglio Press is a small, independent publishing house based in Egremont, Massachusetts, known for producing “uncommon books at the intersection of art and literature.” Founded and run by editor and publisher Lisa Pearson, Siglio has, since 2008, designed books that challenge conventions of both form and content.

A visit to Pearson’s airy studio suggests uncommon work, to be sure. Each of four very large tables were covered with what looked to be thousands of miniature squares of inkjet-printed, kaleidoscopically colored pieces of paper. Another table was covered with dozens of book/illustration-size, abstracted images of deer, made up of colored dots. For the enchanted and the mystified, Pearson kindly explained that these pieces were to be collaged together as artworks by the artist Richard Kraft (a frequent contributor to the Siglio Press and Pearson’s husband). The works would be accompanied by writings by two poets, Elizabeth Zuba and Monica Torre, in an as-yet-to-be-named book, inspired by a found copy of a worn French children’s book from the 1930s called “Robin de Bois” (Robin Hood).

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Cyclists head south on the rail trail from Copake Falls.

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After a shaky start, summer has well and truly descended upon the Litchfield, Berkshire and Taconic hills, and there is no better way to get out and enjoy long-awaited good weather than on two wheels. Below, find a brief guide for those who feel the pull of the rail trail, but have yet to purchase their own ten-speed. Temporary rides are available in the tri-corner region, and their purveyors are eager to get residents of all ages, abilities and inclinations out into the open road (or bike path).

For those lucky enough to already possess their own bike, perhaps the routes described will inspire a new way to spend a Sunday afternoon. For more, visit lakevillejournal.com/tag/bike-route to check out two ride-guides from local cyclists that will appeal to enthusiasts of many levels looking for a varied trip through the region’s stunning summer scenery.

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