12 Mile Meal joins Pioneer Valley Supper Club

On the Sunday of the Martin Luther King weekend, my spouse and I returned to the valley early on the three day weekend to attend the forth installment of the Pioneer Valley Supper Club at the recently opened restaurant Coco in Easthampton, Massachusetts. The Pioneer Valley Supper Club is curated by Jovan James, one of our esteemed judges from the 12 Mile Meal Celebrity Chef Battle at last year’s Northampton Jazz Festival and is the proprietor of Main Street Northampton clothing store UNITE.

The Pioneer Valley Supper Club takes over an area restaurant on a Sunday evening and brings together members to enjoy a special menu of fine cuisine and lovely wine pairings in a relaxed and festive atmosphere that showcases the vast and varied talents of our area chefs. Jovan and his supper club have hosted at Ristorante Dipaola in Turner’s Falls, Gypsy Apple in Shelburne Falls and Chez Albert in Amherst in 2011.

For the first Pioneer Vally Supper Club of 2012, we arrived to a lively, well lit Coco, a new restaurant at 95 Main Street in Easthampton, directly above the Cellar Bar, a popular evening hang out spot. Coco is the creation of husband and wife team Roger Taylor and Unmi Abkin and their dining room was filled on this Sunday evening with supper club diners enjoying a glass of bright sparkling wine visiting and listening to the warm sounds of live Spanish inspired classical guitar music.

Unmi and Roger have created an intimate space to experience their artistic cuisine that is bright, colorful and driven by a genuine love of food and an obvious love for each other. Roger spoke with the supper club diners as their staff served a lovely meal conceived by Unmi. Roger described himself as “the nuts and bolts” of their collaborative effort and described his spouse and business partner as “the creative force” behind the cuisine and as, “the best boss” he’s ever had.

The menu was a well formed five course dinner accompanied with three smartly sized glasses of wine. The meal began with a tuna tartare like Hawaiian poke but the bits were smaller and was accented with lemon aioli and served with a crisp California sauvignon blanc. The local butternut squash soup with sage brown butter and the delightful citrus salad courses were served with a lovely white wine blend that worked well with the varied and bright orange discs of the salad presented with avocado, marash pepper and was my favorite dish of the evening.

The entree was an oven roasted duck breast served with olive oil mashed potatoes and steamed shaved fennel accented with herbs. The natural colors and flavors made for a healthful and pleasant dish that was fresh and wholesome, like a yummy home cooked Sunday dinner. It was followed by a simple ginger cake disc cut from a sheet served with lemon whipped cream that was tasty and light.

The entire experience was wonderful and well worth the price of $70.00 per person with wine or $50.00 without wine. But the value of the evening was in the intension of the supper club which is to showcase area restaurants and their creative, talented chefs who are making cuisine using local meats and produce and bringing together food loving people from around the valley to support efforts to eat well and to dine out locally.

Next up for the Pioneer Valley Supper Club in February is an evening at TJ Buckley’s in Brattleboro, Vt. We are looking forward to attending but we must act fast as there are only 18 place settings in the quaint and bantam diner car conversion that has been a mainstay of the northern fine dining scene for many years. We hope to see you there. And in the meantime please get busy making your next 12 Mile Meal. It’s for you to do.