PITTSFIELD — Ask Thomas Moody what his favorite thing to smoke is. He’ll tell you pork ribs. And his least favorite? That would be brisket, because it takes so long.
Moody wasn’t smoking anything at the Pittsfield Farmers Market on Saturday though. The pit master was dancing in front of the grill, putting the finish on wings, dishing out pulled pork and turning individual ribs to achieve a perfect bark. Thomas Moody and Erica Shrader have started Upstreet Smoke and are hoping to open a brick and mortar restaurant.
This is Upstreet Smoke , a pop-up restaurant, which has also been operating nearly a year as a caterer at venues such as Shakespeare & Company and Barrington Stage Company. Moody and his partner, Erica Shrader, chose Juneteenth to launch the business, starting with the NAACP Berkshires Juneteenth Celebration, on June 18 2023, at Pittsfield's Durant Park. Through customers there, they landed catering gigs .
While Moody tended to the meat on Saturday, Shrader worked the cash register, taking orders and handling cash and plastic. She makes all the sides, food she calls comfort cuisine. They’re now at the Pittsfield Farmers Market the second Saturday of the month.
“I sneak in Caribbean dishes every once in a while,” Shrader said. Those would be ones she learned from her grandmother, Iris Persip, from Saint Kits, and from her mother, Althea (Nolan) Patrick, from Bermuda. She also sometimes fries plantains.
“My dad always cooked,” she said of her father, F.