This morning, after many days of a slow thaw, snow is sifting down earnestly. We are forecast to receive one foot and the TV news is showing drivers in the south spinning their wheels. It’s odd to note that, up here, where we have so much more of this white stuff, I rarely if ever […]
Last Sunday was to be my uncle’s 100th birthday. Our family tends to be long-lived, many living into their 80s, some into their 90s, but no one, to our knowledge, had lived this long. No one else from that generation in our family is still living. Since last summer, Uncle Bobby had been planning a […]
Months ago, or so it seems now, we were told that as of February 17, 2009, our ability to receive the television signal that has come into this house since I have no idea when, would end. In the attic of the garage of this house, there is an antenna that has been there ever […]
When I first came here to Mary’s farm, I named the place “Stillpoint” because it was so quiet here and because it was the still point in my turning world. It still is that, even as the world turns ever faster. The stillness in the early spring is especially profound, with the fields still deep […]
Best Cook Tinky Weisblat is the “Queen of Puddings.” Try her recipes for Maple-Apple Pudding and Eggplant Pudding and see for yourself! Tinky Weisblat is sitting at her kitchen table, piled high with recipes and ingredients. With a wooden spoon, she’s creaming butter, eggs, and sugar. At the moment, the house smells of pudding, as […]
No roads follow the neat borderline between New England and Canada that you see on the map. Instead, you have to traverse, back and forth, in and out of Canada–a rough stitch that has pulled the two countries together since before either of them was a nation. This is the story of that line–a line […]
A lot of letters come to me, all kinds of letters. I often read that the handwritten letter is dead. Everything happens now on e-mail. Probably that is our future but in the meantime, there are reasons why all people don’t use e-mail. Not so long ago, I received a letter. The back of the […]
New England’s first world champion chili maker, Jerry Buma, shares his favorite chili tips along with his best chili recipe.
I almost ran out of wood last year. In the middle of winter I had to scramble and find some good, dry wood, just about as easy as finding ripe peaches at that time of year. I sometimes think that the best way to save on heat might be to just go to Florida. I […]
A while ago in this blog, I wrote about the new kind of “book,” the Kindle, the e book that’s being marketed by Amazon.com. These “books” are electronic tablets you hold in your hand. Purchase them, like an I-pod, and you buy the ability to download almost anything available in the printed world — newspapers, […]
I went down to Connecticut for Thanksgiving with my cousins. We were many and there wasn’t much left over by the time the roasting pan had been scrubbed and the last counter wiped down. But there was the carcass and I begged to bring it home with me, a request that was gladly granted. Everyone […]
If you ask Roger Andrey how he pronounces his name, his international past emerges. “It’s Roh-zhay Ahn-dray,” he’ll tell you. His father was born in Switzerland, but his mother’s family was Italian. While in Milan, at the age of 11, he learned his first recipe, a vinaigrette for which he’s still famous. He relates this […]
