Jud’s New England Journal For September 2012 Welcome to the September 2012 edition of Jud’s New England Journal, the rather curious monthly musings of Judson Hale, the Editor-in-Chief of Yankee Magazine, published since 1935 in Dublin, N.H About Our Hard Cider – And, Yes, Our Hard Tea, Too It’s difficult for outsiders to believe how […]
cider
I haven’t written a cooking-oriented post for weeks. I have been cooking, but it it has been of the “quickly-as-possible-so-we-can-get-back-outside-and-enjoy-the-fleeting-summer” sort. Fresh tomato salads, grilled sausages, hamburgers, etc. One quick tip: Try using rice vinegar and shallots in your next tomato salad. The milder acidity is a great compliment to the sweet, ripe fruit […]
Visit an apple orchard this fall and you’re just as likely to see folks munching on golden-brown apple-cider doughnuts as you are actual apples. Beyond the standard cake doughnut, cider doughnuts have apple cider added right into the batter, lending a touch of sweetness and a subtle cider tang that most people find dangerously addictive. […]
How To
Improv Sewing
Every so often, we receive cookbooks and crafting books to review, and it’s always a good day in the office when that happens. One book in particular caught my eye: Improv Sewing by Nicole Blum and Debra Immergut. I’m an enthusiastic but not terribly skilled sewer and the book was right up my alley, showing […]
If you’ve ever found yourself in a restaurant-rich neighborhood in Boston—the South End, say, or Beacon Hill—chances are you’ve seen a white Sid Wainer truck making a produce or specialty foods delivery to the back door of some bistro or another. The company, which began with a little horse-drawn produce wagon in New Bedford in […]
Not to sound too provincial, but when something really big and exciting happens to you in New York, the significance and excitement seem magnified by a thousand. On Monday night, my book, The Apple Lover’s Cookbook, won big: an award for the Best American/Regional Cookbook from the International Association of Culinary Professionals. It was the […]
New Hampshire
The Perfect General Store
One of the many pleasures of working at Yankee is that our offices are just a short drive from one of New England’s great general stores. Like the best of its kind, the Harrisville General Store is part market, part eatery, part gallery, and part social hub. Incidentally, there were people all around me as […]
Hand-made gifts are fantastic, but who has time, right? Well, this week I took to the airways to demonstrate a way to make a delicious handmade gift while you sleep! It’s my homemade apple butter, made overnight in a slow cooker. Here’s a video of me demonstrating the recipe on New England Cable News. Cooking […]
Magazine
Getting to Know Provincetown
There is no better way to know a famous tourist town than arriving off season, when the tourists have left, and the locals reclaim their streets, their beaches, their way of life that brought them here in the first place, perhaps generations ago. I rarely visit a beautiful place without daydreaming at some point about […]
Food
A Weekend Food Tour
It was so wonderful to be back at Cider Days in western Massachusetts this past weekend. This festival of apples and apple cider (hard and sweet) has become a touchstone. I only wish I could’ve stayed longer! Here’s a shot of me demonstrating how to make cornbread dressing with sausage and apples, courtesy of my […]
In honor of the great hard cider producers in our region, here’s a recipe for cheddar-cider fondue that I came up with last week, and which I have now added to my “I wish I’d put this in the book” file. It’s a reinterpretation of the classic fondue recipe found in The Joy of Cooking, […]
Massachusetts
Cider Days, and a Cheddar-Cider Fondue Recipe
In two weeks, one of my favorite New England festivals is taking place in Western Massachusetts. Cider Days is a celebration of all things apple, with orchard tours, apple tastings, cidermaking, a grand “cider salon” with samples from around the world (that’s hard cider, not juice), workshops, kids’ activities, and more. Events take place all […]