Yankee classic from December 1995 If the tawdry, materialistic displays that too often mark a modern Christmas make you feel like the Grinch, then travel with me to Thompson, Connecticut. It is an evening in early December, and the Old Town Hall, at the northwestern edge of the five-acre Thompson Hill Common, is ready for […]
cookies
Massachusetts
Concord, MA: History, Museums, Places to Stay
When the red-coated ranks of British regulars tramped westward from Boston on the fateful morning of April 19, 1775, little did they know that they were about to catapult the sleepy village of Concord, Massachusetts into the history books. The British captured the rebels’ stores of ammunition and flour and dumped the lot into the […]
New England honey ranges from light in color and softly fragrant to dark, rich, and intense. Maple syrup isn’t New England’s only deliciously sticky homegrown product — this region is one of the country’s leading producers of honey, too. Local New England honey is worth buying for more than its heavenly taste. Supporting small-scale beekeepers […]
I spent last Friday with Guy and Mary Ann Esposito. They are just lovely people. You probably know Mary Ann Esposito from her television cooking show, Ciao Italia, the longest-running cooking program on TV—19 years, I believe. If not, she’s written more than a dozen cookbooks, so if you don’t know about her, you might want […]
New Hampshire
New Hampshire: The Granite State
By David Lyon and Patricia Harris New Hampshire is Yankee country, and our woodsy home town of Dublin is right in the middle of it. To the east lies Peterborough, with its famed MacDowell Colony of painters, poets and thinkers. To the west, the handsome college town of Keene boasts one of the widest Main […]
Vermont
Ski Cozy in Vermont | Travel
Take a sleigh to the slopes and rediscover the simple joys of Vermont’s small mountains and intimate inns.
Here’s another great cookie-sharing idea. This one takes place in New Hampshire’s Mt. Washington Valley. It’s an Annual Inn to Inn Cookie and Candy Tour, in December. Each of the 17 inns on the tour feature original Christmas cookies and recipes, gingerbread sculptures, and holiday decorating ideas. The tour is over for this year, but […]
Cooking Advice
How to Have a Holiday Cookie Swap
A Cookie Swap is a great idea for a fun evening with friends, with the added bonus of having lots of cookies for holiday entertaining. Be sure to spend some time together exchanging stories about the recipes, as well as the cookies themselves. 1. Invite several friends over for punch or coffee and light refreshments. […]
Sometime around Thanksgiving, Mary Bevilacqua starts thinking about the Exchange. She decides whom she’ll invite and sends out invitations. She makes up the menu for the meal, and then, most important, she wonders what the cookie will be this year: Lemon snowballs? Nutmeg logs? Chocolate-peppermint bars? The Wellesley Cookie Exchange has been part of Mary’s […]
Massachusetts
Massachusetts Foliage Driving Tour
JUST EAST OF the traditional pleasures of the Berkshires lies an area known as “the hill towns.” Though often overshadowed by its showier, better publicized neighbors, this region of New England offers the best of both city and country. These hill towns are thick with creative arts, rural beauty, cultural diversity, and great music and […]
Food
Wine Selections
Helen’s company imports these wines (and hundreds more), and she chose them for their charming flavors and versatility with a variety of foods. Rose wines are in the midst of a revival, with more and more producers showing us that pink doesn’t have to be a sweet, mass-produced white Zinfandel. To get the meal started, […]
Magazine
Cooking Aboard Sailboat
“It was our love for the ocean that brought us together in the first place,” says Helen Gallo Bryan. She met her husband, Dave Bryan, manager of the Boston Sailing Center, more than a decade ago when she first signed up for sailing lessons. “We quickly figured out we had a passion for wine and […]