Herbs are easily grown inside and make lovely kitchen centerpieces and windowsill plants. Small herb container gardens and topiaries are fun ways to showcase your edible plants, and you can’t beat the fragrance of fresh herbs growing inside during the dreary winter months. Instructions to Grow an Indoor Herb Garden 1. Choose herbs you use […]
At a Jewish day school in Northampton that her children attended, Simona Pozzetto was known as “the challah lady,” despite the fact that she’d been raised Catholic in Milan, Italy. Her bread was so beloved that some children refused to eat any loaf that wasn’t Simona’s. As it is, Simona’s is an unlikely story. But, […]
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 […]
Gates, arches, arbors, fences, bridges, stepping stones and paths signal to us that there is something beyond our line of view that is worth exploring. They stand in all their glory silently beckoning visitors to enter and see what surprises await. A space with flowers becomes a place for flowers when it is framed by […]
Last week, I headed to the Berkshires with my colleague, Justin, for the day. We had planned to come upon some future story ideas, get to know the area a little better, and have a bit of fun in the process. Among the stops we squeezed into the long day was Hancock Shaker Village in […]
Down on the coast, they understand the tides. They live by the tides–and not only as a practical matter for seagoing folk, but more subtly, as well. Twice a day, the harbors, bays, and coves fill and empty, fill and empty. The edge of the continent comes close, then pulls back. Down on the coast, […]
Even back in the 1970s when I was a graduate student in Boston, I wasn’t a big fan of the Museum of Fine Arts. I dropped in at the elegant and eccentric little Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum regularly just to smell the gardens in winter and breathe the ancient air, but the MFA struck […]
I just spent a weekend touring some of coastal Maine’s most beautiful farms on a press tour with the Maine Farmland Trust. The purpose of the trip was to not only give a group of writers a taste of Maine’s best food, but to educate them on some of the challenges to building a thriving […]
Vermicomposting is a self-contained and modified alternative or addition to traditional outdoor composting. It consists of using small worms and basic vegetarian kitchen waste such as: banana peels, wilted lettuce, potato clippings, apple cores, melon rinds etc. as “food” for the worms to break down into compost. Worm composting can be done year round inside […]
My sense of fair play tells me it is way too soon to return to the Center for Maine Contemporary Art for a review even though the July 20 post about Steve Mumford’s drawings and paintings of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan has been the most popular and controversial Just Looking post ever. But, […]
Dating back to 1790, Bay School farm overlooks Lake Winnisquam and miles and miles of mountains to the east and north. Everyone has his or her own idea of what heaven looks like. For us, however, a certain 13-plus acres, surrounded by neighboring farms, on a ridge overlooking eight-mile-long Lake Winnisquam as well as the […]
An unfinished farmhouse inspires expat empty-nesters to reinvent themselves in the Green Mountains.
