Capture fall in a pottery or bronze leaf, a candied apple, a Cider Day brew. Take a drive, take a hike, or take a balloon ride. Paddle a canoe or kayak. Pick a pumpkin. It’s autumn in New England.
new england
Residents of the Newport’s Top of the Hill section feel it is the most heavenly neighborhood. And we recently found out why. For one thing, the Top of the Hill neighborhood is just an easy 10-minute walk to the downtown area with all those wonderful shops and restaurants along the harbor. Then, if you walk […]
How local is the Farmers Diner? The first thing you see when you walk in the door of this Quechee,Vermont, restaurant is a jukebox, glinting like any diner jukebox. Some Willie Nelson, some John Cougar Mellencamp. But half the albums are by Vermonters. Phish, sure. But it’s Grace Potter and the Nocturnals who get the […]
Lisa Saffer is a 47-year-old diva. She received her master’s degree from Boston’s New England Conservatory of Music in 1984, and today makes her home in Portland, Maine. In the great opera houses and concert halls of the world, she sings in many languages, her small frame launching glorious sounds that reach to the farthest […]
I’m standing in the parking lot of a large RV dealership south of Boston, notebook in hand, scribbling furiously as our rental agent points out every button and lever on the 33-foot Winnebago we’ve rented for a weekend of October leaf-peeping up the Maine coast. I have a bad feeling. Two hours in, and we’ve […]
Although New York, Ohio, Michigan, and Washington now supply the bulk of the country’s commercial crop, the Concord grape did indeed get its start in Concord, Massachusetts. Gold-leaf artisan, horticulturalist, and Concord resident Ephraim Wales Bull (1806-1895) spent years working with 22,000 seedlings before finding a vine worth keeping — a derivative of a wild […]
You know autumn has arrived in New England when boxes of tangy-sweet Concord grapes start showing up at local markets and farm stands. In fact, these dusky-purple orbs are so fragrant, you can smell them before you see them. Their growing season is brief, so enjoy them now, either straight from the vine or in […]
Slip a nice bite of golden Parmigiano-Reggiano into your mouth and you’ll know why it’s considered the king of Italian cheeses. Dense, firm, and filled with crunchy, crystalline specks, it has an intense, sticky richness layered with flavors of caramel, salt, warm spices, and brown butter, adding depth to pastas, salads, and fruit desserts, including […]
Decorating with maps is a wonderful way to display your favorite destinations in your home. Here’s how to use maps as wallpaper. It’s easier than you think!
Massachusetts
Sterling, MA: Davis Corn Maze
You’ll need a few supplies with you while getting lost in Davis’ Mega Maze in Sterling, Massachusetts: sturdy shoes, sunblock, snacks, and either a keen sense of direction or a horseshoe in your pocket. Visitors start by viewing a three-minute introductory movie; then the trek through the labyrinth begins … Each year, this three-dimensional, eight-acre […]
Magazine
Toot Your Own Horn
When Skip Healy was a child, he often visited the grounds of Rhode Island’s Varnum House Museum (with its extensive military and naval history collection) to sit on a stone bench and play his fife. Today, he’s the curator and runs a fife- and flute-making shop in the carriage house. “Fifes and pipes are the […]
Magazine
Drum It Up
You don’t expect to find Caribbean music in New England, let alone a crafter of Caribbean instruments. But that’s exactly what we’ve discovered in Eric Rollnick. Eric has been creating pans (melodic instruments made from steel drums, hammered out of 55-gallon barrels) since 1992, after extensive travel and study in Trinidad and Tobago. The pans […]