A few weeks ago I went down to the Worcester area to interview the World Champion Chili Cook, a guy named Jerry Buma. I’ve written about him for our upcoming January issue so you can read about him then. In the meantime, he invited me to come to the Chili-fest in Wells, Maine, this past […]
By Francie Von Mertens Peterborough Berry picking lures me out, adding a sense of productivity to my wanderings. Wild berries: June’s strawberries and July’s raspberries are small but flavor-packed. August and September’s blueberries and blackberries are abundant enough to bring home in quantity. Wild cranberry relish is a Thanksgiving tradition. Berries from the freezer show […]
Looking for fun fall activities in New England? Here’s a list of 15 of the best ways to celebrate the foliage season. Cook with apples. Try these recipes for apple pie, pandowdy, etc. Take a foliage drive. Choose your view from these scenic routes. Report the foliage color in your town. Maybe even win a prize! […]
Welcome to the September 2008 edition of “Jud’s New England Journal,” the rather curious monthly musings of Judson Hale, editor-in-chief of Yankee Magazine, published since 1935 in Dublin, New Hampshire. On the Road Again With The Old Farmer’s Almanac “What’s the winter going to be like?” is the usual first question. But my most vivid […]
I felt true sadness this morning when I saw a notice in the local paper about the death of Dwight Miller, Jr., a veritable icon in the northern world of fruits and vegetables. When I lived closer to Miller’s orchard in Dummerston, Vermont, I used to go there to pick apples in the fall or […]
This question isn’t as silly as it might sound at first. Unlike the orange and yellow pigments that are present in a leaf all summer (but are revealed only when green chlorophyll starts to break down and fade), the red pigments, anthocyanins, aren’t produced until autumn. It takes a significant amount of energy to produce […]
Last fall, a young man who lives nearby knocked on my door. He wanted to know whether he could keep his hives in my field. He explained that his bees, living on the side lawn of his house, near the woods, had died. He didn’t know why. He thought they might do better in my […]
Are there trees and shrubs that flower in the fall that I can use in my landscape? — R.M., Lincoln, MA A good number of herbaceous perennials (soft-stem plants that die to the ground in winter) bloom during the fall in New England — including Aconitum, Aster, Chrysanthemum, Sedum, and Filipendula, among others — but […]
All over New England, at farm stands, groceries, and local markets, September’s crisp air ushers in an annual switch from summer’s bounty of berries, peppers, and tomatoes to autumn’s festive bins of hardy gourds. Some knobby and mottled, some flamboyantly hued like a maple leaf’s last stand, winter squashes — acorn, buttercup, turban, carnival, and […]
Verna Soini of Fitchburg, Massachusetts, shares two of her blue-ribbon canning recipes from the country fair. Verna Soini’s plump hands are stained red from the beets she’s peeling as she prepares her favorite relish. On the stove, jars are jostling gently in a hot-water bath. In another kettle, freshly packed jars of pickled green beans are […]
Peter Ralston is telling me about a boy he once knew. In 1957, when the boy is seven years old, he moves to an old gray stone house in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania.
In the frozen grips of a fierce storm on Mt. Katahdin, each man’s choice was his own. On Thursday evening, January 31, 1974, a fierce winter storm cut a swath of destruction across northern New England. It tore roofs off of mobile homes and tossed them into nearby trees, and sent tree limbs crashing into […]
