Three Days at Yale
“The first time I came here, I left my car running in case I wanted to leave immediately,” the woman said, smiling at me over lunch under a big white tent. I hadn’t left my engine running, but I knew...
View ArticleThe Bluebirds of Wall Street
The news on the television is pretty grim these days. I’ve decided not to watch. I have moved my laptop from my desk to the kitchen table where I can watch the colors change while I work. In most...
View ArticleMaintaining a Blog is Hard Work
As I go through the ins and outs of my sometimes exciting, mostly mundane life, something will happen and I think “oh good — I’ll put this in the blog.” But when it comes down to writing, somehow...
View ArticleSo, About Those Cupcakes…
My darling cousin Kim got married a few weeks ago. Early in the wedding planning, she asked a few family members if they would make cakes for her reception — she didn’t want anything fancy. I was one...
View ArticlePlanning Ahead: A Winter Day in the Kitchen
During our weekly editorial meeting my boss, Yankee‘s editor, Mel Allen, was sparking our creativity, trying to get us to think about winter issues for 2010 (!). He asked us about the perfect snowy...
View ArticleCookbooks: Cheese to Cookies
Who doesn’t love a good cookbook? You like to read about food, I assume you like to cook, too. Great cookbooks cross my desk all the time. Here are a few recent ones that have caught my eye and palate....
View ArticleAfter the Ice
It took a force of nature unlike what most of us had seen before to change the subject. Before the rain and sleet that froze blindingly beautiful and lethal on our trees and power lines and whatever...
View ArticleThe Up Side to Recession
Recently I brought some pants in to Jane’s in Stitches, a tiny nook of a place on a side street in Peterborough, New Hampshire. In her neat, cozy room, Jane sews and alters and repairs whatever it is...
View ArticleFrom Cape Cod to Colby
For 18 years, Bevin Engman, an artist on the faculty of Colby College in Waterville, Maine, primarily painted still-lifes. For most of that time, she painted books. Books – open, closed, stacked,...
View ArticleWriters of the Future
For eight years I’ve taught magazine writing at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. The class is always small, seminar-like, about 12 or 13 students. Over 15 weeks we get to know each other...
View ArticleSmall Towns, Big Stories
Saturday night I gave a speech to the Hillsborough, New Hampshire, Chamber of Commerce. It was their annual awards evening, where a business of the year and citizen of the year would be recognized, and...
View ArticleStamped Mail
A lot of letters come to me, all kinds of letters. I often read that the handwritten letter is dead. Everything happens now on e-mail. Probably that is our future but in the meantime, there are reasons...
View ArticleThe Smells of New England
You’ve probably heard that a week or so ago, one of the big news items coming from New York was that city officials have solved the several-year mystery of why at certain times the scent of maple syrup...
View ArticleThe End of Television
Months ago, or so it seems now, we were told that as of February 17, 2009, our ability to receive the television signal that has come into this house since I have no idea when, would end. In the attic...
View ArticleWhy People Love New England
A few weeks ago, a reader named Dawn Rigoni left this comment on my blog: “… I’m one of those people who is ‘homesick for New England’ even though I’ve never lived there. I’ve dreamed of living in...
View ArticleFiddleheads, Ramps, and Pesto
Those wonderful harbingers of spring are popping up in gardens and markets, and I’m doing my best to use as much of them all as I can. Fiddleheads have come and gone, but I managed to get my hands on a...
View ArticleBratwursts
This is an approximation of a recipe for bratwurst that my dear friend Dr. B made for his family and friends. He has left us, but I know that I’ll have a hankering for one (or two) of these bratwursts...
View ArticleEndless River Flow
Overflowing river banks, Rolling down with ease, Never work to roll down stream, Are carried all the way. When Dams are built, the rivers cannot bleed. That unnatural bandage stops the flow, Halting...
View ArticleIn the Wild
My father used to pay me a penny for every dandelion that I dug up out of his lawn. He was a post-war suburban homeowner, anxious to remove those blights from the carpet of green he worked so hard to...
View ArticleI Found Myself in Peru
Last month the Yankee editorial staff was all over the place. Literally. Our editor, Mel Allen, was in Japan, visiting his son (do read his blog about the trip — it is quite touching). Our art...
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