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Keeping your community covered. We're committed to producing high-quality, fact-based news and information that gives you the facts in this community we call home. If our work has helped you stay informed, take action, or feel more connected to Windham County – please give now to help us reach our goal of raising $150,000 by December 31st.
I am now intimately acquainted with the phrase “March madness.” This familiarity comes not from watching basketball, but from watching weather.
Those many inches of white and fluffy snow that fell in late February are now unsightly piles in my yard, dirty and hard as a rock from freezing rain - the side dishes of winter, as my friend Verandah calls them. More snow, sleet, and rain are forecast for tomorrow.
I keep finding little piles of fir needles mixed in with the dust balls around the floors of my house. I wake up in the middle of the night and fixate on how this year I will lose those ten extra pounds. I am filled with hope and grand...
The fragrant and delicate basil has long been dead, black and shriveled. I tore the roots up yesterday and threw them in the compost. The surviving green tomatoes have been transformed into chutney, although the plants remain as grim reminders of frost. A bit of chard still sticks up...
I love basil. I find its fragrance exotic and complicated, pungent with spice, yet at the same time clean and sweet. Whenever I buy a bunch or better yet, pick some fresh from the garden, I hold it up against my face and slowly inhale its tangled aroma. Last summer my basil rotted in its rows, just one more victim of the weather. Ever hopeful, I planted a lot of it this year, and although I thought I would never...
Spring. Does it even now seem so far behind us? For me, in this month when summer officially appears, I am simply happy it is no longer snowing. We had a lovely and early spring this year, one filled with such temperatures that in March I was able to plant spinach, enjoyed but now long gone, and two varieties of peas, which I picked for our dinner just days ago. Strawberries are lush and sweet but very early this year;
Make your own scones 3 cups unbleached white King Arthur flour ½ cup white cane sugar 1 Tbsp. fresh, double-acting baking powder pinch of salt 3 fresh eggs 6 Tbsp. unsalted butter ¾ cup fresh cream ½ cup dried fruit, candied ginger, or 2 teaspoons each dried orange rind and fennel seed Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Line baking sheets with parchment paper. You have a bowl of dry ingredients: flour, sugar, baking powder. You have a bowl of wet...
1 bunch fresh washed squeaky asparagus, woody ends snapped off 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil 2 tablespoons lemon juice grated zest of 1 lemon sea salt to taste Preheat oven to 450 degrees F. Mix oil with lemon juice and peel, and spread on bottom of rimmed cookie sheet. Pat the asparagus dry or it will steam in the oven instead of roast. Roll asparagus spears in this mixture and add salt to taste. Roast for 15 to 20 minutes,
This time of year I find myself thinking about asparagus. In 1954 my family moved from Maplewood, N.J., to East Bethel, Vt. I was four. We bought an old house and the small adjoining grocery store, which was quickly rechristened Coutant's Country Center. There we stayed until 1962: my mother, father, brother, me, and two dalmatians. My parents were fleeing the confines of suburbia for the simple country life, but central Vermont was pretty bleak in the mid-fifties, especially for...
