Open View Gardens

Just a short while ago, I thought I’d be sitting in a fabulous Indian restaurant in London right about now, during a two-day stopover on  the way to Fes, Morocco for a month to think, to write, to cook, to take photos, to taste living in that incredible city. And then on to Italy for […]

Elizabeth’s Note: After a brief pause, we’ve got a new guest post to share, this time from one of my close friends, Maxime Billick, a native of Montreal. I first met Maxime many years ago on a volunteer trip to Dominica (pronounced Domih-NEEKah and not to be confused with the Dominican Republic) in the Caribbean. I’ve […]

My father was among the world’s most enthusiastic record keepers. As a historian, he stacked details of time, place and event neatly in his mind. On index cards he noted the noteworthy including nagging holes in his coin and stamp collections. Even after he died, we discovered more: deep within his desk he’d squirreled a […]

Note from Elizabeth: I’m lucky to have two parents who cook. I have as many memories of my father preparing meals while I was growing up as of my mother. Writing my senior thesis on the relationship between gender and food, I realized how truly rare such a division of labor is. Even though my […]

It has been quite a week: Irene and her aftermath- an unfolding story of the Vermont community coming together to move through this disaster–and very personal losses friends have endured that have nothing to do with hurricanes. I couldn’t sleep for the stories and memories swirling about my head when the lights went out. So […]

Our guest blogger this week for our new series, Food Stories: Memory, Culture, Perspective, is Michaela Yule, a family friend from Newton, MA who has spent the last five years, including her time at Dartmouth College, studying and living off and on in the Middle East, between Egypt, Syria and Jordan, with visits to Lebanon, […]

Today we unroll our new series, Food Stories: Memory, Culture, Perspective,  written by people who have thought a good deal about food, have terrific food stories to share and/or hold a recipe that means much more than just a successful pie or stew.  To open our world view and the conversation, and to ground ourselves […]

The bluebird boxes go up today (even if it is snowing); in a few days I’ll set up the Mason bee house.  Audubon called this morning with the news that their report on our bird habitat is complete and we’ll soon receive it in the mail.  I’m interested to see if any of their recommendations […]

In honor of St. Patrick’s Day today, my first article of the new  season for the Addison Independent, has, naturally, an Irish theme: Irish Roots Here, But No Cabbage If I stayed true to my roots, today I’d be in the basement planting cabbage seeds under the grow lights, then shoveling snow off a raised […]

Earlier in the summer,  I wrote about learning from family, students and friends.  Actually, since I started blogging in 2001, I’ve often remarked on being far more student than teacher even when I taught in formal schools. Every day since then I’ve learned essential and moving lessons from the non-human inhabitants of the gardens, but […]