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By TINKY WEISBLAT

We live in an area with abundant local sources of food. Greenfield’s Episcopal Church of Saints James and Andrew is getting ready to celebrate this year’s harvest with a “100 Mile Dinner.”The dinner will take place next Saturday, Oct. 26, at 5:30 p.m....

By TINKY WEISBLAT

Every once in a while, readers just want to be entertained by a novel. “The Accidental Animal Copy” by Stevie Lynne offers that kind of fun. The book is full of humorous characters and events.Part of a series about the small town of Brownville,...

By TINKY WEISBLAT

A couple weeks ago, I attended a quick-pickling workshop at the Tyler Memorial Library in Charlemont. The library serves both Hawley and Charlemont. Librarian Kim Gabert arranges about one workshop a month.Somehow, I hadn’t managed to get to any of...

By TINKY WEISBLAT

The town of Leverett is celebrating its 250th anniversary this year. The festivities have included a cake-filled birthday party in March, a plant walk, an antique vehicle and equipment show, a quilt show, a July 4 parade and barbecue, and much...

By TINKY WEISBLAT

Food helps us communicate with others. I have known Daphne Bye of Montague casually for a decade, yet I never really knew very much about her until last week. Asking her about her fabulous layered-hummus dish helped me learn about her career and her...

By TINKY WEISBLAT

Lucy Damkoehler of Sweet Lucy’s Bakeshop in Bernardston is very much a hometown gal. Although she claims not to know the names of all her customers, she certainly seemed to know everyone in the shop the day photographer Paul Franz and I stopped in to...

By TINKY WEISBLAT

I first met Laura Rodley of Buckland as a writing facilitator for seniors, whom she led to create a series of books titled “As You Write It.” Not surprisingly, Rodley herself is a writer and a poet.Her newest book, “Ribbons and Moths” (Kelsay Books,...

By TINKY WEISBLAT

I recently participated in Apex Orchards’ annual Peach Fest. Owner Tim Smith couldn’t quite remember whether it was the third or fourth such occasion. I couldn’t remember either, although I go every time it happens and always enjoy visiting the...

By TINKY WEISBLAT

I’m currently reading a wonderful new book by local food writer Claire Hopley, “Eating in Leverett, 1774-2024.” It will be the topic of this column in a couple of weeks.In it, Hopley outlines what people in Leverett (and in greater New England as...

By TINKY WEISBLAT

Growing up spending summers down the road from composer, conductor, and teacher Alice Parker in Hawley, I didn’t know how lucky I was. I assumed everyone attended festive pot-luck parties at which grownups and children alike dressed in costume, ate...

By TINKY WEISBLAT

Sometimes it’s impossible not to follow trends. Lately, I have seen recipes popping up all over the place for Atlantic Beach Pie. I met this pie first in the New York Times. It has also graced Southern Living magazine, NPR, and Forbes magazine, not to...

By TINKY WEISBLAT

A couple of weeks ago, my friend Jennifer Rich told me that she was overwhelmed with cucumbers. The recent rain had inspired her cucumber vines to produce enormous amounts of fruit. I mentioned that if she got desperate, I could always be counted on...

By TINKY WEISBLAT

I have never met Preston Browning, although I imagine many of this paper’s readers have. A resident of Ashfield, he is a retired professor of English with a wide variety of interests and a resonant social conscience. He has written poetry, a memoir, a...

By TINKY WEISBLAT

Jonathan Stevens of Hungry Ghost Bread in Northampton has much to celebrate. The bakery he owns and runs with his domestic and business partner, Cheryl Maffei, marked its 20th birthday this spring. His “Hungry Ghost Bread Book” (Chelsea Green, 208...

By TINKY WEISBLAT

I seem to write a lot of memorial columns these days. Fortunately, I’m not yet of an age where my own generation is dying a lot. My parents’ and aunts’ and uncles’ generation seems to be meeting the grim reaper with regularity these days, however.I’m...

By TINKY WEISBLAT

Some food holidays are annoying. National Cheese Doodle Day (March 5) seems superfluous. If you’re the sort of person who eats those unnaturally orange snacks, you don’t need a holiday to remind you to consume them. Ditto National Glazed Doughnut Day...

By TINKY WEISBLAT

My love for food is rooted in tradition and family — so it can take me a while to catch on to current trends in Foodie Land. I have thus only just discovered the smash burger.Smash burgers are the current chic descendant of the hamburger, a dish that...

By TINKY WEISBLAT

Grief is a universal human emotion. We all lose people we love, particularly as we grow older. Rebecca Daniels of Turners Falls recalls the loss of her husband, and the strategies she used for dealing with that loss, in “That Day and What Came After:...

By TINKY WEISBLAT

Cheese has always been my favorite food category. If I had to choose between it and chocolate, I’d choose cheese (and I adore chocolate). Nevertheless, I was unfamiliar with pimiento cheese for much of my life.When I was in my early 20s I moved to...

By TINKY WEISBLAT

Hot weather hit us this year even before the official inauguration of summer on June 20. My house was designed to maximize sunlight in our New England winters. Consequently, it gets very warm in the summer months.When the warm temperatures arrive, I...