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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

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

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

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

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

A couple of decades ago (maybe longer!), I took a recipe-writing class from Nancy Baggett. Nancy is an accomplished teacher, recipe developer, and cookbook author who specializes in baking. She was calm and thorough, and I learned a lot from her.We...

By TINKY WEISBLAT

I have always had a fondness for what the late cookbook editor and writer Judith Jones called “nursery foods,” simple dishes that appeal to the child in all of us.One of my favorite such foods is grilled cheese. When my teeth sink into the crispy...

By TINKY WEISBLAT

I recently received an odd email from Macy’s. It said that the retailer understood that not everyone wanted to receive Mother’s Day emails and offered me the opportunity to opt out of those missives.I’m not sure why Mother’s Day was singled in out...

By TINKY WEISBLAT

May 1, May Day, arrives almost halfway between the vernal equinox and the summer solstice. Although spring officially arrives on the former day, our weather often doesn’t feel springlike until April … and, as recent weeks have shown, it can sometime...

By TINKY WEISBLAT

I frequently wow my nephew as we compete to yell the answers to the questions (or rather the questions to the answers) on “Jeopardy” at the television set. My secret is that I have had way too much schooling and have read way too many books.I was...

By TINKY WEISBLAT

When I was a child, I loved embracing spring at this time of year by eating a hot cross bun. I still do.Hot cross buns are sweet, yeasty rolls traditionally served toward the end of Lent, specifically on Good Friday. The cross of icing that tops them...

By TINKY WEISBLAT

March is Massachusetts Maple Month. Farmers in our area are working around the clock to turn the sap that flows from maple trees into the sweet elixir that New Englanders prize year round.It’s not just full-time farmers who make maple syrup. My friend...

By TINKY WEISBLAT

I think of my mother and her grandmother whenever I get ready for St. Patrick’s Day. I forage in the basement for my light-up shamrock (which a neighbor whom I shall not name says makes the house look like a low-rent tavern). I affix it to a window,...

By TINKY WEISBLAT

January is National Soup Month so I thought for this week I would make one of my favorite soups and share the story of its origins.Some home cooks don’t write down recipes at all. I was one of those cooks before I became a food writer. I would combine...

By TINKY WEISBLAT

Like many American home cooks, I own more cookbooks than I can use.Over the years, hand-me-downs from family members, birthday gifts, and impulse purchases have brought more than 100 volumes to my kitchen shelves.When I decide to try preparing a dish...

By TINKY WEISBLAT

Presidents’ Day is a relatively new holiday. It was established in 1971.February used to honor Lincoln and Washington separately on their birthdays. This omnibus holiday generously embraces all presidents, even the incompetent ones like James Buchanan...

By TINKY WEISBLAT

We have entered that gloomy time of year. Although the days are beginning to get longer and lighter, the landscape is snowy and icy. I find that nothing cheers me up in weather like this than the smell (and the taste) of bread fresh from the oven.One...

By TINKY WEISBLAT

Happy Lunar New Year! We have just entered the Year of the Rabbit. As readers may know, the Chinese Zodiac comprises 12 signs. Each is assigned an animal, and the animals repeat in a 12-year cycle. This roughly corresponds to the time it takes Jupiter...