It’s the season for field trips and picnics in the Berkshires … sourdough bread and iced coffee, or roadside stands with peach ice cream.
Read articleThe Berkshires are rich in artisanal food — local bakers and beekeepers, cideries and microbreweries, cheesemakers and orchards — even locally made chocolate, blended teas and roasted coffees …
What’s your first real taste of summer? (#this weekend)
You know the feeling when something hits home and you feel your expression shift instinctively — like tasting something that surprises you with its flavor?
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Happy holidays! (December 22 newsletter)
This month has been full of gifts already. I walk into Chocolate Springs one afternoon just as Joshua Needleman is making chocolate peppermint bonbons, and he offers me a taste …
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Gifts of time and touch can hold warmth
This holiday, I’m looking for gifts like a warm sip of home-made cordial on a cold night — something that takes time and some quiet thinking. And touch.
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We have liftoff into the Northern Lights (Nov 17 newsletter)
The berries make a vivid streak along the road, and there’s something buoyant about that wash of color now against a grey sky.
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Olsen Farm feeds the community
Kristen Tool and her husband, Chris Wheeler, keep six hives near a massive apple tree that has lived here, like his family, for a hundred years. They are building contemporary ways to support their family farm — and food systems and food security in the Berkshires at the same time.
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Exploring Cummington and the hilltowns in summer
It’s quiet up here. Sometimes I’ll come up to the ridge to get away for awhile, out the back roads … and find unexpected and creative places.
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Farms offer maple syrup in sap houses — and online
Syrup and sugared nuts and fudge-like cream … the sap is boiling, and maple growers are expanding in the Berkshires with web shops. You can stop in for a quart or order one from home.
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Can you feel the sap running today? (March 3 newsletter)
Sweet — That scent in the air like caramel over wood smoke — it feels almost unreal after all this last year, but it’s here. The sap is boiling.
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MoonCloud seasonal cocktails bring warmth home
How about a drink with a kick for a night with frost in the air — a touch of pumpkin, honey spiced with ginger and cloves? At Moon Cloud in Great Barrington, you can pick up a carefully blended bottle to bring home.
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