Category: Northampton

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Side Trek Falls

side-trek-falls

Travelled to our favorite SideTrek tableau, Shelburne, a new way. Took a bucolic route from Conway past Bill Cosby’s rolling colonial acres. Off off the beaten trek. A blue clapboard Garrison on an old post road. Book mills, inns dot the meandering byway, scenes of Indian skirmishes as part of the Mohawk trail.

The Bridge of Flowers was in earlier than normal bloom. Town is abuzz. Kate Winslet and Josh Brolin are coming. They will be filming  Labor Day based on a novel by Joyce Maynard. It’s about a 13 year-old boy, his Mom, secrets. Set in a fictional New England hamlet, Holton Mills. Juno director, Jason Reitman.

We made a stop at Wandering Moon jewelry boutique and hit pay dirt. For me. Silver bracelet by a Manitoba artisan. Owner Laura Roberson’s finely crafted earrings. As we headed out to Route 112, a metal sculpture guy bid us adieu.

Back home through Goshen past the original 1775 Williams House.

Photos by the talented Dr.Husband, including the Richard Russo-esque header – State Street, in Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts.

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Week Day Trek

 

On a respite before the next rain, enjoyed a weekday side trek. Meandering up Route 5, we happened upon School Street in Hatfield, Massachusetts, where we found an Old Mill Inn and Pioneer Valley Vineyard. Little vineyards are cropping up along the Connecticut River. Will it be the next Napa? Not with our typical winter weather. Some varietals can do well here as in upper New York State.

 

We continued southeast past our Atkins Farm fave to Andrew’s Nurseries in South Amherst. Lots of garden goodies. In search of a sundial or artwork for our old oak stump as a pedestal. This photo in Hatfield, too. Not bad for a Monday.

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Mama Día

April Summer. Soggy May. Supposed to be a sunny Mother’s Day. Once a year we celebrate Moms. Like Valentine’s Day. Don’t get why there’s one day a year that obligates spouses and children to recognize us for stuff we love doing anyway.

Author Jay McInerney has a new book out about wine, A Hedonist in the Cellar. He was reminiscing about ordering his first bottle as a young man. A lovely 70’s staple, Mateus Rosé impressed his date at The Log Cabin restaurant ‘in Lenox’. Everything West of Boston seems to conflate. It was/is in Holyoke, Jay. An hour away. Jay once dated Lisa Druck aka Rielle Hunter. Wonder if she was that date?

Make Mama ‘Succulent Salmon’. RecipeDetours. So easy.

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SpringField

Springfield, Massachusetts is not ‘the’ Simpson’s city. It’s the one in Oregon. Geez. My aunt Marge Simpson was from ‘our’ Springfield, so thought it was us for sure. No Uncle Homer, doh. Springfield, Mass., does have Dr. Suess’ house on Mulberry Street, he grew up here. So is the Basketball Hall of Fame, where Naismith invented the peach-basket game. Joseph’s Clothiers  was founded in 1918 on Ferry & Main.

We have the Connecticut River with its fertile farms and tobacco barns. Four famous colleges are just up the road. Amherst, Smith, Mount Holyoke, and Hampshire. So there, Bart! Herrell’s ice cream is better.

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Table’s Turn

Ending the year on an up-note. Family trek to New York produced several excellent dining experiences. The best was Ciano on Park Avenue South, a few blocks from our still favorite hotel, The Giraffe. Ciano has a farmhouse cozy warm ambience with fresh simple fare. Monkfish loin, Berkshire pork tenderloin succulent, cooked perfectly. Wine “program” a little much and it’s pricey, but worth it for a change. Lure remains our consistently fun FishBar stop in SoHo.

Enjoyed a quintessential bistro steak frites lunch with Betsey, who savored every morsel at Bourdain’s original Les Halles. Earlier lunch attempts at Zinc in New Haven and Alta in Lenox less satisfying, but nice just to be together with family and friends over the holidays. Happy healthy New Year to all SideTrekkers.

Buy Table’s Edge on RecipeDetours page.

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NovEnder

28,000 visits to The Side Trek. Yonder, yo. No November snow. Bracing for December blow. NBA will play. So. JLo shoots Fiat Bronx ad in L.A. Nay. ‘Savage’ Stacey from the block will save the day. Real Housewife’s dead husband still starring on Bravo’s Beverly Hills show. Not that I’d know.

What restaurant serves an $18 roasted beet salad which consists of a few sad wispy side dish flat greens with red beet-like chip strips and a couple dollops of goat cheese? Fitzwilly’s. Geez. Quality down, prices up. Everywhere.

 

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Soul Man

He’s a soul man. Yeah. Sexy-generian soul mate. Happy Birthday Dr.Husband!

B&B for wayward cold souls. Lucky and grateful to be warm. October’s heavy snow on leafy limbs. Trees down in Western Massachusetts hitting houses, power lines. Many homes won’t get lights, heat back for a week. Old Oak being hauled off in chunks. Squirrels squabbling over remaining acorns. It’s the best birthday gift to have power and be able to watch Morning Joe.

Check out Review- “The Stranger’s Child”, by Alan Hollinghurst- Books page.

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Table’s Tilt

Stellar restaurateurs once converged in Northampton and made it a dining destination. Those shining stars have lately dimmed. Freshness, quality, service have disappeared into a black hole. I don’t want to pay less for three courses of frozen cardboard food. The economy is bad, true. So, put fewer choices on the menu and make sure they’re fresh and good. If you disagree, enlighten me.

A former bright local, Unmi has returned to open a new restaurant “Coco” in the former Easthampton Venus venue. Will try it soon. ‘Til then cooking at home.

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Clock Works

The Night Circus is a tightly wound time piece. Nocturnal wonderment. Transcendent love. Boundless imagination. Morgenstern’s first novel is a tour de force.  5 stars. When you read it, and you must, pay close attention to chapter headings and dates. When I finally got the “Bailey” joke, I laughed out loud. This was one of the best books I’ve read in a very long time. Couldn’t put it down. Hated to have it end. Loved it.

Amanda Knox’ four year purgatory finally over. Her Italian amante’s as well. Seems right. Conrad Murray, not so much. If you are a cardiologist, it’s good to know CPR at the very least. ElevatorEcon continues. Tick tock Andy Rooney.

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Foxy Loxy

On several dusky evenings recently we’d spotted a gray fox darting back and forth across the yard and under the front porch where a skunk family is in residence. Today’s Gazette reports that this same Foxy Loxy, apparently rabid, was killed by a croquet mallet in Williamsburg.

Foxy Loxy met his violent fate after wreaking havoc in the kitchen at A-1 Pizza. The staff chased him down the stairs where Foxy bashed through the screen door. Then Foxy decided to bite a poor unsuspecting customer in the parking lot. Poor teen was visiting his grandparents from Pennsylvania. Foxy’s last hurrah up the road was harassing little tots in their backyard pool. Dad. Croquet Mallet. Yuk.