Tag: gazettenet

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First Women

Who will prevail? Michelle Obama spent most of Letterman’s show last week talking about parenting and her work with childhood obesity and Veteran’s needs. She was funny and real. She should stay. Her friend Valerie Jarrett is her President Husband’s closest advisor. She should go. I said so, NYTimes.

Ann Romney got some good reviews at the RNC, but lamenting rising gas and grocery prices fell flat given her reality. In our local Gazette, a letter recounted an appearance by the then Massachusetts First Lady. At a gathering of low-income Moms, Ann told the group how she could relate as the mother of five sons. Why, one time she and Mitt were playing mixed doubles at the Belmont Tennis Club, and she had to leave in the middle of her set to calm a sibling feud. No.

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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.

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Woolf Trek

It’s a good day to reprise my 4/27/10 post- favorite obit headline ever: ‘Helen Lavalle, 94, Advised Elizabeth Taylor’. “Amongst her many jobs, Helen was a waitress at the former Williams House, where she was the only waitress who could tell Elizabeth Taylor that one lobster was enough.” -Gazette

Elizabeth Taylor was here at Smith College in the 60’s filming “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf”, with Richard Burton. Assume that’s when she may have tried to indulge in local lobster binge-ing and Helen would have none of it. The old Williams House in nearby Williamsburg, Massachusetts, was famous for its haute cuisine brought to the Valley by Jim Wolff, featured in Table’s Edge.


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Side Trek – Blog Spotted

Pioneer Valley newspaper Daily Hampshire Gazette featured TheSideTrek in Phoebe Mitchell’s “Blog Spotter” report. Cool! Great article. Read it here, the link works now, thanks to Noah:

‘Florence Woman Makes Mark on CNN Blog, and Her Own’. Ms. Mitchell highlighted frequent on-air Cafferty File comments, Recipe Detours, 2010 best TrekBooks and eclectic ramblings including the Hopper exhibit at the Whitney. Nod to GemQueen. Mitchell cited snarky “Skippy Hallow” post, and liked that Alicat and I fought over the neck and gizzard on Thanksgiving.

James Franco hosting Oscars, Ben’s NYU Econ Honors thesis acclaim and now this, good times. Thanks for your 14,000 visits and comment away into 2011!

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Wolf Treks

Local newspaper, Daily Hampshire Gazette, has taken to putting headlines above each obituary. This one caught my eye the other day, “Helen Lavalle, 94, advised Elizabeth Taylor”.  Amongst her many jobs, Helen was a waitress at the former Williams House, where “she was the only waitress who could tell Elizabeth Taylor that one lobster was enough.” Therein lies her illustrious advisory career.

Ms. Taylor was here at Smith College in the 60’s filming “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf”, assume that’s when she may have tried to indulge in local lobster binge-ing. Of course, the old Williams House was famous for its haute cuisine brought to the Valley by Jim Wolf, both featured in Table’s Edge.

Good news, Alice Waters is coming to television, the pioneer of green cuisine actually started the notion that real food is better than all the processed crap we were brought up on. We do need new cooking people on t.v., cannot stand Rachel, Paula, Emeril. Now that aging hair and skin have been covered, it’s time to talk diets. Shorts season is upon us. I have gone back to actually skipping dinner, rather than pretending to skip dinner, and it’s helped. Last night’s Final Jeopardy was about Danielle Steel’s book “The Ghost”. It’s the only Steel book I’ve ever read, really. But, it was well researched about the French-Indian-Anglo skirmishes around Deerfield, Ma. It was fun and I learned stuff.