When I moved to the Pioneer Valley a little over a year ago, I sacrificed a couple of things *other than* my being within a short driving distance from my immediate family, longtime friends and my jobs. I also sacrificed space- having significantly reduced my square footage from my previous residence in the name of […]
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During the first Fall after my father passed away, I remember one particularly gloomy and rainy weekend in late September/early October. I’d lost him in the middle of the Summer that year- and the weeks that followed were spent making arrangements, tying up loose ends he hadn’t gotten to before he’d died, helping my mother […]
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This past weekend, I went to a friend’s outdoor and socially distanced wedding ceremony in New Hampshire. While mutual friends and I were wearing our masks and tossing hand sanitizer to one another at the reception- one of them jokingly told me that I needed to get myself set up in a “Hallmark Movie Romance” […]
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There are a lot of year-round farm stands and orchards around New England- and having been born and raised here- I know which ones are my favorites and which I typically try to avoid, be it because they’re always too crowded (a legitimate concern these days!) or because their products and produce aren’t as good […]
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Back in July, I had briefly mentioned how much I had enjoyed the most recent season of “Unsolved Mysteries” currently on Netflix- although I was surprised that one of the episodes was dedicated to a phenomenon that occurred not too far from where I currently live back in 1969. I was even more surprised to […]
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Having been born and raised in Worcester, Massachusetts- there was one place that was mandatory to visit for families and groups of friends in and around the city before the end of each Summer- a little red roadside takeout spot in Leicester that has been there for over sixty years and remains famous for serving […]
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For as long as I can remember, drives home from Rhode Island always took me up Route 16 through Douglas, Massachusetts. I knew when I was heading in the right direction whenever I’d pass by a rather unusual roadside statue- a slightly frightening looking ice cream cone (presumably female) with human-like arms and legs and […]
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It’s been a long time since I’ve had a “Local Loves” post that wasn’t about an abandoned/historic place or roadside oddity I sought out or stumbled upon when I went out exploring during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic- so to write about one of my favorite seafood restaurants that is still open and booming with business […]
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Coffee & Chiffon 