Scarcely a ten-minute car ride from the bustle of our neighborhood lies one of southwestern Vermont’s best kept secrets, the Mile-Around Woods. It is a vast property once held by private landowners but now preserved by a conservation group and open to the public. Altogether, Mile-Around consists of a circular carriage road dating to the … Continue reading Sunday Photo Essay: Mile-Around Woods Unleashed
Music Story: Verdi + Friends
Giuseppe Verdi’s Messa da Requiem—or simply Requiem, as it’s often called—is big work that goes down like a gulp of a chewy Cabernet, a soul-satisfying swill of life that gets bigger and better with every reprised chorus of Dies Irae—the day of wrath. It was among the last of his works, near the end of … Continue reading Music Story: Verdi + Friends
Dog Story: A Crust of Bread, a Glass of Wine…and a Marrow Bone
On Friday night David-the-Chef made salmon for our supper, and as he always does, crisped the skins in the hot pan next to our fish. These make the most delectable dog treats, with a little of the salmon meat still clinging to them. Scout-the-Labish never turns down a piece of crisped salmon skin. In fact, … Continue reading Dog Story: A Crust of Bread, a Glass of Wine…and a Marrow Bone
Food Story: Falafel I Have Known
One of the best things about warmer weather is simpler cuisine. The produce in our local grocery stores looking better by the week, and soon our favorite farm stand will overflow with beautiful local lettuces and vegetables. By the time summer arrives we'll be making dinners of fresh corn on the cob, tomato slices, spicy … Continue reading Food Story: Falafel I Have Known
Artifact Story: Found Objects
I stood in my friend Jane’s big, open kitchen in Knoxville one morning nearly a decade ago gazing upward at a particular skylight over the adjacent living area. Several other friends stood there with me, our hands on our hips and our brows furrowed, trying to get a better look. A moment earlier one of … Continue reading Artifact Story: Found Objects
The Stories Our Scars Tell
What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger, goes the saying. When my kiddo was only a peanut he took a bad spill in the foyer of our Knoxville home and landed face first on an unforgiving surface. His cheek met the pointy corner of a single step leading from the foyer into the kitchen of … Continue reading The Stories Our Scars Tell
Sunday Photo Essay: Human Nature
Listening to one of my favorite radio shows not long ago I was gobsmacked by this notion: we often think of nature as separate from us, a thing we must protect, else destroy. But the truth is, we humans are also part of nature, and not separate from it. I latched onto that notion right away, because … Continue reading Sunday Photo Essay: Human Nature
Family Story: It’s in the DNA
‘We don’t hide crazy,’ I said. ‘We put it on the porch and let it entertain the neighbors.’—Nick Wilgus Surely you’ve seen some iteration of that quote in the context of how ‘crazy’ is handled way down South. The gist is, any self-respecting Southern family is not ashamed of the crazy aunt or the second … Continue reading Family Story: It’s in the DNA
Writing Story: A School Is a Place to Learn
The Episcopal School of Knoxville will turn 20 this coming fall, inconceivably. My 20-something kid was a kindergartner in its inaugural year, 1998. This matters to me mainly because it’s a school my ex and I founded, together with a few other families, the culmination of a mammoth effort that was about five or so … Continue reading Writing Story: A School Is a Place to Learn
Dog Story: The Quiet Intelligence of a Little Lab-ish
You're getting too big for your britches. —Mom And so it goes with Scout-the-Lab-ish, who snapped at David-the-Chef a few nights ago, after David got up in the middle of the night and returned to bed and found a dog where there had been a chef-sized space only moments earlier. David attempted to gently scooch … Continue reading Dog Story: The Quiet Intelligence of a Little Lab-ish
