Editor

Style

The Wandering Eye: Now they Want to Close Our Parks?

Our blogger, interior designer Carey Maloney, and his partner Hermes Mallea, an architect, are principals in the M (Group). To file under : One More Thing to Worry About…. Let me revise that to : One More Thing to Deal With… Niagara Falls State Park, founded in 1885, is the oldest state

By Editor

Food

Happy Trail: Hudson-Berkshire Beverage Trail to Launch in April

Christopher Matthews, a wine and spirits writer and educator, divides his time between Manhattan and Red Hook, Dutchess County. He has been the wine and spirits columnist for New York Law Journal Magazine since 2004, and has written about food and drink for Epicurious.com and the Culinary Institute of

By Editor

Food

Warren Kitchen & Cutlery, A Cut Above

Kitchen supply stores in malls or on Main Streets are likely to have something for everyone—items that dazzle those who like to cook, those who like to entertain, and those in the market for something a little different to taste.   Warren Kitchen & Cutlery in Rhinebeck is not like

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Community

Twenty Questions for Novelist Diane Meier of Kent, CT

Diane Meier's debut novel, The Season of Second Chances (Henry Holt and Company), is about Joy Harkness, a 48-year-old tenured professor of literature at Columbia University, who is gifted as a teacher and scholar but hapless and hopeless in her personal life. New York City has

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Food

AgriCulture: Can Value-Added Products Save the Small Farm?

Peter Davies and Mark Scherzer are the owners of Turkana Farms in Germantown, NY. This week Peter writes: Well, you heard about our “Virgin Birth” at the farm in last week’s blog. Yet another unforeseen consequence came our way last month. You may remember that a year or so

By Editor

Parties

A Riotous Night in the Reading Room of the Lenox Library

There was no one shushing anybody at the Lenox Library on Saturday night for the first Burlesque for Books fundraiser. Indeed, the reading room was filled with laughter  along with hoots and hollers from the balcony as the brilliant Sugar Shack girls did their brainy brand of burlesque, which was

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Food

The Locavore Way: Potatoes for Any Season & Any Reason

My husband, Tommy, who at times I affectionately call “Mr Potato Head,” kindled my passion for potatoes early in our 26 year marriage. Half Irish Catholic, half Irish Protestant, he grew up eating potatoes at every meal. These days, we often roast 5 pounds at a time for the two

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Community

A General Store at A Crossroads in Warren, CT

"Doesn't every small country town deserve to have a general store?" says Maureen Jones, who is hosting an open house this weekend at the Warren General Store, which she and her husband, Clifford, opened two months ago. Jones credits her landlord, the legendary retailer Joe Cicio

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Community

Karen Lee Creates a Hullabaloo to Benefit the Lenox Library

Karen Lee is the Lady Gaga of Lenox. She's the unlikely chair of an improbable fundraiser—Burlesque for Books—at the venerable, white-shoe Lenox Library on Saturday, March 27. The three-tiered evening features the music of Kristen Gray & Michael Raye, a performance by the Sugar

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Parties

Berkshire Grown's Annual Maple Dinner at the Red Lion Inn

The annual Berkshire Grown Maple Dinner is an exercise in counterintuitive programming. Held in late March (when there are few local vegetables) on a Monday night (when weekenders can't buy tickets), the dinner gets bigger every year, and more than locavores packed into the main dining room of

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Style

Our Favorite Garden Blog Gets A New Look For Its 2nd Birthday

One of the first stories on Rural Intelligence two years ago was about Margaret Roach, the former editorial director of Martha Stewart Living, who had recently moved full time to her longtime weekend house in Copake Falls, NY, and started a website called A Way To Garden.com. Since then

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Community

Community: Bank Locally, It's a Wonderful Life

When it comes to financial matters, I am no go-getter.  Generally, I open an account at the bank nearest home and sit by mutely while my husband, who actually seems to understand credit default swaps, handles the investments, which he does through a large firm whose letterhead changes with

By Editor