Food Giulia: A New Italian Restaurant With a Few Fresh Twists Worth the Trip The Spettro team’s new restaurant serves chicken parm sandwiches, sourdough pizza, and scratch-made pasta in the historic Juliet building near Vassar. By Melissa Esposito •
Community Bring an Empty Mind to Field: the New Ideas Festival Taking Root in Lenox Aims to Fill It Hunter Runnette spent five months pulling together a lineup that includes Pulitzer winners to a working psychic medium. His pitch to skeptics: come to everything, know nothing going in, and trust the ride. By Jamie Larson •
Style Williamstown Willow Basket Weaver and Teacher Heleny Cook Lets Local Beavers Do the Pruning Heleny Cook spent decades organizing coal miners, running Marion Barry’s summer jobs program, and teaching high school English before she ever picked up a willow switch. She’s made up for lost time. By Jamie Larson •
Arts Clay Way Studio Tour Opens Nine Potters’ Studios in Western Connecticut This Weekend The free, self-guided tour introduces 25 ceramic artists, from a wood-fired pottery in operation since 1974 to a sculptor whose figures stand along Kent’s Main Street. By Jamie Larson •
Arts Mark H. Dold Plays Every Role in “Vanya” With the Audience Seated Onstage in Pittsfield Alan Paul directs Simon Stephens’s one-actor adaptation of Chekhov’s “Uncle Vanya,” a hit for Andrew Scott in London and New York. By Jamie Larson •
Arts Contemporary Printmaking: 10 Artists Explore the Range of Printmaking Today at Spencertown Academy An invitational show of etchings, lithographs, woodcuts, silkscreens, photogravures, and artist books by artists from Columbia County, the Hudson Valley, and New England runs through November 1. By Jamie Larson •
Community RambleFest Weekend in Adams: Street Festival Sunday, 58th Greylock Ramble Hike Monday Live music, local beer, vintage train rides, and a campfire on Sunday lead into the 6.6-mile hike up Massachusetts’ highest peak, with free shuttles. By Jamie Larson •
Community Babies Bob Down the Bantam River for “Tiny Trekking” Kelly Orr leads a free, one-hour paddle at a child’s pace, watching for beavers, herons, and turtles. By Jamie Larson •
Photo credit: Lisa Nichols. Food RSVP: Rural CT's Most Exclusive Reservation Reopens With Star Chef, Global Tasting Menu, and More Seatings Chef Bolivar Hilario spent years working some of New York's most demanding Michelin-starred kitchens before cold-calling his way into one of Connecticut's most mysterious restaurants. Twenty-five years after it opened, RSVP's secret is out. By Jamie Larson •
Community LitNet Honors Lee Bank and its English Learners at Annual Celebration LitNet's annual fundraiser honored Lee Bank, but the real speeches came from the students. By Jamie Larson •
Arts "Metaphysical Maze": New Exhibition Spreads From MASS MoCA's Biggest Building to Olana and Beyond The French conceptual artist's largest US exhibition opens at MASS MoCA November 7, with satellite shows at Olana, the Thomas Cole Site, setting his work in dialog with the historic homes of two icons of American landscape painting. By Jamie Larson • •
Real Estate A Livingston Property Villa With Hudson River Views, Close to Otto's in Germantown If you're excited about Hawthorne Valley Farm taking over Otto's Market in Germantown, here's a villa in the neighborhood. By Jamie Larson •
