Author: Ed

Vegetable Literacy Is Our Friday Link

“Vegetable Literacy” by Deborah Madison has quickly become my go-to reference when I want to explore a familiar or unusual produce item. I like it so much that I'm making it a Friday Link.

The full name of the book, Vegetable Literacy: Cooking and Gardening with Twelve Families from the Edible Plant Kingdom, with over 300 Deliciously Simple Recipes, gives a better picture of what the author has created.

Madison takes her years of expertise in vegetarian topics, divides the veggie world into twelve families, and then provides background, recipes, and kitchen and garden tips for each family member. She makes you look at the offerings at your local market in a new way.

Speaking of local markets, I decidead to buy the Kindle version of Vegetable Literacy. That allows me to call up a recipe on my phone when I'm shopping to be sure I have what I need to make it. Or, if I want to know what I might do with some parsnips or fennel, I can search for those and even have tips on buying them.

Great photography is always a bonus in a cookbook or reference book and this one has wonderful photos spinkled among its pages. The photos are by the Canal House team, Christopher Hirsheimer and Melissa Hamilton.

This time of year, when many readers are looking for gift ideas, this book would make a great present for many people on your list. Anyone who loves to cook or collect cookbooks would treasure this edition. Even someone like me who has far too many cookbooks considers this a major reference, must-have.

It's an ideal gift for a vegetrian or someone who has to feed a vegetarian or anyone who needs to add more vegetables to their diet to get their 5-per-day!

Deborah Madison has been my mentor on vegetarian cooking. I have well-worn copies of Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone and Local Flavors: Cooking and Eating from America's Farmers' Markets.

Do you have an Amazon Gift Certificate to use? Or do you need to buy one for a Holiday Gift? Remember to click over to Amazon from here to support this site!

Details:

Words: Penny & Ed Cherubino
Photography: © 2013 Penny & Ed Cherubino

Note on Comments: We monitor comments constantly and anything that is pure spam, inappropriate, or nasty is swept away. In addition to readers' comments, we welcome hearing from the people, places, and services we cover. Often, those add great insights for our readers. As long as it doesn’t become a pure ad, we’d love to hear from you. We do reserve the right to edit ads and links out of comments.

December 6, 2013
At the Market: Winter Farmers’ Markets 2013-2014

The summer market season is over, and it's time for us to start our list of the 2013-2014 Winter Farmers' Markets in the Boston area. We'll add to this list as we discover more markets opening.

This is an old post, here's the newest schedule:

2014-2015 Winter Farmers' Market Schedule Around Boston

Brookline Winter Farmers' Market

Winter Indoor Farmers’ Markets Around Boston

Boston/Egleston Winter Farmers Market, 45 Brookside Avenue (map) Saturdays, 10:00 am to 2:00 pm, (11/02 to 02/22 – closed 12/28)

Brookline Winter Farmers Market, Arcade Building, 314 Harvard Street, (map) Sundays
12:00 pm to 5:00 pm (11/03 to 06/15)

Cambridge Winter/Alexandria Technology Square Farmers Market
700 Technology Square Atrium, (map) Wednesdays, 11:00 am to 3:00 pm (11/13 to 04/30)

Somerville Winter Farmers Market, 191 Highland Avenue, (map) Saturdays, 9:30 am to 2:00 pm (12/07 to 04/19)

Cambridge Winter Farmers Market, 5 Callender Street, (map) Saturdays, 10:00 am to 2:00 pm
(01/04 to 04/26)

Dorchester/Codman Square Winter Farmers Market, 6 Norfolk Street, (map) Sundays, 12:00 pm to 4:00 pm (01/05 to 03/30)

Updates from our readers

Chelmsford Agway Winter Farmers Market, 24 Maple Road, Chelmsford, MA (map) Saturdays, 10:00 am to 2:00 pm (11/2 -2/22)

Chef JJ Gonson shops the weekend markets, like this one in Brookline, for the Cuisine en Locale cooked and delivered Once a Week CSA food shares.

Destination Markets Worth the Trip

Wayland/Russell's Garden Center Winter Farmers Market 397 Boston Post Road Rte 20 (map) Saturdays, 10:00am to 2:00pm (01/11 to 03/15)

Newburyport Winter Farmers Market, Tannery Marketplace, 50 Water Street (map)
Sundays 9:00am to 1:00pm, Dec. 8 & 22, Jan. 5 & 19, Feb. 2 & 16, March 2, 16 & 30, April 6, 2014

Do you have a favorite place to shop for local foods in winter? Let us know!

Do you have an Amazon Gift Certificate to use? Or do you need to buy one for a Holiday Gift? Remember to click over to Amazon from here to support this site!

Details:

Words: Penny & Ed Cherubino
Photography: © 2013 Penny & Ed Cherubino

Note on Comments: We monitor comments constantly and anything that is pure spam, inappropriate, or nasty is swept away. In addition to readers' comments, we welcome hearing from the people, places, and services we cover. Often, those add great insights for our readers. As long as it doesn’t become a pure ad, we’d love to hear from you. We do reserve the right to edit ads and links out of comments.

December 5, 2013
At the Market: Winter Farmers’ Markets 2013-2014

The summer market season is over, and it's time for us to start our list of the 2013-2014 Winter Farmers' Markets in the Boston area. We'll add to this list as we discover more markets opening.

This is an old post, here's the newest schedule:

2014-2015 Winter Farmers' Market Schedule Around Boston

Brookline Winter Farmers' Market

Winter Indoor Farmers’ Markets Around Boston

Boston/Egleston Winter Farmers Market, 45 Brookside Avenue (map) Saturdays, 10:00 am to 2:00 pm, (11/02 to 02/22 – closed 12/28)

Brookline Winter Farmers Market, Arcade Building, 314 Harvard Street, (map) Sundays
12:00 pm to 5:00 pm (11/03 to 06/15)

Cambridge Winter/Alexandria Technology Square Farmers Market
700 Technology Square Atrium, (map) Wednesdays, 11:00 am to 3:00 pm (11/13 to 04/30)

Somerville Winter Farmers Market, 191 Highland Avenue, (map) Saturdays, 9:30 am to 2:00 pm (12/07 to 04/19)

Cambridge Winter Farmers Market, 5 Callender Street, (map) Saturdays, 10:00 am to 2:00 pm
(01/04 to 04/26)

Dorchester/Codman Square Winter Farmers Market, 6 Norfolk Street, (map) Sundays, 12:00 pm to 4:00 pm (01/05 to 03/30)

Updates from our readers

Chelmsford Agway Winter Farmers Market, 24 Maple Road, Chelmsford, MA (map) Saturdays, 10:00 am to 2:00 pm (11/2 -2/22)

Chef JJ Gonson shops the weekend markets, like this one in Brookline, for the Cuisine en Locale cooked and delivered Once a Week CSA food shares.

Destination Markets Worth the Trip

Wayland/Russell's Garden Center Winter Farmers Market 397 Boston Post Road Rte 20 (map) Saturdays, 10:00am to 2:00pm (01/11 to 03/15)

Newburyport Winter Farmers Market, Tannery Marketplace, 50 Water Street (map)
Sundays 9:00am to 1:00pm, Dec. 8 & 22, Jan. 5 & 19, Feb. 2 & 16, March 2, 16 & 30, April 6, 2014

Do you have a favorite place to shop for local foods in winter? Let us know!

Do you have an Amazon Gift Certificate to use? Or do you need to buy one for a Holiday Gift? Remember to click over to Amazon from here to support this site!

Details:

Words: Penny & Ed Cherubino
Photography: © 2013 Penny & Ed Cherubino

Note on Comments: We monitor comments constantly and anything that is pure spam, inappropriate, or nasty is swept away. In addition to readers' comments, we welcome hearing from the people, places, and services we cover. Often, those add great insights for our readers. As long as it doesn’t become a pure ad, we’d love to hear from you. We do reserve the right to edit ads and links out of comments.

December 5, 2013
The Case for Year-Round Street Sweeping

Yesterday, we walked by gutters filled with leaves and trash. The City of Boston forgot to tell Mother Nature that we only clean the leaves until November 30th, so she'd better make sure they all fall by then.

Even if our fall leaf season doesn't extend into December, the litter season in Boston is year-round. We also have a natural phenomenon called snow that makes its appearance from December 1st to March 31st.

Now, imagine what the city could look like and how easy it would be for everyone to get around and park cars to the curb, if the streets could be cleared to the curb on the next street cleaning day after a storm.

With the city's excellent notification system, it would be very easy to cancel street sweeping any time the conditions would not allow it. It's far more difficult to get cars to move with less warning in order to remove snow or give the streets a sweep when weather permits.

What's your take on year-round street sweeping?

Do you have an Amazon Gift Certificate to use? Or do you need to buy one for a Holiday Gift? Remember to click over to Amazon from here to support this site!

Details:

Words: Penny & Ed Cherubino
Photography: © 2013 Penny & Ed Cherubino

Note on Comments: We monitor comments constantly and anything that is pure spam, inappropriate, or nasty is swept away. In addition to readers' comments, we welcome hearing from the people, places, and services we cover. Often, those add great insights for our readers. As long as it doesn’t become a pure ad, we’d love to hear from you. We do reserve the right to edit ads and links out of comments.

December 4, 2013
The Case for Year-Round Street Sweeping

Yesterday, we walked by gutters filled with leaves and trash. The City of Boston forgot to tell Mother Nature that we only clean the leaves until November 30th, so she'd better make sure they all fall by then.

Even if our fall leaf season doesn't extend into December, the litter season in Boston is year-round. We also have a natural phenomenon called snow that makes its appearance from December 1st to March 31st.

Now, imagine what the city could look like and how easy it would be for everyone to get around and park cars to the curb, if the streets could be cleared to the curb on the next street cleaning day after a storm.

With the city's excellent notification system, it would be very easy to cancel street sweeping any time the conditions would not allow it. It's far more difficult to get cars to move with less warning in order to remove snow or give the streets a sweep when weather permits.

What's your take on year-round street sweeping?

Do you have an Amazon Gift Certificate to use? Or do you need to buy one for a Holiday Gift? Remember to click over to Amazon from here to support this site!

Details:

Words: Penny & Ed Cherubino
Photography: © 2013 Penny & Ed Cherubino

Note on Comments: We monitor comments constantly and anything that is pure spam, inappropriate, or nasty is swept away. In addition to readers' comments, we welcome hearing from the people, places, and services we cover. Often, those add great insights for our readers. As long as it doesn’t become a pure ad, we’d love to hear from you. We do reserve the right to edit ads and links out of comments.

December 4, 2013
Thank You to All the Wreath Week Volunteers!

Volunteers from the Garden Club of the Back Bay are in the middle of their annual Wreath Week. In a few, intensive, long days, they create distinctive holiday wreaths that will soon be appearing on doors around the city. Each wreath sold contributes to the organization's ability to fund important projects that keep the city green.

We stopped by to thank them yesterday and took some photos of the very talented designers working on their creations. But, we also wanted to take this opportunity to remind our readers of the exceptional work done by this key group of volunteers who take days out of their busy lives each December to do this good deed.

And, how do they make those beautiful bows? They shared the secret, HERE …

Do you have an Amazon Gift Certificate to use? Or do you need to buy one for a Holiday Gift? Remember to click over to Amazon from here to support this site!

Details:

Words: Penny & Ed Cherubino
Photography: © 2013 Penny & Ed Cherubino

Note on Comments: We monitor comments constantly and anything that is pure spam, inappropriate, or nasty is swept away. In addition to readers' comments, we welcome hearing from the people, places, and services we cover. Often, those add great insights for our readers. As long as it doesn’t become a pure ad, we’d love to hear from you. We do reserve the right to edit ads and links out of comments.

December 3, 2013
Thank You to All the Wreath Week Volunteers!

Volunteers from the Garden Club of the Back Bay are in the middle of their annual Wreath Week. In a few, intensive, long days, they create distinctive holiday wreaths that will soon be appearing on doors around the city. Each wreath sold contributes to the organization's ability to fund important projects that keep the city green.

We stopped by to thank them yesterday and took some photos of the very talented designers working on their creations. But, we also wanted to take this opportunity to remind our readers of the exceptional work done by this key group of volunteers who take days out of their busy lives each December to do this good deed.

And, how do they make those beautiful bows? They shared the secret, HERE …

Do you have an Amazon Gift Certificate to use? Or do you need to buy one for a Holiday Gift? Remember to click over to Amazon from here to support this site!

Details:

Words: Penny & Ed Cherubino
Photography: © 2013 Penny & Ed Cherubino

Note on Comments: We monitor comments constantly and anything that is pure spam, inappropriate, or nasty is swept away. In addition to readers' comments, we welcome hearing from the people, places, and services we cover. Often, those add great insights for our readers. As long as it doesn’t become a pure ad, we’d love to hear from you. We do reserve the right to edit ads and links out of comments.

December 3, 2013
Hotel Fensgate: It Was a Steak, Lobster, and Jazz House
Back in the 1930s and 1940s, 534 Beacon Street was the Hotel Fensgate. This post card was created before the dreadful Storrow Drive took away the Fenway and Back Bay connections to the Charles River.

On this 1928 atlas page, the arrow points to the Hotel Fensgate. You can see links to both the Charles River and the Back Bay Fens before Storrow Drive and the Bowker Overpass. (There is a group, Friends of the Charlesgate, working to restore Charlesgate.)

Today, this address is the Charlesview Condominiums. Here's a photo of the building today. It was built in 1923 and E.B. Stratton was the architect. And, here's a map showing the overlay of the highway ramps.

This is an illustration of the same Beacon Street view from the hotel's stationery.

The Fensgate's menu proclaimed it was,"Boston's Famous Steak and Lobster House." (Click on the menu for a larger view.)

Menu items included:
- Large Broiled Live Lobster for $2.75
- Lobster Salad for $2.00
- Famous One Pound Sirloin Steak-Club Style for $2.95
- Planked Steak for two for $6.00
And, while those prices look very inexpensive today, it was known as an expensive place to dine.

And, Jazz Too!

In his book, The Boston Jazz Chronicles, author Richard Vacca wrote,

"The Fensgate already had a club, the Satire Room, once advertised as 'Boston’s most expensive and intimate rendezvous.' Liberace made his Boston debut at the Satire, as did Irwin Corey. George Frazier, in his Herald review of singer Elsie Houston in August 1942, noted the cost of an evening at the Satire Room: 'She is so good that you forget for the moment that the check will be a sum only slightly smaller than the national debt. That’s being pretty good.'"

In his book, Myself Among Others: A Life In Music, jazz impresario George Wein talks about his days at the Hotel Fensgate. He tells of finding this as a spot for his own group for a few weeks and that he eventually took the advice of the attorney for the hotel which was, "You know George, I think you should open your own club." Wein did, and the rest is jazz history.

In Boston, there are stories on every corner. Let us know if you find an interesting tidbit on some Boston corner that we should explore and share!

Do you have an Amazon Gift Certificate to use? Or do you need to buy one for a Holiday Gift? Remember to click over to Amazon from here to support this site!

Details:

Words: Penny & Ed Cherubino
Photography: © 2013 Penny & Ed Cherubino

Note on Comments: We monitor comments constantly and anything that is pure spam, inappropriate, or nasty is swept away. In addition to readers' comments, we welcome hearing from the people, places, and services we cover. Often, those add great insights for our readers. As long as it doesn’t become a pure ad, we’d love to hear from you. We do reserve the right to edit ads and links out of comments.
December 2, 2013
Hotel Fensgate: It Was a Steak, Lobster, and Jazz House
Back in the 1930s and 1940s, 534 Beacon Street was the Hotel Fensgate. This post card was created before the dreadful Storrow Drive took away the Fenway and Back Bay connections to the Charles River.

On this 1928 atlas page, the arrow points to the Hotel Fensgate. You can see links to both the Charles River and the Back Bay Fens before Storrow Drive and the Bowker Overpass. (There is a group, Friends of the Charlesgate, working to restore Charlesgate.)

Today, this address is the Charlesview Condominiums. Here's a photo of the building today. It was built in 1923 and E.B. Stratton was the architect. And, here's a map showing the overlay of the highway ramps.

This is an illustration of the same Beacon Street view from the hotel's stationery.

The Fensgate's menu proclaimed it was,"Boston's Famous Steak and Lobster House." (Click on the menu for a larger view.)

Menu items included:
- Large Broiled Live Lobster for $2.75
- Lobster Salad for $2.00
- Famous One Pound Sirloin Steak-Club Style for $2.95
- Planked Steak for two for $6.00
And, while those prices look very inexpensive today, it was known as an expensive place to dine.

And, Jazz Too!

In his book, The Boston Jazz Chronicles, author Richard Vacca wrote,

"The Fensgate already had a club, the Satire Room, once advertised as 'Boston’s most expensive and intimate rendezvous.' Liberace made his Boston debut at the Satire, as did Irwin Corey. George Frazier, in his Herald review of singer Elsie Houston in August 1942, noted the cost of an evening at the Satire Room: 'She is so good that you forget for the moment that the check will be a sum only slightly smaller than the national debt. That’s being pretty good.'"

In his book, Myself Among Others: A Life In Music, jazz impresario George Wein talks about his days at the Hotel Fensgate. He tells of finding this as a spot for his own group for a few weeks and that he eventually took the advice of the attorney for the hotel which was, "You know George, I think you should open your own club." Wein did, and the rest is jazz history.

In Boston, there are stories on every corner. Let us know if you find an interesting tidbit on some Boston corner that we should explore and share!

Do you have an Amazon Gift Certificate to use? Or do you need to buy one for a Holiday Gift? Remember to click over to Amazon from here to support this site!

Details:

Words: Penny & Ed Cherubino
Photography: © 2013 Penny & Ed Cherubino

Note on Comments: We monitor comments constantly and anything that is pure spam, inappropriate, or nasty is swept away. In addition to readers' comments, we welcome hearing from the people, places, and services we cover. Often, those add great insights for our readers. As long as it doesn’t become a pure ad, we’d love to hear from you. We do reserve the right to edit ads and links out of comments.
December 2, 2013
Nigl Brut de Brut – A Gruner with Bubbles!

While on the lookout for a worthy sparkler to ring-in December, as part of our Sparkling Resolution, we discovered a Gruner Veltliner with bubbles – the 2005 Nigl Brut de Brut.

Since Gruner has been a long-time favorite with us, the addition of fizz, and in this case Chardonnay, seemed like an interesting marriage. Well, we’re here to say, “It’s wedded bliss!”

These new "wine" glasses were inspired by running out of glasses to share a wine with neighbors on a recent Ptown vacation. We substituted a martini glass that worked well and was fun!

This Austrian sparkler is definitely food-friendly, but also very enjoyable all by itself. Followers of wine site CellarTracker said it best, tasting “…flavors of tart apple with peach,” calling the Nigl Brut de Brut “…dry, crisp, with racy acidity,” "…quite spirited and fun to drink,” and “…a very nice alternative to Champagne.”

Choosing a sparkling version of a familiar wine might not always be this satisfying, but we’ll try it again. In fact, if you’re looking for a holiday gift for someone who likes wine and has a favorite grape, see if there’s a sparkling version?

We found our bottle of 2005 Nigl Brut de Brut at The Urban Grape, South End.

Here’s a peek at Our Sparkling Resolution Winner’s List!

…And, Sunday Dog will return to this spot, next week!

Do you have an Amazon Gift Certificate to use? Or do you need to buy one for a gift? Remember to click over to Amazon from here to support this site!

Details:

Words: Penny & Ed Cherubino
Photography: © 2013 Penny & Ed Cherubino

Note on Comments: We monitor comments constantly and anything that is pure spam, inappropriate, or nasty is swept away. In addition to readers' comments, we welcome hearing from the people, places, and services we cover. Often, those add great insights for our readers. As long as it doesn’t become a pure ad, we’d love to hear from you. We do reserve the right to edit ads and links out of comments.

December 1, 2013