Look for nice legs and a good backbone

  We’ve covered sugar, fruit, and acidity, and have two last wine components in my three-week, wine-basics tutorial. Sure, there’s still some summer left to enjoy, but for now let’s replace those swim caps with thinking caps and dive into alcohol and tannin!     While most of what we know about alcohol we learned […]

Fair to midtown

Here’s a very early traffic alert, diners: Come September 11, a street fair between Fourth and Seventh streets will shut down that entire portion of West Main from 9am to 7pm

August 2010: Green Scene

  Lock it up   “Easier to put together than IKEA,” proclaims the website for Ecolok Furniture. Actually, there’s a lot more to like about this company than the guarantee of a quick assembly. Ecolok furniture is shipped flat, saving space and increasing its portability. There are no nails, tools, fasteners, hot-glue guns, or duct […]

Emma Rathbone greets first novel with jitters and hope

 Emma Rathbone won’t allow herself to fall into the wormholes of expectant authorhood. She won’t refresh her book’s Amazon page to check whether its bestseller rank has changed (steady at #219,146), read too much into whether it’s a hard- or softcover release (soft), or check to see if new reviews have popped up on the […]

August 2010: Stuff We Love

  Color us smitten Something about red roof, yellow house always makes us look twice. In the case of this Locust Grove head-turner, we keep on looking because of the classic proportions, inviting ground-level porch and snazzy black shutters. Looks well-loved, and with good reason.                     […]

August 2010: Your Kitchen

  According to the Ball Blue Book 1974 edition, there are four general classes of pickle—brined, fresh-pack, relishes, and fruit pickles. Fruit pickles often consist of whole fruits (pears, peaches, and watermelon rind, for instance) that are simmered in a spiced, sweetened syrup and stored in the same. Relishes are chopped, seasoned, and cooked vegetables […]