First Installment in a Two-Part Series “A weed is a plant whose virtues have not yet been discovered.” Ralph Waldo Emerson I was raised in the country and I wanted my children to have the benefit of a clean, natural environment as well—that was one of the major reasons my husband and I decided to...
When I was growing up in North Carolina, we had a huge garden. My mother hated to garden or pretty much anything to do with the Great Outdoors, but with three young children at home, she was thrifty. While Dad and we kids toiled in the soil, she came up with ways to use the...
I love Coney Island. Living in New York City, I’ve always escaped to the ocean, the only place in the city that feels truly wild and untamed. But Coney Island holds a special place in my heart: still rugged beneath its gentrifying shell, it’s best in the off-season, when it’s just me and the old...
“She said she wanted to see beautiful things. I took her to where I planted my seeds.” —Darnell Lamont Walker When I was a girl growing up in California, whales fascinated me. It was the 1970s, the heyday of Greenpeace and knowing whales existed is inseparably entwined in my mind with the knowledge that these majestic...
The ebb and flow of men’s grooming is as old as the ocean’s tide. From the full beards sported in depictions from ancient Egypt to the shaving rituals of Kenya’s Masai tribe, a vast range of social symbolism and status ripples through cultures around the world. And it’s become a big business. According to a...
When I ditched the corporate life and enrolled in culinary school, and one based on French technique no less, I was prepared to be overwhelmed. All the terminology, the sauces, the variations, the pace, the chef-instructors whose accents and creative use of English made everyday a linguistic adventure. What I wasn’t prepared for, however, was...
In a testament to good old-fashioned ingenuity, record numbers of American are engaging in entrepreneurship these days. A lot of folks tired of waiting around for an economic upturn have decided to create their own jobs. It’s called “necessity entrepreneurship,” and according to a study by the University of Missouri published last year, the percentage...
For Jonathan Simmons of Jonathan’s Spoons, running a cottage industry that creates and sells handcrafted, natural wood products is more than business. It’s an extension of his personal philosophy, which prizes independence and fair trade over all. “It means I am free to do what I want,” said Simmons, 58, “but it’s more than that....
While Hudson Made celebrates the artisans and craftspeople of Hudson Valley and New York City, we also realize that this passion is part of a growing interest in cottage industries and the locavore movement. Perhaps nowhere in the country is this more prevalent than in the rolling hills of the Berkshires of western Massachusetts Such...
“A sap-run is the sweet good-by of winter. It is the fruit of the equal marriage of the sun and frost.” John Burroughs, Signs and Seasons, 1886 Two winters ago a friend was passing through New York on her way from Quebec and brought me a big can of maple syrup from the airport’s gift...
In the space of 19 years as a New Yorker, I realized how an urban economy could dictate a career. I saw too many people working to live, rather than the other way around. People were abandoning their true aspirations to grab a job that would pay their exorbitant rents. Because of the inflated cost...
Who needs a tumbler when you can take a swig out of the Great American Flask by Jacob Bromwell? Hand crafted from solid copper, this historically accurate showpiece is soldered by veteran metalworkers and harkens back to pioneer days… when men drank whisky and that was that. I’m a seasonal drinker and while we’re still weathering...
