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It has been a year we would all like to forget but one which we likely never will. It is a scar on our collective psyche that we shall someday tell our grandchildren about. Challenges were hurled at us like snowballs: home learning, home working, job loss, loneliness and isolation, tragedy after tragedy dealt to our …
Listening to the pandemic update Tuesday afternoon in my kitchen, I started to cry a bit. I’m not sure why exactly, all of a sudden it was hitting closer to home and I confess I was a little frightened. Every week I write my silly little Sunday story and every week I swear I will …
It’s been a heck of a ride since I last had the pleasure of checking in with Jennifer here at Simple Local Life. While we’re doing the best we can, there’s been nothing simple about 2020 has there? We have been so fortunate here on the east coast , lucky because of geography and population …
Ever since my father first brought home several fresh whole halibut he’d been given, or purchased cheaply or quite possibly they’d fallen off a truck – ah the good old days, and I helped him sell it, stashed in the snow in our backyard, I was about fifteen years old and hooked. Hooked on selling, …
Our French Bakery is on a back road in Chester, plenty of folks right here in the village would have had no occasion to travel that road ever. Given the regular neglect by Highways folks, I can’t blame them. Imagine my surprise when a letter from the Planning Dept, a year ago, informed me that …
I hope, dear readers, you grow not weary of my market stories. Farmers’ markets have become such a part of my world , they are slices of life, of drama and of humanity. The dreadful frost last June, as an example, kicked the stuffing out of many of our farmers, wineries and Christmas tree growers. Successful, …
I meet loads of people selling at the various farmers’ markets; fellow vendors, their children, customers , friends and as my Mum calls them – the tire kickers. That last group will ask you a ton of questions, the provenance of your butter, the organicness of your spelt flour and what time you start in the …
The other week I was generously invited to give a little talk about our business at the Art Centre in Chester. Julien’s Bakery is celebrating or bemoaning – depending on the day, its thirtieth year in business this spring. What surprised me was not the number of folks who must lead desperately boring lives, willing to …
What a tremendous response we had to Laura Mulrooney’s new series on Simple Local Life! If you missed chapter one of Bread is Life, be sure to check it out here. Go grab a cup of tea…and maybe a croissant…and enjoy chapter two. Don’t be Fooled The rural- urban ‘issue’ is talked about a lot these days. …
Ok…I’m not sure if I should say that I have manifested this, or just finally decided, that I was going to get Laura Mulrooney to write a column for Simple Local Life. Laura writes beautiful and eloquent stories on her personal Facebook page, often on Sunday mornings. I have shared many of them on my …