Easter is a harbinger of spring. Even with occasional April snow showers — like those outside my window as I write this column — the sun and rain are making a dent in the foot of snow still covering our grass. In sunny spots near our driveway, crocuses are beginning to bloom. In the ...

It’s spring — think Green! With amber syrup and brown mud, spring has come to our North Country. Our backyard still has more than a foot of snow, and there is still ice in the driveway where the sun doesn’t reach. But the ice has started to come off the pond. Crocuses bloom at the ...

March has gone out like a lion. The past week brought chilly, damp, wintry weather: snow, ice and rain. It’s a good time for enjoying warm, comforting soup. During the past few weeks, I’ve attended Lenten Soup Wednesdays at St. Luke’s Church in Saranac Lake. The first supper only had ...

“The gift of the sugar maple trees is from a benevolent Providence.” — Benjamin Rush, in a letter to Thomas Jefferson. What’s the sweetest part of an Adirondack spring? Maple syrup! It’s mud season. Frosty nights and sunny, warm days cause the sap to flow. It’s time ...

Before Sir Walter Raleigh brought potatoes to his Irish estate near Cork in 1589, the Irish ate oats, barley and millet. They raised sheep, pigs, cows and chickens. In the 5th century, when Patrick was a teenage boy of 16, he was captured from his home in Britain and brought to Ireland as a ...

It is one week until St. Patty’s Day. Friends are already telling me how much they’re looking forward to the annual fare of corned beef and cabbage. But in Ireland, the traditional dish is bacon and cabbage — made with back bacon, which is much less fatty than American bacon. Corned ...