GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Heads up: No Daybreak Thursday or Friday this week. Back as usual next Monday.Sunny eventually. Like yesterday, and the day before, and the day before... The fog and clouds will burn off, and we'll see a decently sunny afternoon, temps reaching the mid 70s, no real wind to speak of. Lows tonight around 50.Harvest time. All that growing is bearing fruit...
Like these cornelian cherries from Lisa Johnson. "They’re not really cherries, but the fruits of the cornus mas, a kind of dogwood," she writes. "I boil them down into a honey-sweetened coulis, a true labor of love given how tenaciously the big pit clings to the flesh. Delicious!"
And not fruit at all, but always a wonder to behold: a field of sunflowers, this one in Fairlee, from Robin Osborne.
In Grafton County sheriff's race, a tangled backstory. Over the weekend, the Valley News's John Lippman hit the paper with not one, but two articles related to Democratic nominee Jill Myers, a part-time Littleton police officer and former sheriff’s deputy, who faces Bath police chief Todd Matthew Eck in November. The first (burgundy link) details a long-running dispute between Myers and the outgoing sheriff, Jeff Stiegler, whom Myers accuses of creating a hostile environment and of "unprompted" sexual jokes; Stiegler labels her accusations "lies." In a separate article, Lippman focuses on Myers' husband and two cases in which he harassed area residents with criminal records.And in WRJ, the heartening backstories on two new eateries. The VN's Emma Roth-Wells spent time at both the Cappadocia Café, Vural and Jackie Oktay's just-opened fast-Turkish-food companion to the Tuckerbox, and at Jason and Leslie Merrill's REDCAN just down the street. She writes about Cappadocia's opening, its bakers—Sinan Guneri, Omer Kirkaya, and Gazi Ari—and the ornate tile-covered oven they use, which needs its own support wall in the basement. And she talks to the Merrills about their work together, the menu, and the free Thanksgiving meal for locals they're cooking up.And, says Susan Apel, “Don’t dare wait until you happen to be in downtown White River" to visit Cappadocia Café. It's a destination in itself, she writes in her latest Artful post, what with its lahmacun and pide and shiny pastries. "I think I was yeoman-like in the depth and breadth of my sampling," Susan writes, "with plenty more on the menu for future exploration." All in the name of in-depth reporting, of course.SPONSORED: Willing Hands turns 20 this year and you're invited to the party! Join us at 198 Church Street in Norwich for our 20th Anniversary Open House on October 10th from 4-6pm. We're celebrating 20 years of recovering fresh food to reduce waste and strengthen our community. Tour our facility, greenhouse, and gardens. Learn about our history, impact, and vision for the future. Plan for pizza, refreshments, and a short program beginning at 5pm. RSVPs suggested at [email protected]. Sponsored by Willing Hands.Emerald ash borer discovered in Thetford. It was inevitable, Li Shen writes in Sidenote, given that Thetford's flanked by towns where the destructive pest has already been found. In Thetford's case, the victims are two trees on Poor Farm Road. And given that the US government gave up on trying to control the ash borer's spread a few years ago, it's up to states, towns, and landowners to do what they can; Li goes into the beetle's pernicious effects—the first trees in VT to be infested "are starting to die en masse," she writes—and steps to take to try to slow its spread.In DH network, a new way to share knowledge on children's health. The challenge, DH Children's physician-in-chief Keith Loud tells Annmarie Timmins in NH Bulletin, is that specialized knowledge on the thousands of little decisions a provider might need to make "lived on bulletin boards, and in people’s email folders...or in a variety of different places that you’d need almost a directory to try to remind yourself where to find it.” Now, Timmins reports, it's all on a new system as part of a three-year pilot, with the idea that the network's collective knowledge can be available to a provider at any of its hospitals or clinics.SPONSORED: Opera North seeks board members. A professional opera company founded in the Upper Valley in 1982, ON has several openings on its Board of Directors. We are seeking people with a strong interest in promoting musical performances of the highest quality in our region and in developing our home at Blow-Me-Down Farm in Cornish into a national park for the arts. Please email [email protected] if you'd like to be considered for the board, with a statement of interest and any relevant experience. Learn more about Opera North here. Sing ON! Sponsored by Opera North.Coming this weekend, NH's first book festival. It'll be in Concord Oct. 4 and 5, and in the Union Leader's NH Weekend (no paywall) Matt Ingersoll talks to co-founder Emilie Burack (who worked with fellow-writer Sarah McCraw Crow to pull it together) about what's ahead: a Friday keynote conversation between thriller novelist Jean Hanff Korelitz and former NHPR host Laura Knoy; a full day of talks by name (Linda Sue Park, Claire Messud, Paul Muldoon), along with food, activities, and a book sale; and at the end, children's author Kate DiCamillo on making a movie from her novel The Magician's Elephant.Where Ayotte, Craig stand on housing in NH—and their own ties to the housing market. NHPR's Josh Rogers digs into the gubernatorial opponents' proposals for easing NH's housing crunch: for Ayotte, a focus on easing state regs and using state funds to "build out sewer and utility connections"; for Craig, boosting mixed-use zoning and making it harder for locals to shoot down ADUs or to impose excessive parking requirements on apartments. Rogers also looks at their financial stakes: Ayotte sits on the board of the largest landlord in the country; Craig and her husband own a few rental properties.In VT, judge dismisses lawsuit over appointment of education secretary. You may remember that in June, state Sens. Dick McCormack and Tanya Vyhovsky sued Gov. Phil Scott and Ed Secy. Zoie Saunders after the senate rejected Saunders' appointment to the post and Scott named her interim secretary anyway. On Friday, Superior Court Judge Robert Mello rejected the senators' argument that Scott had "circumvented" senatorial authority, holding that the governor had acted within his authority. In Seven Days, Alison Novak notes the case is likely headed to the state Supreme Court.In VT Public's election coverage, an effort to dig into the issues voters care about. For much of this year, VT Public has been trying to take its election-reporting cues from voters, pursuing an approach to reporting on contests up and down the ballot that avoids horse-race coverage and the latest trivial flare-up and instead focuses on questions about affordability, the environment, and other matters voters say they're most interested in. That's caught the Boston Globe's attention (sorry, paywall); Aidan Ryan spends time with reporters Brittany Patterson and Bob Kinzel as they try to buttonhole passers-by in Montpelier, and reports on how the whole effort's come together. The Monday Jigsaw. It's in Hanover this time. "We're all learning to live with the construction projects around the Dartmouth Green," writes the Norwich Historical Society's Cam Cross. "This week's puzzle shows that it was busy in the late 1920s as well"—in particular, in 1928, when the old Butterfield Museum was taken down to make way for Baker Library. Here's a post-1895 view of the building and its surroundings, and here's a history from a 1944 Dartmouth Alumni Mag.Feeling smug about how fast you are at jigsaws? The championships for speed puzzlers were just held in Spain, drawing teams, pairs, and solo puzzlers from 68 countries. Individual champion Kristin Thuv of Norway pulled off her victory in 37 minutes. Burgundy link takes you to a video taste of the action. Here's Antonia Hoyle in The Telegraph on the experience: "I feel like a child in an exam, who has none of the answers, watching the clock count down."
Heads UpIsrael, Iran, and the future of the Middle East. Dartmouth's Dickey Center scheduled this discussion before the two countries' faceoff war in Lebanon turned even hotter last week, and it's a good bet panelists will have a lot to say. They're Suzanne Maloney, VP and director of the Foreign Policy program at the Brookings Institution; Seyed Hossein Mousavian, a former Iranian ambassador to Germany who's now at Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School; and Dickey Center director Victoria Holt. 5 pm today in Haldeman 41 or livestreamed (you can register here).And just a heads up that if you want to get in on the Norwich Lions Club's annual meadow muffin contest, you've got 'til Friday. This coming Sunday at 3 pm, three heifers will be brought into an enclosure, with numbered plots laid out in a grid; they'll determine the winner and runner-up in the contest by depositing a “meadow muffin” on squares whose "deeds" are held by people who ponied up for them. The deadline to get a "deed" is Friday; the winner will walk away with 10 percent of gross receipts (up to $1K), the runner-up gets $500, and a bunch of community organizations get financial support.
And to launch us into the week, a look back.Kris Kristofferson died on Saturday in Hawaii. He was 88. The guy who'd been working as a janitor at Columbia Studios in Nashville (and had an honors lit degree from Pomona) got his break in 1969, when Johnny and June Carter Cash invited him to appear with them at the Newport Folk Festival. He broke out the following year with “For the Good Times" when it was recorded by Ray Price, and regularly had his work made famous by others: “Sunday Morning Coming Down” sung by Johnny Cash, also in 1970; "Me and Bobby McGee" by Janis Joplin the following year... Here are Kristofferson and Johnny Cash with "Sunday Morning Coming Down".See you tomorrow.
Written and published by Rob Gurwitt Associate writer: Jonea Gurwitt Poetry editor: Michael Lipson About Rob About Michael
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