Rhode Island Explorer

Epic NH ski day at Bretton Woods

2011-02-16T08:44:00.005-05:00

After getting off to a slow start in January, the ski conditions in the White Mountains of New Hampshire are now Very Good to Absolutely Epic. The great thing about skiing in the Mount Washington Valley is that you have so many ski areas to choose from, both cross-country (more on that later) and alpine. With the weather patterns around Mount Washington, at any given time, one place or another is going to have great snow. Right now, that place is Bretton Woods. On that side of Mount Washington, the snowfall has been steady and has built up a base that isn't going away anytime soon, even with the warm temperatures forecast for later this week. Everything is open, and another great thing about Bretton (at least for advanced intermediate skiers like me) is that there is is a LOT of intermediate terrain, even from the tops of Rosebrook and West Mountains. With so much snow, they've even created some lovely glades for novices to try. Yes, I did, and yes, I had a blast.

Great skiing at Wachusett Mountain

2011-01-16T13:34:00.010-05:00

Even though the folks at Wachusett Mountain in Princeton, Mass. have been making snow for a month, there's nothing like a natural snow drop (of around two feet) to encourage Rhode Islanders to make the one-hour drive northwest to ski there. I headed up on Friday, just ahead of the busy Martin Luther King weekend hordes, and enjoyed a great day on the slopes -- my first of the season.

The whole mountain was open, with some deep powder pockets on the steeper west side and smoother going on the east side. As always, Wachusett does a great job of managing people: Even though there were lines of maybe 40 people at each of the two lifts, I never waited more than 5 minutes to get on. And miraculously, the slopes themselves were wide open. I never felt crowded going down.

Everyone I met just seemed delighted to be skiing on such a fine day. Good options if it's your first time this year: Ralph's Run and Challenger, then Conifer and Balance Rock to work your way up to Smith Walton and 10th Mountain. By the end of the day, you'll have it down cold. But don't wait too long to leave. Around 2:30 p.m., the big buses roll into the parking lot, disgorging hundreds of school kids and weekenders. Time to call it a day and head home.

Next time: NEW HAMPSHIRE

Winter sunset

2011-01-13T16:49:00.001-05:00

Who couldn't love a winter day like this one? This great oak stands guard over Haines State Park in Barrington -- a great place to snowshoe.

Yes, there was some damage from the storm of Jan. 12, but isn't the snow worth it?

Ski trails are tracked at Pulaski!

2011-01-13T16:02:00.003-05:00

When Rhode Island gets snow like we got yesterday, there's no better place to be the next day than Pulaski State Park in the state's northwest corner. I got out there this morning around 11, and all the trails had been groomed and tracked. The longest trail is 4.25 miles (yellow), but you can take smaller loops by following the green, yellow or pink arrows. The park's website has a link to download a trail map.
A few things to remember: First, how to get there. Take Route 44 all the way west, past Chepachet. First you'll see a sign on the right for the George Washington Management Area. Next you'll see a sign for snowmobile trails. KEEP GOING. Look for a small blue sign that says Cross Country Ski Trails, and turn there. Follow the park road into the parking lot. All of the trail loops begin and end there. There is a restroom. Technically, skiers are supposed to wear orange vests, because part of the park is in a bow-hunting area. If you didn't remember to bring your own, there is a wooden box with vests to borrow for the day (to be returned by 3:15 p.m.)
Don't miss this chance to ski this close to home! The trails are "like butta."

2 days, 2 rivers, 2 kayaks

2010-07-28T09:25:00.000-04:00

In a recent post, I noted what a hot, dry and perfect weather summer we've been having. Well! Never mind.

In between the torrential downpours, bolts of lightning and wind gusts of the last several days, Retired Guy and I did manage to get into our new kayaks on two consecutive clear days, Friday and Saturday. Friday was my day to pick our destination, and I chose one of my favorite spots: the East Branch of the Westport River, which is just across the state line from Rhode Island and about a 40-minute drive from Providence. Friday was the day to go because the tide would be high at just about 3 p.m., meaning that we'd be paddling downriver with the tide from our put-in spot at Hix Bridge on Hix Bridge Rd., and ending up at the state boat ramp next to the Back Eddy restaurant just in time for dinner.

View Larger Map

IT ALL WORKED according to plan. It took us two hours to paddle three or four miles downstream to the ramp, where we'd left our "drop" car, CHEEKY. Then we drove back up Route 88 to Hix Bridge to get the Subaru, which is the only one of the cars that can carry kayaks. (We're looking into getting Mini racks for kayaks, but it's a process.)

The weather was perfect, the river lovely and clear. The rock islands and green riverbanks dotted with summer cottages made us feel that we were in Maine. Ospreys swooped overhead, and cormorants dove into the clear green waters. We didn't see stripers, but we did see striper fishermen in kayaks.

The day ended with a wonderful meal at the always lively and fun waterfront restaurant, the Back Eddy, where we shared a bowl of steamers and a pair of cod-crabcakes in a remoulade sauce. A blueberry cobbler with ginger ice cream for dessert, plus a couple of glasses of wine brought the bill to about $60.

IT WAS SO MUCH FUN that when the next day, Saturday, dawned clear, we packed up and headed in the other direction to one of Retired Guy's favorite spots, the Wood River in Exeter's Arcadia State Management Area. Without any tide to worry about, we paddled gently down the stream from the state access point at Route 165 in Arcadia three or four miles to the pull-out point (where we'd left a car) at Barberville Dam on Arcadia Road. (Click this link to see a map.)

What a different experience this was than we'd had the day before: Where the Westport River is a wide tidal estuary of the sea, the Wood River is a narrow freshwater stream, a favorite of trout fishermen (of whom we saw several). I'd been secretly afraid that we'd be bombarded by mosquitoes, but we weren't, and the peace and calm of the river were magical. We saw a heron, several ducks, lots of colorful dragonflies, and painted turtles sunning themselves on rocks. No trout, though, as it was the middle of the day.

(See if you can spot the well-camouflaged ducks in this photo of a stump in the river. Click on the photo to make it larger.)

I don't know why it's taken me this long to discover kayaking, but I'm glad I did.

The two best online resources I've found for finding places to go around here are Rhode Island Blueways and Wild Turkey Paddlers in Southeastern Massachusetts.

Please send a Comment if you know of others.

Newport not-so-fast, and bachelorettes galore

2008-07-24T07:22:00.005-04:00

Saturday was one of those hot, steamy nights that make you just want to be out on the water on a motorboat or sailboat. Not actually owning such a boat meant that RG and I had just about one good option for the evening: taking the fast ferry from Providence to Newport. We decided on this plan at around 4:30, and in a few minutes I had booked us online on the 6:05 boat with a return at 9:50 p.m. -- enough time for dinner and walking around, or so I thought. Cost: $48.

The main attraction was the boat ride, because when it comes to this ferry, "fast" is really not that fast, at least not for us. It would take us, say, 20 minutes to drive to the ferry dock at Conley Piers off Allens Avenue in Providence, another 10 to park and pick up our tickets, then 50 for the actual trip to Newport. By way of comparison, driving straight to Newport from where we live in Barrington might take us 40 minutes. Of course, then we'd have to park the car.

When we arrived at the Pier and saw big "LOT FULL" signs, we thought we were sunk. But it turned out that some kind of big noisy carnival and concert was being held, and when we said we were there for the ferry, we were directed to a far back parking area and told to "just squeeze in wherever you can." After picking up our tickets, we strolled over to the Tiki Bar waiting area, and right on time, here comes the Ocean State catamaran ferry. It was so hot, we sat in the open-air area on top all the way down and had fun identifying familiar Bay landmarks from the water side. There was Crescent Park, there was Blithewold mansion, there was Melville Boat Basin and finally the War College.

We stepped onto the Newport dock just after 7, windblown but definitely cooled off. Had we driven, leaving the house at 5, we'd have arrived an hour ago, paying maybe $8 for two gallons of gas and another $10 to $15 to park. But where would be the adventure in that?

Newport was really, really jumping. There was no sign of any slack-off in tourism or economic slowdown in the city that night. Walking up and down the waterfront nearly to Wellington Avenue, we were turned away from restaurant after restaurant. At all of my favorite places to eat on the harbor -- 22 Bowen's, Clarke Cooke, the Pearl and the West Deck, we were firmly told that without reservations, the wait would be an hour to an hour and a half. My last best hope, Cafe Zelda, I thought might be sufficiently off the tourist radar to at least sit us at the bar. No such luck.

So, sad to say, somewhere around 9 p.m., we staggered into a convenience store and seized on Milky Way frozen ice cream bars and bottled iced tea. Sitting on a curbstone, watching the parade of people passing by, we couldn't help but notice an inordinate number of bachelorette types, traveling in groups of 6 or 7, teetering precariously on high heels and giggling as they floated on cascades of chiffon ruffles, leaving clouds of perfume in their wakes. One girl even had a sash across her bosom that said "Bachelorette."

These women were so numerous, in fact, that even some of the young men they passed seemed to have had enough. "Oh no! Not more bachelorettes!" we overheard one man say as he stepped into Thames Street to dodge yet another pastel pod.

So intrigued by this phenomenon was I that, once back home and having revived myself somewhat with a peanut butter sandwich, I Googled "bachelorettes newport ri". What I found (from a blog called Be My Bridesmaid) is that Newport has become the unofficial bachelorette capital of the East Coast, possibly the country.

Who knew? I just hope that wherever they all were headed on those impossibly high heels, they had reservations for dinner.

Out Of Office Reply Day

2008-07-18T22:19:00.004-04:00

Today was Day 3 or 4 of a string of perfect days to be on vacation in Rhode Island. The inland temperature topped 90, but at the coast it was in the 80s with a cooling breeze. If you were at work today, you must have been lonely, because everyone else was off.

Every email I sent got the brisk bounceback message "Out Of Office Reply," and every office phone that answered was a voice mail message to the effect that "I will be out of the office until Monday, July 21."

It wasn't a day to do any kind of business, and most people were smart enough to know it.

Here's what some of them were doing while you were working!

Kayaking on Ninigret Pond in Charlestown.

Eating fried clams at Champlin's in Galilee.

Jumping from a rope swing into the Pawcatuck River in Westerly.

After 6, even the lifeguards were off, above at East Beach in Charlestown.

Catching some rays at Green Hill Beach

2008-07-15T07:17:00.004-04:00

Sunday didn't seem like much of a beach day -- windy with a low ceiling of clouds over Providence. But my friend Charlie only gets Sundays off, so it was going to be a beach day for us. We'd made plans earlier in the week to catch up, and when he came (with his friend Alan) to pick me up, I noted that his perpetual tan had faded like a favorite T shirt. Time to catch some rays.

Leaving Retired Guy to monitor the Tour de France and the Red Sox on TV, the three of us had just started for Middletown when Maria called and said she'd rented a place in Green Hill for August and did we want to go down to the shore with her while she paid the deposit? We'd be able to park the car at her place to use the beach, which has no public parking. We made a U turn to pick her up, and then the four of us were heading to South Kingstown on Route 2, the old South County Trail, still the best route to the shore.

Well, it turned out to be a great beach day. Seemingly, the wind had pushed the clouds inland, leaving the coastline clear as a bell, with a nice breeze to cool us off while we sat on an old flannel sheet of Alan's and ate the sandwiches we'd bought at Rippy's. Charlie had brought along some SPF 4 sun lotion, and even though I had my 45 in my bag, I couldn't resist. The stuff is practically a controlled substance now. I felt I had to look around to see if anyone could see me putting it on.

The waves at Green Hill Beach were big, the backwash tugging you out and burying your feet in the sand whle you picked your moment to jump in. But the water was perfect. (I had brought my instant-read meat thermometer, and it read a comfortable 70.)

It was the first time I'd met Alan, who grew up in North Providence but escaped to the Charlestown/Matunuck shore at every opportunity. He knew his way around, remembered the long-gone Green Hill Motel, where you used to be able to park and pay to use the beach, and the glory days of Moonstone Beach, now lost to the dreaded piping plovers.

We all noted the plethora of Private Beach signs, keeping different groups of people -- and hypothetical birds -- each on their own patch of sand, which unfortunately was steadily shrinking as the tide came up late in the afternoon. "You know, the sand below the mean high tide line is public," I said to Alan, kind of as a test. But the guy knew his stuff: "Yeah, but just try sitting over there, and watch what happens."

Besides being savvy about Rhode Island state law and beach rights, Alan demonstrated a neat beach trick I'd never seen before: burning wood with a magnifying glass. He'd brought along a powerful jewelers' glass, through which he focused the sun's rays on pieces of weathered beach wood to burn letters and pictures into them with a tiny, moving flame.

We all were mesmerized by the process, and before long he'd made a beachy sign for Maria's Providence store, Antiques and Interiors, and one each for me and Charlie to take home.

He said he'd known by looking at the clouds over Providence that morning that the coastline would be clear. I guess it takes an old beach bum from North Providence to know that kind of thing.

Micro cars at Larz Anderson Museum

2008-07-12T19:12:00.002-04:00

Owning a Mini Cooper seems to have unleashed a craving in us to see even smaller cars -- cars such as these otherworldly-looking micro classics, which were gathered today for a show on the grounds of the Larz Anderson Car Museum in Brookline, Mass.

We recruited nephew Will, 9, who is a junior car head himself, to spend the afternoon looking at dozens of cars that are so small that they make our Mini CHEEKY look like an SUV. I rode in one car -- a miniscule yellow Fiat checker taxi -- whose proud owner told me it gets 80 miles per gallon of gas. (I didn't tell him that I've heard it said about Fiats that the letters in the name stand for "Fix it again, Tony.")

While Micro Mini Day happens just once a year, the Anderson historic car barn museum is less than an hour's drive from Providence, and it hosts unusual car events on Saturdays through October. Next Saturday is Extinct Auto Day, for example, followed by Triumph and Miata Days. The last event this year is Studebaker Day Oct. 26.

Summer night: Cruising in South County

2008-07-10T07:06:00.004-04:00

I'm almost afraid to say it, but so far, this has been a summer of spectacular weather.

Yesterday afternoon, having done a few mundane errands in Warwick, RG and I decided to cruise on down to the shore in Charlestown and Westerly to catch a little of that summer-vacation feeling. We did have a couple of goals in mind, including rounding out our continuing exploration of the state's best ice cream places and fried clam shacks. (Look for the results soon on Projo.)

South County is prime territory for clams and ice cream, and a Mini Cooper is the ideal mode of transportation for the winding back roads that took us through the pretty villages of Hopkinton, Hope Valley and Wyoming all the way down to Route 1. (To whom do we complain about the new traffic lights at so many intersections that interrupt what used to be a beautiful flow along Rhode Island's premier shoreline highway?)

After a while, we landed in Watch Hill.

Having spent my favorite childhood summers in nearby Weekapaug, to me this part of the Westerly shore is summer on a plate.

A few things had changed since I'd last been in town, including the reopening of the beloved Book & Tackle used-book shop near its old spot but in a new building on Bay Street, and the raising of a skeleton of a new Ocean House Hotel up on Bluff Road. The price to ride the beach-side carousel had gone up (are the horses fueling up with gas?), and the walkers' entrance to Napatree Point had been refurbished (see photo, below, of the new entrance).

For more on exploring Watch Hill, look for an upcoming feature in Projo. In the meantime, check out the slideshow of my harbor photos from last night that follows this post.

We headed over to Misquamicut to try to catch some of Duke Robillard's free concert at the beach (see yesterday's post for more about that), but by the time we got there the parking lots were full and the sand in front of the stage was entirely covered with people in beach chairs. It was standing-room-only, with your feet in the ocean and the great band's sounds muffled by the roar of the surf.

So we headed home, sated with clams and ice cream -- a full plate of memorable South County summer specials to share.

In season: Free outdoor concerts

2008-07-09T07:04:00.002-04:00

So Retired Guy and I headed down to Middletown last evening to check out the sounds of "The Elderly Brothers," who were performing an outdoor free concert at Sweet Berry Farm on Mitchell's Lane. Sweet Berry (already one of my favorite farmstands in the state) is playing host to a series of free Tuesday evening concerts (6 to 8 p.m.) this summer, and last night's "'50s Picnic" theme was the very first one.

Plenty of other people found it impossible to resist the siren call of free music and picnicking on the lawn. While it wasn't quite Tanglewood, there was an appreciative crowd of perhaps 75 people listening to mellow renditions of oldies such as Only the Lonely, Johnny B. Goode, and several James Taylor numbers.

Many brought their own picnics, including chilled bottles of wine and fancy baskets, and set themselves up with lawn chairs and folding tables with tablecloths. Others bought food in the Sweet Berry cafe or purchased the $9.99 menu special of Southern fried chicken, red potato salad, succotash and Jell-O in a cup.

We shared the chicken plate, and it was excellent -- the chicken crispy, the succotash farmstand-fresh and delicious. The music was relaxing, and for the livelier numbers some of the children in the audience caught the spirit and got up to dance.

Then the wind came up and the sky darkened ominously, so we packed up and left early.

Tonight, Rhode Island's own Duke Robillard and his blues band play a free concert at 6 p.m. at Westerly Town Beach (next to Misquamicut State Beach). The venue couldn't be nicer for the Blues On The Beach series: You can swim in the ocean, then picnic on the sand right in front of the band. Here are photos from a 2006 Blues On The Beach concert.

March of the strawberries: '08s are history

2008-07-08T07:01:00.004-04:00

"Sad but true," says the sign at Sweet Berry Farm in Middletown. "Strawberries are over."

They mean local strawberries, of course. Strawberries are marching up the continent, and they've just moved north of us now. At least for a few more weeks, you'll still be able to find boxes of berries picked in Massachusetts and New Hampshire at farmstands like Walker's in Little Compton and Schartner Farms in Exeter (Schartner even has a satellite farm on West Side Road in North Conway, NH, so they'll be getting their farmstand berries from there for a while longer.)

For now, local pick-your-own places are featuring raspberries. In a couple more weeks, there'll be blueberries. Those are the big three for local berries; after that, it's all about corn and pumpkins.

In addition to picking raspberries, you might want to head to beautiful Sweet Berry Farm on Tuesday evenings (beginning tonight) for their summer series of free outdoor concerts. Tonight's is a '50s picnic with "The Elderly Brothers." You can bring a blanket to sit on and your own picnic, or purchase food from the farmstand, where the menu is paired with the music and includes nostalgic items such as mini-marshmallow Jell-O, fried chicken, and macaroni and cheese.

Kayaking on Brickyard Pond

2008-07-06T06:58:00.004-04:00

Last week, RG and I explored Barrington's Brickyard Pond in the 9.5-foot kayaks we bought in April.

The pond, which is next to the East Bay Bike Path, is accessed through Veteran's Park behind the YMCA on Maple Avenue. For this first kayak adventure, RG and I recruited pals from North Attleboro, Gail and Stan, who have already bought one kayak and ordered a second. (This simple type of kayak, which you steer by paddling like a canoe, because it doesn't have a rudder, costs around $400.) We saw some turtles, these stately swans paddling with their new chicks, and a pair of ospreys, one carrying a fish in its beak.

Stocked with trout, Brickyard is mostly surrounded by trees, so you can feel as if you're in a far more remote location than the East Bay. Next time out, RG plans to bring his fishing rod and give those ospreys some competition.

To find out more about kayaking in Rhode Island, visit the Rhode Island Blueways website for launch spots and events.

Pick your own (damn) strawberries

2008-07-05T06:54:00.004-04:00

It's probably only me who reads the emphasis as, "Pick your own strawberries," as in, "Hands off of mine!"

Last week, my friend Deb and I picked these berries (20 pounds total!) in about an hour at Middletown's Sweet Berry Farm, the place which every year seems to me to have the sweetest, reddest, best-tasting berries around. (Other great places I can personally vouch for are Four Town Farm in Seekonk and Schartner Farms in Exeter.) While the going rate for they-picked berries at most farmstands seemed to be around $5.50 this season, these "picked-them-ourselves" berries were $1.79 a pound, as long as you picked at least ten pounds, which Deb and I made sure we did.

With my berries, I made three pies -- two of my family's ancestral recipe for a glazed pie, and one double-crusted strawberry-rhubarb (a favorite of my Retired Guy, who finds the ancestral recipe too sweet). I still had plenty more berries, and they weren't going to keep because they were so ripe and so full of water, so I didn't even wait till the next day to freeze the rest in containers (after slicing the berries and dusting them with sugar).

The ancestral pie recipe was allegedly discovered by my grandmother Zeller back in the '50s in a Ladies' Home Journal type of magazine, which printed it as a favorite of First Lady Mamie Eisenhower. Having terrible sweet-tooths, we all loved it, and the pie has been enshrined in family recipe boxes ever since. Unfortunately, as those boxes predate the internet, I'll have to type here the recipe as given by Mamie herself. Don't wait to make it, though. "Pick your own" berries are going by fast.

MAMIE EISENHOWER'S STRAWBERRY PIE

1 baked pie shell (supermarket brand is fine here)
1 generous quart strawberries
1 cup sugar
3 tablespoons cornstarch
3 to 4 ounces softened cream cheese
1 cup cream, whipped and sweetened as desired

When the pie shell is cool, spread the cream cheese in the bottom, being careful not to break the crust. If you do, just cover over the break with some cream cheese. Put half (one pint) of the berries into a blender or food processor and puree them. In a saucepan on the stove, bring the puree to boiling, then add the sugar and cornstarch, which have been mixed together for ease of blending. Cook this mixture slowly, stirring continuously, for about ten minutes or until it loses the cloudiness from the cornstarch. Then place the hot saucepan in a sink of cold water to chill it. Meanwhile, place the other pint of whole, perfect berries on top of the cream cheese in the pie crust. Pour the cooled strawberry mixture over the top of the whole berries and spread it around to cover them completely. Refrigerate the pie, just to set it, and before serving, top with the sweetened whipped cream.

Mini Nation: Fun and games in NH

2008-07-04T21:56:00.004-04:00

Ever since we ordered our Mini (vanity plate CHEEKY) back in April, Retired Guy and I knew we'd go to the Minis On Top rally run up Mount Washington. Who could resist the idea of hundreds of gaily accessorized Mini Coopers caravaning up the highest mountain in the northeast? At 6,288 feet, the mountain's height matched the date of this year's (the sixth annual) Minis On Top: 6-28-08.

And we did have fun. Along with 215 other goofy Mini owners, we gawked at all the other interesting color combinations and car graphics, beginning with those in the caravan of Minis that started for the North Country from Area 51 off Route 93 just north of Concord. The Minis followed three different routes to get to Gorham, the town just north of Mount Washington where we spent the night. The next morning, everyone drove down to the Loon ski area parking lot in Lincoln for a meet that featured contests in various categories such as Best Sound System, Dirtiest, Cleanest, and Best Overall Car.

RG was hopeful he'd get a nod from the judges for his roof decal of the Rhode Island state flag, but he lost out to a very flashy number: a gull-wing door modification of a Mini that captured everyone's attention and took two separate Best awards.

But the most fun of all was watching the entries in a Mini Driving Skills (O)lympics. (The organizers weren't allowed to officially call it Olympics, because of copyright issues.) Dozens of hopeful Mini drivers waited in line to take their cars through an obstacle course of orange traffic cones, starting off by picking up an apple from the ground and then driving a short distance to balance it carefully on top of a traffic cone.

The course was much harder than it looked, and it was fun to watch the most macho entrants rev their engines only to stall out repeatedly. One guy in particular (a fellow Rhode Islander) came in dead last while more precise drivers — especially a woman from New York City — maneuvered far more delicately to place close to the top of the order.

"Next year," said Retired Guy. "I need to practice."

After all that excitement, the actual climb to the top of Mount Washington (in heavy fog) came as almost an afterthought. The best part of the Mini vacation weekend was meeting new friends Jeff, Monica and Catherine, with whom we've already planned to enter as a team in the Mini Trivia Contest next year.

Mini vacation: 215 Mini Coopers climb Mount Washington in the MOT (Minis On Top) rally

2008-07-01T11:46:00.002-04:00

Explorers — Don't steal this book!

2008-06-19T09:28:00.009-04:00

The Explorer's Guide to Rhode Island is out!

The other day I stopped at Borders in the Providence Place mall, and there it was, part of a big bookstore display on exploring America this summer. I don't have so many book titles on my resume that it's still not a thrill to actually see a stack of books with my name on them sitting on a store shelf for sale.

Yes, you can get it by mail from Amazon, but there's still just something about a real bookstore, isn't there?

This Saturday, June 21, I'll be at Barrington Books in the Barrington Shopping Center beginning at 11 a.m., signing copies of the book. With me will be photographer Richard Benjamin, who'll sign copies of his beautiful book of color photos, Rhode Island. (The two of us also will be pairing up for signings at the Providence Place Borders on July 19 and at A Novel Idea bookstore in Bristol July 26.

Hope to see you there!

Local clams? No, thanks

2008-06-17T07:13:00.011-04:00

Are we all done talking about "food miles" and carbon footprints yet?

Don't get me wrong: I'm all for eating local when it comes to certain critical foods like strawberries, asparagus and tomatoes. Right now, I'm counting the days till I can pick my own strawberries at great local farms like Four Town in Seekonk and Sweet Berry in Middletown.

But anyone who thinks that forgoing foods that have come from other places in the country or the world is going to save the world is just plain loco.

"Big Foot," an excellent article in The New Yorker some months ago, should put to rest the faddish and simplistic notion that "eating local" is going to help save the planet. Quite the contrary, as it turns out. (Among its interesting points: Because there is more sunshine in certain parts of the world, and therefore a longer growing season, it is actually more energy efficient overall to grow foods where they grow best on the planet, rather than "locally," where the additional energy costs of things like fertilizers far outweigh the energy costs of shipping. And that's not even to mention the sheer impracticability of growing enough food in a heavily developed state like Rhode Island to feed all the people who live here.)

What this means to me as a Rhode Islander is that I can feel good about drinking the French, Italian, South African and California wines I much prefer anyway over the additive-laced stuff that is produced around here. Rhode Island wine-growers have to add the additives because the climate around here is not the world's best for wine-growing. Hello! There's a reason they call it Bordeaux.

Still, some people will go oooh! just because it's "local," just as they do for local seafood. They confuse "local" with "fresh." Fresh is good; local isn't always. Take clams. Over the past few weeks, Retired Guy and I have been engaged in a project of vast scope to discover what are the "Top Ten Fried Clam Shacks" in Rhode Island. This entails stopping at likely clam places that we come across in our travels and ordering a box or a clam roll to sample. (Look for the results coming up soon on Projo.)

What I've noticed is that the current fad for "localism" has made fried-clam purveyors skittish about admitting that their clams, in most cases, come from Maine. They hesitate, just for a second, when I ask where they get their clams, while they try to assess whether the answer I want to hear is "Rhode Island."

The truth is that the best-tasting clams and lobsters come from as far north as you can get them: Maine or Canada. The water is colder there, not to mention a whole lot purer than Narragansett Bay. (Check out today's front page Providence Journal story: Are our lobsters casualties of the war on mosquitoes? about the possible effect of the larvicide methoprene on the Bay.)

In most cases, clams for fried clams are frozen anyway, so it doesn't matter how far they've traveled to get here. Right now, there's a red tide alert in many parts of nearby Massachusetts, meaning that no clams are safe to eat from there. While the red tide algae doesn't typically spread south of Cape Cod, have you looked at the "shellfish closings" map that's part of the daily weather report in the newspaper? Those big dark blue areas that wax and wane with the rainfall totals mean that those parts of the local shoreline are too polluted to take clams from.

Well, excuse me for doubting, but I'd rather not eat a clam that someone in Rhode Island's state government has decided is clean enough today when it wasn't yesterday. So when I'm standing at that clam shack window asking, "Where are your clams from?" I don't want to hear, "Oh, they're local." I want to hear, "Maine."

Idea for bumper sticker: "Think Globally, Not Locally." Every food is local somewhere.

Can we all please stop talking about "carbon footprints" now?

Top photo: Evelyn's in Tiverton (clams from Ipswich, Mass.); lower photo: Flo's in Middletown (clams from Maine).

A day @ the (private) beach

2008-06-10T08:21:00.010-04:00

There was only one thing to do yesterday, and that was to go to the beach. Fortunately for me, that's sort of part of my job. As soon as I woke up and saw that the temperature was already 80 in the breezeway, I knew where we would go.

As the Ocean State, Rhode Island is famous for its great public stretches of beach: Misquamicut, Narragansett, Scarborough, Roger Wheeler and Second are all beach names that roll off of everyone's tongue when you ask what their favorite beach is. Don't get me wrong: Those are all great, great beaches. But my own favorites are the ones that aren't on all the lists, because they're "private."

The word "private" in the context of beach has always been an invitation to me. My reasoning is that if they need to go that length to try to keep me out, it must be a really good beach. The more signs there are that say "No Beach Access," "Private Road" (heading straight to the ocean!), "Security Guard Ahead," the more I decide to make it my business to get there.

And you know what? It's not that hard. A security guard, even if there really is one, doesn't work 24/7. Generally, he's only there 10 to 3 on weekends between July 4 and Labor Day. And a lot of those "private roads" really aren't private. It's just that few people are willing to go to the bother of challenging a sign. Parking is generally the big hassle, but with a bicycle and someone else to drop off at the beach with your stuff, you can go anywhere, even between 10 and 3 in July and August.

What I like most about private beaches is that they are private. The noisy tattooed hordes are kept away, and you generally find a lovely spot all to yourself with no radios, no concession stands with their flocks of seagulls scavenging French fries, no lifeguards with bullhorns yelling at kids to quit horsing around in the water. There are no jammed parking lots, and no beach fees to pay.

So yesterday Retired Guy and I went to one of my favorite private beaches: Warren Point Beach Club in Little Compton. Getting there was especially easy because it was a weekday and, still being June, the club hasn't officially opened yet. And just as I knew it would be, it was the perfect first beach day of the year. The whole time we were there, from about 1 to 5 p.m., we saw maybe four other groups of people, most of them reading, collecting beach stones or watching kids play in the water. The small sandy beach is enclosed by rocks, and from a height of maybe 30 feet on the biggest rock, Little Comptonites have constructed a diving platform, which some people were already using yesterday.

No, I did not jump off the rock, but yes, I did go swimming. The water was cold but not that cold for this early in the year. My guess would be maybe low 60s. Retired Guy did not go in, saving that experience for Maine, where members of his family have braved the truly cold water of Saco Bay for untold generations. He has admitted to me that having spent all of his childhood summers on the rockless shining sands of the seven-mile-long beach at Ocean Park, with its huge tidal expanses and its seaweed-free water, he doesn't consider Rhode Island beaches to be in the same league.

Privately, I think he's wrong.

Hot topic: Providence Independence Trail tour

2008-06-09T07:01:00.014-04:00

Sporting his trademark bow tie and button-down shirt, Bob Burke's only concession to yesterday's extraordinary heat was wearing seersucker shorts instead of long pants, which of course meant no socks with his loafers. Shortly after high noon, when the temperature downtown hit 95 degrees, Burke was leading about a hundred people on the second annual Providence Independence Trail walk, exploring the city's entertaining history on foot.

The oldest walker was 82, the youngest 6, and all of them had gathered to begin the walk at Burke's fabulously rococo Federal Reserve restaurant (built as Union Trust bank in 1901) at 60 Dorrance St. There, beneath the 24-karat gilded 20-foot ceiling and row of stained glass rosette windows, Burke was offering an array of Rhode Island down-home specialties — clam cakes, clear chowder, saugy dogs and Narragansett beer — to fortify the walkers for the tour. Serving such down-home fare in such luxurious surroundings was a bit of purely inspired Burke-manship.

Burke, who grew up in Rhode Island and was a pioneer on Providence's fine dining scene with his Pot au Feu restaurant, has had a love for the city's history since his days as a student at LaSalle Academy. He has taken on as his personal mission the correction of the false claim by Boston to have begun the American Revolution with the Boston Tea Party of Dec. 16, 1773. Burke rightly says the Revolution actually started on June 9, 1772 (236 years ago today) when a group of daring Providence men boldly burned the British ship Gaspee in Narragansett Bay. "Compare that as an act of war with dressing up as Indians and throwing tea into the water 18 months later!" crowed Burke, who is himself plotting a bold march on Boston this fall to force the issue of correcting the historical record.

One of the many high points of yesterday's entertaining history walk was Burke's action-packed description of the events surrounding the Gaspee burning, beginning with the story of how the captain of the Rhode Island ship the Hannah not only eluded the Gaspee but also cleverly suckered the British ship onto a sandbar where ultimately it was burned by the pre-Revolutionary Rhode Islanders.

Burke expects to make his Independence Trail walking tour available to everyone for free with a cell-phone download keyed to the 48 sites on the 3-mile route. He's also working on a Web site for the tour. Right now, he's offering it for groups such as schools, scout troops, corporations and community organizations.

The number to call for information is (401) 273-8953, or email bob@federalreserveri.com.

Spellcheck please! Shining a light on typos

2008-06-03T06:20:00.004-04:00

Typos happen.
They're everywhere — in the newspaper, online, on signs like this one, which I spotted the other day in Warren:

In newspapers, once an error is in print, it's there forever — and having written for a daily newspaper, I can say that I am embarrassed when I see errors like these recent ones: "peddling" instead of pedaling a bicycle; "boarder" instead of border collie; "mantle" instead of fireplace mantel; "bailed" instead of baled hay; "Dougway" instead of Dugway Bridge — even Narragansett Bay where what is being described is the Atlantic Ocean! You can't get much bigger than that in terms of getting it wrong. You can't fix a printed page, but you can fix online mistakes — and that's just, ahem, one more advantage of the new media age.

With a little effort, you can also fix errors on public signs — shine a little light on the errors of our ways, so to speak. In my Posts of May 22 and March 30, I lauded the transcontinental efforts of Somerville's Jeff Deck and his TEAL initiative to fix sign typos across America. At the end of his trip, he invited readers of his typo blog to go forth and multiply, fixing typos where we find them.

So I did!
Yesterday, I fixed my very first sign typo. Or, more accurately, I got it fixed. I called the church attached to the sign above, and pointed out the error. And they fixed it, although not without some defensiveness. Hey, I understand: I write for a newspaper! Typos happen: The important thing is to learn from them. And then fix them!

I've already submitted my fix to Deck's contest, hoping to win a TEAL T shirt, winner to be decided June 15. I'll keep you Posted.

Flower power: Rhody's biggest Rhody

2008-06-02T13:59:00.006-04:00

Each year at this time, I have to marvel anew at the sight of this gigantic Rhododendron. It occupies the entire front yard of a house along Route 114 in Warren, and right now it's a regular mountain of blossoms. The rest of the year, it's just a pile of green leaves, but whenever I drive by it, I think: Oh, yeah— Just wait until June!

A thousand words: Photos by Richard Benjamin

2008-05-31T13:39:00.011-04:00

A thousand words — no, ten thousand words — cannot compare with the brilliant photographs of Richard Benjamin. The former Providence Journal photographer turned freelancer is the author of several books of photographs of Rhode Island, each one a visual feast capturing the surpassing beauty of the state. I collaborated with him on one — a book on Providence that interweaves his photos of the city with my choice of historical quotations.

It's always a joy to work with Dick, and over many years as colleagues at the Journal, I always felt that the two of us appreciated the Ocean State in a particular way: me in words and he in pictures, two parts of a whole.

Only a person who loves Rhode Island and knows it so well could make pictures like those you'll see below.

In a phone call the other day, Dick told me he has a new book coming out soon, a book of photographs of Narragansett Bay. And he invited me to use his photos on this site, a wonderful and unexpected gift both for me and for my readers.

So, enjoy this first sampling of Dick's photos of the East Bay region, Sakonnet to Barrington.

And thank you, Dick.

The Ice Cream Job

2008-05-29T09:40:00.007-04:00

It's practically a requirement for Mini Cooper owners to have seen (or own) the 2003 movie, The Italian Job, starring Charlize Theron and Mark Wahlberg. In the film, the beautiful stars are seen tearing around in a fleet of Minis, safe-cracking and cutting up in one the best caper flicks of all time.

Maybe that's where we got the bug — not the VW kind. In any case, Retired Guy and I have lusted after Minis for years. Finally, following a five-week gestation period for the Mini that included production in Oxford, England and a trip by boat to a New Jersey distribution center, we took our new Mini home from Warwick's Inskip dealership on Tuesday. We are still counting her toes and fingers to make sure she's really ours.

About the only downside to the happy arrival is that right now I happen to be doing the reporting for an upcoming Projo.com feature on the Top Ten Ice Cream Places around here. That means Retired Guy and I have been motoring (that's Mini-speak for driving) from Watch Hill, R.I. to Marion, Mass., sampling ice cream cones on the go.

While we had his old Escort or my Subaru, we thought nothing of eating ice cream in the car, but now? You'd better believe not! Even if we were willing to risk a gooey spot, the car is a standard, and we're still adjusting to that. We're not about to shift with a cone in hand.

I'm sure Charlize faced the same dilemma — and maybe it's no coincidence that right after the Italian Job, she put on 30 pounds to make her follow-up movie, Monster. It must have been that great Italian gelato.

(Sneak preview: This is Cranberry Bog, from Somerset Creamery, Somerset, Mass.)

It's an online world: RIX to move to Projo

2008-05-29T08:08:00.008-04:00

Big news: In a few weeks, Rhode Island Explorer will move to a new home on the Providence Journal's online Projo.com website. After 28 years writing features for newsprint, I'm now writing electronically. It's a new era, and certainly a happy one for me. When the switch is pulled, sometime in June, this site will link to Projo. In the meantime, stay tuned right here.

Although I well understand many people's preference for "a newspaper I can hold in my hand," the times have changed, for better or worse, and I've come to believe that there are terrific positives to the online world — positives that, on balance, far outweigh the negatives. A horse and buggy is a nice memory — but would you really rather have one than a car? (More on that subject later. Here's Retired Guy with his new pride and joy.)

Anyway, how could I not love a job that calls for me to find the best ice cream places in Rhode Island and nearby Massachusetts? One of my regular features on the new beat will be a weekly Top 10, beginning with ice cream. So read on — online!

Mom's Camry plays it cool at 10 Prime

2008-05-23T21:45:00.016-04:00

Last night, I went to one of the coolest places in Providence in one of the uncoolest cars in the world: my mother's '86 Toyota Camry. The light blue sedan has spent most of its 22 years in my parents' commodious garage, emerging occasionally for short trips mostly to charge up its battery, which may be original to the car. The Toyota is the car my family uses when any of our "real" cars is out of service for one reason or another, the reason in this case being that Retired Guy sold his car, more quickly than either of us expected, and WE ARE GETTING A MINI COOPER!

Regular readers of this blog already know that RG and I have been members of the Mini cult for some time. The twin events of coming into a small inheritance and seeing my good friend Gail snag a coveted new model, the Mini Clubman, pushed us over the edge. We ordered a basic model, Sparkling Silver, standard shift, with a black roof and Redwood Lounge leather seats. We are going to call it CHEEKY (that's to be its vanity plate). RG has spent countless hours on the incredibly interactive MiniUSA website playing with Cheeky's comely configurations, and many more hours out in the garage preparing for the new arrival. (Our excuse for this Mini extravagance is the money we'll save on gas: Gail tells me her Mini gets 40 miles per gallon.)

Within 24 hours of uploading our ad, AutoTrader had found us a buyer for RG's '97 Ford Escort — and that is how last night I found myself in the blue Camry pulling up in front of one Providence's coolest restaurants — Ten Prime Steak & Sushi — where I was meeting my cool friend Charlie for drinks. Right behind me, up pulls a gleaming black Mercedes. As you can imagine, the two parking valets were jockeying for position. "This is a very special car," I said to the lucky one. "You'll take good care of it, right?"

"Are you kidding? This is a great car," he enthused. I pointed out to him that the Camry is a soon-to-be classic, a powder puff with just 30,000 miles on it. He was impressed. Anybody can buy a Mercedes, but this car — well, it's priceless. "Thirty thousand miles!" he said, "I could drive it around the block that many times." (I hoped not — something might fall off.)

As we always do, Charlie and I had a great time catching up. We sat at the bar, nibbling on a Morris roll (shrimp tempura and crab) and Coho salmon nigiri, he with his Manhattan and I with my Sapphire Martini. The crowd was elbow-to-elbow, young (we guessed mostly 30s) and good-looking. And I just felt so cool knowing that my pumpkin Camry would soon turn into a fairy-tale Mini.

Typo eradication: An impassible dream?

2008-05-22T07:40:00.009-04:00

Readers of this blog may recall the Post of March 30, in which I lauded the pan-American typo-eradication expedition of Jeff Deck and Benjamin Herson. Beginning from Deck's home in Somerville, MA, the duo criss-crossed the country, hunting down and fixing typos in signs wherever they found them. Sadly, despite my heartfelt invitation to visit typo-rich Rhode Island, the Typo Eradication Advancement League (TEAL) road trip never made it here. Last Sunday, Deck posted to the TEAL blog from his Somerville dining room, having skipped little Rhody completely.

He's tired, I'm sure, and perhaps just a little bit cranky after the arduous three-month journey. In his final Post, Deck implored readers to go forth and multiply his efforts by finding and fixing sign errors on our own.

He says he doesn't want to see any more photos of typos unless we ourselves have fixed them per his guidelines. On June 15, he will pick a winner of the Best Typo Fix and put it on his blog. The winner will receive a free TEAL T-shirt.

I'm here for you, Jeff. I'll carry the torch. I'll do what I can to fix Rhode Island's typos, though the road (photo below in Charlestown, RI) seems "impassible," when it should be "impassable."

The typo road goes on forever . . .

Bike Paths 101

2008-05-20T06:24:00.010-04:00

In the world of bicycling, there are road cyclists and there are bike path cyclists. Serious cyclists prefer roads, because you can ride forever and never encounter a path-blocking flotilla of moms pushing strollers, or tots on trikes, or a Rollerblader towing a panting dog on a 20-foot leash. All of these obstacles are at worst accidents waiting to happen and at best unpleasant interruptions to a good ride.

Rhode Island's bike paths were built for bicyclists, but like it or not, they've become everybody's favorite for many different types of recreation. The "Can't we all get along?" plea applies well here, because if the rules of the bike paths were spelled out more clearly on the posted signs, more people might understand that walkers should treat the path as they would a road: Stay far left, close to the grass edge, and step out of the way when you see a bicycle coming toward you. Or, in sign-ese: "Walkers Keep Left and YIELD to Bicyclists."

Rules-of-the-path signboards at every parking area should state the rule that dogs must be on a 6-foot or shorter leash and kept close, both for the dog's safety and for bicyclists who could be tripped up by a long leash. And of course: Pick up after your dog!

Why the Department of Environmental Management, which manages the bike paths, doesn't post clearer rules signs is a mystery to me. The signs just say "Walk on the Left," which leads some walkers to believe they have a right to the whole lane. The shrieks of outrage these walkers hurl at bicyclists are in themselves enough to ruin a good ride on a bike path. Which is why bicyclists — for whom the paths were built with federal and state dollars — are hitting the roads instead.

(Projo photo above by Sandor Bodo.)

For more on Rhode Island's bike paths, click to read A Great Ride (Providence Journal, May 8).

Scottish Festival brings men in skirts to Richmond

2008-05-19T08:40:00.002-04:00

Men in skirts were everywhere on the Washington County Fairgrounds in Richmond on Saturday, as the 10th annual Scottish Highland Festival stopped in Rhode Island for the day. Retired Guy and I headed down and spent a few hours nosing around the books in the clan ancestry booths to find out what we could about our roots. He's got Campbells in his genealogical tree, and I have Mackenzies and the little known "Imbrie." Well, you could find a tartan and coats of arms for the first two, but nothing for "Imbrie." Turns out my ancestor was a Lowlander, and they didn't get the fancy stuff.

It was remarkable how good the men looked in their kilts, sporrans (furry waist pouches) and socks with "flashers" (tartan decorations). Striding around, they looked masculine and strong, bringing to mind Mel Gibson in Braveheart or Russell Crowe in his Gladiator gear. As for the food at the festival, well, let us say that the Del's lemonade truck was busier than the haggis one — haggis being a specialty peculiar to Scots, made of sheeps' intestines cooked in its stomach. Like Scotch whisky, haggis is not for the faint-hearted. You have to be a man bold enough to wear a skirt to enjoy either one of them.

Best Italian restaurants on Federal Hill

2008-05-05T08:29:00.007-04:00

Federal Hill is Providence's Little Italy, with so many restaurants, Italian markets and gelato shops lining its main street, Atwells Avenue, that it's hard to know where to go. When people ask me, "What's the best Italian restaurant on the Hill?" I give them this list. To say which is the best depends on what you're in the mood for and what you want to spend. Fortunately, the several-block Atwells Avenue restaurant strip is short enough that you can park and stroll, looking at posted menus as you go.

Zooma is youthful and high-energy, with a lively bar scene and fold-back windows that open to the sidewalk in good weather. Siena (shown at left) is the current foodie-favorite, with warm Tuscan contemporary decor and food. By contrast, just a few doors away are two Old World classics: the Old Canteen (shown at right, above) and the Blue Grotto.

Mediterraneo is a see-and-be-seen place, with sidewalk dining in good weather. Camille's is just off of Atwells on Bradford St., and it's the original Italian on the Hill, once called the Roman Garden. Big on ornate style, Camille's is ever-popular with Providence power players. At the other end of the dining spectrum is homey Casa Christine, one street over from Atwells on Spruce Street. Christine's is no-frills, no Web site, no credit cards, no seating after 7:30 p.m., and BYOB. Owner Christine Calise rules the dining room, while husband Bill cooks his red-sauce classics in the kitchen.

Where to go for Italian on the Hill? It all depends on what you're in the mood for.

If you want to sample the menus at more than 30 restaurants on the Hill, you can purchase a $30 ticket to the annual Federal Hill Stroll, Tues., June 10 from 4:30 to 7:30 p.m. Click here for more information and to purchase tickets online.

Fishing with ospreys

2008-04-27T06:45:00.027-04:00

What happened to April showers?

The weather has been perfectly beautiful — and perfectly dry — ever since Retired Guy and I got back from our tropical vacation two weeks ago. So yesterday, in between bouts of playing catch-up watering the yard, we found ourselves in Bristol looking at kayaks at Northwind Sports.

Actually, we had driven to Bristol for another reason altogether, which was to pick up our Osprey license plates from the Audubon Society Environmental Education Center, where they were being distributed to the 1,200 folks like us who signed up for a first edition of these pretty plates, which cost $40, with half going to support the education efforts of Audubon and Save The Bay. The Osprey, or fishing hawk, is a native species, and like other coastal natives such as plovers, it needs human help to survive. In the case of the Osprey, the chemical DDT is thought to have been the cause of a decline that caused the bird to be protected under the Endangered Species Act three decades ago. It has since returned in increasing numbers.

Many bird-lovers don't realize that other native species of birds such as bluebirds, cardinals, swallows and chickadees are endangered by rapidly multiplying populations of the non-native invasive species House Sparrow, which take over the nests of native birds and kill their chicks. The Audubon Society educates people about how to deter aggressive invasive species like the sparrow and instead help native species of birds to survive. (Monitor bird houses to be sure sparrows aren't nesting in them, and feed only seeds such as sunflower and thistle that don't attract sparrows.)

So there we were in Bristol, with our new Osprey plates on the car and the harbor glistening behind Thames Street Landing, which is where Northwinds is. And the next thing you know, we are the owners of a pair of Heritage kayaks, which were on sale for just under $500 apiece and look like a pair of large kids' toys — or toys for large kids, which is what we expect to feel like when we're bobbing around in them.

Retired Guy is a fisherman, so his kayak has holes for his rods. Just last week, he got his fishing license for the season, so before too long, he expects to put it to use by joining the Ospreys in hunting for fish for dinner.

"Across the Cove" across the years

2008-04-27T06:02:00.006-04:00

I've always loved the painting, "Providence from Across the Cove," by Alvan Fisher. I first saw an image of it in Florence Parker Simister's wonderful 1968 book, Streets of the City, which is out of print now but still may be found in libraries and in used books stores.

I like the fact that you can pick out landmarks in the 190-year-old painting that still exist today on Providence's College Hill and the East Side. (The actual painting is in the collection of the Rhode Island Historical Society.)

In the middle distance is the steeple of the First Baptist Church in America. To the right is the brick University Hall of Brown University, and to the right of that, the steeple of the First Unitarian Church.

In the foreground is the Cove itself, a tidal body of water that connected Providence's two rivers (the Woonasquatucket and the Moshassuck) to the head of Narragansett Bay. A defining feature of the Providence landscape, the Cove has all but disappeared today, filled in and covered over more or less by the area between the train station and Kennedy Plaza, and from Providence Place mall to North Main Street. (The circular Waterplace that is the centerpiece of the city's riverwalk is a nod to the historical significance of the original Cove.)

At lunchtime the other day, I thought I'd try to figure out where Fisher had viewed the scene when he made his painting nearly two centuries ago. The three buildings I could still recognize would help me locate the spot, and a small hill on the far left in the painting is probably about where the State House is.

Well, it turns out that Fisher (who put himself in the painting as one of the tiny figures in the foreground) was viewing the scene approximately from the second-floor foyer of the Providence Place mall. (If you cross over on the Skybridge from the Westin Hotel, you enter a glass-walled space from which you can look out upon the "Now" of Fisher's "Then.") The only one of the three buildings that you can still see from there is the First Baptist Church, more or less in the center. To the left, the view is interrupted by the GTech building, and to the right by the Courtyard Hotel. And of course the Cove is long gone, covered by those buildings as well as by Memorial Boulevard and its intersection with Francis Street, plus Kennedy Plaza.

The idyllic scene that is one of the oldest depictions of a Rhode Island landscape is now a busy urban streetscape. Progress has a price, but at least Fisher left us a picture of Providence as it looked once upon a time.

Then and now: Westminster Street view

2008-04-22T08:30:00.000-04:00

I was a sophomore at Providence's Classical High School in 1967, the year that the Rhode Island Mall (then called the Midland Mall) opened in Warwick. That year is generally thought of as marking the end of retail in downtown Providence — at least, until the present "renaissance."

But it isn't really fair to say that the opening of the Warwick malls killed downtown, because it had already been failing. An effort to restore vitality to Westminster Street by turning it into a pedestrian walkway closed to cars wasn't working, even though as late as the mid-'60s, the street was still lined with stores that were far busier than those that are there today, 40 years later.

In the old postcard view on the left, you can see the planters that occupied the middle of the Westminster pedestrian mall, along with shoppers heading for stores like Woolworth and Thom McCan shoes on the left side and Kay Jewelers on the right. At that time, the two big downtown department stores were still operating — Shepard's and the Outlet — along with dozens of smaller stores like Peerless, Gladding's, Lerner and Casual Corner.
All are gone now, and the present view (right), taken from the corner of Westminster and Union Street (next to Tazza cafe), shows the planters gone, the street reopened to cars — and an absence of shoppers on a weekday afternoon. This might be because the stores that have opened in the past few years on Westminster are determinedly upscale: A wine boutique called Eno, a modern furniture store called Design Within Reach (whose?), and women's fashion stores such as Elsa Arms are typical. Other than a few stores like Oop and Bowl & Board that cater to students decorating their dorms, there's little for sale on Westminster to draw the everyday shopper. The expectation is that the hundreds of condos for sale downtown will soon fill with well-to-do people who will need to buy fine wine and Eames chairs but who won't need to run out for groceries or a pair of stockings or a tube of toothpaste.

It generally works better, though, when stores go where the people are. In 1967, the malls were built in the suburbs because that's where the people had moved. Speaking about the Warwick malls, which he co-managed, for a 1999 Providence Journal article, developer Aram Garabedian said, "The shopping center (in Warwick) followed the people; the people didn't follow the shopping center."
Forty years later, Providence is still hoping they'll be back soon.

Mini Coopers in Providence . . .

2008-04-18T09:24:00.006-04:00

It's a small world, isn't it? I see Minis everywhere — at home:

and on vacation . . .

2008-04-18T09:03:00.004-04:00

Providence hotels: Courtyard

2008-04-13T07:03:00.002-04:00

Last in a 6-part series comparing downtown Providence hotels:

Of the three Marriott-brand hotels in Providence, Courtyard is the most basic, and it blends into its downtown location so completely that you almost could walk by and not realize that there's a hotel there. The building is low-slung and built of yellow brick to look like an extension of the historic train station building (now offices) overlooking Kennedy Plaza in the heart of the city.

As it was undergoing repairs and renovations, Courtyard probably wasn't looking its best on the Friday in March when Retired Guy and I did our unofficial tour of downtown hotels. A strong odor from cleaning agents that had been used on the carpets permeated the lobby and the rest of the hotel, including the $129 room we were shown.
There were some signs of wear and tear around, such as scratches in the elevator walls, but it looked as if the hotel was in the process of addressing them.

On the plus side, Courtyard's room price was $30 cheaper than the going rate that day for similar rooms in other downtown hotels. Like its rooms, the hotel's lobby is decorated in functional mid-century modern style.

Overall, Courtyard looked like a place to spend the night rather than a destination hotel.

Our Rhode Island Explorer downtown hotel survey finally done, RG and I reflected upon the six hotels we'd seen.

Certainly, there was no shortage of hotel rooms in downtown Providence that Friday night, and we could have stayed in any one of them without a reservation and probably at a considerably cheaper price than we were quoted had we chosen to negotiate. Interestingly, from the most deluxe to the most basic hotels, the room prices we found varied only by about $40. We might have chosen to stay at the Westin for $169, the Hilton for $149, Courtyard for $129, or the Hotel Providence, the Renaissance, or in a Biltmore suite — all for $159.

I remarked to RG that if I were to choose, I guess I'd either go by location and choose the Hilton, because of its accessibility to Atwells Avenue and downtown, or the Biltmore because of its vintage style. What about him?
"They all look pretty much the same to me," he said. "Let's go home!"

Providence hotels: The Hilton

2008-04-11T07:11:00.010-04:00

Part 5 in a series comparing the six downtown Providence hotels:

Rhode Islanders are often teased for their habit of identifying locations by what used to be there, rather than what is there now. So in Rhody-speak, the Hilton hotel is where the Holiday Inn used to be.

A few years ago, a big crane removed the Holiday Inn’s familiar orange-daisy logo from the top of the blockish building that overlooks downtown from the beginning of Atwells Avenue, the city’s Italian-flavored “restaurant row.” Along with replacing the daisy with the Hilton sign, the hotel’s new owners spiffed up the interior — updating and improving the lobby, adding a Don Shula’s steak restaurant and a Starbucks, and enlarging the rooms to meet Hilton standard sizes by bumping out the windows.

The transformation was a success, and on our visit to the Providence Hilton Retired Guy and I were impressed both by the new look and by the efficiency of the staff we met.
As at all the other hotels we visited, we said that we were looking for a room that night and that we also were scouting for hotels as locations for a daughter’s possible wedding this summer.

We were given a brisk and informative tour by a manager named Scott, who showed us a very comfortable and stylish room that would be available that night for $149. He also laid out the parking arrangement, which none of the reps at the other hotels had done and which in fact we hadn’t thought to ask about. It turns out that all of the downtown hotels charge an additional fee of about $24 per night for parking. (At the Hilton, you have the option to self-park in a lot across the street for $20, and at the Westin, you can self-park in a garage for $17.)
The room had an expansive view of the west side of Providence, and by bumping out the window, the renovation had created a wide marble seat that not only looked inviting but also made the room feel larger.

The bathroom was plain but fine, and there was everything the modern traveler needs in terms of services like WiFi and TV. Scott explained that, like other hotel chains, Hilton has a tiered set of brand names aimed at different kinds of travelers from luxury to economy to business. This one was in the middle — neither the most luxurious, nor the most basic.

Wherever we fall by those corporate-level distinctions, the Hilton suited us just fine, and its location at the intersection of downtown and the Atwells dining scene is ideal for an out-of-towner who wants to get out and explore Providence. The room price was $10 to $20 less than others we’d been quoted thus far for similar rooms downtown, and I like the option to park my own car.

This being the fifth hotel we'd looked at in one afternoon, we were nearly ready to lay down the credit card and actually stay for the night. No rest for the weary, though — there was one more downtown hotel to visit.

Next: Courtyard by Marriott

Providence hotels: Hotel Providence

2008-04-09T06:11:00.002-04:00

Part 4 of a series on the six downtown Providence hotels:

Is downtown — or Downcity, as promoters like to call it — ready for a “European-style boutique hotel”?
Specifically, is Mathewson Street between Westminster and Washington Streets ready for a rare bird like the lovely Hotel Providence?
The hotel's near neighbors include help centers for city indigents, a keno and lottery ticket outlet with its front window protected by a metal grate, and Kevin’s Corner Smoke Shop, boarded up and closed.

Fragments of conversations overheard on Mathewson open a window on the city's seamy side — perhaps not what those who've pulled up to have their car valet-parked might have expected.

On the Friday in March when Retired Guy and I dropped by the Hotel Providence and asked to see a room, we saw no one in the hotel except its very helpful and eager staff. The desk clerk told us that a room was available and would cost $159, adding that if we found a better offer elsewhere downtown, he might be able to match it.

The room we saw was lovely, but its windows were unusually high, offering a view only of a blank brick wall just a few feet away. The room was small and seemed even smaller because the ceiling was so high — an odd configuration that made us feel immediately claustrophobic. Probably others of the hotel’s 80 rooms and suites don’t have exactly the same non-view and cell-like dimensions, but as it is on a dark side street surrounded by other buildings, there can’t be much better scenes to look out upon than the brick wall.

The room was, however, beautifully appointed, with a gleaming modern bathroom with rainfall-type showerhead, real ceramic cups for coffee, WiFi and a big flat-screen TV. And the hotel's lobby and entrance are Old World elegant, with marble floors, gilded mirrors, Oriental carpets and French Empire-style furniture.

One can only hope that the downtown — excuse me, Downcity — "renaissance" will quickly catch up with the Hotel Providence, and that the motley crew of street types that currently make up the Mathewson/Westminster scene will find some other place to go so that this undeniably lovely small hotel will be able to find its proper clientele.

Next: the Hilton and Courtyard by Marriott hotels

Providence hotels: The Westin

2008-04-07T06:50:00.002-04:00

Part 3 in a series on the six downtown Providence hotels:

With more than 500 rooms in a pair of faux-Gothic towers that dominate the Providence skyline, the Westin was the first “luxury” hotel to be built in the city’s modern era. Unfortunately, it suffers more than it benefits from being connected to the Providence Place mall by a skybridge that provides the most direct route between old downtown and the new mall. The skybridge (which is accessed through the hotel) is used by everyone — including noisy groups of inner-city youths — to get to and from the mall from the rest of downtown.

An escalator that was added a few years ago helps to keep the mallrats out of the Westin's grand circular columned lobby, but let us say that it is not an ideal situation even so and probably contributes to what Retired Guy and I found to be a little bit of defensiveness on the part of the Westin's staff in the course of our unofficial downtown hotel survey.

The Westin was the only hotel where we were in any way discouraged from taking photographs. The bellhop who was assigned to show us a room said that not only was taking photos inside the hotel prohibited, we couldn’t even take a photo of the outside! When I reacted with incredulity to the last statement (after all, the hotel towers are part of the Providence skyline), he stood by it and said the appearance of the hotel, both inside and out, is the property of the Westin.

Whatever. . . .

Of all the hotels downtown, the Westin’s rooms were the highest priced we found. We were shown one room for $169 and another, with a lovely view of the State House, for $189. Both rooms looked comfortable in a bland modern style, but comparable rooms in other downtown hotels were going for $159 the same night.

The Westin has a great location if what you want is easy access to both the mall and downtown, but its lobby is less inviting than others we saw, being more of a showcase for people arriving and departing than a place to relax.

Next: the Hotel Providence

What to do with Shooters

2008-04-07T06:29:00.007-04:00

Anyone with an interest in Providence’s waterfront and parks was urged to attend a free workshop April 7 on the fate of the derelict building that used to house Shooters nightclub. This is the building originally called Bootleggers that had a brief heyday in the ‘80s.
The state’s Department of Transportation owns the land and the building, which is in a prime spot between what will be the new Route 195 and the India Point waterfront, with a view straight down Narragansett Bay.
A national group called Project for Public Spaces hosted the workshop.

APRIL 8 UPDATE: Click here to read the Providence Journal article about the workshop and some of the ideas for transforming the Providence waterfront that came out of it.

Providence hotels: The Renaissance

2008-04-05T07:15:00.003-04:00

Part 2 in a series on the six downtown Providence hotels:

In the previous post, Retired Guy and I looked at the oldest Providence hotel, the '20s-era Biltmore. Today we look at the newest: the Renaissance (a luxury brand of the Marriott chain). The hotel opened to great acclaim last summer in what had been a noble-looking white elephant: the Masonic Temple building between the State House and the Providence Place mall.

In its renovation, the Temple's Hellenic facade was preserved, but the interior is new, and the resulting hotel is stunning, inside and out. (It was also the busiest of all those we looked at, with a large group of "foreclosure prevention" experts from around the country checking out and another group checking in while Retired Guy and I waited to view a room.)

Actually, we were shown a couple of rooms, for $159 and $179. The additional $20 would have bought us a room with a stunning view of the State House dome. (Rooms on certain floors in the hotel look out on an ornamental balustrade, so they don't offer such a clear view beyond it.)

All the hotel staff we met seemed right on top of things and used to dealing with large numbers of check-ins and check-outs: You would have thought the place had been open far longer than a few months. The hotel's style is luxury contemporary, with the interesting twist that its interior incorporates colorful swirls of graffiti-style art. (Over the many decades that the Temple was abandoned, it was a notorious graffiti magnet.)
On the hotel's lower floor, with its own street entrance, is Temple-Downtown restaurant, which is one of the city's hot spots, with very good food and a lively bar scene.

All in all, we liked the Renaissance a lot, the only slight negative being its somewhat removed location: It's an easy walk from the hotel to the mall, but to get to the rest of downtown, you have to find your way across the worst intersection in the city, either by taking a circuitous path crossing three multi-lane highways or by finding your way over the skywalk through the Westin. Not surprisingly, the foreclosure-preventers that we talked to said that during their week-long visit, they'd seen nothing of Providence but the hotel and the mall, and had dined mostly in the mall restaurants.

Next: the Westin

Rating Providence hotels: The Biltmore

2008-04-03T12:45:00.003-04:00

Having some time on our hands on a recent Saturday, Retired Guy and I checked out the six downtown Providence hotels.

Knowing that all hotels price rooms depending on a variety of factors, we decided the fairest thing would be to just go up to each desk and say we were looking for a room for that night, which was a Friday in March, and that we'd like to view what they had available. If we needed to explain why we didn't take the room, we said that we were shopping around for his daughter's upcoming wedding — an event we're planning for, even if she and her boyfriend aren't yet.

We didn't press for any deals; we just said that we were comparison shopping and didn't want to spend more than we had to.
Despite the range of types of hotels (from business-oriented to luxury), the room prices we were quoted didn't vary all that much: $109 for the Biltmore to $169 for the Westin. At the Westin and the Renaissance, $20 more would buy us a room with a better view, and at the Biltmore, $50 more would give us a "junior suite" of two rooms, which looked like a great deal to us and at $159 was right in line with the prices we found at the other hotels for single rooms. All of the hotels add a daily parking fee of about $24.

The Biltmore is the grand old lady of the six downtown Providence hotels. (All the photos shown here are the Biltmore.) Its location is the best in the city, being right on Kennedy Plaza and within walking distance of the East Side, the mall, and Federal Hill. Its '20s-era lobby, with its sparking chandelier and glass-walled elevator, is opulent with details that can't be duplicated today. The rooms we looked at were comfortable looking and showed the character of an older hotel. The only area where the Biltmore didn't match its newer, shinier competition was in the bathrooms, which were clean but plain. For $109, we could have had a perfectly fine room, but for $159, the suite would be worth more than the difference in price.

Next: the Renaissance

Best Providence breakfasts

2008-04-03T12:12:00.005-04:00

From the pancakes with "small-batch" maple syrup at the restaurant called Temple-Downtown, to Julian Forge's creative spins on homemade hash at Julian's, find the best breakfasts in Providence in the Providence Journal today. At right: Temple dining room.

Livin' on Providence time

2008-04-01T09:20:00.002-04:00

Don't set your watch by Providence clocks.
In recent years, downtown has seen a proliferation of clocks: clocks that make artistic statements, architectural statements . . . just not statements about the time of day.
These prominent clocks were photographed within a 15 minute period one afternoon in March:

At 1:10 p.m., the Shepard clock (shown at right) was 1 hour and 15 minutes early:

At the same time, the Johnson & Wales clock (below) read 2 hours later than the actual time:

Fifteen minutes after that, the Train Station clock (below) was 5 hours and 35 minutes fast, the farthest off the real time. . . .

while, at the same time, the Waterplace clock was 4 hours and 15 minutes fast.

Note to visitors: In the best of times, Providence is either behind the times or ahead of its time — but in any case, it doesn't run like clockwork.

Got typos?

2008-03-30T07:58:00.013-04:00

Yesterday's Globe had a story about two guys who are traveling across the country on a mission to eradicate errors of spelling and grammar on signs. They started in Boston a month ago and made a big loop through the fertile typo ground of the South, fixing mistakes for free wherever they found them. This month, they're going up the West Coast, and then they'll be back in New England in late May.

I applaud them and only hope they'll visit Rhode Island on the return trip since they bypassed us on the way out. Perhaps they felt the smallest state was too large a task to take on right out of the starting gate?

We have a lot of problems here, although one that used to give me a headache has been fixed. That was the sign on a bicycle shop on the East Bay Bike Path that said: "Your on the right path with us!" But there are many more, such as the sign outside the Italian market on Federal Hill that announces they have "Delicasies." Crescent Park signs are always being spelled "Cresent," and, well, the list goes on and on.

Readers, please send in here any nominees you've spotted, and I'll send a compilation of your requests to these guys, who call themselves TEAL, the Typo Eradication Advancement League. Their web site and blog are illuminating, allowing readers to follow them on their nonjudgmental journey—

"to stamp out as many typos as we can find, in public signage and other venues where innocent eyes may be befouled by vile stains on the delicate fabric of our language. We do not blame, nor chastise, the authors of these typos. It is natural for mistakes to occur; everybody will slip now and again. But slowly the once-unassailable foundations of spelling are crumbling, and the time has come for the crisis to be addressed."

I'd just like to suggest that once they've corrected all the country's signs, they might take a look at menu misspellings (Caesar salad and arugula seem to be perpetual challenges) and song lyrics. Can anyone listen to Paolo Nutini's "Last Request" without cringing? Hey, Paolo— You're cute, but why would she lie down next to someone so grammatically challenged as to say Lay instead of Lie?)

Wrap v. Crepe

2008-03-29T07:22:00.017-04:00

I don't like wraps. I guess other people must, because wraps are everywhere — wrapping ham and Swiss that would be better between two slices of good soft bread, wrapping eggs and bacon for breakfast. . . Just about anywhere you go to order a sandwich, you are told that you can have a wrap instead. I guess the idea is that the wrap material, whatever it is, is so hard and stiff that you can eat while driving. Wonderful, except that it's like eating cardboard. Give me a warm soft crepe any day over a wrap.

In this country, people seem to think of crepes only in terms of the flaming dessert Crepes Suzette, served at fancy French restaurants. But in France crepes are eaten for a quick breakfast or lunch snack, from Mama et Papa cafes or even from street stands where the crepes are made fresh while you watch.

Crepes may be either sweet, as in topped with ice cream or Nutella or jam — or savory, as in filled with ham and cheese, or even a warm egg for breakfast.

In Providence, there are two places where you can get good crepes for breakfast: the Rue de l'Espoir on Hope Street, and the Creperie, which is a little hole-in-the-wall on Fones Alley, just off Thayer Street.
The Rue (shown here in an illustration from its web site) is a bistro-style restaurant that has been an East Side favorite for more than 30 years. You can get a bacon, egg, and cheese crepe (as shown in the top photo here), or a number of sweet crepes.

The Creperie is more of a student hangout, open from 10 a.m. to midnight or later every day. There are only a few stools inside, but the crepes are authentically French, available in dozens of varieties (above, in photo), and you can watch them being made while you wait.

Read more about Providence breakfast places in the Providence Journal's Weekend section this Thursday.

My Blogger/My Self: YES Gallery in Warren

2008-03-28T07:47:00.013-04:00

One of those things happened the other day that can only make me believe in cosmic karma. Walking along Water Street in Warren enroute to the Nat for dinner, I remarked to Retired Guy that I've always been fascinated by the little building you'll see pictured at right. Just at that moment, two young women were unlocking its front door. Upon engaging them in conversation about the building, we learned first: that one of them was Leigh Medeiros and that she plans to live upstairs and open the building's first floor as an art gallery. And second: that this is the same Leigh Medeiros who, from 2005 to 2007, wrote a Rhode Island blog for the Boston Globe's Explore New England online travel guide. (There's a link to it in the sidebar at left).

Now, as a new Rhode Island blogger myself, I have naturally bumped into some of Leigh's lively and engaging writings about the state in the course of Googling around. I'd noticed that her last post was in September, when she signed off with a brave hail-and-farewell message to her readers — and then dropped off the Internet altogether. I'd wondered who she was, where she lived, why she'd ceased blogging about Rhode Island. (It turns out that the Globe, in its cost-cutting wisdom, decided to use its own Boston staffers instead of paying a Rhode Island stringer to write about the distant outpost of Rhode Island.)

Well! once she knew what I was about, we greeted each other like the lone two members of the same club. Talk about a fateful meeting! If I'd tried to find her, I probably wouldn't have been able to. Anyway, Leigh's gallery venture is to be called Yes, it is in the little building at 146 Water St. in Warren that she explained had once been the studio of author/illustrator David Macaulay. There's to be a soft opening April 4, and an official one a week later, on the 11th. Everyone's invited to come. When I went back to take a picture, I couldn't help but notice the bumper sticker on her little green Honda:

"You May Say I'm a Dreamer, But I'm Not the Only One."

YES, indeed.

Warming strikes the Coffee Exchange deck

2008-03-27T07:27:00.011-04:00

Yesterday — the first really warm day of spring around here — all the newspapers were full of gloom and doom: "Global Warming Cracks Antarctic Ice Shelf." (Buried way down in the story was the fact that this shelf sticks out from the rest of the ice pack, which is actually growing in size.) The folks reading the report from the sunny deck of the Coffee Exchange on Wickenden Street in Providence appeared to take the news in stride.

Here in sunny Providence, at least, we had a really nice day. (The same date reached 75 degrees in 1922 in Providence, and 10 in 1960.) It's called the weather, and we might as well enjoy it while it lasts.

Next week is expected to be in the 20s around here. I don't know about Antarctica.

OMG! "Sudden cold snap theatens apple crop" headlines ahead. LOL.

Two-for-one at the new Nat Porter

2008-03-26T08:42:00.008-04:00

For those of us who dine out a lot, tax season is a sobering time. Seeing all those restaurant amounts neatly toted up in the 12-month credit card statement makes you all too aware of what else you might have done with all those dollars.
A few weeks ago, Retired Guy and I resolved to eat in more, and we've been pretty good about it — so good that last night we decided we deserved a meal out. I recalled that the new Nat Porter in Warren was offering a variety of specials, including 2-for-1 entrees Sundays through Tuesdays from 4 to 6 p.m. We squeaked in just under the wire, about 5:58, but the waiter said we were good for it.

The Nat has always been a beautiful place, an elegant restaurant in a Colonial-era captain's house on Water Street in Warren. A pair of youthful owners called quits on the place last summer after a three-year stint that was marked by some highs and some lows, but new owners took it over last fall. Their new menu shows a little more Italian influence than the old one did, but there's a nice variety, with most entrees priced from $17 to $26. We were well satisfied by grilled pork loin with sauteed apples and mashed sweet potato for $17 for both us (2-for-1), a glass of Shiraz for $5 and an apple and gorgonzola salad split between us for $4. Even with dessert (carrot cake, $6) and a Cosmopolitan for me ($8), our pre-tip bill was just $44.
The place was lovely, the service perfect, the background music a Sirius Coffeehouse mix — altogether, just the sort of tax-season economizing I favor.

Nat Porter, 125 Water St., Warren. (401) 289-0373. On Wednesdays through April, $36 dinner for two includes bottle of wine and live music beginning at 9 p.m.

Opening Day: Somerset Creamery

2008-03-24T17:45:00.014-04:00

For fans of the homemade ice cream at Somerset Creamery, today was Opening Day — the first day you could get a cone since the '07 season ended in October. You didn't have to buy tickets; you just had to have seen the sign by the side of Route 6 last week announcing the Mar. 24 home opener.

And while I wouldn't say that the stands were packed shortly after the OPEN sign was lit at noon, die-hard members of Somerset Nation were there, greeting each other and owner Carolyn Berube, congratulating themselves on having survived the winter, and taking a few moments to contemplate the list of flavors, savoring familiar names like Cranberry Bog, Mocha Chip, Ginger, Grape Nut, and a rookie, Lemon, that already looks like a good prospect.

Everyone looked happy. And why not? While Red Sox Nation can only hope for a great season, Somerset Nation knows it will be — right up till Columbus weekend.

Bristol's Blithewold: 'Happy Woodland'

2008-03-23T07:08:00.017-04:00

In this not-quite-winter, not-quite-spring interval, Bristol is the perfect destination for a day-trip. Its harbor being half-way down Narragansett Bay, the town has waterfront without actually being on the ocean, where late March is one of the rawest times of the year.
First stop: Blithewold, just to see what's poking up at the mansion's 33-acre waterfront grounds. Of course, it's too soon to see the famous daffodils in bloom. But the green clumps of their spiky leaves are there, promising a bright yellow carpet in two or three weeks. (Daffodil Days this year are Apr. 12 to May 4.)

The Moon Garden on the mansion's south side is where the most blooming flowers are right now: miniature daffodils nodding above brown leaves, purple crocus, pale yellow Helleborus and white snowdrops.

Marjorie Lyon, the grande dame who left her family's Tudor mansion and beloved gardens (her 'Happy Woodland," Blithewold) to the public, would be pleased to see how good it looks — the 1901 greenhouse restored, the cutting garden ready for a new season, and the Water Garden serene with its arched stone bridge and still-leafless Japanese maple looking sculptural on its own islet in the middle of the gurgling pond.

The mansion will not open until mid-April, but people can stroll the grounds year-round. There's an honor box for donations to help support Blithewold for future generations to enjoy.

Thayer Street revisited

2008-03-22T09:05:00.001-04:00

A new generation of Brown University students crops up every four years, so the quarter-mile stretch of Thayer Street that is the campus's commercial heart is an always-evolving mirror of the fickle culture of youth.

I first laid eyes on the street as a high school sophomore, back in the days when Ladd's Music had the White Album, Jone Pasha's was where you went to get your flower-child dresses, Rascal House was where everyone went after last call, and IHOP was where to go for pancakes the morning after.
At that time, the older generation still had Thayer Market for carriage-trade groceries, E.P. Anthony pharmacy, Mills Sisters for dresses, Mark David for men's suits, Ms for hostess gifts, and Clarke's for flowers.

These days, Thayer is all about youth. People who remember it as it used to be are always wringing their hands, saying the street has become too punk or too full of motorcyclists and panhandlers. But there is no denying that it is one of the busiest streets in all of Providence. There is always foot traffic on Thayer, from early morning to the wee hours of the next day.

I took a stroll along Thayer recently, walking north from the corner of Waterman Street up to Cushing Street, just to look at what's there right now. Leaving out services like banks, salons and optometrists, here's what's on Thayer today:

First block: Cold Stone Creamery, Starbucks. Other side: Yang's (Asian gifts and T shirts) and Foreign Affair (Euro clothing).
Second block: Viva Paragon restaurant. Other side: Au Bon Pain cafe, Pie in the Sky (jewelry and gifts), Juniper frozen yogurt, and Tealuxe tea shop.
Third block: Brown Bookstore. Other side: Roba Dolce (gelato), Geoff's (sandwiches).
Fourth block: Spectrum (Indian clothing and gifts), Gordito Burrito (Mexican food), Antonio's Pizza, the Avon Cinema, Andrea's (Greek restaurant). Other side: Kabob & Curry (Indian food), Nice Slice pizza, Rock Star (body piercing), Johnny Rockets ('50s-theme restaurant).
Fifth block: Berk's (shoes), Shanghai (Chinese restaurant), Blaze (fusion restaurant), East Side Pockets (Middle Eastern), Kartabar restaurant/bar, ZuZu's Petals (dresses), Bagel Gourmet, J&J's Candy, Beadworks, Second Time Around (consignments). Other side: City Sports, Spike's (hotdogs), Shark (sushi, coming soon), Details (accessories), Army & Navy Surplus, Shades Plus (sunglasses), Sushi Xpress, Urban Outfitters (clothes and dorm stuff). At the corner of the last block is Blue State Coffee.

That's 24 restaurants and 16 stores, plus a movie theater and services like CVS and Store 24 all in five short blocks of one street. No wonder Thayer so busy it's hard to find a place to park nearby: No other street in Providence is that densely packed with stuff to buy and do.

Because the street is such a reflection of its times, revisiting it can make you feel your age. Of all the places listed here, only the Avon, Andrea's and Spectrum remain from 1968, and Spectrum is in a different building.

IN THE PHOTOS , Tealuxe (in the curved-front brick building) is where Mills Sisters dress shop used to be, and Roba Dolce is in the Tudor-style E.P. Anthony Drugs building at right.

Spring perspective: Prospect Terrace

2008-03-20T07:33:00.016-04:00

Spring 2008 arrived this morning at 2:05, but you wouldn't know it by the weather. A light rain is falling with a heavy overcast and a temperature of 42.
But just a couple of evenings ago, you could feel the spring coming from the pretty East Side overlook park called Prospect Terrace, where this couple sat watching the sun set from the best perch in the city: a park bench near the towering statue of Providence founder Roger Williams, watching over the city he started in 1636 at the base of this hill.

Probably even at that time, courting couples came to this spot to look out over the Great Cove of Providence, now covered by all those downtown buildings in the space between the State House (which was built atop a small hill that jutted into the north side of the Cove) and the turreted Industrial Trust tower, which sits on land that was at the southern shore of the Cove.

Just about a block in length, Prospect Terrace is located at the intersection of Cushing and Congdon Streets in a lovely residential area of the East Side. Anyone who has lived in Providence for any length of time feels nostalgic here, remembering long-ago people and long-ago times in the city that Williams named for "God's merciful providence" to him and his followers in their time of distress. (He had been banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony for holding "diverse, new, and dangerous opinions" challenging church-run government.)

Prospect Terrace is an easy walk from the Brown University campus and the East Side. From downtown, walk up steep Thomas Street next to the First Baptist Church in America, and turn left at Congdon.

Tribal breakfasts II: Nicks

2008-03-19T07:25:00.011-04:00

Nicks on Broadway has been a foodie-favorite on Broadway for nearly a decade, always earning raves from the local press and always packed with a hip-looking crowd, a loyal cadre who followed chef/owner Derek Wagner to his present location (in 2006), which is several blocks closer to Olneyville than his original spot on Broadway was.
This is a tribe that loves to tell you that Nick is not Derek's name — it was the name on the real workingman's diner that used to be at the restaurant's first location. And they leap to correct you when you spell Nick's with an apostrophe, which it doesn't have, apparently just to be alternative.

Open for breakfast daily except Mondays and Tuesdays (from 7 a.m., except 8 on Sundays), Nicks has been crowded since it opened and is even more crowded now that it's so much larger. This was the case even during the several-month period last year after the restaurant had moved but didn't yet have its sign up. If you dine out a lot around Providence, you're bound to see people you know at Nicks, maybe even some that you saw dining out the night before.

But more and more, I'm hearing from people that they don't go to Nicks anymore, because it's just too crowded, too noisy, and too expensive. A cup of coffee for $3? Breakfast for two (not brunch, mind you, this is basically eggs, bacon, toast and homefries) for close to $30 with tip?
Last time Retired Guy and I went to Nicks, we were seated elbow-to-elbow with two people who were discussing the intimate details of a loved one's cancer treatment. Our tables were touching, so there was no way that the two of us could avoid feeling like intruders in what should have been a personal conversation.
Every table and counter stool is always occupied at Nicks. On a previous visit, we had been seated at a high table that was squished between the front glass window and the line of people waiting for a table, their elbows continually brushing us.

One of the things I liked about the old Nicks was the easy friendliness of Wagner and the other chefs as they worked the grill just behind the counter. He'd make you an omelet, or mix you up a yogurt parfait, based on ingredients he knew you liked. Back then, you really felt as if you were part of the neighborhood crowd. Now, the grill is so far removed from the counter and the place is so much larger that you never get a chance even to say hello to anyone. I don't recognize the waitstaff and I don't know who's cooking. To paraphrase the famous Yogi Berra line: "Nobody goes there anymore: It's too crowded."

Tribal breakfasts: Louie's

2008-03-18T07:34:00.014-04:00

Whenever I've written about Providence breakfast places, someone tells me I've left out Louis, or Louie's, which is at 286 Brook Street one street over from the Brown University campus. So yesterday I went there again, just to be sure I hadn't missed something. At 10:30 a.m. on a Monday, the place was packed with college students who looked as if they'd just rolled out of bed. One young woman continued a lively discussion with five of her tablemates while she got up to do some yoga stretches in the cramped space between tables. She was wearing that beatific smile common to yoga-people and seemed blithely unconcerned that she was getting in the way of the busy waitress. The background soundtrack seemed to be an Ethel Merman medley, and the students were talking over it as loudly as if they had earbuds in.

Perhaps the secret of its obvious popularity is that Louie's is a no-frills diner-type of place that attracts a mix of tribes that you don't often see together: blue-collar workers and students. Specials include "Barack Your World and Hillary's Delicious Soup," Edamame Xanadu, and plain old Number 2, which is two eggs, bacon, hash browns and a pancake ($5.95).
It's a place where the parking-enforcement guy or campus maintenance man feels just as comfortable as the sociology professor does. You can get breakfast for a few bucks every day of the week, all day, 5 a.m. to 3 p.m.

But as before, I found nothing special about Louie's food. The pancake was fat and flabby with no particular flavor, and when I asked if there was any real maple syrup, the waitress, who was wearing camouflage sweatpants, gestured silently to a plastic bottle of no-name kiddie syrup that was already sitting on the table.

At breakfast time, in particular, people like to be with members of their own tribe, whatever it is: College student or workingman, foodie snob, business-person or mom with stroller. From the number of people that go to Louie's, it's clear that it's a favorite of more than one tribe.

More on Providence breakfasts tomorrow.

Place of Good Lunch: Au Bon Pain

2008-03-17T08:16:00.011-04:00

In a recent post, I complained of the lack of good deli-style lunch places in downtown Providence. I said that I miss Mark's Deli, which used to be at the corner of Washington Street and Union. News travels fast in the blogosphere — ask and you shall receive. And so in short order I have this update to offer: Try Au Bon Pain in the Bank of America building on lower Westminster, across from the old Arcade. I had completely forgotten about it.

In French, Au Bon Pain means something like "place of good bread," but there is much more than bread at this high-quality Parisian-inspired cafeteria chain that was started by Bostonian Louis Kane in 1978. There's a great sandwich selection, and they build them behind the glass case while you watch. There's also a salad bar full of fresh and good-looking selections, several soups, and of course, good French and other types of bread, as well as pastries.
When I was there the other day, they were passing around samples of fruit smoothies and sandwich bites of chicken, pesto and roasted red peppers on ciabatta bread. Everyone was helpful and friendly, and the place was immaculate and bright with its big windows facing south across Westminster. You can eat in the cafe or just outside it in the atrium, where many downtown types were picnicking at green garden tables under towering palm fronds.

More on Mark's: A reader left a Comment on the Missing Mark's post of Mar. 4, reminding me that some of the deli's specialty sandwiches were named for celebrities and locals, like the Suzy Cute (for Susan Farmer, who then ran Channel 36), the Larry Bird (turkey), and her favorite and mine, Jaws (tuna with bacon and cheese). Of course, since the deli is gone, it's all just nostalgia, but you can find Mark's complete menu still on the Web at MenuPix.

Greenhouse effects: The Botanical Center

2008-03-16T08:41:00.016-04:00

With ski season skidding to a halt in New Hampshire and reports drifting in of "wet snow," "loose granular," and the dreaded FLG ("frozen loose granular") conditions up there, we're sticking around home more on the the weekends. Yesterday I decided to check out the Roger Williams Park Botanical Center on Elmwood Avenue in Providence.
Opened just a year ago and billed as "the largest indoor garden in New England," the center is far more modest in scale than original visions called for, back in those heady economic times when the expansion of the old Smith Greenhouses in the park was first floated.

Basically, the Center is three large greenhouse garden rooms planted with tropicals and exotics arranged attractively around fountains, walkways, pools and stonework arches. There's a rock pond full of brilliant orange carp, and special displays are devoted to carnivorous plants and orchids. Admission is $3.
As soon as you enter, your glasses fog up to let you know you've entered a different climatic zone, one that's warm, green, and humid, with no FLG in sight.

Yesterday, dozens of members of two photography clubs were busy setting up tripods and cameras to practice their technique. A bunch of the guys were hoping to catch a Venus Fly Trap or Pitcher Plant in the act of cannibalizing a bug, but it looked to me as if it would be a long wait for an action shot like that.

If you like indoor gardens, check out two of the best in New England: The Lyman Estate Greenhouses in Waltham, Mass. and the indoor courtyard of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston.

Bad boys: Whatcha gonna do?

2008-03-15T06:15:00.008-04:00

Yesterday was a fine day for strolling around Providence, and as Retired Guy and I headed into the free-for-all intersection that separates the mall from downtown, there before us was one of the city's finest, sitting alert but relaxed astride a police edition, V Twin, 103 cubic inch, 1690 cc Harley-Davidson Road King motorcycle, shiny black like his leather jacket, boots and helmet.
Eddie Malloy has been a Providence cop for 20 years, a motorcycle officer for many of them, and he loves his bike. Now, chatting about the absolute craziness of the intersection we were waiting to cross, we all saw a gang of saggy-pants youths cavorting merrily across eight lanes of exiting Interstate traffic. The kids were heading into downtown.
Malloy gave them a perfunctory bleep on his siren, but they ignored it.
"See?" we all said, shaking our heads. "No respect."
"You know, it's just like Martin Luther King said," added Malloy— "It's not the color of a man's skin; it's the content of his character."
He had just two minutes left on his shift.

Then, just like that, he gets a message on his radio that there had been a robbery in the mall — a cell phone stolen by a gang of saggy-pants youths.
"You can't outrun the radio!" says Malloy, revving up the Harley and turning on his siren to officially part the Red Sea of the city's certified-insane intersection.

We had been heading to the Biltmore anyway. Just as we got there, there was Malloy, along with a member of the mounted command, a detective, a park ranger and a couple of other cops. They already had two Saggy Pants in the patrol car and were waiting for a female cop to arrive to pat down a girl who'd been one of the group.
It appeared, Malloy told us, that she had just been hanging around them and wouldn't be charged.

"Look at that," he was telling us and the detective (while behind his back one of the other cops scooped up a pile that the horse had left and pretended to drop it near the Harley) — "Two arrests in two minutes with no paperwork."
Then Malloy got back on his bike and drove off home.

There are eight million stories in the Naked City. This has been one of them.

See motorcycles like Malloy's at special event nights held at Ocean State Harley Davidson in Warwick.

Restaurant shakedown

2008-03-14T06:30:00.001-04:00

Rumors are flying that several high-profile Providence restaurants are soon to close. Following the announcement last week that long-established Raphael's was closing its doors, this spreads something of a chill around the city's dining scene, which has been touted for so long, to the point of overload.
The news doesn't come as much of a surprise to those of us who have looked in restaurant windows, or sat inside, and seen in some cases more waiters waiting than diners dining.
Sure, part of it might be that when the economy sours, people don't dine out as much. But I suspect that a larger factor is that a city the size of Providence simply can't sustain the number of expensive and trendy restaurants that have opened here in the last few years. It was a bubble that was going to burst, and it did, right after Christmas.
In the past week or so, I've heard rumors of closure about Ruth's Chris Steakhouse, open barely a year, L'Epicureo in the Hotel Providence, and now Mills Tavern, which recently received a top rating in the Mobil Guide.

If the rumors are true, it's sad to see an owner's dream die, and it will be hard for the people who work there. But the truth is, the field has become too crowded, and that's when — just as on all those reality TV shows — somebody's not going to be there next week. Stay tuned for more.

Great expectations: Dining at the Z

2008-03-14T03:32:00.017-04:00

Recently we went back to Z Bar, the Wickenden Street restaurant that is on my short list of places to eat and drink in Providence.
I just deleted the word great in there, because that might be overstating the case, unless you mean by it (as I do) that Z Bar has consistently met or exceeded my expectations over many years.
There are many restaurants in Providence where you can spend a lot more on dinner in the expectation that they will absolutely slay you with flash and dash and (maybe) great-tasting food. (The recently opened Chinese Laundry leaps to mind.) But more often than not, such places will disappoint you. A year later, they will be last year's big thing, and then they die. Remember Empire? Kestral? Lot 401?

Or, in another scenario, it might be that a restaurant does have really spectacular food that is so expensive that people only go there for special occasions a few times a year. So the place goes into an embarrassing and sometimes prolonged period of decline and then dies, as Raphael's Bar-Risto did (Mar. 9).

Interestingly, Z Bar doesn't even have a website — and that in itself says a lot. (Some restaurants have such impressive websites that you wonder how much time is being spent on the food.) Here's what we had to eat there the other night: A three-course prix fixe special of a satisfying roast-chicken-and-white-bean minestrone served in a wide flat bowl, a salmon filet sauteed in an herbed beurre blanc sauce, and a wedge of chocolate mousse with raspberry coulis (that's sauce, only more intense and less of it.) Three courses for $19, and not a disappointing note among them.
For $17, we had a petite filet of beef in a cabernet demi-glace, with mashed potatoes and perfectly cooked whole green beans. Glasses of a perfectly serviceable Australian Shiraz were $6.25.
Sure, a Cosmo was $10.25, but I didn't have to have one, did I?
If I hadn't had it, dinner for two with wine would have been $48.50 before tax and tip. Hot slices of fresh Portuguese bread as soon as we'd sat down in our prime corner windowseat, a lively (and somewhat loud) bar scene, warm colors, and the solicitous attention of longtime waiter Paul.
Rate that a great restaurant? Well, yes, I guess I do.

Z Bar and Grille, 244 Wickenden St., Providence. (401) 831-1566. Open daily for lunch and dinner. Reservations only for parties of 6 or more.

SOLD! in Portsmouth: Auctioning art and antiques

2008-03-13T07:41:00.014-04:00

Ever wonder where dealers go to get the antique paintings, silver, furniture and artifacts they sell in their stores?
They go to auctions like those held about once a month at the Portsmouth, RI auction gallery run by auctioneer-extraordinaire Mike Corcoran. (You can find a list of upcoming auctions all over New England at Antiques and the Arts online.)
Even if you don't buy anything, you'll learn a lot about what things are worth by going to an auction — and if you go to one of Corcoran's, you'll be entertained as well. At yesterday's auction of estate items, you would have learned that your great-grandmother's long-handled brass bed-warmer isn't worth much more than 50 bucks — and that a 1920s California landscape painting by Maurice Braun would draw rapid-fire phone bids from California art galleries topping off at $34,000.
In between, there was plenty of action in the $500 to $5,000 range as Corcoran entertained the crowd with the antics they've come to see. Every once in a while, he draws gasps by lobbing a just-sold vase or cloisonnee dish to sidekick "Murph." At one point during yesterday's show, he removed a tiny fig leaf from the front of a bronze male nude: "Spitzer last week. . . Spitzer today!"
When a beautifully carved wooden music box came up for bid, he lifted the lid so the audience could hear it play a tinkling waltz. Then, calling one of the women in the crowd to join him, he took her for a little spin, saying in a broad aside to the audience, "When the moment is right, will you be ready?"

Emperor's night out in Providence: Tazza blues

2008-03-12T07:15:00.026-04:00

Is there in fact any live music on a Tuesday night in March in the Great Metropolis of Providence?
That was the question.
Normally, it would not be possible for me to even contemplate staying up late enough to find out the answer. But this week, with the time having sprung ahead and the weather clear and fine, I was ready to dance at (drum roll, please) 9:30 p.m. The only hurdle to actually going out at that hour was rousing Retired Guy from his comfortably horizontal position on the sofa, where he had been happily watching non-stop TV coverage of La Scandale Spitzer — or, en espanol, Escandolo.

But somewhat reluctantly, he did accept, after it was pointed out to him that while the Governor of New York would have had to pay more than $4,000 for a night on the town with an elegant, educated, 3- or maybe even 4-diamond companion, he — the Emperor of Providence — would be getting it for free.

We found a parking spot without any problem, and — and this would prove to be the highlight of the evening — spotted a Mini Cooper in the new Nightfire red color, which we decided was far superior to the old Chili red, which seems — to me, at least — to scream "mid-life crisis."
Then we entered Tazza, the artsy and contemporary cafe-cum-coffeehouse where (I had noted on a lunch-time walk about town) Tuesday is Blues Night.

Well! It turned out to be a free open mike type of thing, rather than an actual band. The gray-bearded man who was playing some kind of noise on an incredibly jangling stringed instrument had it so close to the microphone that it actually hurt my left ear. RG immediately turned off his hearing aid, which solved the matter for him, but we obviously had to leave having barely removed our coats.
Still not sleepy after we got home, I went to the internet to google "eardrum damage" while the Emperor of Providence returned to his couch and TV, where David Letterman (looking considerably grayer than he had when I'd last stayed up to watch the Late Show) was delivering the "Top Ten Messages Left on Eliot Spitzer's Answering Machine."

Did Spitzer have to deal with bad music and acoustic injuries to timpanic membranes while entertaining his glittering girlfriends at the Mayflower Hotel?
I think not. But then, you get what you pay for, don't you?

Boys' toys in Foxboro: Bass Pro Shops

2008-03-11T07:17:00.014-04:00

It doesn't ever take much convincing to get RG to drive up to Foxboro for some shopping. That's because Patriots' owner Bob Kraft's "Guy Mall" — now taking shape around Gillette Stadium — already includes a superstore that exerts the same attraction to men as a salt lick does to deer.
Bass Pro Shops Outdoor World is unlike any other store you've ever been to, as much about entertainment and lifestyle as it is about actually selling stuff. You see men in workboots and NASCAR jackets pushing around carts in a happy trance, and to tell the truth, it's almost as much fun for women.
The store celebrates the rugged outdoor world of hunting and fishing and sells the infinite variety of accouterments needed to pursue both. You can buy everything from a bass fishing boat to a set of plaster casts that let you tell the age of a deer by its teeth. A motion-detecting night camera lets you capture on film a fisher cat or an owl that passes by its lens. Tents, truck boxes, duck blinds, gas grills, water toys, lodge-style furniture, fish-finders, GPS, binoculars, bait, ATVs, camouflage clothing, fluorescent orange clothing, camouflage make-up and, yes, camouflage make-up remover pads.
It's all there, laid out on two floors decorated with hundreds of taxidermy specimens of moose standing in a rock-lined pool, deer leaping over the water with wolves in pursuit, bears, foxes, wild turkeys, pheasants. . . . An indoor trout stream plunges into a 30,000-gallon glass-walled aquarium where you can see real trout, bass, and catfish swimming. All over the store, animal and bird calls punctuate the background noise of rushing water or rustling leaves. A wall of windows invites you to lounge in big leather club chairs and look out upon a pond and cranberry bog populated with statues of Big Horn Sheep and other critters that you can spot through sample scopes. There's a nice restaurant for lunch that includes a Wild West-style antique bar that's always lined with rear views of men in truckers' caps or suits talking "guy" to each other.
And then there are the arcades: A shooting gallery lets you knock over varmints and set a barn door swinging to reveal a growling bear. A laser arcade sets up interactive images of bounding deer or scattering doves that you knock down with your rifle.

Our excuse for going had been to find a pair of duck shoes, which we did. But you know how guys are with shopping: We ended up spending the whole afternoon.

Phantom dining Downcity

2008-03-10T08:43:00.011-04:00

Going out for breakfast seemed like a great idea yesterday after Retired Guy finished stacking his pine logs and I figured out how to reset the clocks on all the electronics. RG has his rituals, and it's not easy to talk him out of going local for the first meal of the day, but he agreed to drive into the Great Metropolis to try Downcity.
I must have eaten breakfast at the original Downcity a hundred times before it burned down, back when it had different owners and was located a few blocks west on Weybosset, opposite from Johnson & Wales - or, in Rhode Islandese - where the Outlet used to be. Back then, DC had the best breakfast around.
But soon after DC reopened in its new location about a year ago, I went with a friend and was impressed only by its stylish new look, the service being the biggest negative.
Now I had a feeling of deja vu as the same expressionless waiter seated RG and me at the same table I'd had before and left us there with drinks menus but no breakfast menus. After a few minutes, I went up to the bar to ask for menus. "They're on the table," the woman bartender said. I went back and looked again. "Those are drinks menus," I went back to explain to her. "We'd like to order some food."
"The menus are on the back of the placemats," she snapped, as if I were a fool not to think of picking up and turning over my laminated placemat!
Well, it went downhill from there. We last saw the waiter rubbing a waitress's shoulders at the bar and showing no sign of returning to us at all.
So we left. I'm one diner who never hesitates to bail when the winds whisper, "Bad dining experience dead ahead."
But by now we were really hungry. With the time change, it was an hour later than our stomachs told us it was, and every foodie-favorite breakfast place in Providence had a line outside its door. There was nothing for it but to join the masses at Bickford's in Seekonk, proving RG right that there's no place for breakfast like close to home. There were maybe a dozen people waiting in a comfortable area inside the door, but the place is so big and so efficient that we waited no more than five or ten minutes to be seated at a window booth.
Bang! there was the smiling waitress with our coffee, and Bang! RG was off to the $11 all-you-can-eat brunch buffet. His take is pictured below, topped with a pair of chocolate-covered strawberries that he smuggled to me. I ordered from the menu: eggs over hard, crisp bacon, and a waffle ($5.99) with real maple syrup for another $2.
It wasn't the best breakfast I've had, but it wasn't bad. And certainly it put a great big smile on RG's face. He just loves being proved right.

Wild night

2008-03-09T09:41:00.012-04:00

Here on the pine plantation, we measure windstorms by the number of pine limbs downed in back of the house. Last night was pretty wild, but it was only a Two Limb Night, thank goodness. Such nights always remind me of a gravestone I once saw in an old Rhode Island cemetery on which was written "Kill'd By a Pine Tree."
Living as close to 100-foot pine trees as I do, it kind of makes you appreciate every day.
Retired Guy has already got out the chainsaw and is busy cutting up the morning's bounty for next year's firewood, making lemonade out of pine limbs, I guess you might say.

Border crossing to Connecticut: Logee's Greenhouse

2008-03-08T09:44:00.015-05:00

Retired Guy and I took the TomTom over the border into Connecticut yesterday, in part to see how the little guy did in a strange country and in part to visit the tropical landscape inside the Big House greenhouse of Logee's in Danielson. A family business since 1892, Logee's is an institution in the plant world, specializing in indoor tropicals, many of them grafted from stock that's more than 100 years old. The most famous of these is a 108-year-old Ponderosa lemon tree that grows 5-pound lemons the size of footballs.
We weren't buying, just looking and drinking in the fragrant humidity in anticipation of spring. The jasmine was in full bloom, the tree camellias were showing a last burst of color, and the hibiscus shown here looked luscious enough to eat. We chatted with owner Byron Martin, third generation of the Logees to carry on the business, and noted he had not only a green thumb but a green forefinger, these he said, an occupational hazard from the dyes in the fertilizer he had been using.

Oh, and TomTom did just great, getting us from Providence to Danielson in about a half an hour. Next, we challenged him with a detour to East Hartford, but more on that later.

Providence after dark: Drinks at Temple bar

2008-03-07T07:50:00.014-05:00

Night out last night with Charlie, sipping an espresso martini (he a Manhattan) at the bar at Temple, the excellent restaurant downstairs in the new Renaissance Hotel across from the State House. Providence was looking good, and so was Charlie, tanned from a vacation in Puerta Vallarta and singing the praises of a great restaurant he found there. Boca Bento, he told me, was so good he ate there three times solo and was introduced to the chef, who seemed to think Charlie might be a restaurant scout of some kind. (He does sometimes review Rhode Island restaurants with me.)
Charlie has owned a restaurant in the South End in Boston, knows a lot about food, and he said the food in general in PV was superb. "When you find a place that can give you french fries that are so hot and so good you want to eat them even if they'll burn your mouth, that's a great restaurant!"
Temple was pretty hot, too. We shared a pair of "Snacks" from the menu: mini lobster rolls, which were loaded with chunked fresh lobster meat, and a fat crab cake coated with crumbed pretzel. The place looked incredibly chic and was busy but not so busy that you couldn't have a great conversation at the bar, something it's hard not to do with Charlie anyway.

Getting there from here

2008-03-06T15:21:00.012-05:00

Ever since the DOT closed the Gano Street on-ramp to Route 195 East what seems like a hundred years ago (it really was in June 2003), every trip from the East Side to all points east has contained a "Shit!" moment. That's the moment when you remember that you can't get there from here without choosing one of two evils: Either follow the convolutions of the "detour" over the Henderson Bridge and through the traffic-clogged intersections around Broadway and Warren Avenue, or drive out of your way westward all the way down busy Wickenden Street and wait at the traffic signal to turn left and onto the ramp there. Just recently, mind you, that on-ramp was moved, so that you now have to make a longer loop around a derelict section of India Point waterfront, then following a half-mile line of orange traffic cones to finally get on 195 going east.
What gives? Will we ever get back the ease of the Gano Street East on-ramp?
Yes and no, DOT spokesman Charles St. Martin tells me. This summer (!), DOT expects to have in place an on-ramp that will be only slightly less convenient than the original. You'll come down Gano, go under the highway, loop around the Radisson Hotel and continue heading west (opposite from the direction you want to go) to the Wickenden Street on-ramp.
So maybe sometime this summer we'll be saying "Damn!" instead of "Shit!"
I guess you could call that a highway improvement.

Lorraine but no Marilyn

2008-03-05T19:56:00.010-05:00

I had been meaning to get up to Lorraine's in Pawtucket to try to get some more of an upholstery fabric that I didn't buy enough of in November. I just wanted to have a little extra on hand as insurance in the event of some unexpected upholstery disaster. When I got there, Marilyn was gone. "Is Marilyn around?" I asked, thinking she might be at lunch, though she never had been before. "No, she's been gone since right after Christmas," said the very nice woman occupying Marilyn's accustomed spot at the cutting table. "She retired."
Everyone around began recalling Marilyn stories. No one seemed able to believe she'd retired at 77, after 29 years at Lorraine's.

She was a pistol, all right. Didn't suffer fools and could tell you from a 2-inch swatch where the bolt was it came from. Told one guy he'd gained weight and should lose it. Told me in November I should buy the rest of the bolt because I wouldn't see it again. Did I listen? No. And now the bolt was out of stock and so was Marilyn.

Missing Mark's Deli

2008-03-04T17:48:00.013-05:00

For such an up-and-coming "Renaissance City," Providence has remarkably few places to just get a quick sandwich downtown. Lately, I've been missing Mark's Deli, which used to be at the corner of Union and Washington Streets, behind the Biltmore, and was a convenient place to pop in for an egg sandwich (around 99 cents) up till 11 a.m., or any kind of deli sandwich you wanted till around 3:30. Mark's was nothing fancy, but you knew you could get a good egg salad there, or corned beef, or whatever you wanted for $4 or $5. It wasn't going to have some kind of grain-fed roast beef or locally made cheese or whatever, but it was going to be fast and good. The skinny guy behind the deli case would make you a sandwich almost before you had the words out of your mouth. You could eat it at the table there, in a basket with a sprinkle of potato chips, or you could take it back to the office.
Now there's a Dunkin' Donuts where Mark's was, and that's fine. Starbucks was
starting to take over downtown, and we'd lost a Dunkin' on Fountain Street some years back when the company started putting in latte machines and there just wasn't room for a barista at that particular hole-in-the-wall. But now, where do I go for a plain sandwich? I went around today and looked, and here's what I found: Local 121, Bravo, Tazza, Cuban Revolution. I had a Best Cuban Sandwich half and a cup of black bean soup at Cuban for around $8. With tip, $10. It was okay, but I miss Mark's.

Edible Rhode Island

2008-03-04T10:04:00.015-05:00

Along with my latte at Seven Stars Bakery yesterday, I found a stack of copies of this free magazine, published four times a year and exploring the foods and restaurants of the Ocean State. Apparently, Edible Rhody is part of a family of such publications that also covers New Hampshire, Cape Cod and other destinations around the country. It makes for a good read over coffee and a nibble and makes you feel happy to live in such a great state. The spring issue has features on Charlie's maple sugarhouse (see Post for Mar. 1 below) and the trendy Providence restaurant, also on Broadway, Nick's. Shown in this photo is Seven Stars Bakery. We'll post a photo of Nick's as soon as we can get over there for dinner.

Snow fun on a Monday: Windblown XC

2008-03-03T18:19:00.012-05:00

A road trip is fun when you take a couple of friends with you: TomTom the GPS navigator and Sirius satellite radio make the time fly when you're whizzing up Route 495 for what might be the last day of cross-country skiing at the closest real touring center to Rhode Island: Windblown.
Located in southern NH just across the Massachusetts border in the quaint town of New Ipswich, Windblown has 40Ks of hilly trails that traverse Barrett Mountain in the shadow of the great Monadnock.

When it has snow, as it does now, this ski area is as good as many areas much farther
north — better, if you include the fact that you can leave Providence at 9 a.m. (after picking up a latte from Seven Stars bakery), be on the slopes by 11:15, ski for a couple of hours, and be back home before it's even dark at 4 p.m.
Yesterday, Sunday, Windblown had more than 700 skiers, but today, with most people back at work, there might have been a dozen.

Northern extremes: White Mountains, NH

2008-03-02T08:36:00.006-05:00

Believe it or not, there's a ton of snow just four hours north of Rhode Island in the White Mountains of New Hampshire.
(Photo at right is from the top of the Speakeasy trail on Loon Mountain in Lincoln, NH.)
This season, the north country has had more snow than it's had in nearly 40 years, a total so far of nearly 100 inches. Could it be that rumors of global warming have been greatly exaggerated?

So don't let Rhode Island's bare ground fool you: If you like to ski, either cross country or alpine, you should be in New Hampshire to see scenes like this (of the 1785 Inn, at left) and the Mount Washington Valley ski touring center in Intervale, North Conway.
The next few days could be your last chance to ski till next year, because when it comes to New England's climate, the only thing that's certain is that it will CHANGE.

Sweet deal: Charlie's Sugarhouse

2008-03-01T14:57:00.004-05:00

With the warmer days of March comes the sound of sap dripping in buckets attached to the sugar maple trees of western Rhode Island. Take a road trip to see sap being turned into syrup at places like Charlie's Sugarhouse in Coventry.
Charlie is Charlie Chase, and the sugarhouse is open weekends in March from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. You can see the fragrant clouds of steam rising as Charlie boils sap into syrup. (It takes 40 gallons of sap to make each gallon of pure maple syrup.) Samples are offered, and bottles of pure Rhode Island syrup are available for sale.

Charlie's Sugarhouse, 124 Hall Rd., Coventry. (401) 397-7102. Directions: From Route 95 in Providence, head south to Exit 10B, Route 117 West, to Route 102. Turn right to go north on 102 to Waterman Hill Rd. Turn left onto Waterman. Bear right at the fork.

(Providence Journal photo by Connie Grosch)