Cute desserts for a crowd

By HILLARY NELSON

As an ex-pastry chef, I know the nicest wedding present I can offer a friend or relative is the gift of a wedding cake. So long as the happy couple isn’t set on the kind of elaborate creations that turn up in bridal magazines, I can make them...

Perfect time to visit a beaver den

By RUTH SMITH

If you let the deep cold of winter keep you inside, you’ll miss out on some wonderful possibilities for exploration that don’t exist in warmer seasons, namely the opportunity to walk on water. Frozen ponds and lakes are special places to visit but...

Animals enjoy sweet treats

By CAROLE SOULE

Don’t know what to do with leftover holiday candy? Here’s a thought: feed it to livestock.Of course, too much sugar is not good for cattle, but a bite here and there won’t hurt them or their teeth. We only feed peppermint to our “ambassador herd,”...

The life and death of a mill that defined a New Hampshire town

By DAVID BROOKS

When Jamie Sayen describes Groveton as a “company town,” shaped and shaken from top to bottom by the rise and fall of its paper mills, he’s not kidding. In its heyday, Groveton Papers even crawled inside your nose.“I knew it was important to get home...

Polish firm makes glass ornaments

By MONIKA SCISLOWSKA

From the White House and the Eiffel Tower to butterflies and wedding cakes, a Polish company can make any kind of blown-glass Christmas tree decorations that clients fancy.The fragile ornaments, called “bombki,” are a fixture of Christmas in Poland,...

Great oatmeal cookies need size and time

By KATIE WORKMAN

I haven’t been consistently happy with my oatmeal cookie recipe for a while. Sometimes they turn out perfectly – fairly flat, chewy and moist in the middle, with crinkly, caramelized edges (not cakey or rounded) and a butterscotch-esque flavor. Other...

Pigs and acorns make an intriguing mix for farmer

By DAVID BROOKS

On Snow Brook Farm in Eaton, as on many New Hampshire farms, there’s a desire to take agriculture back to its natural roots. When it comes to feeding pigs, the farm’s owners have taken to using plants that aren’t even part of agriculture.The four...

Ghost town of Pembroke: A walk in the Whittemore Town Forest

By LOLA DUFFORT

Thanks to the Merrimack and the Suncook rivers, Pembroke is blessed with multiple floodplains. But not, as it turns out, quite as many as early European settlers had hoped. Settled by the English in the 1730s, the town was first laid out on a grid,...

A new use for an old book? Fold it into art

By JENNIFER FORKER

Books have more uses than might be obvious. Sure, you can press flowers in a heavy one and set out the pretty ones as decoration. You can read the darn things. But have you tried turning a book into three-dimensional sculpture?The process can be quite...

Turn green apples to jelly pectin

By HILLARY NELSON

The roadsides and field-edges of New Hampshire are full of apple trees, chance seedlings for the most part, the offspring of cores dropped long ago by lunching humans or thieving raccoons.I am sure you know some of these trees – scraggly survivors...

Ground chia seeds can make vegan pudding

By JOE YONAN

It was summer, a few years ago, and we were at a dear friend’s house, finishing up a lovely, casual supper, when out of the fridge they came: little cups filled with chia pudding.The guests – none of whom had tasted this before – were all polite, but...

Frog chorus

By RUTH SMITH

Spring is usually the season associated with frog calls. It’s a thrill to hear the first spring peepers and wood frogs sending their songs into the chilly April evenings, assuring us that winter is really coming to an end. But that was months ago. We...

Flies can kill a cow

By CAROLE SOULE

Even though I had washed several times, two maggots were squirming on my smartphone screen as I called my vet, Christina Murdock. A Highlander calf, born five days earlier, had an army of maggots on her back and legs, which we were trying to...

Ducks can live in trees

It’s May, and my yard is lively with a marathon of nest building.   Bluebirds are stuffing nest boxes with grasses and pine needles; the phoebe has created a cradle of moss in her usual spot under my porch roof; and downy woodpeckers are excavating a...

The Tragic Story of the Hesitant Photographer

By DAN SZCZESNY

Daniel Rossiter was alone now. Old Peppersass – one of its cog teeth broken – was picking up speed, hurdling down the tracks toward Jacob’s Ladder.This was supposed to be Peppersass’s triumphant return up Mount Washington. In 1929, the curious...

Prepare your plants for vacation

By JOYCE KIMBALL

Now is a great time of year for gardeners to get away – before the digging and sowing and planting and watering and – well, you know, all the things we need to do to get our gardens off to a good start for the season.We must remember, however, to be...

Growing own paprika supplies fresh spices

By HILLARY NELSON

 It’s spring, and at my house that means indoor seed-starting time, when the garden of my December daydreams starts to become reality. Or not, as the case may be, like when all the snapdragons damp off, or the mice devour the sprouting sweet...

Reconsider opinion on lima beans

By EMILY HORTON

We all have those foods we turn to, without elaborate planning or complex execution, when we want to feel taken care of. We don’t worry that they won’t turn out, because they always do. Time and time again, they fill us with warmth. For me, it is a...

Beer-making grains get second life

By CAROLE SOULE

What do beer and pigs have in common? If you said, “beer-drinking pigs,” you might be right. I have seen pigs and other livestock drink beer, but that is not what I had in mind.Depending on the taste, different types of grains are used to make beer....

Your fix-it questions answered

By JEANNE HUBER

Q: The border tiles in my master bath shower look horrible! The tiles are dark brown, but the color is slowly coming off, probably because of chemicals in cleaning solutions. The tiles are not flat and smooth like the surrounding tiles. Is there any...