Changing of the Guard

Did you ever wonder why when you charge gas at the Village Deli Mart your credit card statement calls it Fifes? Well, it seems that the folks at MasterCard and Visa knew that Doug and Denise Cohn wouldn't own the the former Fifes forever, and now the Cohns are selling the store and gas station back to Patty Fife, who takes over next week. Though Doug and Denise are staying in town (thank God, because Denise is the driving force behind the Falls Village Children's Theater), they wanted to say "farewell" to their loyal customers:

"After five years we say goodbye to the Village Deli Mart and welcome back Patricia Fife as the new owner of Fife’s 7 & 63. Patty will take over on Monday July 2nd and is sure to bring with her that great smile and good nature.
It is with mixed feelings that we leave the Village Deli – it will certainly give us more time to spend with family and tackle those projects that seem to keep piling up, but we will sadly miss the many friends and friendly faces we see on a daily basis.
'The store' is a unique place. Where else would you find the patrons making the coffee because the clerk is backed up? (Thanks Swede, Stuart, Bill, and the rest of the coffee makers) Where else would the patrons help put together the Sunday Times every single Sunday? (Thanks Ed.) Where else would the patrons run to the bank and get quarters and where else would you trust a patron enough to give him $300 in cash to go to the bank and get change? (Thanks Marti) No where that I know of except the little store in Falls Village.
Our years at the store created more new friends than can be counted, more fun times than laugh lines will admit, and a greater feeling of community than we ever imagined.
We thank everyone for their patronage and even more for their friendship and support (especially when The New York Times was delivered late – those days I won’t miss at all!) It has been our pleasure to get to know everyone, and most we will never forget. Thank you"
--Denise and Doug Cohn

A Fancy Schmancy Tag Sale

If you know anything at all about Carolyne Roehm--fashion designer, entertaining expert and lifestyle-book author--you know that she lives beautifully, expansively and lavishly. This weekend, she is having a Tag Sale to empty out her overflowing cupboards and closets at Weatherstone, her estate on South Main Street in Sharon. She will be selling many of the props and products that she has used to illustrate her sumptuous coffee table books. Even if you don't buy anything, it is bound to be fun to gawk and eavesdrop.

NB: If you are curious about Carolyne, you can read the piece I wrote about her last fall for The New York Times

The Romance of Lonnie Carter: Ann Bidou Reports from Off Broadway

"I went to see Lonnie Carter's Obie-award-winning play The Romance of Magno Rubio two weeks ago. I was bowled over. Too many adjectives crowd my mind…heartwarming, funny, tear-jerking, wise, compassionate, literate, culturally savvy, beautiful, endearing…it reminded me of the best of the neighborhood theater I saw in Chicago in the 1970s and 1980s when things were really street-level hopping there. It’s REAL theater—not the overwhelming glitz of Broadway, or the indulgent angst sometimes called modern. In fact, the energy pouring off the stage was too big to be contained in our small, 200-seat theater on Mercer Street in Manhattan. It felt like the five characters were sending us tidal waves of emotion that rolled over us, bounced off the back wall of the theater and came rip-tiding back for a second crack at our psyches. When I left, I was changed as a person…far more compassionate for those people who pick our fruit; maybe more willing to embrace loving feelings, even at the expense of perhaps being a rube-io myself. So many life lessons in such a short hour and a half. Well done, Lonnie. I feel even more proud and privileged than ever to know you and call you my neighbor."
-– Ann Bidou

The Girls In Their Summer Dresses

Is Karen Stone the Northwest Corner's very own Coco Chanel? Karen, who used to live on Railroad Street and now lives in Lakeville, is famous around Falls Village for being the mother of Elijah and for her haunting, intensely colored landscape paintings, especially her ethereal barns. Before she moved to Connecticut, Karen was a fashion and costume designer in New York City, and now she is returning to her dressmaking roots. On Friday, I learned about Karen's new business--what she calls "Country Couture"--from her good friend Kimberly Rock Haggard who lives on Main Street. Kim had just picked up the dress that Karen had made for her out of vintage floral fabric. She plans to wear it to a wedding on Cape Cod next week, and she modeled it [photo right] at the garden/shopping party that Peter and Stephanie Katz [photo below] gave for Karen at their house near Lakeville Lake on Saturday. (Peter, who works for Ronald Lauder's Neue Galerie in New York, is on the building committee for the Falls Village Community and Cultural Center.) Karen set up a garment rack of sample dresses in the Katzes' dining room and brought bolts of colorful fabrics that customers could choose from for custom orders. Kim was there as sales support, but she did not have to work too hard because Karen's clothes sell themselves. They're exquisitely constructed, winsome and well-priced. Every woman seemed to be ordering a dress for herself or for her daughter, because Karen makes the most romantic girls dresses. Every woman in Falls Village should order at least one dress for herself right away before Karen gets too busy, famous or expensive. She can be reached at 860.435.9789 or klstone222@comcast.net.
I'm a little bit envious that I can't order a dress myself.

Gardener's Eden

The Garden Conservancy's Open Days are a once a year opportunity for anyone to visit some of America's best private gardens, and this Saturday, June 23, you can see some of the finest local gardens at their peak. There is, of course, Bunny Williams's magnificent estate, which gardener-in-chief Eric Ruquist has groomed to perfection. You can visit my next door neighbor Nancy McCabe's personal and intimate garden with its mesmerizing espaliered fruit trees. You can go to Sharon and see the lush, romantic gardens of the inimitable Lee Link (who has become an honorary Falls Villager, which is a designation you earn after eating 100 lunches at Toymakers). And if you want to be surprised, confounded, delighted and transported to another time and place, visit Michael Trapp's terraced gardens (above photo) behind his antiques shop in West Cornwall.

There is a $5 admission (cash only) at each garden, and there are more on the schedule, but these are the four that I am privileged to know. They're all enlightening, endearing, and enchanting.

Rock of Ages

Joshua Stone's effervescent piano playing can bring any room to life. Last night, he rocked the staid 1804 South Canaan Meeting House when he kicked off the Falls Village-Canaan Historical Society's Tuesdays at Six series. The program was a musical revue of local talent, including a performance by the Village Voices, the community chorus; a powerful rendition of the Beatles' "In My Life" by Taylor Cannon; and jazzy trumpet solos by Louise Baranger (Mrs. Fred Tregaskis), who recently moved to town from Los Angeles and who has played with Harry James and Joe Cocker.
Josh reunited the ensemble of Housy students he'd recruited in the spring to play for the Falls Village Children's Theater Company (FVCT) production of "Cinderella.' It was clear that one of the unexpected fringe benefits of the FVCT production was the opportunity for high school students to play with a pro like Josh. And it was clear from Josh's tender words for the band--Russell Allyn on trumpet; Stephanie Kearns on winds, Kota Hidaka on bass and Rory Dolan on percussion--that he likes nothing more than nurturing, encouraging, and jamming with talented young musicians.
Rock on, Josh.

Cooking for the Cure

UPDATE (June 27) Louise March called this morning to report that her dinner raised $1,800 to fight breast cancer. Mazel tov, Louise!

This coming Sunday night, Louise March, who is a superb cook, is making dinner for friends as she often does. But this dinner is different: It's for women only and instead of asking guests to bring a bottle of wine or a pie to her house on Lime Rock Station Road, she is asking them to bring their checkbooks so they can make donations to "Susan G. Komen for the Cure", which describes itself as the world's largest and most progressive grassroots network of breast cancer survivors and activists. "I can't walk for the cure or ride for the cure, but I can cook for the cure," says Louise.

Louise read about "Cook for the Cure" in a magazine, and learned that the Komen foundation had teamed up with KitchenAid whose website has instructions for how to host a fundraising party, including recipes and an invitation you can download. Louise, however, is using her own recipes and designed her own one-of-a-kind invitations, for she is not only a generous soul but a creative one. She thought maybe ten women would come to dinner, and now she is expecting 25, which thrills her.

As an X-ray technologist in Waterbury who specializes in mammograms, Louise thinks about breast cancer every day. Right now, she is praying every day for a neighbor with another type of cancer, Stephanie Timolat, the beautiful daughter of our former First Selectman. "Stephanie's cancer is devastating as all cancers are," says Louise, who has vowed to support her any way she can. "What the whole thing comes down to is that you've got to fight and Stephanie is a fighter. And anyone who is willing to fight, I'll be in the ring with them."

God bless Stephanie. And God bless Louise.

Are They Stoned Out of their Minds?

That's what I thought when I heard that the landmark stone house built in the 1940s by John Facchin next door to the Kellogg School is on the market for $775,000. (My other thought was that I was hallucinating.) There was an open house yesterday, and the house is much more eccentric (and smaller) than I ever imagined. It is no doubt "special" and has great potential but it will take a special person to buy it and want to call it home.

Flower Children

The more I learn about the Lee H. Kellogg School, the more it sounds like a progressive private academy in Vermont. (That's meant as a compliment.) It's a cooperative community of learning that is intense, intimate, eclectic and humanistic: a school with a soul in a town with a heart.

Every year for the 8th grade graduation, the school reaches out to the community and asks residents to cut flowers from their own gardens to adorn the stage. No one seems to remember when or how this tradition began, but everyone honors it.

Donations can be left in the multi-purpose room at Kellogg anytime on Thursday, June 14. Bring flowers in containers with water, labeled with your name and phone number, and the containers will be returned to you. If you have questions or want to help with the flower arranging, call Maria MacNeil at 824-7958 or Joan Wingard at 824-5238.

Then come back at 7 PM for graduation in the gym. Betsy Howie (whose peonies will no doubt make it to the stage) tells me that of all the heartfelt events that take place annually in Falls Village, nothing compares to 8th grade graduation. Her advice: Bring Kleenex.

The Artists' Way

When I was invited to a cookout at Robin and Allen Cockerline's picturesque Whippoorwill Farm, I was expecting awesome burgers (because the Cockerlines raise extraordinary grass-fed beef) and endless beer (because they know how to party.) What I didn't expect was the enormous pot luck buffet provided by scores of Falls Village friends who had come to help them celebrate their 30th wedding anniversary and first anniversary at their farm on Salmon Kill Road in Salisbury. (I did not expect the amazing firefly show in their pasture either.)
When the Cockerlines packed up and moved to the other side of the Housatonic they apparently left their hearts in Falls Village. Living in a different Zip Code hasn't changed them. Allen and Robin remain warm, open, opinionated, funny and passionate. They generously share their wisdom and expertise with Dan and Tracy Hayhurst at Chubby Bunny Farm and with Shamu Sadeh, who runs the organic farming program at the Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Center. The Cockerlines are the ideal neighbors, because their way of life preserves ours. As Allen said at a public forum last fall on protecting the rural character of our region: "I AM the rural character." They are trailblazing Farm Artists (and Artistic Farmers) who are role models for anyone who wants to make a creative and honest living off the land.

Caramba!!

I may have been one of the few people who mourned the closing of La Herradura in Canaan. I liked its quesadilla and I liked the street-vendor-style tacos. But the ambiance was even a little too down-at-the-heels for me, and I have never met a greasy spoon I did not like.

Now another eccentric Mexican restaurant with a clever name, Mexi-Canaan, has opened on Railroad Street next to the video store. It's painted bright yellow and blue inside and you feel like you have stumbled into a typical family-run cafe on a side street in Puerto Vallarta where tourists are not expected to go. It's funky with cheap plastic lawn chairs surrounding the tables, but who cares when you are starved for an alternative to pizza and Chinese?

The restaurant has a good vibe. The young family who own it has an optimistic spirit, and they seem eager to please.

As in Mexico, the kids are hanging out at the restaurant and my chips, salsa, and menu were delivered to the table by an adorable girl who must have been all of 6. The food is promising and carefully presented, but don't expect American style Mexican food or frozen margaritas. I might have liked the savory enchiladas and rice and beans to have been piping hot, but I am guessing that the way they were served (closer to room temperature) was more authentic. For $5, the three "sopes"--thick corn cakes topped with beans, tomatillo sauce, crumbled cheese, onions, cilantro and sour cream--were a very tasty, quick lunch.

The restaurant does not officially open until Friday. There's no liquor license and they are not sure about BYOB or doing take-out, but I get the sense that the folks behind Mexi-Canaan are determined to make us happy, so we'll keep coming back. I know I will.

Invasion of the Morris Dancers

Does anyone know how Main Street in Falls Village became the stomping ground where several troupes of Morris Dancers annually gather to perform after a full day of touring Northwestern Connecticut? They put on an exhilarating, entertaining show, which has become a Falls Village institution. Indeed, kids such as Elijah Stone like to dress up as Morris Dancers and, as I recall, a photograph of Elijah in his costume ended up on the front page of the Lakeville Journal a few years ago.

The Morris Dancers are due to perform on Main Street around 6:30 PM this Saturday. It's street theater, it's a block party, and it's free.

Retail Therapy

I spent a good chunk of the Memorial Day weekend cleaning out my closets and garage for the mammoth tag sale at the Kellogg School that benefits FOLKS (Friend of Lee Kellogg School) and the D.M. Hunt Library. It seems that half the town did, too, for the bleachers at the Kellogg School are overflowing with clothes, furniture, games, skis, and baskets, which have been donated for the sale that begins on Saturday morning under the watchful gaze of the indefatigable Jenny Law.

It's the first Saturday of the month, so there is the monthly Hunt Book Sale, too, but this one is always the biggest of the year. And across the street, the Congregational Church has its annual spring tag sale and arguably the finest bake sale of the season. (I still remember the amazingly delicious cranberry chocolate chip cookies I bought last year.)

The best part of this Falls Village shop-a-thon: All of the money goes to good causes, you can buy used items and keep them out of landfills, and you must pay cash so you can't rack up any credit card debt.

It's guilt-free, socially responsible, hometown shopping.