Spring 2024 Publisher’s Letter
I’m putting finishing touches on this Spring issue right in the middle of the oddest February storm: The 18–24 inches of snow we were expecting—with a forecast that sent Greater Boston into an absolute panic, preemptively canceling schools and closing businesses—have failed to materialize. The whole thing has been kind of a dud, much like the rest of this season and last: yet another nearly snowless Boston winter. But as we know by now, chances are high that by early spring we’ll get walloped with a blizzard or an unprecedented deep freeze or some other very un-April-like weather occurrence, and that’s when we’ll remember that even as our climate changes, the spring growing season in New England comes late. Really late.
So until the first shoots come poking through thawed soil, we can dream of the harvest to come and cook with ingredients we do have on hand, like local dairy. Ever the project cook, Claudia Catalano has brought us an ode to her guiltiest pleasure: homemade ricotta, made simply on the stovetop with a half gallon of your favorite milk (the full fat variety from Crescent Ridge in Sharon does the trick nicely). If making your own cheese seems like a heavy lift for a weeknight, there are excellent local versions that taste nearly as good as homemade, particularly the pints from Mozzarella House and Maplebrook Farm, so you can easily make Claudia’s excellent frittata, ricotta-stuffed chicken, lemony pancakes, or fat, chive-and-pea dumplings.
Once the growing season begins, we’ll need some inspiration for all those early spring greens, and I was thrilled to have worked with Elle Simone Scott of ATK on a story so springy it almost smells green. Seafood and new baby greens get all wrapped up in a personal essay about her Midwestern roots and her Detroit family garden. You’ll want to bookmark this piece for the pickled Swiss chard stems alone. And Béatrice Peltre evokes her French origines with a nostalgic story about tarts, both savory and sweet. Put anything in a buttery, flaky pastry shell and it’s a tart; Béa’s recipes (always gluten-free, bonus!) make use of New England’s earliest springtime veg, plus some season-straddling indoor-grown produce as well. With her recipes in your pocket, your springtime table will take on a decidedly gallic feel.
In the first installment of a new collaboration with Mass Farmers Markets, we’re bringing you another unique springtime delicacy: Loligo squid that arrives off Cape Cod in early May is paired with crisp, peppery radishes and soft spring herbs in a colorful composed salad. Visit the Copley Square Farmers Market this season to pick up all the ingredients—and if you tell Red’s Best you saw the recipe in this issue, they’ll give you $1 off your order of fresh, local squid! The edible Food Finds this season run the gamut: a cheesemaker in Leominster, a distillery in Franklin, a kosher catering kitchen in Newton, a tea-andwhisky bar in Brighton, an organic café in Beverly and a couple of Babson grads making shelf-stable plant-based protein—more small businesses producing and serving local food and drink, all of whom are worth a visit this spring. On the agricultural front, Alison Arnett is back with the second in her series on the Farm Bill, this time focusing on SNAP and the perspective of Massachusetts’ own Representative Jim McGovern (D-MA 2nd District), senior member of the House Agriculture Committee and co-chair of the Hunger Caucus.
Just in time for the growing season, Margaret LeRoux brings us to a family-owned and operated garden center in Central MA—the former Gardner Agway—transformed with loving care into a treasured community resource. Matt Tota profiles three under-the-radar suburban breweries making beer and doing things their own way. And Bethany Graber highlights a trio of new bagel bakers—two roving pop-ups and one brickand- mortar transplant from Providence—that will seriously upgrade your breakfast plans, even if you encounter the inevitable line. Bostonians, it appears, love their bagels.
Andrea Pyenson went back to school—to Belmont High and Boston College—to taste a unique new vegetarian option on the lunch menu: kelp balls. A collaboration between Boston’s North Coast Seafood and Atlantic Sea Farms in Maine, these tasty and nutritious plant-based balls are a hit with a growing population of young and conscientious eaters. For more school food news, Nina Livingstone’s Q+A this season features the esteemed Sheldon Lloyd of City Fresh Foods who recently won a $17 million contract to produce meals for the Boston Public Schools, the largest non-construction contract awarded to a minority-owned business in the city’s history. And finally, for your littles at home, we have another inspiring installment of edible For Kids from Barefoot Books, this one based on their newest book, I’ll See You in Ijebu, featuring a kid-friendly recipe for Nigerian Puff Puff!
As always, I thank you for reading, subscribing and supporting our advertising partners. We couldn’t do it without them—or you.
Think Spring!
Sarah
