Stratton Magazine Archives

By Ellen Ogden
Photography by Hubert Schriebl

If you are looking to grace your Thanksgiving table with a locally grown turkey, your in luck.

Talking about food at the table is fairly safe unless you are sitting down to dinner with a "localvore". Then be prepared to learn more about the food on your plate than you may care to know. One subtext is flavor, the other is health, but the underlying discussion will center on where each of the foods on your plate came from with a description of the farm and possibly, the farmer. Once you start eating local foods, however, it's hard to go back to shopping at the grocery store.

If you are looking to grace your Thanksgiving table with locally grown foods you'll easily find winter squash, cool weather greens, potatoes and onions at the farmers markets. Local eggs, milk and cheese are available year round at local farms. And as an alternative to the ubiquitous frozen butterball, there are two sources for local turkeys within our community; Someday Farm is a family farm in East Dorset that raises chickens, turkeys, pheasants and organic vegetables. Or consider taking a short drive up Danby Mountain Road in Dorset to pick up a bird from Robin and Henry Chandler. » read more

By Louise Jones
Photography by Hubert Schriebl

The house was built in 1806 in the middle of Rupert, on the present corner of Routes 153 and 315. Known as the Carver house, it's a handsome white clapboard farmhouse with a porch on two sides and barns in back and across the street, but it was sadly dilapidated. Then a few years ago I noticed a crew working on it. Great, I thought, someone has bought it before it collapses. That someone was Christopher Kimball, cookbook writer and the man behind two acclaimed cooking magazines, the sixteen year-old Cook's Illustrated and the five year-old Cook's Country. He also oversees the PBS television shows based on the magazines. America's Test Kitchen from Cook's Illustrated is filmed in the company's headquarters in Brookline, Massachusetts, but the new America's Test Kitchen from Cook's Country is being filmed in the Carver house. PBS comes to Rupert!

"I always liked this house and when it came on the market a few years ago I bought it," Chris told me. "Then, when I decided to change the venue for the Cook's Country TV shows-take it out of the Boston area-it seemed like a good place." Chris Kimball spent his childhood summers and holidays in Sandgate, where his parents owned a small farm. He and his wife Adrienne and their four children have continued the family tradition at their own Sandgate farmhouse and he's a popular figure in the area. He supervises Sandgate's annual summer pig roast and attends the Rupert firemen's carnival and barbecue. His editor's letter at the front of each magazine issue is invariably set in one of the two towns. » read more

By Kathleen James
Photography by Hubert Schriebl

When Seth Bongartz was hired as executive director of Hildene in January 2002, he presented the board of directors with two theoretical options. Like many house museums across the country, Hildene was at a crossroads, suffering from declining attendance and revenues. Option one: Draw a 20-acre circle around the historic home and gardens, and sell the rest of the land to fund an endowment. Option two: Put the entire 412-acre landscape to work. Bongartz and the board picked the latter, and a new chapter in Hildene's history had begun.

"Looking back at Hildene 200 years from now, the greatest chapter will always be the first," says Bongartz. He's talking about the 1970s, when a grassroots group of volunteers raised enough money to buy the Lincoln family estate and turn it into a nonprofit museum. "It was an absolute miracle that they saved this place. They did everything right. They saved the house and gardens and they got the job done." » read more

Every once and awhile something comes in across the transom (that’s editor-talk for stories / letters / articles that arrive at our door unbidden). This comes to us from a new friend, Peter MacFarlane. I want to share it with you because it reminded me of what wonderful folks we have living here… And also how gratifying my job is.
In the summer of 1999, I was hired to be the new fourth grade teacher at Maple Street School, a private elementary school in Manchester Center. As part of the fourth grade curriculum at Maple Street, I was given the assignment of teaching the students about mountain ecosystems. In search of a field trip to compliment this unit, I happened upon a copy of the summer issue of Stratton Magazine. In this issue was an article written about Hugh and Jeanne Joudry, caretakers for the Green Mountain Club, and inhabitants of a small cabin on top of Stratton Mountain during the spring, summer and early fall months of the year. I knew right away that taking my fourth graders up to meet the Joudrys would be the perfect extension to our study of mountain ecosystems. So I contacted the Green Mountain Club to arrange our field trip.  
I remember it was a beautiful, sunny morning on the day we met Hugh Joudry at the gondola platform.  I was immediately struck by how warm and gracious he was with the children.  The mile hike from the gondola to the Joudrys’ cabin was filled with teachable moments, as Hugh would stop and explain unique aspects of mountain ecosystems, in addition to pinpointing animal tracks along the trail.  I sensed that at one time in his life Hugh was also a teacher. » read more