The Red Hen Moved to Montpelier, Vermont

One of our most frequently returned to places in central Vermont is the Red Hen Bakery--they have excellent bread, good laminated pastries, nice sandwiches, and decent coffee. When they were in Middlesex we liked their sit down options and usually had a meal there and took some things home with us as well, and when we leanred they were moving, we hoped it would go well. Their new store front in Montpelier is a bit closer for us to get to and a bit larger, so finding a seat was easy. And not because there was no one there--the place was hopping on Labor Day morning, which was very good to see. Montpelier has a lot going for it these days as well. A storm flooded the whole downtown area a coupld of summers ago and fortunately many of the affected buildings have businesses back in them, and there is a bustle about the place. Do not miss this bakery in it's new iteration, it is really top notch.

The Vivisectors by Missouri Williams

I am working my way through the Booker Prize 2026 longlist--which is going surprisingly well, but I have yet to read the truly long book and there are quite a few that are between 200-300 pages, so not exactly back patting stuff. The main thing is that I have been able to get them, which is not always the case. That said, this is really not my cup of tea. It is dark in a way that I find unattractive and uninstructive. It is set in an ancient and unnamed university town which is rapidly being overwhelmed by vegetation: avenues lined with lush flower bushes, arches have vines galore, and it smells of flowers but in a sickeningly sweet way rather than opulent English garden style. A fraternity of mysterious gardeners seek to keep the chaotic foliage in check, but they are hamstrung by a bitter dispute with university officials. Power games and proxy battles ensue. It is a hot summer and decay is rampant: revolution is in the air. The narrator, Agathe, an alarmingly cynical young woman. She views everyone she meets as a tragic case, and knows that nothing lies between her and the same sad designation but her ability to see through the stories they’re telling themselves. She rejects self-expression and desire, refusing anything that might compromise her sense of separation and superiority. Her judgments are swift, conclusive and brutal. It goes from bad to worse when her mother has a failed suicide attempt, is left wheelchair bound, and her father basically blames her for any and all failings in the family. There is quite a few more unpleasant things that happen to equally unpleasant people, the end.

Sew.Quilt.Explore by Colby Cartledge

Colby is a member of our modern quilt guild and lucky for us, she is also a lecturer who really knows how to strike a chord with a large swath of the guild. Her lecture last year about her way of managing her scraps was really inspirational--at many a Zoom sew in afterwards someone was bound to quote her and I certainly took in her wisdom while not being completely adherent to the message. My scraps remain a mess, but I do feel like if I got a chance to manage them that I have a place to start. Another thing about her quilting philosophy is the Reuse Reduce Recycle kind of approach--she will take offcasts and is a proponent for sustainable quilting, even if I have not heard her say as much. The most recent lecture I heard was about Quilting Rules--which ones do you really need to adhere to and which ones can you ignore--she is a quilter who is not all about perfection, and if you are one of those, someone for whom the seam ripper might be used more than once on the same block, it might not be for you, but that is not me (although I seam ripped yesterday--more than once--but only when truly provoked, like I should have used a leader but I did not, and the squinching was too much, or a log cabin that I got off to the wrong start and a dark ended up in a light position, and it really had to be corrected, no getting around it). She talked about increasing your confidence in your skills so that you don't need all the guard rails, and guess what? There are no quilt police. You make your own rules and guidelines, and you can break them at your leisure.

Isola by Allegra Goodman

Every once in awhile it is good to be reminded that in fact the fate of women has improved over time. This book introduces the reader to a real life person. Marguerite de la Rocque, a French noblewoman born in the 1500s. Orphaned in infancy, her inheritance was squandered by her guardian, the ambitious and cruel Jean-Francois de la Rocque de Roberval, leaving her vulnerable yet stubbornly dignified. Her noble lineage, a delicate reminder of her past, contrasted sharply with her precarious present. This contradiction—her inherent status versus her lack of tangible power—sets the stage for her transformative journey. Central to this narrative is the enduring bond between Marguerite and Damienne, her devoted nurse. Damienne, an older woman with an unwavering moral compass, served as Marguerite’s first teacher and a steadfast maternal figure. There are strong women who help make her life bearable, despite her lack of control over what happens. Throughout the novel, Marguerite learns to navigate a world that demands she restrain her true thoughts and feelings. This begins in her childhood, where societal expectations for a woman of noble birth require her to suppress her desires and opinions. As she grows older, this restraint is further compounded by fear—fear of the consequences should she dare to speak or act against the dictates of those in power, particularly her guardian. This enforced silence becomes a significant aspect of her internal struggle. However, she finds that she has hidden depths that her guardian under estimates.

Oak and Iron, Randolph, Vermont

This is a welcome new addition to the dining scene in Randolph. It is housed in a restaurant space I have previously eaten in, and they have done a nice job with it since. There is a well stocked bar with interesting looking cocktails that we did not partake in, and the menu is medium sized, varied, and overall well prepared. I did not care for the iteration of meatloaf I got (I was trying it to see if I got any ideas to improve on my own version and that did not happen--and not because mine is unbeatable) and my husband liked his fish, but we both thought the risotto could use some spice and some work on the texture. The side vegetables for both our meals were very good--well prepared and well flavored. We shared a Caesar salad that was excellent, with white anchovies, a bright and balanced lemon flavor and good parmesan. Randolph overall seems to be on the upswing compared to recent years. The corner restaurant space on Main Street is still empty--which is too bad because it has lots of windows and light and would be an excellent breakfast and lunch place to take advantage of that--but this is a good devlopment, and the fact that there is another new restaurant of note that we will try next year should it survive the winter is good news.

Paris To The Moon by Adam Gopnick

The author lived in Paris in the 1990s and into the early 2000s and chronicled his experiences in the Paris Journals for the New Yorker as well as within this memoir. He explores the difficulties of being an American in Paris as well as becoming a new father shortly before his move across continents. This predates the current situation, where the American brand has been badly tarnished abroad, but even back 30 years ago his delineation of the details related to the minutiae of living in Paris and the daily battles of an American trying to adapt to a new home, specifically in a home so disdainful of the brand of American globalism, and how he managed. The upside is that it appears to have been a great experience for him professionally as well as personally. There is an emphasis on food int he French culture and that is reflected here, as well as the apparently well-deserved reputation for excessive bureaucracy. This has a humorous flare to it, and comes across as insightful and a straight shooter.

The Answer Man (2009)

Well, is you see this as a grumpy man who softens with the help of a generous woman then this is a so so movie. I saw it a bit differently. One thing is that Arlen Faber wrote a book entitled 'Me and God' decades ago and it is still holding sway with 10% of 'the God market'--the fact that there is a God market and that one book that is not divine in origin can hold that kind of sway says a fair amount about mankind and our inability to answer our own questions. One look at Arlen makes it very clear that he does not hold the answers, not now, not ever. He wisely remains a recluse up until the time that he throws his back out and literally crawls into a chiroprator's, where she works two wonders--the first is allevating his pain and the other is that she grabs the attention of this somewhat socially anxious and possible neurodivergent man, who then goes about trial and error when it comes to winning her over. Lucky for him he can much more easily related to her son, which goes a long way towards cementing his chances with her. Arlen could have become an interesting character, but the script for this is far too wooden for that to happen, but I did not find it quite so terrible as the reviewers did.

American Fantasy by Emma Straub

This is a themed book where something happens that I would never ever do. Which is what Annie, the protagonist, thought as well. When the American Fantasy cruise ship sets sail for a four-day themed voyage, aboard are all five members of a famous, nineties-era boy band and three thousand screaming women who have worshipped them since childhood. Many of them are repeats on the cruise and have developed relationships and rivalries . Feeling slightly out of place amid this crowd is Annie, here on a lark to appease her sister. Yet when the lights come up and the idols of her youth begin to sing, something is unlocked. Call it memory. Call it nostalgia. Call it the chemical reaction of hormones, hope, and sexual reawakening. Between the slushy alcoholic drinks, the familiar music, and the throngs of middle-aged women acting like lovesick teenagers, Annie finally reconnects to a long-submerged part of herself. By the time she meets one of the band members—not just a celebrity but someone in need of a friend—she has fully changed her mind. It is an improbable story of redemption and renewal with the least likely source, and maybe what these nostalgia events tap into is recaptured youth in more ways than one.

Royal Orchid, Montpelier, Vermont

We return to Vermont with great regularity. We fly into Burlington airport in the afternoon after the traditional lunch hour has ended and have a 1.5 hour drive to central Vermont where we stay. We have searched for a place to eat that we would regularly return to, and while there have been some good candidates, there has not been a hands down winner. We enjoy a lobster roll, but beyond that we have looked for a place that fits our schedule and that serves a meal we would look forward to returning for. This restaurant in Montperlier might be just the thing. It does not serve food continuously, but it does open early, at 4PM, which works with our schedule. The food is excellent--we had two dishes with shrimp, which was of good quality and cooked well. We were there ahead of the traditional dining hour, and there were several tables occupied in the time we were there. It has a broad menu, and we will definitely return. Added bonus was that the food came quickly and we were back on the road in no time. Highly recommended.

The Renovation by Kenan Orhan

This has been longlisted for the Booker Prize, which is how I came to read it. It is part magical realism, part a commentary on the persistence of trauma no matter how long ago it was and how far away you get from the source, and part a refelction on the toll of caregiving for a loved one with Alzheimer's disease. This is not a renovation gone wrong--which is that instead of getting a new bathroom, when Dilarah goes into her new bathroom it is instead a cell, and she is transported far away to a well-known prison in Turkey, the homeland she had left behind. Slowly, a past she was hiding from comes to light in flashbacks and shimmering sentences. The cell is part of a vast complex within Istanbul’s Silivri Prison, where women of all ages and classes are housed for their alleged conspiracies against an oppressive regime. Dilara had fled Turkey around a decade ago with her husband and mentally declining, dissident father to apparent freedom in the mountains of Italy. But try as she might, she cannot now conjure away the prospect of imprisonment; it has literally followed her. Then there is the trials and tribulations of caring for a loved one with dementia. Dilara’s husband takes the appearance of the cell as a sign the Turkish authorities are on their tail and abandons their home, leaving Dilara to care for her father on her own as he suffers from Alzheimer’s. Her father was once an outspoken professor and novelist; he now slips and falls easily, has lost his sense of humor, cannot recall basic words, and fails to recognize his own daughter, and Dilara herself is filled with anguish, anger, and sorrow watching him fade.