N° 53: 44 Hours in Litchfield County, Conn. (a Local's Guide)

That's 36 Hours PLUS EIGHT ;)

Good morning,

First: Will you be in Connecticut tomorrow (Saturday, June 13)? I’ll be at Milton Market in Litchfield from 10 to 11am to talk baking and recipe-writing, demo my granola recipe, sell some baked goods, and sign books. Please come by!

Speaking of Connecticut, I’m including below my mini guide to Litchfield County*. If it has a whiff of a NYT “36 Hours” pitch denied its imagined destiny, well . . .

And a few not-related-to-CT recommendations:

• Since 2020, I’ve heard countless fascinating stories from writers about how they work and how their careers have developed, thanks to Kelton Reid’s The Writer Files podcast. Over the course of 400+ episodes, he’s interviewed everyone from The New Yorker’s Ariel Levy to Pulitzer Prize-winner Hernan Diaz to Anne Lamott.

• Speaking of Anne Lamott. Somehow, I ended up reading her 2019 wedding announcement this week (“At 65, she was about to get married for the first time.”). I was amused by the summary of what she was working on at the time: “a memoir about the last third of life, ‘when you stop squandering your life force on achieving, and focus on presence, being here, being real,’ she said. It includes two prayers, a morning one she named ‘Whatever,’ and a bedtime one called ‘Oh well.’”

• Finally, what do you think of these kitchens highlighted in “Our Favorite Kitchens” (T Magazine)?

Thank you for reading this. Take care.

Brian

*Formal Assignment P.S. is for paid subscribers. It’s just $6 a month—or even less for an annual subscription.

44 Hours in Litchfield County, Connecticut

Litchfield County lies in the northwest corner of Connecticut, nestled between the buzzier regions of New York’s Hudson Valley and Massachusetts’s Berkshires. With its collection of antique villages scattered among sparkling lakes and rolling hills, the county has long attracted weekending urbanites--artists, fashion designers, and Broadway luminaries among them—and its once-sparse full-time population, though still modest, has grown since 2020. Still, weekends are when the Main Streets of communities including Kent, New Preston, Washington Depot, Salisbury, and West Cornwall come to life, their restaurants’ bluestone porches abuzz in the summer, their pubs’ fireplaces aglow in the winter. Opportunities for garden tours, farmers markets, and pick-your-own farms abound from spring through fall, while a robust food scene and distinctive vintage shops delight year-round.

My Recommendations: