Here’s how it works: Community Servings is a non-profit organization that provides free home-delivered meals and nutrition programs for homebound individuals and families struggling with HIV/AIDS, cancer and other life-threatening illnesses and who are too sick to shop or cook for themselves. Each Thanksgiving, the org receives donations (in the form of thousands of pies) from Boston’s best restaurants, bakeries, caterers and hotels; over 500 volunteers then sell these pies to family, friends and colleagues. Each pie costs $25, almost all of which goes to buying a whole week’s worth of hearty home-delivered meals to a Community Servings’ client.

Pie-Packaging Volunteers at Community Servings

More than a fundraiser, Pie in the Sky “fosters community spirit and engages the public in the mission of Community Servings.” You know that sleepy, stuffed, and perfectly content feeling you get right after the Thanksgiving plates are cleared and you retire to the couch? I’ve got to believe a Pie in the Sky pie makes that feeling last just a bit longer than usual. We could all stand a few extra moments of contentedness, no?

For pie-buying locations all around Metro Boston, visit the Pie in the Sky Pick-up Site Locator. And don’t delay! The good flavors sell out fast!!

Halloween is looming in the very near future and I happen to have the inside scoop on the best nabes in and around Boston to score quality (read king size) candy in mass quantity (read several pillowcases worth). I am unapologetically excited about the holiday and have been crafting my beet (as in the root vegetable) costume in my mind for months, but I am not delusional; I know that I can no longer get away with trick or treating.  You see, my day job at a small school in North Cambridge gives me access to one of the most untapped sources of nabe-knowledge out there: our youth. Kids will tell you anything you want to know about their neighborhoods, especially when it has to do with assigning superlatives like “Best Place to Get Money Instead of Candy”; “King-Size Mecca”; “Stingiest Rich People”; and “Most Haunted-est Seeming Houses.” Read on to find out the best nabes in Boston to take your little gobblins and gouls out tricking and treating in this Halloween.

The Haunted House on Charles St. in East Cambridge

Now, my students will tell you that there’s a speed/quality equation at work on a successful trick or treating night. They’re looking for a lot of houses within close proximity to one another serving top quality candy. My research suggests it also helps if the houses are festively decorated and the candy passers friendly. Enter East Cambridge: The blocks bordered by Fulkerson and First Street and Cambridge Street and Charles Street are thickly settled and make for a really good ratio of candy to blocks walked.  A big part of the draw is the Haunted Halloween House, a privately owned home transformed year after year by its owners into a haunted house. There’s no admission fee but the owners request that kids and their parents bring a canned good for donation to the Sacred Heart Food Pantry.  Ask anybody in the nabe where the haunted house is  or just follow the flow of costumed foot traffic and it’ll lead you to Charles Street between Sciarappa (formerly 4th) Street and 5th Street.

Kiddos less concerned with quantity of candy (we’re all familiar with the dregs of the pillow case: Smarties, Tootsie Rolls and Werthers Originals) and more interested in quality head to one of the Newton villages like Waban. Houses here are big and so too are the candy bars. My students figure even if they have to walk a bit farther between houses, chances are good they’ll score a kingsizer or maybe even a Sacajawea coin or two! The drawback? Long, winding driveways which eventually lead to empty houses really do a number on morale.

Mount Vernon Street in Beacon HIll

Beacon Hill brings some class back to a holiday I always think of as a bit of a tack-fest (I say that with all the fondness in the world, Mother). Strict neighborhood bylaws prohibit BH residents from getting too crazy with their street-side Halloween kitchz, but that doesn’t mean they don’t participate in their own reserved, residually puritan way. Cars are cleared from the swanky Mount Vernon and Pickney Streets to make for swifter schlepping of high class candy. A 5th grade participant in my informal survey pointed out the good and the bad of Trick or Treating in Beacon Hill this way: “Plus: good candy and FREAKY houses. Minus: HILLS! and mean old people who keep their lights off.”

Other nabes worth a mention:

The South End (safe charming nabe with row houses that make for fast candy)

Charlestown (the best kind of  Keep Up with the Joneses spirit applied to spooky yard decor.)

Brookline (Beal St in JFK Crossing is blocked off from traffic to make trick or treating safer and more festive.)

Arlington's Robbins Library

I had heard tell of Arlington’s Robbins Library. Tales of its golden rotunda, its in-tact and working fireplaces, its sunlit children’s section and tambourine playing librarians had come up in passing conversation. I paid such conversations as much heed as daily debates I have about oxygen levels in middle earth and unicorn migration routes through the Yucatan. This is all to say, I did not wholly believe they hype surrounding Robbins Library until today. I write this blog entry, hunched over, and half-squatting at an Alice in Wonderland-size table in the brightly lit, immensely stocked children’s room at the famed (and rightly so) Robbins Library.

To get here, I hopped a train (Red Line to Harvard Square) and a bus (#77 to Arlington Heights) and alternated from book reading to people watching until the bus dropped me just across the street from the library’s imposing stone facade. A mix of classical and modern architecture, the building is offset by its own park and garden to one side, and rather unimpressive Mass Ave fixtures (pizza joints and hair salons) to the other.

Inside the Robbins Library

Once inside, I was thwapped with a rogue wave of nostalgia for the childhood library that never was in the nabe where I grew up. I imagined what entering these doors and marveling upward toward the gold-plated atrium ceiling might be like for a little girl–standing sub 4 ft, wearing thread bairn china flats and a barn jacket with nothing in its pockets but her very own library card. Oh the seemingly limitless possibilities all under this gold-lined roof! Almost the entire bottom floor of Robbins Library is dedicated to the children’s and community rooms in which there are computers to use, comfy chairs to sink into, kid-sized tables to work at, and BOOKS! Books for days!

Even more impressive than Robbins’ book collection and the majesty of the building itself, is the library’s involvement in the community. Every Thursday afternoon, a local storyteller partners with neighborhood seniors and 4th through 8th graders to spearhead a community oral history project. In essence,  Arlington youth are collecting and preserving the stories of Arlington seniors.  There are story hours, and singalongs, the likes of which you’ll find in any neighborhood library worth its salt, but the coolest thing I saw advertised was an after hours teen video game night for which the library itself  would provide–get this– junk food, and Nintendo Wii systems. WHAT?! That’s like going against everything you ever learned about libraries and the stuffy, mothball scented people who keep them! Cheetos and Grand Theft Auto in a the reference section?! This is a paradigm shift! The library is a safe, communal, and cool space again, not just meant for kids (me age 5-17) with imaginary friends and old people with too much time on their hands.

Teen Video Game Night

While waiting for the bus outside of Robbins Library after having spent the better part of my day in its various reading nooks, I struck up a conversation a the woman standing next to me.  She was tenderly thumbing the cover of a book in a way one does just before opening it for the first time: hopeful, daydreamy, anxious to begin her journey into its pages.  She goes to the library 4 or 5 times a week, for books, for talks, for classic movie rentals, and even to borrow works of art from the library’s collection. “It’s a wonderful place,” she mused, still lovingly eying her new borrowed book. “It’s one of my favorite things about this town.”

Check out the Robbins Library’s website to learn about upcoming events, talks, and video game nights.

It’s not often a young, impoverished, snarly-haired writer-type like me finds herself partaking in a twelve course meal–complete with wine pairings, ambiance, and pleasant conversations with handsome strangers. Sound dreamy? It was. Last Saturday, I attended Paladar, a multi-course, communal dining experience in the dimly lit living room of a Beacon Hill apartment.  A week later and I’m still dreaming about the home-made, hand-strained fois gras, and the bruleed manchego with speck and pickled pear, and the ten other courses painstakingly prepared by Paladar chefs/creators/hosts, and Boston locals, Whitney Jones and Claire Callahan.

One carefully constructed bite of seasonal and local Paladar fare.

The latin translation for Paladar is palate or taste, and in choosing a name, Callahan explains, ” it made good sense to us, as the ultimate goal is to please the palates of our attendants.” But the concept for Callahan and Jones’ dining experience was inspired by Cuban paladares, small, family run home restaurants, (illegally operated during USSR control, but still in existence today)  unique for their commitment to local ingredients and word-of-mouth advertising.

Paladar Table Scape

While the concept is globally influenced, in practice Paladar is distinctively Boston. “Boston is a place of culture, tradition, it’s very American,” explains Jones, “and all these things are reflected in our menu.” Paladar’s food pays homage to Boston’s changing seasons and the bounty of each. “From month to month, what’s seasonal and fresh changes. Different fruits and vegetables, different spices and flavors make sense at different times of the year,” says Callahan, “and that’s what allows each menu to be entirely different and exciting.” They buy their produce, their meats, and fish locally. Their fish monger is in West Cambridge, their butcher in Wellesley. They get their truffles and ahumados at a specialty market in Beacon Hill, and almost all of their produce comes from an organic farm in North Andover. “Buying locally,” explains Callahan “allows for a great story. We’ve actually been to the place these tomatoes come from!  We know they are completely organic and it feels good to serve something so fresh to our guests.”

Beet and Apple Salad with goat cheese croquette

There’s a community element in this shared dining experience that must be articulated. Paladar appeals to people of all ages and walks of life. As Jones puts it, “The people who attend are perhaps the most important ingredient of the evening.”  Callahan adds,  “A doctor in his seventies may not know he has anything in common with a grad student in her twenties until they are face to face discussing the nuances of smoked salmon and sauces. ” This seems to be what it’s all about. Strangers, mixed in with old friends, sitting, savoring, exploring new tastes and new friendships in a warm, comfortable setting that doesn’t close at midnight, and whose owners aren’t trying to make a buck.  “When the meal ends the conversations around the table do not,” reflects Callahan. “People stay for hours, and at the end of the night, numbers and emails are exchanged, and everyone feels like they’ve shared a real experience that was shaped by all of them.”

Paladar has been in existence for only a year, but it’s execution is improving with each go around. Jones and Callahan muse  about someday opening up gourmet chains, or even staging more frequent dinners, but for now they’re both content with where it is. “We can work our day jobs without too much interference,” says Jones, “and we’re keeping Paladar as a really interesting learning experience. Our chef skills have dramatically changed for the better, so that’s a win, and we get to work together and learn from each other. Someday we might gather the nerve to take Paladar out of its current comfort zone but right now the current structure will stay as is.”

Want to know more? Want to attend the next Paladar palate-pleasing fete? Follow the Paladar Blog to keep tabs on future dates.

Boot It Dave! Grand Slammin' in Brooklyn

Hike up your socks, Brooklyn, tie your booties good and tight, and throw on your most ironic T. It’s a Sunday night in October in Williamsburg Brooklyn’s McCarren Park and only the best of Brooklyn Kickball League’s teams are still in the running for the much coveted Chuck D cup and the title (among lesser ranked teams) of Brooklyn’s most insufferably braggish rubber-ball-tossers. The whole place is hopping with hip young things spectating as 4 top-notch teams  kick, run, slide and talk smack in the name of everybody’s favorite gym class game: Kickball.

This ‘aint just a pickup game in the park, folks. No, no, the Brooklyn Kickball league is a veritable institution, complete with its own website, facebook page, and self-sponsored season ending prom. Started in 2003 with just a few teams, the league now has over 30 teams that play from April through October, usually on Sundays in McCarren Park in Brooklyn.

From the Pitchers Mound in Brooklyn's McCarren Park

How do players explain the league’s popularity?  “It’s the perfect perversion of the playground games of my youth,” says Perri, a Kindergarten teacher living in the East Village and working in the Harlem. She takes the L train here every Sunday. “Adults don’t get a chance to get dirty and just play enough,” she adds. It’s fun, it’s dirty, but it also fosters a sense of community and makes the city seem just a little bit smaller. It’s a community that draws people from all over the city, and really contributes to the vibrancy of the nabe. Team uniforms vary, but trend toward cutoff jeans and repurposed, D.I.Y. stenciled Ts. Some teams travel with their own sound systems, others with their own bathtub-brewed moonshine–which they house out of oversized styrofoam cups from the dugout. And for those looking to score more than just a run or two, there’s a kickball ball where love triangles of soap opera quality reveal themselves with vintage taffeta and three piece suit drama at the end of every season.

Kickball Team Portrait

After a rousing game, teams usually descend, dirt-caked and proud, on a local watering hole like the Turkey Nest or Savalas. While there, they relive the game’s glorious moments and show off scabs that won’t heal till the season ends.

If you’re considering joining in the fun, but doubt your athleticism, take heart. You don’t have to have a Varsity letter on your CV, and there’s no picking teams–so stop the ‘last pick at recess’ nightmares before they even start. What’s important is that you’ve got spirit, a sense of humor, and you don’t mind drinking warm beer. Team names might or might not say something about the cutthroat competition you’re dealing with: The John Cougar Mellencamps; Zeus’ Beard; Divine Sisterhood of the Sacred Bleeding; and Salute Your Jorts.

To sign up for next season, check out the Brooklyn Kickball League’s Free Agents’ List page and find a team that’s seeking new talent.

Community Garden Gate at 6BC in the East Village

Members of the More Gardens Coalition left their apartments last Saturday ready for battle. Donning dirty overalls and waterproof clogs, and wielding rusty trowels, they were a picture of compost-scented, seed-sowing intimidation.
Their plan: Descend upon a community garden in Chelsea and, between sips of organic lemonade and nibbles of kale-kibbeh, bellow forth:

“PEAS AND JUSTICE NOW!”
Their adversaries: City officials, vulturous developers perched in wait, and stuffed shirts, all ready to mow down their carefully cared for greenery.

Their plight: Protect their communal gardens from destruction.

Today, there are more than 600 community gardens throughout NYC. Each garden, be it in the East Village, Chelsea, or West Harlem, has a personality all it’s own, oftentimes reflecting the culture and community spirit of those who tend it. These gardens are special, serving as a rare refuge from the city’s asphalt and stone.
As “tree-hugger” jokes become slightly less funny in the wake of a nationwide “green is cool” movement, it’s interesting that spaces like the Elliot Chelsea Green Grounds Community Garden (where our guerrilla gardeners rally and rouse in Chelsea) face the threat of destruction. Undeveloped land in NYC is scarce, and some developers have set their sights on these once abandoned lots.

6BC Community Garden in the East Village

Enter the volunteers of 6BC in the East Village. With gardens blooming since the early 80′s, there is a lot at stake. But theirs is a success story to emulate; the land is now permanently protected under the auspices of the NYC Park System’s  GreenThumb Program. Thanks to their battle cries, for generations to come, neighbors will be free to gather, sow, tend, and cultivate both the botanical bounty and the sense of community provided by their shared green space.

One of many GreenThumb Gardens in the city

West Harlem’s Riverside Valley Community Garden goes even further than merely providing a bit of crispy O2 and some shade. A local construction company has partnered with Columbia University’s Manhattanville project to provide construction and horticultural knowledge to the community gardeners.  The fully operational garden they maintain produces fruits and vegetables that find their way into the hands of West Harlem community members in need. Check out the history and current thriving state of the Riverside Valley Community Garden in this video.

Regardless of recent conflicts between armed gardeners and arm-chair developers, hundreds of community gardens still prosper throughout the city. Gardeners who take to the streets shouting corny slogans and waving signs made from recycled peat moss bags are our community heroes.  And success stories like those of 6BC and Riverside Valley Community Garden are a testament to the power of greenery, and the collective nurturing of a living, breathing, and ever-growing neighborhood space.