Boston Flora

Category: Author Book Signing

  • Monday, July 7, 7:00 pm – Crafty Bastards

    Join Lauren Clark at Porter Square Books, 25 White Street in Cambridge on Monday, July 7 at 7 pm for a celebration of the New England tradition of brewing beer — complete with samples!

    The region that defined Yankee ingenuity has a beer heritage in keeping with its character. Brewing in New England goes back four centuries, beginning with the Pilgrims who dropped anchor in Plymouth because their supply of beer was running low. (After barely surviving the winter, they planted a crop of barley and soon brewed their first ale.) Making beer in New England hasn’t always been easy. Puritan housewives, Industrial Era beer moguls, and contemporary craft brewers alike have concocted humankind’s oldest beverage in the face of scarce ingredients, legal hurdles, and public indifference. But despite these challenges, beer continues to be a staple of New England life.

    With Crafty Bastards: Beer in New England from the Mayflower to Modern Day, Lauren Clark deepens our appreciation for the perfect pint. Giving voice to the inimitable Yankee spirit that allows New Englanders to faithfully produce some of the best beers in the nation, Clark invites readers to take a giant swig of brewing past and present.

    Lauren Clark is a journalist and former bartender and brewer. Her articles have appeared in the New York Times, The Boston Globe, Jane, and Yankee Magazine. Clark is the founder of drinkboston.com, which was featured in several Boston newspapers and magazines, the Massachusetts Beverage Business Journal, and Vintage Spirits & Forgotten Cocktails by Ted Haigh.

  • Wednesday, July 9, 5:00 pm – Looking at Lichens: A Journey of Discovery Beginning on Cape Cod

    Looking at Lichens-A Journey of Discovery Beginning on Cape Cod was written by naturalist Nancy Wigley with photographs by Susan W. Carr.

    Ms. Wigley will answer questions about what lichens are, where they are found, how they reproduce, why they are like the canary in the mine, which ones are poisonous, how they are used medicinally, and how they played an important role in establishing life on Earth. She will also have common specimens on hand during this drop-in program at the Green Briar Nature Center, 6 Discovery Hill Road (off Route 6A) in East Sandwich on Wednesday, July 9 beginning at 5 pm.  $5.  For more information call 508-888-6870, or email info@thorntonburgess.org.

    http://www.ccmnh.org/Images/cms/looking%20at%20leichens128.jpg?format=jpg&mode=max&scale=both

  • Monday, June 23, 7:00 pm – The Manor: Three Centuries at a Slave Plantation on Long Island

    In 1984, the landscape historian Mac Griswold was rowing along a Long Island creek when she came upon Sylvester Manor, a stately mansion guarded by hulking boxwoods. When Griswold went inside, she encountered a house full of revelations, including a letter from Thomas Jefferson and—most remarkable and disturbing—what the aged owner, Andrew Fiske, casually called the “slave staircase.”

    This staircase would reveal the extensive but little-known story of Northern slavery, and in 1997 Griswold returned with a team of archaeologists, uncovering a landscape filled with stories. Based on years of research—and voyages that took her as far as West Africa—Griswold has given us both the biography of a place that has witnessed war and reversals in fortune, and the riveting story of the family that has occupied it for three centuries. A fine-grained account and a sweeping drama, The Manor captures American history in all its richness and contradictions.

    The author will speak at Porter Square Books, 25 White Street in Cambridge, on Monday, June 23 at 7 pm.  Her book, in paperback, will be available for purchase and signing.  For additional information email info@portersquarebooks.com, or call 617-491-2220.

  • Saturday, June 14, 1:00 pm – To Cook is to Love

    Longtime Boston-based chef John Verlinden serves up his own healthier, modernized version of traditional Latin cooking, while also taking readers on a classic immigration adventure, in his upcoming book, To Cook Is to Love. He will appear on Saturday, June 13, at 1 pm at Porter Square Books, 25 White Street in Cambridge.

    John Verlinden is a chef, food educator and writer who started cooking the summer he turned 12 years old. He honed his craft by working in many restaurants and other food businesses in nearly every capacity—from dishwasher, to busboy, to waiter, to bartender, to chef to owner. Along with his life partner, Oz Mondejar, he owned and operated a popular Cuban-American restaurant, Mucho Gusto Café & Collectibles, in Boston from 1995 to 2000. Among the honors the restaurant received were Boston Magazine’s “Best of Boston”, The Improper Bostonian’s “Boston’s Best”, and Hispanic Magazine’s “Top 50 Hispanic Restaurants in the U.S.” A passion advocate for healthier Latin cooking, Verlinden has participated in a variety of culinary training programs for adults and children. He also maintains a popular blog on his website and produces a food column for a local newspaper. For more information visit www.portersquarebooks.com, or call 617-491-2220.

  • Saturday, June 21, 10:00 am – 12:00 noon – Wild Harvest: Sharing Mother Nature’s Bounty Edible and Medicinal Field Study

    Join herbalist Dina Falconi and explore the plants of the gardens, meadows and woodland edges of the Berkshire Botanical Garden on Saturday, June 21 from 10 – 12. Learn to identify these plants using basic sensory skills, and discover how they are used for food, medicine and pleasure. This walk will include practical information on harvest and preparation. Bring a notepad, camera and water bottle. Following the program, Dina will be selling and signing her beautiful book, Foraging & Feasting: A Field Guide and Wild Food Cookbook.

    Dina Falconi is a clinical herbalist with a strong focus on food activism and nutritional healing. An avid gardener, wildcrafter and permaculturalist, Dina has been teaching classes about the use of herbs for food, medicine and pleasure, including wild food foraging and cooking, for more than 20 years. She produces Falcon Formulations natural body care products and Earthly Extracts medicinal tinctures. She is a founding member of the Northeast Herbal Association, a chapter leader of the Weston A. Price Foundation and an organizer of Slow Food-Hudson Valley. She is also the author of Earthly Bodies & Heavenly Hair: Natural and Healthy Personal Care for Everybody.  More information may be found at www.botanicalartspress.com.

    BBG members – $30; nonmembers – $35. Register at http://www.berkshirebotanical.org/ai1ec_event/wild-harvest-sharing-mother-natures-bounty-edible-and-medicinal-field-study/?instance_id=2614.

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  • Wednesday, June 18, 4:00 pm – Seeing Flowers

    Wednesday, June 18, 4:00 pm – Seeing Flowers

    We’ve all seen red roses, blue irises and yellow daffodils. But when we really look closely at a flower, whole new worlds of beauty and intricacy emerge. On Wednesday, June 18 at 4 pm at the Education Center at Berkshire Botanical Garden, join author Teri Dunn Chace for this illustrated talk based on her recent book, Seeing Flowers: Discover the Hidden Life of Flowers. Chace’s lyrical and illuminating essays complement the extraordinarily detailed floral images by photographer Robert Llewellyn. Chace will offer insights on each flower by exploring distinguishing characteristics and share fascinating tidbits, tales and lore as we view images revealing amazing details of stamens and pistils, shadings on a petal or the secret recesses of nectar tubes.

    Teri Dunn Chace is a writer and editor with more than 30 titles in publication, including How to Eradicate Invasive Plants and The Anxious Gardener’s Book of Answers. She’s also written and edited extensively for Horticulture, North American Gardener, Backyard Living and Birds & Blooms.  BBG members $15, nonmembers $20.  Register at http://www.berkshirebotanical.org/ai1ec_event/seeing-flowers/?instance_id=2615.

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  • Wednesday, June 11, 7:00 pm – Farmstead Egg Guide and Cookbook

    Terry Golson will be in Tower Hill Botanic Garden’s Limonaia on Wednesday, June 11, at 7 pm, to read from her book, The Farmstead Egg Guide and Cookbook, and to talk about all things related to chickens and eggs. To illustrate how engaging it is to keep your own small flock, Terry will bring one of her hens to the program! Terry is a recognized expert in backyard chicken keeping, and has appeared on the Martha Stewart Show, and in numerous magazine and newspaper articles. She maintains the popular website, HenCam.com where she blogs daily about a life with chickens, and has live-streaming cams on her animals. This program is free (with paid admission to Tower Hill Botanical Gardens.) Books will be available for purchase at the event.

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  • Monday, May 19, 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm – A Landscape Critic in the Gilded Age

    Mariana Griswold van Rensselaer (1851 – 1934) was one of the premier figures in landscape writing and design at the turn of the twentieth century, at a moment when the amateur pursuit of gardening and the increasingly professionalized landscape design field were beginning to diverge.  Her close relationship with Frederick Law Olmsted influenced her ideas on landscape gardening, and her interest in botany and geology shaped the ideas upon which her philosophy and art criticism were based.  Author Judith Major presents the first in-depth study of the versatile critic and author, revealing Van Rensselaer’s vital role in this moment in the history of landscape architecture.  The talk will take place Monday, May 19, at 7 pm at the Hunnewell Building, Arnold Arboretum, 125 Arborway.  Presented by The Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University and the Friends of Fairsted, the fee is $10 for members of the sponsoring organizations, $15 for nonmembers.  Registration required at www.arboretum.harvard.edu.

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  • Tuesday, May 20, 6:00 pm – Hemlock: A Forest Giant on the Edge

    For millennia, eastern hemlock trees have held irreplaceable cultural value and created unique forest habitat across New England. Today, eastern hemlocks are disappearing from our forests, falling by the tens of thousands as prey to an exotic insect foe.

    In the new book Hemlock: A Forest Giant on the Edge, eight Harvard Forest researchers reflect on eastern hemlock’s irreplaceable value to human culture, ecosystems, and scientific research.

    This free panel discussion, to be held Tuesday, May 20 beginning at 6 pm at the Harvard Museum of Natural History, 24 Oxford Street in Cambridge, featuring two of the book’s authors, Harvard Forest director David R. Foster and ecologist Aaron Ellison (recent speaker at The Garden Club of the Back Bay February meeting,) will explain connections between eastern hemlock’s modern decline and the larger challenges facing nature and society in an era of habitat fragmentation, native species loss, and global climate change.

  • Wednesday, May 21, 6:30 pm – 8:30 pm – Hellstrip Gardening: Paradise at the Curb

    Semi-public spaces in parking strips and alongside driveways and alleys could host thriving gardens that add beauty and provide ecological services.  Author Evelyn Hadden addresses issues such as car, foot, and paw traffic, utility and maintenance equipment, restricted root zones, contaminated soil, covenants and city regulations, and presents ideas for the greening of your neighborhood, on Wednesday, May 21, from 6:30 – 8:30 at Arnold Arboretum’s Hunnewell Building, 125 Arborway, Boston.  Co-sponsored with the Friends of Wellesley College Botanic Gardens.  Member of sponsoring organizations will pay $15, non-members $25.  Register at 781-283-3094, or email wcbgfriends@wellesley.edu.

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