editorial

With your help, we doubled down on local news

In May we announced a $100,000 matching challenge presented by LJMN board members. Thanks to you, your neighbors and friends, we exceeded the challenge and raised more than $135,000 for a combined total of more than $235,000.

Because of your generosity, we will be able to make investments in critical digital innovations in staffing and technology across the organization, especially in the newsroom. This means broader and deeper news, arts and lifestyle coverage delivered to you wherever you prefer to read it.

Your generosity has kept The Lakeville Journal and The Millerton News very much alive and thriving as a nonprofit. Our papers — and websites — continue to lead the way for a resurgence of community journalism across America. This is especially important during these times of economic uncertainty and mounting pressure on the free press.

As we have said in the past, we are one of the oldest independent local newspapers in the country, and our ambition is to remain one of the best.


We are pleased, too, to welcome Nathan Miller to the managing editor role at The Millerton News, and Aly Morrissey as reporter (see story here).

Together, with a team of correspondents, they will deliver the news and information that is vital to life in neighboring communities in eastern Dutchess County, including Millerton/North East, Amenia, Pine Plains, Millbrook/Washington.

editorial

Latest News

Kevin Kelly’s After Hours

Kevin Kelly’s After Hours

Kevin Kelly

Photo by Christopher Delarosa
“I was exposed to that cutthroat, ‘Yes, chef’ culture. It’s not for me. I don’t want anyone apologizing for who they are or what they love.”— Kevin Kelly

Kevin Kelly doesn’t call himself a chef; he prefers “cook.” His business, After Hours, based in Great Barrington, operates as what Kelly calls “a restaurant without a home,” a pop-up dining concept that prioritizes collaboration over competition, flexibility over permanence, and accessibility over exclusivity.

Kelly grew up in Great Barrington and has roots in the Southern Berkshires that go back ten generations. He began working in restaurants at age 14. “I started at Allium and was hooked right off the bat,” he said. He worked across the region from Cantina 229 in New Marlborough to The Old Inn on the Green at Jacob’s Pillow before heading to Babson College in Boston to study business. After a few years in Boston kitchens, he returned home to open a restaurant. But the math didn’t work. “The traditional model just didn’t feel financially sustainable,” he said. “So, I took a step back and asked, ‘If that doesn’t work, then what does?’”

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restaurants

Books & Blooms’ tenth anniversary

Books & Blooms’ tenth anniversary

Dee Salomon on what makes a garden a garden.

hoto by Ngoc Minh Ngo for Architectural Digest

On June 20 and 21, the Cornwall Library will celebrate its 10th anniversary of Books & Blooms, the two-day celebration of gardens, art, and the rural beauty of Cornwall. This beloved annual benefit features a talk, reception, art exhibit, and self-guided tours of four extraordinary local gardens.

The first Library sponsored garden tour was in June 2010 and featured a talk by Page Dickey, an avid gardener and author. This year’s Books & Blooms will coincide with Ellen Moon’s exhibit “Thinking About Gardens,” a collection of watercolors capturing the quiet spirit of Cornwall’s private gardens. Moon, a weekly storyteller to the first grade at Cornwall Consolidated School and art curator for The Cornwall Library, paints en plein air. Her work investigates what constitutes a garden. In the description of the show, she writes: “there are many sorts...formal, botanical, cottage, vegetable, herb...even a path through the woods is a kind of garden. My current working definition of a garden is a human intervention in the landscape to enhance human appreciation of the landscape.” Also on display are two of her hand-embroidered jackets. One depicts spring’s flowering trees and pollinators. The other, a kimono, was inspired by Yeats’s “The Song of the Wandering Aengus.”

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cornwall library