Spring 2015

Back to the Future

By Sydney Bender, EDITOR

It’s been a long winter. There’s this Polaroid I recently found in one of my old discarded library books. It’s of a burly woman holding a Crock Pot. In the picture she is wearing a long tattered housecoat, she’s frowning, and her right brow is wrinkled like the floral balloon curtains that hang behind her. “No more winter” is the caption, scribbled in what I guess was her gnarly hand. The photograph isn’t dated, but the kitchen in the background, with ogee-edged marble counters, light-reflecting foil wallpaper and a pine-paneled ceiling, tell me this picture was taken sometime in the 1970s. But that look on her face — the disgust and horror of a long, frigid winter, and maybe another Crock Pot meal, is something that, by now, we can all relate to. Sooner or later (though hopefully sooner) you’ll forget exactly how long winter felt. You’ll forget how it was cold — really cold — and how at some point, whether you admit it or not, there were days, maybe weeks, where you never left your house. Over 20 inches of accumulated snow resulted in one-person pajama parties, one pot meals, and more snow days than we care to count. But thank goodness, the time has come to store winter’s slow cooker (Kitchen Tips), dig out your picnic basket (Tisbury Town Picnic) and get out those gardening gloves (Early Returns) — spring is back. The season of new beginnings is here. And we couldn’t be happier.