You really don’t want to miss this — plain & simple. If you’ve been to The Cave, you know what we mean. If you haven’t , you’re truly missing out on a new Main Street gem. Check them out ahead of time and mark next Thursday 5/23 4-6pm on your calendar.
Sugar & Spice Tasting
May 23rd from 4-6
Join us at The Cave for beautiful Italian wines, sumptuous cheese and salts from the waters off Marblehead. Complimentary. Hope to see you there.
The Cave
44 Main Street
Gloucester, Massachusetts 01930
978-283-0896
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Then it’s a HUGE night on Cape Ann. You can’t possibly see it all, so you’re gonna have to choose. See the full live music lineup here. Aren’t you glad you live in a community with a vibrant local live music scene? Twenty Two local artists performing today alone!
Crowell Chapel is a gem of a venue in Manchester and tonight you can see award-winning Boston singer/songwriter Meg Hutchinson with local rising star, Joe Wilkins opening. Get tickets here. Here’s a taste of Meg:
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On Tuesday, a friend of mine was visiting from New York. He loves good food, so we had planned to head down to one of Gloucester’s fine dining locations on Main Street. We had settled on the Franklin, but when we got down to Main Street, we found out about the broken water main and saw that all the restaurants were closed.
We ended up going down to Rogers Street and trying Latitude 43. I had only been there once before, quite a while ago, and it was the first time for my friend. We were both impressed by the decor as soon as we walked in. The metal sculptures of the octopus, fish, etc., are quite something, as is the mural of the shoreline over the bar!
Our waiter, Zorba Kinigstein, was enthusiastic, friendly, and very knowledgeable about the menu, giving us tantalizing descriptions of how the different dishes are prepared and the different flavors and textures we could expect. My friend ordered the lobster bisque and the pan-seared halibut special; I opted for the clam chowder and the crispy potato sushi roll (tempura asparagus, lettuce, avocado and cream cheese, topped with fried sweet potato and served with a spicy mustard sauce!) which you can see in my photo at the beginning of this post.
Everything was delicious! I’d read a lot about Latitude 43 on GMG before, but I don’t eat out often on my own and usually aim for more inexpensive options to fit my budget. I am glad that circumstances (and my friend’s generosity) led us to eat there!
With warming temperatures finally here, the striper migration continues to build in both size and numbers throughout the greater Cape Ann area and to the north at Plum Island and the Merrimack estuary. The stripers are ranging in size from as small as 10 inches to some over 30 inches. The stripers are hitting just about any type of bait including flies, metals, jigs, soft plastics, swimming plugs and topwater twitch baits. The Little River at the Candy House has been producing stripers throughout the tide cycle, but best at the tide top and drop. The Essex River backwaters are also producing stripers for those who know their way around. There is tons of bait in the area that include herring, peanut bunker, alewife in the backwaters. Some squid and mackerel are also showing up in Gloucester Harbor. And by all reports, the fishing should steadily improve throughout the remainder of the month as lots of positive reports continue to come in from many locations to the south of Cape Ann. Stripers are also showing in good numbers at the mouth of the Merrimack and are also pushing upstream in hot pursuit of herring and shad; I won’t be surprised if they begin to be caught at the Great Stone Dam in Lawrence. Also the shad run is off the charts excellent with more and more fish entering the river; I heard one report of catching as many as 20 fish per hour just below the dam at Lawrence.
If you haven’t already heard, the past week has produced a few fifty plus pound stripers at RI and New Jersey. If you are a FB fan, be sure and "like" the On The Water page for daily fishing posts.
The Fish on Fridays series is a collaboration between Gloucester photographers Kathy Chapman and Marty Luster. Look for various aspects of Gloucester’s centuries-old fishing industry highlighted here on Fridays.
Because of the new quota restrictions, Sal and Joe Sanfilippo (father and son) of the fishing vessel Janaya and Joseph, wait for the best time to go out and fish.
This April’s Noise Magazine proclaimed, “Gracie is one of the best blues divas on the local scene.” Bob says she’s likely to join Lydia Warren during her set. It’s the blues. Who knows what will happen. See videos of the rest of this year’s Blues Fest lineup in this post.
Gracie and the band won the 2013 Boston Blues Society’s Blues Challenge and is a Boston favorite. Here’s a video them at Johnny D’s, one of my favorite places to go when I lived in Sommerville in the late ’70s / early ’80s.
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“The Angels Share” is the Winner of the 2012 Cannes Film Festival Jury Prize and is playing at the Cape Ann Community Cinema this week.
Rob’s Interview:
The sweeping Irish historical epic “The Wind That Shakes The Barley.” The entertaining midlife crisis of “Looking For Eric.” The hard-hitting take on the world’s water woes in “Even The Rain.” Paul Laverty is responsible for writing some of the most intelligent and engaging films of the last decade, a trend that he continues in his latest, the bittersweet but heartwarming comedy from director Ken Loach, the master of social realist cinema. The film is the Cannes Grand Jury Prize-winning “The Angels’ Share” a very likable tale about city outsiders in search of a better life.
Glasgow boy Robbie (newcomer Paul Brannigan), while on community service, makes three friends, all similarly cast-out from society and hard-up to make ends meet. Little does Robbie know how much a drink could change their lives – not cheap booze, mind you, but the finest of malt whiskies. Robbie’s newly-discovered palate and delicate nose lead him and his crew to a strange new world – the Scottish Highlands – and the biggest gamble of their lives when a cask only rumored to exist appears and tempts them with a big way out of their hard-knock lives.
“The story grew out of the frustration with the way that young people are treated and demonized,” Laverty explains. “The chances are that people like Robbie will never find work in their lives – or taste Scotland’s national drink. They’re frustrated and angry and often self-destructive, and it was such a fun challenge to find a balance that would depict that.” To read the entire interview visit NorthShoreMovies.net
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How many folks can name the schooner sailing over City Hall and explain why she merits such a lofty presence? It is a fascinating story – thoroughly researched here in Gloucester by a Canadian — Capt. Keith McLaren. A Race for Real Sailors (2006), the Bluenose and the International Fishermen’s Cup, 1920-1938. An America’s Cup yacht race had been cancelled in 1920 for weather conditions considered ‘normal’ for working fishing schooners, and this prompted the idea for the competition between the Gloucester and Lunenburg fleets with ‘honest to God boats.’ In the words of Joe Garland, Capt. McLaren’s book is “The definitive account of the fabled sailing rivalry between the fastest of the last fishing schooners of Canada and the States — and with photos to take your breath away. What a read!” The front jacket painting: Racing Schooners, circa 1921, by Dusan Kadlec, portrays Bluenose and Elsie racing. Sailing proudly over City Hall is Elsie.
At the Cape Ann Museum across the street there is an exquisite Elsie model built by Erik Ronnberg.
In the acknowledgements the author makes special mention of help he received from Joe Garland and Dana Story, and credits Erik Ronnberg along with James Craig and Stephanie Buck at the Museum. A Race for Real Sailors is available in the Museum’s gift shop.
A newly-launched Bluenose II will be making her first appearance in Gloucester on Labor Day weekend at the Schooner Festival. Our good friends from Nova Scotia have reached deep into their pockets to create a new masterpiece. This would be a perfect time for people in our city to refresh their knowledge of Gloucester’s famed past in preparation for a grand welcome.
Al Bezanson
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Hello Friends, Colleagues & Get Fit Gloucester Partners, The Backyard Growers Program has just launched its first-ever on-line fundraising campaign! We are raising money to host a FoodCorps Service Member next year and to support our expansion into Gloucester’s elementary schools (read below for details). Check out our campaign at www.indiegogo.com
Please consider making a donation and/or forwarding our campaign to your networks. The fundraiser video features my lovely daughters, and is guaranteed to put a smile on your face : ) Thank you! Lara Here’s the nitty-gritty on who we are and what we’re asking for (you can also read this on our campaign site):
What we do Backyard Growers is a program of the Cape Ann Farmers’ Market. We are part of the farmers’ market strategy for increasing fresh veggie eating in Gloucester!
Since 2010 the Backyard Growers Program, in partnership with The Food Project, has provided low- to moderate-income Gloucester residents with backyard raised-bed vegetable gardens, garden training, and ongoing mentor support. It’s simple! We help people grow their own fresh vegetables. Our survey results show that having a backyard garden and knowing how to use it:
Increases the amount of fresh produce a family eats,
Gets kids excited about eating fresh veggies,
Saves money on grocery bills, and
Builds community within neighborhoods.
We are expanding! Next fall we will expand into Gloucester’s elementary schools, bringing our comprehensive garden program to over 1300 students! Our program will build the capacity of each school community to manage their school farms over the long term. Students will:
Learn through doing in the school garden!
Grow and harvest their own salad greens and eat them as part of school lunch in the cafeteria.
Plant crops in June to be harvested when they return to school in the fall as part of an annual harvest celebration.
To do this we need help… We have an opportunity to host a FoodCorps Service Member for one year starting in September.
FoodCorps is a national nonprofit organization that works with schools to create a healthier school food environment. It is part of the AmeriCorps service network, and targets improving childhood health by placing service members in public schools around the country to teach hands-on nutrition education; build and care for school gardens; and work to bring high-quality local food to school cafeterias.
Our Service Member will build the capacity of each school to maintain productive school gardens with the goal of school gardens becoming part of the culture of each school!
Donate! Your contribution will make all this possible! Please help us raise $7,500 by donating to our campaign.
$5,000 = Our salary contribution for a one-year, full-time FoodCorps Service Member
$2,500 = Program expansion costs (garden & program supplies, additional staff costs)
We have some fun perks for you, including free seeds & seedlings and garden training, and some special ways for you to connect with the school garden program. If we don’t reach our entire fundraising goal we will ramp up the grant writing. If we exceed our goal, we will put the funds toward the future sustainability of the Backyard Growers Program.
Help us Spread the Word! Forward this indiegogo campaign to your people.
Tonight’s Chronicle at 7:30pm on Channel 5 previews his book for the first time on TV — and it features a segment on Gloucester & Cape Ann. Don’t Miss it!
After the show, take advantage of this gorgeous weather and check out over a dozen artists playing live tonight around Cape Ann tonight. See the full schedule here.
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On May 12 at 2PM, Barbara Moody gave a presentation on “Finding Your Unique Voice as an Artist”. She spoke to a fairly large audience about her own experience as an artist, accompanied by a slideshow illustrating her artistic journey through a wide variety of themes and styles in her work. She also showed a sort of time-lapse video of herself doing a charcoal painting; it was fascinating to watch the work evolve and change radically before our eyes!
When you’ve been patrolling the wharf all night, standing daytime gate duty and greeting ARDELLE’S passengers you gotta catch forty winks when you can. Even in the blazing sunshine. Especially when you’re 72 in human years. Such is the life of a Maritime Gloucester Volunteer. Not complaining, mind you.
As told to Al Bezanson
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Thursday –Dave Sag’s Blues Party with Evan Goodrow ~ 8-11
Dave says,
Let’s welcome back Mr. Evan Goodreau! One of the best crowd pleasers I know, Big E has just returned from the Bronx where he came in first place in the Annual Homie car-stripping contest, making mincemeat out of a brand new BMW in seconds flat. Be careful: he can do it to your brain, too. Evan never fails to get the pot boiling quickly, so come early.
Also, on the skins will be our very own redcoat, Mr. David Mattacks, who needs no introduction, unless you’ve been in a coma.
Thank all of you for your pained inquiries into missing emails: I had some kind of gastro-informational problem which has since cleared up with the regular applications of Damnitol®, the speedy world wide cobweb fixer upper. Should all be good, now.
Still on winter hours 8 to 11. Thank you for your continuing support! We would be nothing without you! And watch out for that miserable summer cold/flu thing going around. I got it and couldn’t even drink for a couple of days!
As a part of the Gloucester Public Schools Arts Festival, the Cape Ann Museum has embraced an avalanche of visual arts produced by the school children. The work is displayed all over the museum’s galleries, making an interesting juxtaposition with the work of professional artists.
Cape Ann, home to the most oft-painted building in the US – celebrated in a festival on May 18 – deserves to be better known in Britain, says Paul Wade.
Mentioned-Rocky Neck, Cape Ann Museum, Hammond Castle, HA Burnham Boatyard, Thomas E Lannon, Motif No1, Bearskin Neck, Lobster Pool Restaurant, Duckworth’s Bistrot, The Franklin, Blue Shutters In, Emerson Inn, Beech Tree Bed and Breakfast, My Place By The Sea, Cape Pond Ice, 7 Seas Whale Watch, North Shore Kayak
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Good Morning Gloucester 