The Rogovoy Report 3.20.23

From around the corner to around the globe...

Mar 20, 2023

Make a To-Don’t List

(The Atlantic) - How are your New Year’s resolutions going? Perhaps that’s a sore subject. Resolutions usually fail, sometimes even in the first few months of the year (one study found that half dissolved after three months), so odds are good that yours have too. If so, don’t feel too bad! Clearly, you’re in good company. If your resolutions have become a statistic, let me suggest a new approach for the remainder of the year: Create a list of anti-resolutions. These are things you want to not do this year, such as spending time with particular people who don’t bring out your best, or going places you don’t enjoy. That might sound a little too, well, negative, but it’s actually an approach to life improvement based on an ancient philosophical concept known as the via negativa.

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I love you, now leave me alone: What friendship means to an introvert (NYT)

Kafka’s diaries are often very funny (NYRB)

The curtain rises on Trump’s legal dramas (New Yorker)

Michael Kowalski, director of sales and hospitality at Berkshire Mountain Distillers (photo courtesy BMD)

Bottling the Bounty: Berkshires Beverage Businesses

(Berkshire Edge) by Benjamin Lamb - The Berkshire regional beverage industry has seen an especially robust bolstering of activity in recent years. Berkshire beverage industry participants are developing, producing, distributing, and advancing a robust revenue pipeline of high-quality products that enhance the quality of life for residents, and draw visitors to our region. These include Berkshire Mountain Distillers, Hot Plate Brewing Co., and Berkshire Cider Project. [Ed. note: The inclusion of this article does not imply an endorsement of these businesses, specifically or in general.]

The Joy of Zero-Waste Cooking

(NYT) HUDSON, N.Y. - If you were trying to convince someone about the merits of cooking with scraps and leftovers, you’d likely talk about how it’s a more organized and efficient way to approach the food you buy, how it saves both time and money, and how it’s better for the environment than automatically dumping food into the garbage, where it will go on to sit in a landfill and produce vast amounts of methane while it slowly decomposes. “The Everlasting Meal Cookbook” by Hudson, N.Y., author Tamar Adler is a new encyclopedia of recipes that breathes life into all kinds of scraps and leftovers.

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Antojitos Oaxaca, a year-old Mexican food eatery in Lee, has closed (Berkshire Eagle)

What will FTX fallout mean for Ryan Salame’s Lenox dining empire? (B Eagle)

Affordable and Waterfront: A Win for Pub Fare at Kip’s Tavern in Rhinecliff (RI)

NEWS FROM THE BERKSHIRES

Practicing a yoga pose by the Stockbridge Bowl, which is also called Lake Mahkeenac. (photo Bill Tipper)

Learning to Relax at Kripalu

(Boston Globe) STOCKBRIDGE, Mass. - When the COVID-19 pandemic took over America in March 2020, Kripalu, the country’s largest yoga retreat, sent its guests and staff home. The nonprofit paid its employees through June, but faced with potential insolvency, it then took the painful step of laying off 450 of its 489 employees. The retreat stayed shuttered for 17 months, and its annual revenue crashed from $37M in 2019 to $11M in 2020. Now, like the guests who flock to its wooded Berkshires campus, Kripalu is doing a post-pandemic reset. Since reopening in August 2021, it’s hired 337 employees. It’s simplified and streamlined its programming choices. It’s expanded its online programming, which now includes a $59 monthly subscription for video yoga and meditation. Longtime fans are thrilled to have it back: In the 19 months since Kripalu reopened, 40,000 people have visited, and one loyalist has returned 26 times. In 2022, revenue rebounded to $29 million.

NEWS FROM THE HUDSON VALLEY

Creating a Residence with Character at Foley & Cox Home

(Upstate House) HUDSON, N.Y. - Last year, Foley & Cox Home celebrated 15 years in Hudson — “an incredible community of art galleries and dealers” where Michael Cox, veteran interior designer and principal at Foley & Cox Home, is proud to have established deep roots while “influencing the expansion and elevation of Warren Street,” citing his good fortune at finding a solid space in the 300-block — a desolate stretch in 2007, considering the concentration of premiere showrooms and galleries up in the 500- and 600-blocks — that suits his growing business well. After two decades in an industry marked by constant evolution, Cox remains certain of one thing: Well-crafted interiors bring the individuals who reside there to life.

The Rogovoy Report