Nick Kaiser joins us for an evening of acoustic finger-style/flatpicking guitar music. A singer and songwriter, Kaiser is known for announcing, producing and directing programs on Vermont Public Radio. Please help welcome him to Brandon and the Ball & Chain Café!
Poet David Cavanagh will read poems from his new book, Falling Body. Blackbird duo Bob DeMarco and Rachel Clark will perform Celtic and other traditional music. Come hear what happens when music and poetry mingle. Books and CDs will be available for sale.
No Crying in the Kitchen is the tasty story of Michel LeBorgne's journey through a culinary life, a life that started on a farm in Brittany and led eventually to the New England Culinary Institute. Filled with charming anecdotes, black and white photos, and behind-the-scenes glimpses of the kitchen trade, this book will whet both the appetite and the imagination. It contains information that will be useful to both the budding professional and the enthusiastic amateur cook, including more than 30 of the Chef’s favorite recipes. Michel LeBorgne is a master chef, and more importantly, a teacher. Trained in the classic French tradition, he immigrated to America just as the national taste buds were being awakened by colorful personalities such as Julia Child, Graham Kerr, and Jacques Pepin, fueled by the power of television. Michel also immigrated from the “back room” of the kitchen to the world of academia, first at Yale, but later as the founding chef at the New England Culinary Institute. Today, some of the nation’s most accomplished chefs and food providers are proud to call “Chef Michel” their mentor, and we are delighted to have him here at Briggs Carriage!
The schedule for the evening is as follows, and you are invited to attend any one or all of the night's events.
5:30 - 7:00 Meet and Greet with Chef Michel at Cafe Provence
Outside on the Patio; cheese, hors d'œuvres and a cash bar. Chef Michel's book will also be available at this time.
7:00 - 8:00 Book Talk, Q & A, and Signing @ Briggs Carriage Bookstore
From rollicking fiddle breakdown to mountain ballads to hillbilly blues, the energetic old-time string band Run Mountain breathes new life into American roots music. Equally at home performing at festivals, coffeehouses, country fairs or barn dances, and adding "zing" to special events, Run Mountain combines the talents of three musicians - Paula Bradley, Bill Dillof, and Jim Burns - into an exciting and engaging ensemble featuring powerful vocals accompanied by banjo, fiddle, guitar, harmonica & ukulele, with flatfoot dancing to boot!
Run Mountain draws their inspiration from rare 78 rpm recordings of the southern "old-time" music of the 1920s and 30s, including artists such as Fiddlin' Powers and Family, Earl Johnson and his Dixie Clodhoppers, Ernest V. Stoneman, Seven Foot Dilly and his Dill Pickles, Leake County Revelers, Mainer's Mountaineers and many others. To learn more about the trio visit their website: www.runmountain.com.
Holly Robinson, author of "The Gerbil Farmer's Daughter" and a former contributing editor to Ladies' Home Journal, wryly narrates this memoir about growing up with a stern navy father who abruptly takes up breeding the then little-known gerbil in the late 1960s. Though her mother equates the creatures with rats, and her father must keep his behavior hushed in his military circles, his hobby soon becomes an obsession that he believes will not only make him an income but allow him to retire. Robinson grew up as a fish out of water navy brat in the 1970s with a strong-willed mother and younger siblings, including her sister Gail who died of cystic fibrosis at age four. But her father is the true focus; he accidentally discovers that gerbils have epileptic seizures, a discovery that leads him to become the world's largest supplier of gerbils bred for research. Robinson intersperses her compelling narrative with accounts of gerbil mayhem, managing to milk a great deal of humor and pathos out of the rodent that eventually became a common children's pet. Come to Briggs Carriage for a captivating evening as Robinson discusses her acclaimed memoir, parts of which were written in our cafe!
From the French and Indian War to the exposure of Maple Corner, It Happened in Vermont by Mark Bushnell will amuse the reader with thirty-two events that shaped the Green Mountain State. From the unlucky French soldiers who barely survived a Vermont winter in the 1660s, to the photogenic men from Maple Corner, It Happened in Vermonttells the stories of intriguing people and events from the history of the state known for its Green Mountain Boys as well as its modern-day residents.Learn how a Vermont congressman fought for his right to criticize the President and about the cross-border Confederate attack on the people of St Albans. Mark Bushnell worked for a dozen years as an editor for Vermont newspapers. He became a freelancer in 2001 and since has written a weekly column about Vermont history, called “Life in the Past Lane,” for the Rutland Herald and Barre-Montpelier Times Argus. He is the author of Discover Vermont! The Vermont Life Guide to Exploring Our Rural Landscape and contributed a chapter to a biography of Howard Dean. He lives in Middlesex with his wife, Susan Clark, and son, Harrison.
