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Who Knew? Valentine’s Day Edition

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Who Knew?’ is sponsored by Walter Stewart’s Market. Nobody comes to the leafy Connecticut suburbs for our heart-shaped hot tubs. Not only is their resale value questionable, but surely P&Z has a longstanding regulation against Atlantic City chic. All the same, New Canaan can be the perfect spot for a dreamy date, even when your date is the person with whom you’ve been filing taxes jointly for decades. You can find romance here in a cozy, candlelit meal, a meandering drive down a country road, or playing footsie while you read the parking ticket appeals.

Back End

Who Knew? New Canaan, New You

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‘Who Knew?’ is sponsored by Walter Stewart’s Market. Our culture’s annual ritual of reinvention and deprivation is upon us, and it’s the absolute worst. The onset of a new calendar year is the obvious time to make drastic changes to your lifestyle because, last year, even if it was three weeks ago, you were a grievously flawed monster. Wellness and lifestyle brand ads proliferate in your Instagram feed, implying that whoever you are, you must immediately renounce that sad, besweatpantsed person because it is unthinkable to show up to a New Year without a New You. Propped up by billions of marketing dollars, New You sanctimoniously eschews caffeine, sugar, gluten, tequila, procrastination, toffee, cured meats, online shopping, croissants, spontaneously-purchased first-class airplane tickets, cupcakes of any size, movie popcorn, and smokehouse almonds.

Business

The Year in Review: Five Standout New Canaan Foods of 2021

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One remarkable thing about our community is that, with very few exceptions, we made it through two years of a global pandemic without seeing any of our beloved restaurants close. You can attribute that to the hard work of restaurant and food service teams, as well as the dogged generosity of our town’s restaurant patrons. In my case, I was often just completely unwilling to make my own lunch in the middle of a long workday, or too lazy at night to cook. Either way, in appreciation of a restaurant scene we’re incredibly lucky to have, here are five dishes I kept going back for this past year. 1. Greens on the Go’s Butternut Squash Toast

As a society, we don’t talk enough about the magic of Unidentified Crunchy Things and why they need official designation as a food group.

Around Town

Upcycled Yard Clippings and a Can-Do Attitude: How to Make the Holidays Happen in New Canaan [VIDEO]

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It would be undoubtedly easy to order our town’s holiday decorations from a big box store or, gasp, the Internet. Surely there’s an iPhone app somewhere where one can pick a look, pay through the nose for rush installation, and find oneself walking through a ready-made winter wonderland. Santa in an Uber, and all that. 

But isn’t it reassuring to know that New Canaan will never do it that way? 

In early December, for the past five decades, the New Canaan Beautification League and the New Canaan Garden Club have partnered to hold our town’s Holiday Greens Workshop at the Nature Center. Several dozen volunteers from both clubs make many of our town’s holiday decorations from scratch, upcycling pruned branches and clippings into the extra-large bespoke wreaths you’ll spot on our town’s municipal buildings throughout December. Trees and shrubs like white pine, holly, ilex, juniper, and spruce can benefit from pruning at this time of year, so generous members, private tree services, and our town’s Parks department gather and donate a bounty that befits New Canaan’s holiday spirit.

Business

Love in the Time of Coronavirus: New Canaan Eats

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Last Saturday night, which, as we all know, was precisely seven years ago in terms of both temporal and emotional distance, I had an idea. We had cancelled plans with friends because the whole Coronavirus thing was getting a bit too real, so I thought I’d ask my husband on a date to our dining room. We called up Elm, ordered three courses, and I put on a fancy dress and dusty high heels while my husband drove into town to pick our dinner up. 

The service at Chez Ault, our hot new dining room restaurant, is terrible. That’s because the service is me. There are dogs underfoot and no butter for the bread and the courses are poorly paced while I check my phone for the latest, exponentially terrible news of COVID-19.