In the 1950s, Yolande Lacan’s parents emigrated from France to Canada, ultimately winding up in Whitefield, New Hampshire, running the Playhouse Inn. Her father Noel Lacan was the chef, but her mother Lucienne might have had the better palate. (more…)
Aiming to Cheese
“Aw, forget about it!” says cheese section manager Bob Derrico when you ask him how many cheeses Liuzzi Gourmet Market in North Haven carries. “We stopped counting years ago! Hundreds! At least four or five hundred, with 10 or 12 varieties for each type of cheese.” You won’t find any Kraft amongst those hundreds, but […]
In Tapa Form
When Ana De Los Angeles first visited New Haven seven years ago, a commercial space on the corner of West Rock and Whalley Avenues in New Haven’s Westville neighborhood gave her that tingly ‘this is the one’ feeling. She was living in New York at the time and had an accomplished 20-year career as a […]
The Diner Things
Georgette Anthis grew up in a diner. “I spent more time there than at home,” she says of what is now Georgie’s Diner in West Haven, named after her father, George Anthis, who first got involved with the business in 1971 and stewarded its most recent renovation a few years ago. The diner itself has […]
Well On
In rooms toward the back of a tiny store on Whitney Ave, massage therapists perform a 5,000-year-old medicinal tradition. The exact origin story of what’s known as “cupping therapy” is fuzzy, but wherever it started, it certainly made the rounds. The Egyptians did it, Hippocrates and the Greeks did it—believing it balanced out the four […]
A Pressing Matter
More than 50 people flit around a refurbished factory, as happy as the fruit flies circling the stacks of ripe grapes piled in the center of the room. Sounds of whirring machines and laughter fill the air. Wine flows from bottles on long folding tables, and food—from cheese and cracker trays to stacked pizza boxes […]
How Sweet It Is
When you’re in the food business and Food Network calls, you answer. In June 2010, the mother/daughter team Carol Vollono and Brenda DePonte at Sugar Bakery in East Haven received a call out of the blue with an invitation to try out for an episode of Cupcake Wars. “We never sent them anything,” Carol says. […]