If you don’t know about Farm Share, you should.

Every week an over-stuffed box of organic vegetables and/or fruit and/or eggs arrives at your door from the Norwich Meadows Farm in Upstate New York, and you  help Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) to thrive.

Farm Share, run by the Brussel family of Larchmont, is available in Southern Westchester, Chappaqua, Mt. Kisco, Bedford, Manhattan, and Stamford and Greenwich, CT. and it’s time to sign up! Shares run 22 weeks from June to November.

(more…)

New Rochelle

Larchmont

Debra Kling

Debra Kling of Larchmont turned color into a career. (You may remember where she turned your editor’s old stone heap into something a lot more fun.)

Now, Debra has been awarded the “Best of Remodeling Award” from Houzz.com, a popular web platform for residential remodeling and design.

The Architectural Color Consulting firm was chosen by the more than 1.2 million registered members of the Houzz community.

Here are some of her color consults in the towns indicated:

Bronxville

(more…)

A Westchester-based team has won the Winter Baseball League at Diamond Nation in Flemington, NJ. This is the 2nd year in a row the boys won.

The Knights led the division from start to finish, going 7-1 in the Diamond Nation 2012 Winter League defeating Baseball Academies in NJ & in Pennsylvania with a + 33 run differential.

The Knights success was due to power hitting, slick defense, savvy base running, and solid pitching

The 2012 Knights are comprised of players from Ardsley, Mamaroneck, Yorktown, Stamford, Mahopac, New Windsor, Harrison and Pennsylvania.

The Knights lineup / batting order:
Dylan Resk (MIF)
Andy Karlan (C, IF)
Alex Volpi (1B, 3B)
Kevin Stone (IF, P),
Louis Nardella (P, IF, OF)
Gio Marrero (P, IF, OF)
Clayton Masarjian (OF, 1b, P, C)
Aaron Gulibon (P, OF, IF)
Tyler McConway (OF, C, P)

Submitted by Liz & Eric Karlan

theLoop salutes the Knights!

Anyone with an eco-type kid should know about the Audubon Greenwich summer nature camp – one of the best, and relatively most affordable, programs of its kind around.

The folks at Audubon – a 290-acre sanctuary complete with a river and critters that live in and around it – will be happy to tell you all about it on Saturday at Family Day.

The camp, which runs in one-week sessions, focuses on themes from creepy crawlies to fine feathered friends and even offers evening adventures for older kids. The cost is $315 per session.

Saturday’s event, which includes VIP camp registration, starts at 9 a.m. with a family breakfast and animal show (RSVP and $25 per person required).

The rest of the day’s activities, including trail walks at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m., an art show reception and a live animal meet and greet from 2 to 4 p.m., are all free.

Details available on the Audubon website or by calling (203) 869-5272, ext. 239.

Audubon Greenwich, 613 Riversville Road, Greenwich, CT. greenwich.audubon.org.

Photos courtesy of Greenwich Audubon

Cold turkey commute. Don’t even think about lighting up while waiting for your Metro-North train. Doing so could get you kicked off the platform, up to $50 in fines or a trip to jail.

The MTA‘s new ban on outdoor smoking starts today, following a months-long grace period the agency gave smokers to get used to the idea. The ban, which had a soft launch in November, prohibits smoking on Metro-North and Long Island Railroad outdoor platforms, as well as ticketing and boarding areas.

The ban does not apply to Metro-North stations in Connecticut.

Violators have gotten away with just warnings since November. But after several months of  leafleting, signs, announcements and electronic alerts, the MTA now expects passengers to play by the rules.

You may recall our conflicted feelings about the new M-8 rail cars on the Metro-North Red Line.

Your chances of riding a cleaner, more comfortable | more sterile, computer-voice   train between Connecticut and Grand Central just increased. Metro-North and the State of Connecticut added more new cars to the New Haven Line.

As of Monday, 78 new cars are operating on the line — enough to cover about 24% of regular weekday rides.  The new M-8 railcars will cover an even higher percent of weekend travelers.

It will be years, though, before the entire existing fleet is replaced.  There are a total of 380 new cars on order. More sticky floors to enjoy for years to come.

Some people in Larchmont brag about living in a village with two independent bookstores. But there’s another one down the road you should know about. Another that understands that when buying (not to mention the increasingly rare art of browsing) for books can mean sifting through tightly packed shelves, reading the back of book jackets and getting lost among stacks of everything from big, fat reference books to romantic trash? Hats off to Diane’s Books in Greenwich for preserving the experience of serendipitously finding something new to read.

Passionately owned by Diane Garrett, who boasts stocking four-times more books than the average superstore, Diane’s Books is everything on-line shopping is not: intimate, informative and interesting, complete with book-loving staff to help you wade through the store’s vast collections (or leave you alone if that’s what you’re looking for). Coined “A Family Bookstore,” Diane’s has scores of options for its youngest customers on up.  In this day of e-buying — let alone e-reading — Diane’s Books’ ability to be going strong 22 years after opening its doors speaks volumes. Thousands of them.

Skate sharpening at Blue Line

Need your skates sharpened? Or just want to come in, sit down on one of the chairs from an old stadium, and reminisce about that championship hockey game back in 1983?

Either way, this is your place. LAX players, too, find Blue Line Sports on Halstead Avenue in Harrison a great resource, focusing on those two sports and old fashioned service.

The store may seem small, compared to an all-sports warehouse store, but Blue Line is actually one of the largest suppliers of hockey gear in Westchester and Connecticut, and works with most of the youth organizations.

There’s a second location at the Darien, CT. ice rink, so if the Harrison store doesn’t have what you need, they’ll have it delivered to you.

Less than half mile over the Port Chester border, there are a whole lot of burgers being flipped – just the way they should be.

In fact, Burgers, Shakes & Fries in Byram – a Connecticut neighborhood once known as East Port Chester – has so remarkably refined the American classic that the eatery is cranking out up to 300 burgers a day. “That’s what we do,” says owner Kory Wollins.

Carnivorous or not, you can’t help but love the simplicity of this place, which captures everything burgers, shakes and fries (and onion rings too…) are about. The shop doesn’t have a whole lot more then a grill, the fixings, stuff to make fabulous shakes and about dozen stools lining a bar to eat on.

Four years old, Burgers, Shakes & Fries is reaping the rewards of being oh so good.  Wollins has opened a second shop in Darien. As he says, “Everyone likes a burger.”