Amanda Drane, reporter
Thank you, Mimmo’s in Northampton, for offering colossal, $3 pizza slices. For $6, my cravings for saucy pizza awesomeness are (a little too) satisfied. I’ve been eating your pizza for years and I have yet to get over the visual shock of your enormous slices.
Thank you, Ernie Booth, owner of the Sunoco on King Street in Northampton, for being a stand-up guy who fixes cars. Whether it’s my rusted-out fender you’re patching, a busted headlight you’re magically able to make work, or a mystery vehicular ailment you are able to diagnose and cure at minimal expense, I appreciate your unfailing ability to tell me what’s happening with my car in plain English and fix it with little damage done to my wallet.
Thank you, Happy Valley, for your yoga bounty. From anusara, to vinyasa, to hot yoga, your offerings are any yoga lover’s dream. I am downward-dog-darned pleased to live here.
Hunter Styles, reporter
Thank you, Rico Daniele, for running one of the area’s best local Italian groceries. Mom & Rico Daniele’s Specialty Market in Springfield helps to keep the Italian heritage in the South End strong, with shelves upon shelves of imported coffees, meats, cheeses, and pastas. Eating in is fun — the walls of the store and dining area are covered in news clippings, art, and historical documents — but I also love the carry-out lunch buffet options. Sometimes a to-go box of pasta and eggplant parm is just what you need to stay warm on a cold day.
Thank you, cafes that allow for actual gathering and conversation. It’s fine to accommodate the roaming laptop monkeys with some daylight hours of silent screen-staring, but places like Mocha Maya’s in Shelburne Falls and Whisk(e)y Bar at Amherst Coffee prefer to see those power cords unplug in the evening, as the mood shifts away from work and toward music, drinks, laughter, and friends. The Roost in Northampton makes the switch official by shutting off the Wi-Fi at 8 p.m. from Wednesday to Saturday to make room for board games, dates, and genuine discourse.
Thank you, Filos Greek Taverna in Northampton, for your freshly-cut french fry bar. Those Greco-Korean Kimchi Fries (with kimchi, mozzarella, and sriracha mayo) definitely win points for originality. The Argos “Animal Style” Fries are topped with cheese, grilled onion, and vodka sauce. Then there’s that basket drizzled with local apple cider vinegar and sea salt. And those poutine fries you make? We’re pretty sure it’s not Greek. But oh, gods! Don’t ever stop serving it.
Jeff Good, executive editor
Thank you, downtown crosswalks. There are lots of places where the law requires drivers to stop for pedestrians crossing a busy roadway. But I’ve never seen anything like the crosswalk culture of the Pioneer Valley, where most drivers yield to walkers without a trace of irritation. Even more amazing, many crosswalkers don’t stride across with a pronounced sense of entitlement. Instead, many offer drivers a grateful wave, turning what could have been an inconvenience into a small moment of community.
Thank you, dirt path along the levee in downtown Northampton. I happened upon it one morning when looking for a non-paved place to walk my black Lab, Ollie. Since, it has become a ritual for man and beast to slip through a patch of trees and find ourselves strolling the elevated path between the city to our right and the ever-changing cornfields, meadows and river to our left. The sound of traffic on Interstate 91 should seem like a jarring intrusion, I know, but instead I’ve come to hear it as a comforting thrum.
Thank you to all those who pay for, build and maintain the rail trail bike paths. There’s nothing sweeter on a Sunday morning than watching the miles unfold on a freshly paved ribbon of asphalt running through the farm fields of Hadley, and the reward that awaits on a car-free bridge ride across the Connecticut River. I can’t wait to check it out on skis once the snow falls.
Pete Redington, listings editor
Thank you, intersection of West Street and Pomeroy Lane in South Amherst. Few designs in landscape architecture are as mundane as a four-way, traffic-lighted intersection. But your cross section contains an intriguing cultural intersection. With the Moan and Dove, Hess Express gas station and convenience store, the Amherst Montessori School, Second Chance Kids’ Consignment Shop, Sibies Subs and Pizza, The Mission Cantina and New England Submission Fighting around the corner, your location is anything but mundane.
Thank you, Holyoke Range. Your hiking trails and backcountry patches of wilderness are more immense than your pedestrian elevation would suggest. And by stretching west to east from Easthampton and Holyoke across the Connecticut River to Hadley and Belchertown, your above-treeline ridgeline offers accessible, rewarding views to many of the Valley’s communities.
Kristin Palpini, associate editor
Thank you to the people revitalizing downtown Westfield. Thank you to new-business owners at Ezra’s Mercantile, Clemenza’s, Two Rivers Burrito Company and Mama Cakes. Thank you to Westfield on the Weekends, the BID, the Westfield Chamber of Commerce, Mayor Daniel Knapik, Westfield State University, and the many advisory committees, planners and other people working to overcome years of blight and bring people back to Whip City’s center.
Thank you, R. Michelson Galleries in Northampton for providing a quiet place to renew my spirit in under 10 minutes. On stressful days, I like to duck into Michelson on my lunch break. The gallery is huge, open and light-filled. I feel warm. I take a tour of the main room, stopping by paintings and sculptures that move me. Studying the artwork I am reminded of my past, my present, my future, my daughter, my husband. I feel joy and sadness, longing and satisfaction; smart, but a little lost. I feel human again.
