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July 12, 2025

Cambridge Spy

Nonpartisan and Education-based News for Cambridge

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Food Friday: Summer Snack Dinners

July 11, 2025 by Jean Sanders
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When I think about summer I have visions of glossy postcard views; snapshots of sunny beaches, with lapping azure waves and yellow corn meal sand. I am thinking of shady front porch swings, and trips to the library. I remember summer camps and singing on bus rides, swimming, games of tennis and tether ball. Weaving misshapen lanyards. I cannot be tied to this adult reality of relentless heat, melting parking lots, indefatigable mosquitoes, and torrents of rain. I feel like the ladies in “To Kill a Mockingbird” – I have been reduced to becoming a talcum powder tea cake of a person, who must provide an evening meal. Since I cannot ignore the many realities of modern life, I will think about ways to have our cake, without actually baking one. Summer nutritional needs can be met and conquered — without turning on the oven.

Back in the day, before the ubiquity of air conditioning, we lived in a creaky, inconvenient, Victorian house. There was a stained glass sash window in the upstairs hallway, where every year, with much ceremony and bitter complaining, my father would muscle into the window frame an awkward and heavy box window fan, hoping that the breezes that it generated would be cooling. We slept with our bedroom doors flung open, dreaming of refreshing zephyrs, sweatily writhing under the weight of the cotton sheets. And this was before global warming. We lay in the dark, listening for faraway thunder, silently counting the Mississippis between flashes of heat lightning, willing a cooling storm to break over our sweltering heads. Ah, youth.

There is no summer camp in my immediate future. No swimming hole, no yellow sandy beach. There is the long slog of summer stretching out before us, and we have to make the best of it. I have been reading innumerable articles about the ridiculous excesses of the folks who summer in the Hamptons — thank heavens we don’t have to keep up with those arrivistes, with their private chefs, yacht crews, or their pricey provision shops and impossibly fashionable restaurants. We are thrilled with local produce, prestige-free grocery stores and the occasional field trip to a Trader Joe’s. One of these days I might even get to eat one of our home-grown tomatoes.

Charcuterie boards seem to have come and gone as a cultural phenom. Thank you. I really did not like the idea of eating salami that someone else had folded into Origami. But I do like the idea of finger food at sunset. Give me a bowl of carrot sticks, and I will happily crunch away. Or a bowl of cool, peppery radishes. We can get out the enire kitchen collection of tiny Pyrex bowls, and fill them with celery, red pepper slices, pea pods, green beans, hummus, Boursin cheese, ivory cubes of Swiss cheese, pepperoni slices, rotisserie chicken, rolls of deli roast beef, turkey or ham. I might have to turn on the oven to crisp up a loaf of bread. But only for a minute, before I can slather it with cool butter, or a schmeer of Burrata.

One of the best delivery systems for a moveable summer feast that I have seen is a muffin pan. Each cup in the pan can hold another food course – broccoli goes next to some pretzels, which are next to the blueberries, which sidle up to the Kalamata olives, which are beside the cherry tomatoes, which are adjacent to the guacamole. Cubes of watermelon nestle next to the spears of asparagus, and the curves of cantaloupe jostle with the peaches. Maybe you’ll get ambitious early one morning, and you will grill a few boneless chicken breasts, or a quick skirt steak, that you can slice up to have later. You can have some deelish Bernaise sauce in a muffin cup, for cold steak dipping. Or if that is too much to expect for a weeknight — nuts. Add nuts. Add wine. Add crackers, pita bread, Doritos, you name it. Take a night or two off and enjoy yourself. The news is dire, so create a luxe dining event, without needing the Jitney out to Quogue. Go sit in front of the fan, and feel the breezes, and wait for the thunderstorm. As George R. R. Martin is wont to tell us: “Winter is coming.”

Snack board

Martha’s ideas involve actual baking – use caution if you are oven averse:

Muffin pan snacks Much more grown-up than standing in front of the fridge and grazing your way through the veggie bin.

“Ladies bathed before noon, after their three o’clock naps, and by nightfall were like soft teacakes with frostings of sweat and sweet talcum.”
― Harper Lee

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.

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Celebrating Historical ‘Good Footprints’ of Courage and Kindness in Delmarva with Jim Duffy

July 9, 2025 by Zack Taylor
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In his new book Ordinary Heroes of Old Delmarva, Jim Duffy spins yarns about some of Delmarva’s unsung historical heroes, whose bravery, compassion, and resilience reflect some enduring qualities of Eastern Shore society.

Since moving to Cambridge nearly two decades ago, author Jim Duffy has built a career weaving local tales of travel, culture, and history, capturing the spirit of Delmarva through his self-published books and storytelling.

After years of journalism with various magazines and academia in Baltimore and Chicago, Duffy began his literary journey from a practical standpoint, writing saleable travel guides, which evolved into a passion for uncovering Delmarva’s hidden histories.

Throughout his two previous Eastern Shore Road Trips collections, Duffy often wove travel historical narratives into tales from the region’s past into his text and lectures at local libraries and social centers, on local TV, and his website, Secrets of the Eastern Shore.

In his recently-published sixth book, Duffy takes a deeper historical dive with Ordinary Heroes of Old Delmarva, a compendium of related yarns about some of Delmarva’s unsung heroes of yore, whose extraordinary acts of bravery, compassion, and resilience that reflect some enduring qualities of Eastern Shore society.

The book’s 33 vignettes, drawn from online archives, historical society annals, and old books, span more than three centuries, with Talbot, Dorchester, and Queen Anne’s counties serving as mise-en-scène for many of the tales.

Delmarva’s history, he acknowledges, is rife with portraits of scoundrels, cutthroats, and scalawags throughout its colorful past. You won’t find any of that ilk in the current volume, he says. Maybe in the next one. Instead, it tells inspiring stories of uncelebrated personages, among them women, minorities, and immigrants.

“Every step we take, we walk on footsteps of the past,” Duffy told The Spy. “Sure, there are plenty of bad ones, but there are so many good footsteps . . . which not only take us back in time, but help us move forward.”

A self-described storyteller more than a historian, Duffy arranges his chapters with a rhythm that alternates between emotional highs and lows among the tales. From shipwreck rescues to acts of defiance against injustice, these stories highlight a universal human spirit rooted in Delmarva’s unique landscape.

One of the author’s favorites features Henry Callister, a flawed yet compassionate merchant originally from Liverpool in colonial Oxford, where, literally on the town dock, he encountered hundreds of starving French-Canadian refugees, expelled by the British from Nova Scotia after the French and Indian War, and deposited all across the Empire.

Notwithstanding his dubious reputation as a drinker and carouser, Callister set aside prejudices about the francophone refugees, especially their Catholicism, to help them. He collaborated with a local pastor to secure housing, even resorting to dropping refugees off on docks of wealthy Miles River landowners, who reluctantly took them in.

His efforts ensured their survival through a harsh winter, leaving a legacy of compassion and shared humanity that resonates today.  Many among this Acadians are the forebears of Louisiana’s Cajun population.

Another inspiring character is Mary Banning, a late19th-century woman from Easton whose fascination with mushrooms led to an unexpected legacy. In an era when women were rarely recognized as scientists, Banning taught herself mycology, seeing in mushrooms a reflection of the divine in even the most overlooked corners of nature.

She poured her passion into a book, complete with watercolor renditions, ultimately identifying 23 new species. Her work was only discovered 91 years later to great acclaim, cementing her as a pioneer who defied societal constraints.

Banning’s story combines resilience, spirituality, and love for the natural world, underscoring Duffy’s theme of finding glory in the underappreciated. These tales, carefully researched and vividly told, invite readers to reflect on the past while considering how to leave their own footprints in the present.

Self-published and available at over 20 shops and bookstores across the Delmarva Peninsula, as well as online, Ordinary Heroes of Old Delmarva is a testament to Duffy’s skill at storytelling as a means of connection.

“I hope that together, these stories explore the universality of the human condition, set on Delmarva,” he says.

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Spy Eye: The Skipjack Peregrine Arrives at the Richardson

July 7, 2025 by P. Ryan Anthony
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On June 20, 2025, the Richardson Maritime Museum welcomed the Peregrine to its facilities in Cambridge. This single-masted day sailor skipjack was built at James B. Richardson’s boatyard around 1972 by his son-in-law, Jim Brighton.

Originally intended for pleasure sailing on the Atlantic Ocean, it spent decades away, including on the Western Shore of Southern Maryland, and it was even reconfigured into a workboat. The Peregrine has now been donated by Craig Haynie of Deale to the Richardson Museum, where it will undergo reconstruction.

The event on June 20th featured appearances by Brighton, Haynie, and Robert “Bunny” Joyce, the latter of whom did the early renovations on the skipjack.

The video is approximately six minutes in length.

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I Wish I May, I Wish I Might By Laura J. Oliver

July 6, 2025 by Laura J. Oliver
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I’m in my Astronomy class studying the stars, and here’s why I think you should, too.

  1. Because they are beautiful.
  2. Because we wish upon them.
  3. Because they fall.
  4. Because we get them in our eyes when we are in love.
  5. Because, well, Jean-Luc Picard.
  6. Because the incomprehensible size of the universe demonstrates how inconsequential we are, and this is good to remember.
  7. Because cosmological time tells us what seems permanent and huge is actually passing and small.
  8. Because…Why is there something instead of nothing? That one gets me every time.
  9. Because stars give life, not just by providing light but by seeding the cosmos with the heavier elements like gold when they die. (Stars are starting to sound like parents.)
  10. And lastly? Because they provide evidence that there is something other than what we can see affecting us every day, and that the source of creation is beautiful.

Vera C. Rubin first taught us that there is more to the cosmos than we can see. Born in 1928, she was a brilliant child, the second daughter of two Bell Telephone employees, who attended Vassar to study Astronomy. During a summer internship before her senior year, she met and fell in love with Bob Rubin, a physics student at Cornell. Vera married him that same year, graduating from Vassar as a newlywed that spring.

Like her husband, she wanted to continue her studies, so she applied to Princeton to pursue an advanced degree, but Princeton refused to admit her for one simple reason. This dazzling, tenacious scholar was a woman. Oops.

Undeterred, she turned down Harvard and attended Cornell for her Master’s, Georgetown for her Ph. D, studying at night to get those advanced degrees while her husband taught at Cornell, and she gave birth to four children. Then, in 1978, with a colleague, Kent Ford, she proved the existence of Dark Matter, the mysterious, invisible substance that comprises 85% of the known universe. Thanks, Princeton. Somewhere, there must be a very old, long-retired Admissions Director saying, “My bad.”

When you look at a galaxy, any galaxy, you see its stars rotating around its central black hole, and you would think the stars farthest from the center would be rotating more slowly than those in tight orbits closest in. They are not.

The stars on the outer arms of galaxies, in the outermost disc lanes, are rotating just as fast as those at the center. How could this be? What is holding them to their galactic neighborhood at the same speed limit? Why hasn’t distance from the source of acceleration slowed their velocity?

Dark Matter. A real, but invisible architecture that affects us all.

Vera C. Rubin won many awards in her lifetime, but perhaps the most lasting tribute is the building of the Rubin Observatory Telescope (only one named for a woman). It is the largest digital camera on Earth and sits high in the Chilean mountains, where it will chart the entire southern sky as part of a 10-year project called the Legacy Survey of Space and Time. Each section will be captured 800 times, ten to 100 times faster than any other telescope ever built. Discoveries are already pouring in.

When astronomers don’t know what something is, they call it ‘dark’ – it’s a placeholder name for mystery that allows them to keep searching for answers until they illuminate their understanding, hence, Dark Matter and Dark Energy.

But I have a theory. What if Dark Matter is love?

Stay with me now.

An invisible mass… held in a field of potential…keeping us from flying apart.

Great discoveries often start with audacious theories, so who’s to say? Theoretical physicist Sabine Hossenfelder says there are three phases of coming to terms with things we don’t understand.

“Huh! That’s funny…”

“Curious and curiouser.”

“Well, damn.”

Laura J. Oliver is an award-winning developmental book editor and writing coach, who has taught writing at the University of Maryland and St. John’s College. She is the author of The Story Within (Penguin Random House). Co-creator of The Writing Intensive at St. John’s College, she is the recipient of a Maryland State Arts Council Individual Artist Award in Fiction, an Anne Arundel County Arts Council Literary Arts Award winner, a two-time Glimmer Train Short Fiction finalist, and her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Her website can be found here.

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.

Filed Under: 1 Homepage Slider, Archives, Laura

Food Friday: Vacation Dogs

July 4, 2025 by Jean Sanders
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Mr. Sanders, Luke the wonder dog and I are off for a little holiday respite in the mountains of North Carolina for the Fourth of July holidays this week. We are planning to grill some hot dogs in honor of our national holiday. Enjoy a column from a couple of years ago, when we had moseyed up to New England for a change of scene!

Sometimes I forget that we live in a country that is so vast and diverse that a New England hot dog is wildly different from a Chicago-style hot dog, and neither of them is like a hot dog from Texas, or from California. And this is one of the great American qualities – we are true blue and we love our regional delicacies.
In Boston, a Fenway Frank is boiled first, and then lightly grilled. (It is served in a split-top roll, which is also used for the best sort of lobster rolls: Split-top Roll) The Puritans among us prefer garnishing a Fenway Frank with just a thick wiggly trail of spicy mustard. But since this is America, feel free to pile on your own favorites.

As you travel west to Chicago, you will observe that the Chicago-style hot dog is a completely different creation. Chicago-style hot dogs are cooked in butter in a pan, and then served in warm, poppy-seed rolls, with lots of veggies on top. Chicago-style dogs are “dragged through the garden”: topped with sweet pickle relish, chopped onions, pickled peppers, tomato slices and sprinkled with celery salt. Have you been watching The Bear? You’ll know then how popular these franks are.

Then you’ll mosey down to Texas, to encounter the Hot Texas Wiener , a frank cooked in hot vegetable oil. If you place an order for a “One”, you’ll get a blisteringly hot frank topped with spicy brown mustard, chopped onions, and chili sauce. Yumsters.

As you continue west, and stop in Los Angeles for a some street food, you will encounter an L.A. Danger Dog. This frank is wrapped in bacon! I cannot imagine the state that Gwyneth and Meghan call home would do anything so decadent and audacious as a grilled, bacon-wrapped hot dog. More controversial to a hot dog purist are the toppings: catsup, mustard, mayonnaise, sautéed onions, with peppers, and a poblano chile pepper. Catsup? Mayo? But to be polite, you must eat like a local, and it will be deelish.

Common sense teaches us to not use catsup on our franks after the age of 18. You might as well make bologna sandwiches with Wonder bread, and douse them in catsup.

Have you ever seen the Oscar Meyer Weinermobile on the road? I can remember driving on a Florida highway once, and suddenly, puttering alongside us, was the Weinermobile. What a cheap thrill that was! Sadly, now it is called the Frankmobile. Time marches on.

You can follow the Frankmobile on Instagram:

July is National Hot Dog Month, and the National Hot Dog and Sausage Council says that some of the top hot dog consuming cities include: Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia, Boston, Chicago, Phoenix, Atlanta, Detroit, Washington, DC, and Tampa. You’ll want to brush up on your hot dog etiquette https://www.kplctv.com/2019/07/03/hot-dog-etiquette-dos-donts-during-fourth-july-holiday/, I’m sure.

And here are the official rules for Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest, in case you want to try this at home.

NPR 1A – Hot Dogs

“A hotdog at the ballgame beats roast beef at the Ritz.”
— Humphrey Bogart


Jean Dixon Sanders has been a painter and graphic designer for the past thirty years. A graduate of Washington College, where she majored in fine art, Jean started her work in design with the Literary House lecture program. The illustrations she contributes to the Spies are done with watercolor, colored pencil, and ink.

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.

Filed Under: 1 Homepage Slider, Food Friday, Spy Journal

With Liberty and Justice for All By Laura J. Oliver

June 29, 2025 by Laura J. Oliver
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With the Fourth of July this Friday, I’m thinking about justice, or the lack thereof, specifically about crimes I’ve witnessed and can’t prove.

Or committed and gotten away with…there’s that.

The worst of these always involve watching someone else be victimized. Like when my oldest sister got married and moved to El Paso, and my pretty 46-year-old mother and I drove cross-country to see her. Somewhere in Texas, in the heat of the desert, the car broke down. We were towed to a tiny town where there must have been a sign reading, “Welcome to Nowheresville, Sucker: Pay to pass ‘go.’”

The car had most likely overheated, but the technician at the only repair shop in town took one look at Mom and her adolescent appendage and insisted we needed a new battery. A very expensive one. Top of the line. Parts and labor. Otherwise, we weren’t leaving this town. Like, ever.

I was barely 14, but the reason I remember this is my mother’s impotent fury and my intense discomfort that in her frustration she might be impolite to the man ripping us off and hurt his feelings.

Geez, I know, don’t tell me.

She knew she was being lied to, and she also knew there was nothing she could do about it. She bought the unnecessary battery with money we could ill afford to spend. When the garage owner told her he would do her a favor, free of charge, and keep ours… (you don’t want this lady, you’ll get battery acid on your suitcases), she insisted he turn it over, lugged it to the trunk, dropped it in, and we hit the road.

Then there’s the drunk who totaled my car in front of our house in the dead of night when I was newly married. I was alone and sound asleep in our bedroom overlooking the street when the silence was broken by a massive crash outside, metal on metal, and shattering glass.

Disoriented, I ran to the window and saw my car heaved askew onto the sidewalk and another car in the middle of the road, its interior lights on because the driver’s door was open and the motor still running. I threw on a robe and ran out into the street, which was devoid of all signs of life at 3:00 a.m., and found a man sitting cross-legged on the pavement. He was trying to stand, having clearly collapsed as he got out of his car after impact. Muttering incoherently, he was attempting to scramble back in his car to drive away, whiskey bottles in evidence.

I really, really, really hope the first words out of my mouth were, “Are you all right?” Let’s believe that is possible.

His first words were “Wasn’t me!” In slurred monosyllables, he claimed someone else had been driving. Someone else had totaled my car. That rascal had run away.

That was when I saw that he had hit both our cars, bouncing off the first one to roll a few more yards down the street past a neighbor’s car, to total this one!

So, we went to court. And I told my story on the witness stand, under oath, thinking surely there would be some justice. But when the public defender asked me if I’d seen the moment of impact, although I desperately wanted to say yes, I had to say no. That oath thing is very intimidating. It just squeezes the truth right out of you. Because in all honesty, I had not seen the crash. I’d seen the aftermath 30 seconds later.

So, he got off.

I have to admit here, however, that I have committed crimes myself that could not be proven. When my middle sister went out on dates, I’d slip into her room and play with her makeup. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the brains to screw down her lipsticks after trying them and just jammed the tops back on.

Oops.

Wasn’t me! The real offender ran away.

So here we are approaching the Fourth of July, which is all about the freedom to seek an agreed-upon justice. An imperfect system because we are imperfect people. A system that is still evolving as we try to work out the kinks, make it as foolproof as it is beautiful—a system that lets us all say how we feel, hurt no one, educate, feed, and house the least among us with compassion and grace.

So many Americans died for this dream, this fragile vision. I just asked Microsoft Copilot how democracy can be saved. And it instantaneously provided a six-point answer that is detailed, thoughtful, and spot-on. It then added, “This is a tall order, but history shows that democracies can renew themselves, especially when people believe they’re worth fighting for. What part of this feels most urgent to you?”

“It all feels urgent,” I wrote back, “I have to think about it.” To which Copilot replied, “Take all the time you need. Big questions deserve deep thought. If you want to dig deeper, I’m here.”

I was contemplating the strange, seductive power of this artificial intimacy when it added, “In the meantime, here’s something to chew on: every time someone questions how democracy can be saved, it’s a quiet act of hope. And that’s worth honoring.”

Wow. Here’s to quiet acts of hope and those who gave their lives so that we might have that privilege. As Katharine Lee Bates penned in 1893:

America, America

God mend thine every flaw

Confirm thy soul in self-control

And liberty in law.

Happy Birthday, America. Happy Fourth of July.

Laura J. Oliver is an award-winning developmental book editor and writing coach, who has taught writing at the University of Maryland and St. John’s College. She is the author of The Story Within (Penguin Random House). Co-creator of The Writing Intensive at St. John’s College, she is the recipient of a Maryland State Arts Council Individual Artist Award in Fiction, an Anne Arundel County Arts Council Literary Arts Award winner, a two-time Glimmer Train Short Fiction finalist, and her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Her website can be found here.

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.

Filed Under: 1 Homepage Slider, Laura

Food Friday: Home Grown

June 27, 2025 by Jean Sanders
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What a stinker of a week! The heat dome has been pressing down on us all this week, with temperatures in the high 90s. Sometimes I miss our old house in Florida, which had a pool. It was nice to slip into it to cool down – although though much of the summer it was about as refreshing as a vast steaming tub of chicken soup with rice. Forget about frying an egg on the sidewalk, you could coddle an egg in our pool. This week I bet it is has been about as refreshing as a sous vide. As I do not want to perform self-immolation, I am staying inside and am continuing my dogged pursuit of preparing meals that I do not need to cook.

Mr. Sanders and I have four humble tomato plants that are thriving in this semi-tropical heat wave. They are growing in the small raised bed in our side yard, happily sharing the limited space with a generous side salad of weeds and self-sown cosmos, the remnants of last year’s wild flower experiment. The tomato plants currently are bedecked with half a dozen dangling rosy, adolescent slicing tomatoes, and several more yellow blossoms. I look forward to their harvest. I brought one tiny tomato victim inside to ripen on the kitchen windowsill, after I inadvertently knocked it to the ground while wrangling the reluctant branches of one plant into a tomato cage. Like a New Yorker cartoon, it ripened slowly, had one day of peak perfection when I should have gobbled it up, because the next day there was a sodden goopy mess of seeds and pulp on the sill. There are so many tragedies born from a garden. Take heed!

This summer lasagna does require the bare minimum of cooking time – but no baking – so you can serve its colorful deliciousness without self-immolating or assuming the mantle of cooking martyr: No-Bake Lasagne And it will also serve to blunt the myriad zuccini later this summer.

This recipe does require an oven, but barely, just barely. I suggest sitting at the far end of the table, away from the oven, and have a nice cool tumbler of cheap white wine at the ready. Tomato Pie

This tomato pie requires an oven, my apologies, but it also brings Laurie Colwin into your kitchen, and that is a wonderful thing: Laurie Colwin’s Tomato Pie

I had a good chuckle over the descriptive headline in the New York Times Wednesday: No Cook Chicken and Cucumber Salad. Ick. They were not thinking, clearly. The proper name for the recipe is Smashed Cucumber and Chicken Salad. And you will have to venture out in the heat to buy a rotisserie chicken, and your cheap white wine. So I apologize for your exposure to the heat as you dash across the melting parking lot to COSTCO or the grocery store. Stock up so you don’t have to venture out again for a few days, maybe the weather will change. I see rain in the forecast for next week – just in time for the Fourth. Naturally.
Smashed Cucumber and Chicken Salad

Here is another New York Times freebie for your cool summer dining pleasure: Pasta Salad There is nothing like a big pasta salad sitting, marinating, percolating in your fridge. It is money in the bank, and a relief for everyone: fresh herbs, spices, oodles of olive oil, pasta, tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, cukes, olives, onion and basil. Add some fresh bread, cool butter, and summer tunes. There is lunch, dinner, something to bring to your Fourth of July potluck; something for everyone.

The Spy Test Kitchens and Luke the wonder dog are taking the Fourth off. I hope we are not all still hiding inside, avoiding nature and the heat, and we wish you a very happy holiday! Stay cool! Don’t waste any tomatoes! Eat Popsicles!

“A world without tomatoes is like a string quartet without violins.”
—Laurie Colwin


Jean Dixon Sanders has been a painter and graphic designer for the past thirty years. A graduate of Washington College, where she majored in fine art, Jean started her work in design with the Literary House lecture program. The illustrations she contributes to the Spies are done with watercolor, colored pencil, and ink.

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.

Filed Under: 1 Homepage Slider, Food Friday

Art, Kids and the Academy Art Museum: A Chat with Lauren Dwyer

June 25, 2025 by The Spy
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It’s hard to think of one’s childhood without at least a faint memory of art class. That moment during a seemingly boring summer day when you were allowed to make a mess of yourself with paint, clay, and any other material lying around to create what a 5-year-old would consider “art” for an hour or so.

However, few will realize the importance of those first creative moments as they begin to explore their imagination, physical development, and problem-solving skills. It is simply a part of childhood that often goes unnoticed.

That’s not the case with Lauren Dwyer, the Academy Art Museum’s coordinator for Childhood & Youth Education. With a degree in child development and a passion for art education, Lauren runs the Minis at the Academy program. Designed for children aged 2-5, this program combines art exploration with early learning. Using a multi-sensory, inquiry-driven approach, we foster creativity, independence, and a lifelong love of learning through themes, literature, and the Academy Art Museum’s rich resources.

We asked Lauren to stop by the Spy Studio a few weeks ago to share more information.

This video is approximately four minutes in length. For more information about the Academy Art Museum and its Minis program please go here.

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Food Friday: Practicing Self-Care

June 20, 2025 by Jean Sanders
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The past week has been alarmingly hot — there have been a few days where it felt like a 3-alarm furnace already, and summer has just begun today. We’ve had Florida-grade afternoon rainstorms, too, with enormous thunderheads and chiaroscuro drama in the sky. What are August and full-bore hurricane season going to feel like? The hydrangeas love the rain, but wilt again the minute the sun comes out. It has been a trial to walk with Luke the wonder dog. The heat of the afternoons has slowed down his pace and we don’t cover the distances we usually trot during cooler months. It’s time for us to change our routine, which means less time in front of the stove, and more time peeling grapes, pitting peaches, slicing watermelon, cubing cantaloupes, and eating popsicles.

Nothing perfectly symbolizes summer like a watermelon. The best ones are cool and sweet, dripping with juices, seeds, and dreams of summer vacations. I still cling to the memories of sitting on the back porch steps, spitting watermelon seeds back at my brother. Those are high quality memories of an un-air-conditioned house, where we were outside, waiting for the fireflies start twinkling on and off near the forsythia bushes. It was summer, and we were amusing each other. Finally I could get my brother back for for being taller, older and more sophisticated. He could sink a basketball, shoot rubber bands, flip baseball cards and catch pop balls much better than I ever could. But I could aim and deliver a watermelon seed with deadly accuracy. At short range, at least. And sitting on the back steps, keeping the sticky, dripping watermelon juice outside, away from parental oversight, was the perfect spot for getting even. Tempus does indeed fugit. My brother and I are not likely to try to even up the score with watermelon seeds these days. Now we tend to be very kind to one another. Whoever came upon the devilish idea of creating seedless watermelons was never a child. I must remember to thank my brother for patiently teaching me to attach baseball cards to my bike spokes, though. Another excellent summer activity.

This is a fabulous idea for some cool self-care; a summertime watermelon treat: Frozen Watermelon https://www.instagram.com/p/DKzxkQOJS1e/ I’m not sure that you need the honey – watermelon is sweetness perfected. Here are some other gratinas

This is my kind of recipe:


Watermelon Gazpacho Salad
4 cups cubed, seeded watermelon
1/4 cup minced fresh cilantro
1 pint cherry tomatoes, quartered
1 small yellow bell pepper, chopped
1 jalapeno, seeded and minced
1/2 medium cucumber, peeled, seeded, and sliced
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 cup crumbled queso fresco cheese, optional

Combine watermelon, cilantro, cherry tomatoes, cucumber, bell pepper, and jalapeno in a large bowl. Whisk together olive oil, vinegar, salt, and cumin; drizzle over watermelon mixture and toss gently. Cover and refrigerate 1 hour. Sprinkle with cheese before serving, if using. Makes 4.

It never occurred to me that watermelon could be grilled, let alone paired with tomatoes. What have I been thinking? It is summer, and the watermelons and tomatoes are ripe. At least I have the homegrown tomatoes and basil to contribute to the recipe, along with my basic, farm stand watermelon. It’s not fancy, just delicious. Let the summer games begin!

Matthew Raiford’s Watermelon Steak Salad with Heirloom Tomatoes and Sangria Vinaigrette

If you don’t want to grill your watermelon, here is another recipe for tomato and watermelon salad

Here is a handy dandy list list of summer fruits. Treat yourself! Do it for Luke.

Summer Fruits:
Blueberries
Strawberries
Raspberries
Blackberries
Cantaloupe
Honeydew melon
Nectarines
Peaches
Sour cherries
Watermelon
Apricots
Plums

“Taste every fruit of every tree in the garden at least once. It is an insult to creation not to experience it fully. Temperance is wickedness.”
—Stephen Fry


Jean Dixon Sanders has been a painter and graphic designer for the past thirty years. A graduate of Washington College, where she majored in fine art, Jean started her work in design with the Literary House lecture program. The illustrations she contributes to the Spies are done with watercolor, colored pencil, and ink.

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.

Filed Under: 1 Homepage Slider, Food Friday

Finding Home By Laura J. Oliver

June 15, 2025 by Laura J. Oliver
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One summer afternoon, before I’d entered first grade, I climbed a rickety metal stool near the kitchen sink and discovered a lemon meringue pie resting on the Formica counter. With my mother tapping away on her typewriter in another part of the house, I touched a tentative finger to one wavy peak. It gave way like sea foam— soft and without substance —a sweetness that dissolved on my tongue.

In my effort to disguise my crime, more and more meringue disappeared until the puffy white cloud had disappeared, and the lemon filling shone like a yellow sun. To evade punishment, I blamed the cat, whom I feared —a Siamese ankle-biter who would not let me love her.

My father’s response required creativity, and my mother allowed it. I’d lied, and exposure of my character was deemed a just consequence. He explained it like this: for the entire month of June, he’d report to everyone what I’d done. As I stood beside him, gripped by one hand, Mrs. Uebersax next door, our mailman, and the clerk at the local package goods store all had to hear what kind of person I was. A little fibber, it turns out, who will eat the meringue off your pie.

As intended, it was humiliating but in an intriguing kind of way. Those who listened looked down at me politely at first, then their expressions became inexplicably compassionate and a little worried. I didn’t know then that my days with my father were numbered. That within five years, he would have another family, and we would rarely see each other.

Fast forward 30 years, and I am a young mother, receiving the news my dad has had both a heart attack and a stroke at the wheel of his car near Pocomoke. He is assessed in the emergency room, treated, and transferred to Intensive Care in a Baltimore hospital. I have not seen him many times in my adult life, but I know I should visit.

I have no sense of direction, and this handicap adds to the stress. Possessing no inner compass, no guidance system, I’m often lost; my instinct for which way to turn is invariably exquisitely wrong. So, finding my way into the city is a stressful ordeal, and on my way to Intensive Care, I turn down the wrong hall. It’s like driving around a bend on a dark road and coming upon the scene of an accident. From a curtained alcove, someone is wailing like an animal in pain. The source of the noise is not the person who is injured or sick but the loved one in attendance. There are footsteps, as if that person is pacing. I am transfixed.

Most of the anguish is pure sound, but as I listen, arrested, words form. I hear a mournful “Nooooooo” and then a chillingly adult voice wailing, “I want my mommy back.” I am horrified to be inadvertently present at such a personal moment, and yet, it is hard to move away. No one knows how someone else suffers, what raw grief sounds like. When that kind of pain comes for me, will mine sound the same?

I hurry back down the hall praying that the grief-stricken relative will be comforted. I imagine my prayer rising like heat from hot asphalt, with hundreds of others, every day, up through the ceiling, then through the roof of this hospital, and I hope that somehow compassion serves a purpose. I would describe what I’m doing as evoking an energy, and I’d use the term “universe.” All my adult life, I’ve tried to replace God the Good Father with something more likely.

In the sitting area near my dad’s unit, I wait until I can see him. Fifteen minutes every hour is the rule. I leaf through a magazine, not really reading the stories until a photograph abruptly catches my eye. A small boat is pictured on a black-and-white river, a river indistinguishable from the one of my youth. With my next breath, I’m not in ICU, hoping not to be fatherless. I’m a child in the presence of the father I want only to please.

He sits beside me in the stern of a drifting rowboat, a brown-haired, blue-eyed man in his thirties. It is dusk, and we have been exploring secret creeks and hidden coves. Honeysuckle and seaweed scent the air. As the dying light coalesces around the red-embered sun, he restarts the engine and turns us towards home. The stern plows deep as the boat accelerates, then planes and levels off, the cove ringed by shore lights that candle the horizon. They flicker and flame– house lights and porch lamps. They could be fallen stars carried like flotsam to shore.

I can’t hear my father speak unless I turn my head sideways. The rush of air whips his words into the night. I’m unprepared, therefore, when he puts my hand on the tiller, scooting over on the seat to let me steer. Stunned to be guiding the boat by myself, I see the entrance to our cove and, in the distance, our pier. I keep the bow aimed precisely, my whole being locked on our landmark as if we might fly off the edge of the world should I fail.

He nods at the channel markers, where their lights rock in the current. “Keep green to starboard heading out, but red on your right going in.” I squeeze my eyes shut to memorize these instructions, then overcorrect the tiller and the boat swings wide. I look up at him, panicked, but he corrects our course with a smile. “Remember this,” he calmly instructs the girl he is leaving, the one who still struggles to find her way.

He leans down so I’ll hear him.

“‘Green to starboard’ will take you anywhere you want to go on the river. ‘Red, right, returning’ will always be all you need to get home.”

Happy Father’s Day.

 

Laura J. Oliver is an award-winning developmental book editor and writing coach, who has taught writing at the University of Maryland and St. John’s College. She is the author of The Story Within (Penguin Random House). Co-creator of The Writing Intensive at St. John’s College, she is the recipient of a Maryland State Arts Council Individual Artist Award in Fiction, an Anne Arundel County Arts Council Literary Arts Award winner, a two-time Glimmer Train Short Fiction finalist, and her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Her website can be found here.

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.

Filed Under: 1 Homepage Slider, Laura

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