Margaret Littman

Welcome to Hot Springs National Park (HSNP). Without an entrance booth or gate, and with attractions both indoors and outdoors, this isn't your typical national park. With its abundant natural resource of hot spring water, people come here to do the Hot Springs Soak, a centuries-old bathing tradition, in ornate bathhouses. HSNP boasts 47 springs, 27 of which are used for bathing, soaking and drinking. Loyalists like to tout HSNP as the country's first national park. In a way, they have a point.

Imagine a national park so complex and, well, mammoth, that no one really knows its true size. Yes, signs mark entrances and exits, but underground, where limestone and water have carved the world's largest cave system (412 miles and still counting), no one knows how vast it is or what will be discovered next. That's the majesty of Mammoth Cave National Park (MCNP) in Central Kentucky. Every time you come back, you can learn about what has been newly discovered.

For the majority of my life, “xenophobia” was a word that existed only at synagogue.
There’s a prayer Jews say, the viddui, when we repent and ask for forgiveness for our sins. While there are other occasions to recite it, many Reform Jews primarily do this only at Rosh Hashanah through Yom Kippur, cataloging our sins from the previous year, and then letting go.

“It is rare that you hear a bank plan to lose money,” laughs James Anthony. While he wasn’t trying to hurt the bottom line, he was, like leaders at many community banks, looking at unusual ways to help clients cope with 2020.

Anthony is CEO of the $845-million asset Martha’s Vineyard Bank, the only bank based on the island. When the coronavirus hit and travel halted, Anthony knew that his Massachusetts community’s businesses were at real economic risk.

We talk to the chef-turned-author and James Beard Award winner ahead of Our Lady of Perpetual Hunger’s release.
The book has been highly anticipated in food circles. In 2018, Donovan won a James Beard Award for an essay in Food & Wine magazine, “Dear Women: Own Your Stories,” which in rapid-fire succession mentioned her own sexual assault and abortion, as well as harassment and inequity in restaurant kitchens. The tone of that essay is reflective of Our Lady of Perpetual Hunger.

Like many (all?) of us, Dr. Adrienne Battle couldn’t have imagined what was in front of her at the beginning of 2020.
On March 13, 2020, she was named director of Metro Nashville Public Schools (MNPS) by unanimous vote. She had been serving as interim director since April 2019 when she became the first woman to lead the school district, which is the 42nd largest in the country and has a budget of nearly $1 billion.

Tony Mantuano was the longtime chef at the Michelin-starred Spiaggia, one of Chicago’s most beloved restaurants, while his wife Cathy ran its lauded wine program. Tony ran the restaurant for nearly 35 years — an uncommonly long stretch in the restaurant world — before they moved to Milan in October 2019 to eat, drink and think about their next act. At the beginning of this year they moved to Nashville, where they are now announcing that they are the food and beverage partners at The Joseph, a luxury hotel opening downtown in August.

Dane Carder, by his own description, is a “one day at a time” kind of guy. So the fact that his long-dreamt-about business — selling small batches of a family-recipe spaghetti sauce — is launching just when Nashvillians who are stuck cooking at home need it? Well, it’s serendipity, not prescience.

It wasn't long ago in the United States that the idea of buying things—be it salad, frozen custard, socks, baby wipes, ramen, or art—from a robotic vending machine was a novelty. That has shifted—quickly. Now, a word that wasn’t much used before the coronavirus epidemic began—contactless—has become a must for retailers and a competitive advantage for those in the vending game.

Ashleigh Diaz should be wrapping up hiring for her busy season about now. When the coronavirus pandemic really took hold in her area, Diaz, the managing partner at Durango, Colo.-based 4Corners Riversports, was on track to finding the additional 20 employees she needs each summer to help sell kayaks, rafts, and camping.

But then COVID-19-related non-essential business shutdowns started and Diaz quickly realized things were going to be different.

We’re all being asked to step outside of our comfort zones (though perhaps not literally outside) as we shelter in place. For many of us, this means heading to the pantry and figuring out what the hell to make with the stuff we bought.
My personal emergency food rationing plan is “eat GORP,” so when my editor asked me to look into the best things to do with the best canned fish, I bounded out of my culinary comfort zone and into research mode.

“Lots of people don’t have the resources to start cooking for a family of five,” says Julia Sullivan, chef and co-owner of Germantown’s Henrietta Red and The Party Line catering company.
Does Sullivan get us or what? Quarantining, isolating, sheltering in place, or as the Metro government has termed it, “Safer at Home” — call it whatever you like. The bottom line is, we’re all inside for a while. We asked some Nashville chefs for their help wading through the cans of beans and frozen vegetables we stress-bought to help us cook decent meals for our families during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Today should be a big day, a raucous green-beer-filled good time after a big weekend of much the same. the same. For many bars, restaurants, and liquor stores, including 2Bears Tavern Group, which owns three bars on Chicago’s North Side, the combined St. Patrick’s Day and St. Patrick’s Day weekend is traditionally one of its top five weekends for sales all year.

The Nashville hospitality industry will experience long-term repercussions from last week’s storms — here’s a look at a few short-term solutions.

Four separate tornadoes hit Middle Tennessee around 1 a.m. on March 3, 2020, one of which stayed on the ground for more than 50 miles. The storms, which reached wind speeds of more than 175 m.p.h., battered the metro area, suburbs, and rural counties. Within the city, the neighborhoods hit hardest, like East Nashville, were those with concentrations of small businesses, from dry cleaners to boutiques to restaurants. At least 25 people lost their lives, with more than 400 homes and nearly 200 businesses destroyed, including the popular Basement East music venue.