Ho Ho Host Your Holiday at The Newton!
It is time, people, to plan your holiday events and gatherings. We LOVE the holidays, and we’d love to help make your event special and festive and delicious! Soon, The Newton’s halls will be decked, its fireplaces laid with logs, its kitchen bustling with baking and roasting, its porches twinkling, and a gorgeous tree will be filling the front window. Host your event in one of our beautiful spaces, spend a special weekend here, or give the gift of The Newton to someone you love! We’ve got it all covered!
Forgive the cringey title, but it is time, people, to begin planning your holiday events (I mean technically, it’s kind of late, but this is how I operate!). We LOVE the holidays, and we’d love to help make your event special and festive and delicious! Soon, The Newton’s halls will be decked, its fireplaces laid with logs, its kitchen bustling with baking and roasting, its porches twinkling, and a gorgeous tree will be filling the front window. Have your holiday party here, whether its an intimate family dinner, or a big fancy party! We’ve got you covered - Chef Allison and her team can craft a sumptuous meal, complete with special cocktails (or mocktails). Have a cozy party in our historical tavern! It has its own rustic tree and twinkle lights galore and an incredible fireplace!
A cozy holiday scene in our tavern, which was built in the 1800s.
Finally, consider giving someone you love or appreciate the gift of The Newton of Ypsilanti - a gift card can be applied to an overnight stay at this beautiful boutique inn, a special dinner, a cooking class, or one of our workshops or events! You really can’t go wrong, as The Newton has something for everyone. Give us a call or head to our website to find out more about this fantastic option for everyone on your list (maybe not the kids…).
The Ann Arbor Art Fair! Summer Arts in Ypsilanti!
The Ann Arbor Art Fair is the largest juried art fair in the entire country, with 500,000 visitors each year. This year, it runs from Thursday July 20 - Saturday July 22. It is an incredible gathering of talented artists and performers, but parking is no fun! So come stay with us at The Newton and we’ll drive you to and fro, prepare delicious breakfasts to fuel you, and have the courtyard hammock ready and waiting for you to relax after a long day!
Photo Credit Ann Arbor Art Fair
It’s almost here! The Ann Arbor Art Fair is the largest juried art fair in the entire country, and it draws over 500,000 visitors each year. This year, it runs from Thursday July 20, through Saturday July 22. It is an incredible gathering of talented artists and performers, and whether you’re just browsing or shopping for spectacular art, the Art Fair has something for everyone. Technically, the Art Fair is made up of three separate juried fairs, but the logistics are the same for all of them. Parking is no fun, though, so come stay with us at The Newton and we’ll drive you to and fro, prepare delicious breakfasts to fuel you, and have the courtyard hammock ready and waiting for you to relax after a long day!
If three days of Art Fair is too much for you, here is a glimpse of the fantastic arts scene around Ypsilanti and Ann Arbor - check these out and make it a long arts-themed weekend!
The Ann Arbor Art Center is very active in the Art Fair, but all year round it hosts exhibitions, workshops, and classes. The A2AC Murals initiative has sponsored 16 gorgeous murals around downtown Ann Arbor, and one in Ypsilanti; there is a walking tour on the website, and the murals are worth checking out.
The non-profit Riverside Arts Center in Ypsilanti hosts exhibitions and workshops, along with a twice-monthly Fine Arts Club where local artists can gain exposure and community for their work. There’s also swing dancing every Friday with beginner lessons ahead of the main event.
Several other Ypsilanti galleries feature the work of Michigan-based artists. We love 22 North, The Gallery at Stone and Spoon, and The Michigan Art Gallery.
The Deep End Cafe and Gallery in Ypsilanti is a mission-driven café that features the work of underrepresented artists and writers. They have an artist talk on Thursday July 20 with the current exhibition’s artist, Dillan Steele.
Here at The Newton, we’ve partnered with Aligned Exhibits to feature the work of local artists. We love the intensely creative community we’re in, and being surrounded by the work of these talented people!
(Artist Laila Kujala is one of two artists whose work is displayed at The Newton right now. Studio photograph credit Aligned Exhibits.)
To cap off what’s sure to be an excellent weekend, join us for a Michigan Beer Tasting on Sunday evening (7/23) with long-time beer writer and enthusiast Patti Smith. Patti will walk you through a sampling of eight Michigan beers, and explain the nuances of tasting and judging beer. Chef Allison will be preparing some perfectly paired snacks!
Strawberries: Ode to a Fruit
Is there anything more perfect than an early strawberry, shiny and red, fragrant and sweet? We don’t think so (although we reserve the right to say that about all the foods we love!). A tiny June strawberry, fresh from a field or a farmers’ market, delights all of the senses.
First garden strawberry of 2022 was a beauty!
Is there anything more perfect than an early strawberry, shiny and red, fragrant and sweet? We don’t think so (although we reserve the right to say that about all the foods we love!). A tiny June strawberry, fresh from a field or a farmers’ market, delights all of the senses - smell, taste, sight, touch, and… ok, maybe not hearing. Strawberries belong to the genus Fragaria, and the etymology here is no mystery: the fragrance of strawberries is the stuff of poetry. In the poem Wild Strawberries, Robert Graves describes the “...confounding of taste and scent.” And indeed, the science is in - a strawberry’s taste and scent are inextricably intertwined; the aroma of a strawberry matters more than the sugar content in how we perceive a strawberry’s sweetness!
Wild strawberries were an enormously important food source for the Native people that lived in the Great Lakes area prior to the government “resettlement” policy (the Indian Removal Act of 1830) that forced Native tribes off of their ancestral lands. The Anishinaabeg people were a cultural group that included many tribes in the Great Lakes region, and the largest tribes that inhabited southeast Michigan were the Ojibwe (Chippewa), Odawa (Ottawa), and Potowatami (Bode’wadmi). The tribes were semi-nomadic, migrating with the seasons. When springtime turned to early summer, the tribes would settle along the shores of lakes to catch fish and freshwater fowl, and to forage the woodlands for birch bark and wild berries. They marked the passage of time and seasons by the moon, and the June full moon was named Ode’imini-giizis (the Strawberry Moon). The full Strawberry Moon rises this coming Saturday, June 3!
You can find wild strawberries in the woods, of course, but the strawberries we cultivate now are the result of cross between two wild strawberry varieties (both transported from the Americas to Europe) in France in the 1700s.
It’s almost time for strawberry u-picks to open their doors, and we recommend getting on their waiting lists and checking Facebook sites to be in the know. It’s a fairly short season (mostly in June and early July); strawberries are easy to pick, and incredible when they are fresh from the field! Two local u-picks are:
Rowe’s Produce Farm (Ypsilanti) - strawberries and peas in June/July!
Honey Bee U-Pick (Ann Arbor) - strawberries in June/July!
Some of our other favorite produce items popping up at farmers’ markets right now include asparagus, herbs, peas, potatoes, and rhubarb. If you’re not sure what to do with a farmers’ market haul, get in touch with us, and we can design a cooking class just for you! We’re also happy to share some of our favorite recipes! The Newton of Ypsilanti’s own Chef Allison Anastasio will be doing a cooking demonstration at the Ann Arbor Farmers’ Market on June 7, 2023 at 11am (that’s a Wednesday market!). She’ll be whipping up a few delicious items that feature the spring/early summer bounty of our local farms.