Just 20 minutes into our second meal at nika, the table suggested a medieval-style feast. When our server arrived with a plate of grilled octopus, the table was so full that he paused and stammered, “I’ll just put them … um ….” My friend and I stopped eating to rearrange plates and glasses — grilled escarole salad, braised artichokes, curls of prosciutto, a rosé and a cucumber-lychee-mint spritzer — and make room.... Read more

They go by many names — man cave, man-space, mantuary, bro hole. In days of yore, they were known simply as dad’s rec room, workshop, smoking lounge or deer camp. Call ’em what you will, they all have about the same function. They’re spaces we fellas carve out from the rest of our abodes to tap into our inner boy — assuming that boy is allowed to drink beer, shoot pool, play cards, watch sports or play with his toys at any hour of the day or night. ... Read more

Everyone gravitates to the kitchen. And why wouldn’t they? That’s where the food is and where the party is. But it’s also where clutter builds up. And where home cooks and hosts need things to actually function.

When things don’t, it may be time for a radical kitchen renovation.

Erica Ell, co-owner of Richmond’s HAVEN Design + Building, has remodeled a lot of kitchens. She says the key to a good renovation is “bringing in good lighting and daylight and opening up the kitchen into other living spaces.” ... Read more

Can movies be programmed to be hits? A May 5 New York Times article profiles Vinny Bruzzese, a statistician who offers his consulting services to Hollywood and claims that yes, they can. Using past movies as points of comparison, Bruzzese might, for instance, advise screenwriters to nix a scene in a bowling alley, because such scenes “tend to pop up in films that fizzle” (sorry, The Big Lebowski). Or he might point out that audiences have historically preferred “guardian” superheroes to “cursed” superheroes.... Read more

Spoiler alert: The Sapphires is likable as hell but so formulaic you’ll swear you’ve already seen it. The heart-tugging, toe-tapping saga of an Aboriginal girl group overcoming obstacles and becoming a soul sensation for a brief moment in the ’60s really has only one surprise, and I found it enormously refreshing.... Read more

Anaïs Mitchell is sitting cross-legged on the rolling lawn of her parents’ rural home in Vergennes, where she has spent the morning harvesting dandelions to make wine. Hip, multicolored Wayfarer sunglasses shield her eyes from the brilliant midday sun. She’s clad in shorts and a tank top that curves over a modest baby bump — she’s due to have her first child with husband Noah Hahn in late July. ... Read more

The city of Burlington has won all kinds of accolades — from best sunsets to sexual health — but a report last month revealed Vermont’s biggest burg has failed to enforce its celebrated livable wage ordinance for the past 12 years. On that score, it’s not alone: Only a handful of the 123 municipalities around the country with such wage standards have bothered to monitor compliance, according to a national expert on livable-wage initiatives.... Read more

When Eric and Laura Sorkin got into the maple sugaring business five years ago, they went big. The couple invested $1.4 million in a vacuum pump, reverse-osmosis machine and other equipment and tapped sugar maples across 1000 acres they own in Cambridge and Underhill.

At the time, maple syrup prices were at a record high of around $4 a pound — double where they were a year prior — with a gallon fetching up to $70. The timing seemed perfect.... Read more

Keith Flynn had only been Orleans County state’s attorney a few weeks when he got a phone call from the Newport police on the morning of February 12, 1999. Shots had been fired in the downtown Home Health Building. Flynn rushed over, and not just because it was his job to do so: His wife was working there at the time.... Read more

Stone by stone, inch by inch, Charley MacMartin is building a wall. It’s a surprisingly simple undertaking. Occasionally he wields a small chisel or hammer, tools crafted in Barre that are almost as local as the stones that MacMartin employs. But more often than not, he forgoes the tools altogether, working by hand to stack the rocks that will cumulatively create a tidy boundary wall at a picturesque Charlotte home.... Read more