Stephen Orr

1 week ago | provincetownindependent.org | Stephen Orr

Sometimes you just know when a place is the one. It was 1978 when Anne Webb Johnson and her husband, David, found themselves looking at an unusual house on Hughes Road in North Truro. It was the home of two prominent local artists, Helen Sawyer and Jerry Farnsworth, who were in their 90s and wanted to sell. “I walked through the back door, through the sail loft, and into the living room. Helen was sitting on a sofa there,” says Webb Johnson.

1 week ago | provincetownindependent.org | Stephen Orr

[Hidden behind a rustic wooden fence tiny spring treasures abound: Nodding bluebells, arching ferns, dainty forget-me-nots, and self-sown alexanders in a glowing shade of chartreuse, all knitted together like a tapestry. This exposed seaside location above Cold Storage Beach in Truro is hardly the spot where you’d expect to find a jewel box of delicate spring ephemerals tucked underneath the rough cedars, but here they are.

3 weeks ago | provincetownindependent.org | Stephen Orr

I have been a fan of shaved salads ever since I had my first plateful at a Brooklyn neighborhood restaurant called Frankies 457 Spuntino many years ago. It was a pale but flavor-packed combination of thinly sliced raw ingredients, mostly fennel, red onion, and celery root — not a vegetable I had eaten uncooked before — lightly dressed with olive oil and lemon and scrapings of Parmesan. Not a single leaf of lettuce on the plate.

Dec 11, 2024 | provincetownindependent.org | Stephen Orr

The holiday markets here celebrate a long history of handicrafts made on the Outer Cape. Where there were once bayberry candle makers, rug hookers, net weavers, beach plum canners, and candy cookers, now there are potters, chefs, herbalists, leathersmiths, printmakers, floral arrangers, and sculptors. The markets are popular gathering spots for shoppers, but they also create a welcome feeling of community for makers.

Nov 27, 2024 | provincetownindependent.org | Stephen Orr

We ate a lot of convenience foods when I was a kid growing up in the 1970s. There were dinners of Hamburger Helper and Chun King chop suey, but the Turkey Tetrazzini that came from the freezer in a red Stouffer’s box rose above them all. It was cheesy, creamy, and rich. I thought of it as something fancy, even though I was a picky enough eater that I carefully extracted all traces of celery from the noodles and piled them on the side of my plate.