Susan Braden

2 weeks ago | ctinsider.com | Susan Braden

MADISON - As part of the Three Little Pigs Engineering STEAM project, kindergarteners Stella Hebert and William Eltorai build little "houses" out of heavy construction paper and toothpicks stuck into gumdrops. But outside the classroom, a construction crew will build something more permanent on The Country School campus: a wood-frame 2,280-square-foot Student Makerspace and Engineering Facility to expand the school's popular STEAM program, which has outgrown the school.

3 weeks ago | ctinsider.com | Susan Braden

BRANFORD - The proposed $141.7 million town budget will mean the mill rate will go down, but residents may pay more in taxes. Under the recommended budget, the town's mill rate will go down this year from 30.4 to 21.5, but taxes will be higher, according to Finance Director James Finch. Article continues below this adThis year's budget increased 4.7% from last year's, which was $135 million.

3 weeks ago | ctinsider.com | Susan Braden

MADISON - After three years, numerous meetings and public hearings, Madison Prime, got its final approval. The upscale steakhouse is on the site of the shuttered Madison Winter Club, which restaurateur Francesco Lulaj bought for nearly $1.2 million in 2023 after the dining and social club closed in 2021. Lulaj owns the popular La Forresta Restaurant in Killingworth. The Planning and Zoning Commission unanimously approved amended site plans at the recent meeting.

4 weeks ago | ctinsider.com | Susan Braden

BRANFORD - Sushi chef Woepa Zegid is from Tibet, but he fell in love with American country music and Japanese cuisine shortly after he came to the U.S. at age 17. Zegid remembers his first taste of yellowtail fish at a Japanese restaurant in New York in 2006. "My favorite thing," he said, "because yellowtail when you eat it it's like butter. It's melted right in your mouth."Now he's the chef-owner of Sushi Burrific, a new sushi take-out place in town.

1 month ago | ctinsider.com | Susan Braden

BRANFORD - Across from Dunkin' Donuts, an antique yellow Colonial is home to a world of exotic spices, South Asian spiky squashes called bitter gourd and dumplings called "momos," a beloved street food in Nepal. Here you'll find goat meat and wild boar, vacuum sealed in a refrigerated case. Forty-pound bags of basmati, Jasmine and Sona Mansuri rice are stacked on shelves; the smallest quantity sold is a 10-pound bag. It's Yeti & Yak, a Nepalese grocery store that recently opened at 220 E.