Dear Muffy,
Could you and members of the community please advise me on visiting Newport for the first time? Many thanks!
Dear Muffy,
Could you and members of the community please advise me on visiting Newport for the first time? Many thanks!
New England Clam Chowder is a quintessential New England food, along with (to quote Judd Hale) baked beans, codfish, lobsters, maple syrup, jonnycake, and apple pie. |
New Englanders are always arguing with each other and with outsiders as to the proper ingredients and/or correct preparation techniques.
- Judd Hale
J. Press, 380 Madison Avenue, New York City - All Photos by Salt Water New England. |
Cambridge's J. Press |
The Author's Photo |
Cappy's Chowder House |
The Barnacle in Marblehead, MA |
J. Press, York Street, New Haven. RIP |
Washington, D.C. |
Royal Male |
Andover Shop |
Ferd Week continues with a comment left by Ferd, September, 2010. Redacted for civility.
First, let me say that I am uncertain how I found your blog. In all events, after skimming so of your posts I am compelled to write. Prep is not about clothing, or schools, or cars, or dogs, or cocktails. It is an attitude. It is wiser, wealthier, more insular. It is oblivious to much of what the remainder of the world considers vital. It is bored. It is aloof. It is ultra cool. It doesn't exist south of Newport or west of Williamstown. If you are writing about it, you aren't it. If you went to an Ivy League school or Andover, Exeter or Choate after 1980, you aren't it. If you use the word Preppy, you aren't it. And, most importantly, if you speak about, write about and rank clothing, you aren't it. Caring about clothing is vulgar. True Prep wears whatever his grandfather left in the closet at the house in Marblehead. My God, woman, are you really suggesting that a True Prep would be caught dead in something from Barbour? Isn't Barbour the company that dresses all those [*****] real estate executives in New York racing for their train in the rain on 43rd street? True Prep wears their son's hockey jacket from St. Marks in the rain or doesn't go out in the rain. And Jesus, Ralph Lauren? Are you high? He is, well, [*****]. Don't [****] wear his shirts? All in all, you are silly and uninformed.
Muffy Aldrich in Turnbull & Asser, New York |
In some summer communities, dogs are better known than their owners. They are the perfect ambassadors. When walking our young Golden Retriever on the Vineyard, we encountered more than one person who recognized the breeder, asking some variation of "that's not a Cloverdale dog, is it?"
A reader sent in this list from yesterday's USA Today on 11 charming New England coastal towns.
If you could add one town and take one away, which would you do?
Photos by Salt Water New England. |
To foreigners, a Yankee is an American.
To Americans, a Yankee is a Northerner.
To Northerners, a Yankee is an Easterner.
To Easterners, a Yankee is a New Englander.
To New Englanders, a Yankee is a Vermonter.
And in Vermont, a Yankee is somebody who eats pie for breakfast.
- Attributed to E.B. White
Photos by Salt Water New England |
While there are a great number of new designs they have added, I prefer their original approach – what is now called "vintage" – which are bags made from recycled sails. (Bring in your old sails, where they'll be weighed and you'll be paid. And you'll get a bag made out of your sails.)
Ferd Week continues with a comment left by Ferd, April, 2011, on the post, "Can you still be preppy if you......"
Jet ski and snow board instead of sail and ski?
No. Jet Skis make too much noise to be preppy. Snow boarding is vulgar. By the way, if you sail anywhere other than off the coast of Rhode Island, Maine or Massachusetts (or from Newport to Bermuda) you are not preppy. If you ski anywhere other than Maine and New Hampshire, you are not preppy. (West Side of New York City regarding Vermont, take note.)
Vacation at theme parks?
Is Acadia National Park count as a theme park? Of course not. True prep doesn't even know where Florida is.
Vacation on cruise ships?
Why would you go to someone else's boat to vacation when you can go to your own boat? Ridiculous inquiry.
Put chemicals/fertilizers/dyed mulch on your lawn?
Honestly, very few true preps have lawns, per se. If there is something worth mowing, that is done by the husband with a 37 year old push mower. Believe me, he is not thinking about fertilizer.
Get your suits at Jos. A Banks?
True Prep doesn't 'get' suits anywhere. I have not heard of Jos. A Banks, but I suspect it is a chain store. Boys from St. Paul's do not shop. Suits are either handed down or purchased by their mother and then kept for 39 years.
Eat family dinners at local chain restaurant?
Prep parents and prep children, when they are at the family home at the same time (which is rarely) never eat together. Period. Except sometimes at Christmas.
Drive a car that gets less than 15 miles per gallon?
Yes. Most preps drive only two or three types of cars, the older versions of which do average less than 15 mpg. Examples are my aunt's 1978 Volvo, my brother's 1959 Jaguar and my mother's 1990 Land Rover County.
(For women) Wear more than two kinds of make-up?
Yes. Lip Gloss and soap. Scented soap is make up, isn't it?
Shop at Walmart, Kohl's, Target, Ikea and other box stores?
Yes, actually, this is very prep. Nobody is tight with money like true prep. How do you think they have money for 10 generations? Spending it on Gucci's?
Have kitchens with lots of granite and stainless steel?
Granite belongs in New Hampshire. Enough about this.
Have Louis Vuitton luggage and/or handbags?
Unless these are sold at Eye of the Needle, no.
Get plastic surgery?
Prep women actually want to age. The absolute goal of every prep woman is to be 70 with swept back gray hair and grandchildren at Middlesex. Prep men are born looking 40. Why would we want to change this?
Come from some place other than New England?
Accurately, the question should be: come from a place other than Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts and a few zip codes in Rhode Island? Connecticut is full of bleached blond investment banker's wive who drive Geladenwagons and play tennis. Please.
Get all of your antiques from shops and flea markets rather than from family members?
Yes, this is actually very preppy.
Drive a non-European car?
Yes, as long as they are one of the following: 1978 Ford Country Squire Station Wagon; 1983 Ford Bronco II with 29 Nantucket Beach Permit Stickers or 1968 Jeepster with 49 Nantucket Beach Permit Stickers.
Photos by Salt Water New England |
Muffy Aldrich with Rope Bracelet, Newport |
The New England rope bracelets are known for their simplicity, toughness, and generally not getting in the way of outdoor activities.
Originally, kids would put them on, shrink them, and keep them all summer until they absorbed the smells of everywhere they had been. The season would be over when a parent finally cut off the bracelet. I like mine a bit larger to slide on and off easily, and worn for hours, not weeks.
And they can be bought or made. When I was summer camp support staff on the Maine coast, a camper would often observe what I was wearing at breakfast and he would make me a matching bracelet by lunch.
I still wear rope bracelets today, including year round.
A Lab is not required. |