Going Upbeat

Five years ago, The Brunswick Inn began a wonderful relationship with the Bowdoin International Music Festival.  We are now the official Inn of the festival, so many of our summer guests are either faculty or the parents of festival students.  We love welcoming them: they fill the house with music!

Linda Chesis

This year we are pleased to host flutist Linda Chesis as a guest at the Inn once again.  Linda is the founder and artistic director of the Cooperstown Summer Music Festival and is on the faculty of the Manhattan School of Music.  She will be an artist-in-residence for weeks one and four of the festival, and we look forward with great anticipation to her performance of Debussy's Sonata for Flute, Viola, and Harp this Wednesday evening.

The Inn is the sponsor of this year's Wednesday Upbeat! performance series, and we are excited to be trying something new after four great years of sponsoring the Monday Night Sonata series.  Join us after the performance each week for an opportunity to meet the artists and other members of the festival community while enjoying complimentary hors d'oeuvres and a cash bar.  We're going Upbeat!

Congratulations Alane!

This past Saturday night I had the pleasure of catering Alane Callahan's wedding to Ken Crowe.  Alane has worked at the Inn for 3 years and has taken over the event planning for that ever-expanding part of the business.  She has mastered the art of discovering just what a guest envisions for a party and creates the perfect plan to help realize that vision.  She did an amazing job for her own wedding--the decor at the Mere Point Yacht Club was spectacular, and the feel of the entire event was intimate and easy-going with special surprise details at every turn.  I loved the ball jars labelled with the names of all the children lined up with red-striped straws for sipping lemonade.  I loved the twinkling white lights that lined the rustic beams of the ceiling.  I loved the food she chose: tapas in honor of Ken's Guatamalan heritage.  Guests feasted on fire-roasted salsa and fresh guacamole; skirt steak and roasted potatoes with aioli; skewers of prosciutto-wrapped melon, black olives, manchego, grape tomatoes, and chili-lime chicken bites; and paella. I loved the skiff filled with ice-cold beer.  I loved that they splurged on a can't-sit-still 8-piece dance band.  And after my work was done, I really loved the mojito, muddled to order with real lime and fresh mint.  Best wishes, Alane and Ken.  May your life together be as beautiful as the moon that rose over your reception.

Unsung Heroes

Teacher of the Year Sarah Borofsky

          with her husband Jacob at the Inn

In two days, my husband will retire after 40 years of teaching and administrating in independent high schools. We will celebrate with family and friends at the Inn, not only to acknowledge his transition into what I hope will be a well-deserved rest but also to acknowledge his incredible dedication to a profession that was neither lucrative nor glamorous.  He taught because he loves to teach; he taught because he loves high school kids.  "They're funny," he would often say.  "And they're honest."  No small things.

In the May 11th issue of The New York Times, Steve Almond wrote a wonderful piece about what we worship and honor today.  "Americans worship athletes and moguls and movie stars, those who possess the glittering gifts we equate with worth and happiness. . . . We might be willing to watch a drama about a meek high-school science teacher, but only if he degenerates into a homicidal meth tycoon."  Funny not only because the concept of Breaking Bad was absurd, but funny, too, because of what it says about American values. 

So because they do not get the credit they deserve, I tried to find a way to say thank you to the teachers out there who tirelessly take our youth into their hands and try to help them find their passions and their strengths and who thereby have our future in their hands as well.  Congratulations, Sarah Brokofsky, Cumberland County Teacher of the Year.  Sarah and her husband will enjoy a weekend at the Inn as our guests.  If we had a red carpet, we'd roll it out for her.