Listen to “Greece’s Secret to Perfect Honey”
While prosperous countries like the U.S. have struggled to keep their honeybees alive, Greece continues to produce what many consider the world’s finest honey. What’s the Greeks’ secret? And why can’t everyone else keep up?
The Wisdom of a Veteran Beekeeper
Spencer Marshall is the proprietor of Marshall’s Honey, one of the biggest and most widely distributed artisanal honey brands in the San Francisco Bay Area. At his peak, Marshall had roughly 500 colonies scattered around Napa, Marin, and Solano counties. Now, at the age of 76, Marshall still maintains 350 colonies at more than a…
The Guanaco & South America: A Brief Resource Guide
If you’re looking for some eco-travel ideas that are outside the norm—and that might acquaint you with the guanaco, underappreciated producer of fine fleece—here are a few good places to start. To explore some of the guanaco’s territory, begin with Travel + Leisure‘s guide to visiting Patagonia in Chile and Argentina. For another way to see…
Resources for Nordic Sweater Lovers
The Setesdal Museum in Rysstad opened an exhibit in 2019 that honors Annemor Sundbø’s decades of work salvaging sweaters, documenting the culture of knitting, and promoting heritage wool. The exhibit is scheduled to be up for two years, so If you’re planning or even considering a trip to Viking country, this is a great stop…
Old Norwegian Sheep and Their Durable Wool
After writing extensively about the history of Norwegian knitting and textile design, Annemor Sundbø turned her attention to the very foundation of those textiles, to the wool without which, she says, there would have been no Vikings. In the process, Sundbø has become an ardent ambassador for the value of the wool produced by Norway’s…
Watch “The Norwegian Sweater Keeper”
Annemor Sundbø has dedicated her life to unearthing the myths and meanings behind Norwegian sweater traditions.
Resources on Independent Perfume & Perfumery
The rich world of independent perfumery can inspire fragrance lovers to engage in many ways. To help you follow your nose, so to speak, here are some of the best resources for both the curious and the committed, regarding the craft of scent-making. First, shoppers can get a whiff of the artisanal perfumes crafted by…
Wool: Suggested Resources and Gift Ideas
WOOL GIFTS FOR THE SOCIALLY CONSCIOUS: The wool in The North Face’s Cali Wool Beanie comes from a Northern California sheep ranch dedicated to methods of land management that are proven to regenerate the soil instead of depleting it. This allows the land to “sequester” carbon in the land, which slows climate change. There isn’t…
The Power of the Scribe
For centuries, spiritual faith has been shaped in part by how its scribes form the letters of their sacred texts. This is particularly the case with Judaism. We visit with three scribes in three very different corners of Jewish faith—Jerusalem; New York City’s Orthodox neighborhood in Brooklyn; and the liberal enclave of Berkeley, California—to understand why people still go to all this trouble. Along the way, we walk across the religious aisle to the Muslim world to see what happens to the Urdu language of India and Pakistan when its script gets computerized.
By BRYCE T. BAUER
With LYNN HOLSTEIN, TODD OPPENHEIMER, and ALI ETERAZ
