Barbara Dunn

Susan Brady Konig, the author of three books, has just completed a memoir about identity, loss and joy at midlife The bus driver made an announcement that the northbound No. 10 would be detouring around several stops due to emergency road work. Realizing the bus would be skipping her stop, an elderly woman told the driver, “Turn around and go back!” She was small and quite bent, bundled in a long coat and headscarf. “I have arrhythmia!” she shouted. It was early spring and still chilly.

Recipes excerpted from The Flavor of Upstate New York: Iconic Dishes, Delicious History & Reinvented Recipes by June Hersh. Published in 2025 by American Palate, a division of The History Press, an imprint of Arcadia Publishing, Charleston, SC, www.historypress.com, 224 pages. $24.99. Food is one of upstate New York’s great storytellers, and in The Flavor of Upstate New York, author June Hersh invites us to listen closely.

Microplastics are showing up everywhere — from oceans and soil to our food, water and, more alarmingly, the human body. Scientists are racing to understand what that means for our health, and the research is still evolving.