It’s not quite Peter Piper’s pickled peppers, but it’s close. The PURPLE PEAR OF PROVIDENCE PECANS gives that old saw some competition. These giant Georgia nuts are candy-coated by Margaret Lederer, who got a pecan recipe from a friend and experimented with it until she had two products to market: “buttery...

It’s always fun to find a tucked-away spot that lets you imagine you have a different life. So when you walk between the yachts towering above you in dry dock to get to the gleaming bright sailors’ hangout called BELLE’S CAFÉ , you could pretend that you’re just coming to check on renovations, repairs...

You think you’re soooo sophisticated, you big-city folks with a Starbucks on every other corner? Well, in bucolic ol’ Exeter, there are two coffeehouses right next door to each other. SOPHIE’S COFFEE was the first, setting up shop in 2000. But it closed for a few months in 2006 before opening anew next...

OK, hiking trail. But how else do traditions start unless someone takes the first step? There are many sights to share at the FISHERVILLE BROOK WILDLIFE REFUGE in Exeter and West Green¬wich. And that includes more than birds, even though it’s run by the Audubon Society of Rhode Island. There’s a beautiful...

Blow up your TV. Stop paying your ISP. There is a world of reading material out there, and BOOKS ON THE SQUARE is doing more than making money out of the fact. Their schedule of author readings is relentless, usually one a week. Writers range from PETA executive Dan Mathews ( Committed ) on April 18...

Not for nothin’ does Providence/ Rhode Island reputedly have the highest number of artists per capita than any other city/state in the country. But now there is an additional somethin’. The latest inducement is DR. SKETCHY’S ANTI-ART SCHOOL , Providence division. Not only has the unsmiling seriousness...

We must have a lot of colorful problems in contemporary visual culture. “Creativity is problem-solving,” an animated character says on the Website of PAPER RAD . The recently Providence-based collective of shamelessly appropriated artful imaginations was founded and stabilized by the human tripod of...

As surely as little girls love dressing up and little boys play cowboys and Indians, soon after the first barn was raised, someone slapped his or her knee and said, “Why don’t we put on a show?!” At the Shorebreak, a former Narragansett movie theater, THEATER OF THOUGHT found a space for plays and didn...

Peace Dale is one of those historic mill villages that have faded into the heritage of Rhode Island. But the Peace Dale Neighborhood Revitalization Committee and the PEACE DALE ARTS INITIATIVE have held a summer festival the past few years, and they were instrumental in getting local artists to create...

Music and art. In through the ears, in through the eyes, take it all in through senses not yet discovered. TGIF, whether as a motivational prospect for the end of a hard workweek or for sheer relief, means more than just hoisting a few at the Rhode Island School of Design’s MUSIC FRIDAYS , which are...