Jeanne O'Brien Coffey

Let’s face it: Blue is hardly Mother Nature’s favorite when it comes to plate and palate. In fact, blue tints are often a signal to steer clear of foods. Even blueberries aren’t truly blue. And they can’t color cocktails a vibrant shade of indigo.
But butterfly pea flower can. The oddly named plant with sapphire petals has long been used to tint food and drinks in Southeast Asia, and tea made from the flower has been credited with health benefits, from anxiety reduction to antioxidant power. ...

Will Frank McClelland be coming to a suburb or grocery store near you? The acclaimed chef, who shocked us all by closing Boston’s famed L’Espalier this winter, is ready to get back into the kitchen, but his new mission is a far cry from the white tablecloths and special occasions of the restaurant he helmed for 30 years.

It’s mud season in New England. Which makes it the perfect time of year to get away to Portland.

Polo requires a strong core and a willingness to swing a mallet from
a moving horse

Eco-entrepreneur Tom Szaky built a multi-million dollar business selling garbage, cleverly upcycled as colorful totes and new shampoo bottles. But now he’s dreaming up a world that literally has zero trash.

Business
Spindrift founder Bill Creelman wants to upend the seltzer industry and do for carbonated water what Sam Adams did for beer. And he’s starting by asking what the competition is really made of. —By Jeanne O’Brien Coffey
On a brisk day just after the new year, Bill Creelman, founder and CEO of Spindrift, sets a shiny, unlabeled aluminum can on his desk at the seltzer company’s new headquarters in Newton. The unassuming gesture is ripe with anticipation: Inside is Spindrift’s newest fla...

Offering health benefits may seem costly, but so is hiring and training someone new—$3,500 for a single hourly employee. Benefits are a great way to keep talented team members from looking elsewhere.

Chef, restaurateur, and author Barbara Lynch shares her holiday in Gloucester

Reports of the death of the independent bookstore have been gravely exaggerated, to paraphrase the old Mark Twain saying. As communities and proprietors know, these welcoming spots are much more than just places to buy something to read.
“When I walk into a local bookstore, it’s my way of connecting with and supporting my community,” says Ryan Raffaelli, an assistant professor in the Organizational Behavior Unit at Harvard Business School who studies technology reemergence, which is the scien...

So things haven’t gone as planned this year, and your heart is full of revenge instead of bliss. Send an array of bitter chocolates or drinks, to show you’re so over it (not).

The rosé wave has given birth to a whole range of lovely pink drinks, from gin to hard cider. Some have a long history (Like Laurent-Perrier), and some are newcomers to our shores (I'm looking at you, Beefeater Pink) From wine to gin, here are some to explore.

Mount Mansfield and sister Spruce Peak are the main attractions in Stowe, a ski town as unassuming—in a perfect New England way—as it is storied.

It’s a hot-button issue. There is no question that the restaurant industry has a harassment problem. According to Equal Employment Opportunity Center data crunched by Buzzfeed last year, full-service restaurant industry workers reported far and away the most incidences of sexual harassment between 1995 and 2006.
“It’s a big problem in the hospitality industry,” says David B. Jordan, a Houston-based attorney and co-chair of the Hospitality Industry Group at Littler Mendelson, the world’s large...

Director Steven Soderbergh faces down the regulatory gauntlet to sell his new spirit, Jeanne O'Brien Coffey reports.

Tucked into an office tower in Boston’s Financial District, Common Vines packs a lot into less than 900 square feet. A marble counter, used for daily tastings, dominates the space, backed by a couch and a children’s nook. Floor-to-ceiling racks line the walls, with 450 selections especially strong in smart finds in the $15-to-$25 range, like Gen del Alma’s Ji Ji Ji, a blend of pinot and malbec from Mendoza, at $17. There are also plenty of off-the-beaten-track finds like Kiralyudvar’s dry fur...