Francie Lin, Author at Daily Hampshire Gazette

Preserving cultural heritage through food: How Grow Food Northampton’s Living History Garden feeds both body and soul

by Francie Lin May 15, 2026May 15, 2026

My daughter Lucy turned 18 in March, a big event for which she asked me to make dumplings for dinner. This was no surprise: both of my kids request pork and cabbage dumplings for their birthday dinners every year. I love this, partly because it simplifies everything but mainly because the recipe is my mother’s. […]

Local eggs, tortillas, and produce on offer at the Hampshire Heights Mobile Market.

Food

Fork & Spade with Francie Lin: Building community access to local food

by Francie Lin For the GazetteNovember 24, 2022

The flexibility of a PVGrows Investment Fund bridge loan allowed Crimson & Clover farmer Nate Frigard to accept a Massachusetts Food Security Infrastructure Grant to insulate his barn for year-round use as a farm store, and to build a washing and packing building attached to the barn.

Food

Fork & Spade with Francie Lin: New ways to invest in the local food system

by Francie Lin For the GazetteOctober 27, 2022

Song Sparrow Farm occupies three-quarters of an acre and grows a large variety of vegetables and edible flowers, offering its produce through a small CSA, a farm stand, and at the Easthampton Sunday market, among other places.

Fork & Spade with Francie Lin: Grow Food Northampton Community Farm puts community first

by Francie Lin For the GazetteOctober 10, 2022

Artist Sabrina Dorsainvil created this poster for the 2022 Tuesday Market and it was recently awarded first place in the 2022 National Farmers Market Poster Contest sponsored by Farm Aid and the Farmers Market Coalition.

Food

Fork & Spade with Francie Lin: a community food digest for August

by Francie Lin For the GazetteAugust 19, 2022

Bridget MacNeill, a Smith College Botanic Garden intern, during a sugar beet harvest at the Lydia Maria Child Historical plot in the Grow Food community garden on Meadow Street in Northampton. This year’s crop will be harvested in the fall.

Resistance is sweet: A historical Grow Food Northampton plot is raising crops — sugar beets and flax seedlings — produced by Florence abolitionists in the 1840s

by Francie Lin For the GazetteJune 16, 2022

The Northampton Survival Center provides more than 14,000 pounds of nutritious, culturally relevant food to Hampshire County clients every week. As members of The Food Bank of Western Mass, the Center is able to take advantage of free produce when The Food Bank offers it. Recently, that’s meant an influx of tubers considered delicacies in a number of Asian and Latinx cuisines, and clients excited to see foods from home.

Fork & Spade with Francie Lin: A community food digest for May

by Francie Lin For the GazetteMay 17, 2022

Nettles at Abundance Farm potted and ready to give away for those who want to replant them for medicinal purposes.

Fork & Spade with Francie Lin: Sharing the abundance

by Francie Lin For the GazetteApril 14, 2022

In this 2020 file photo, Raye Cooke, left, of Leeds waits as Grow Food Northampton volunteer Cathy Wanat of Florence packs up various seeds, including dill, lolla rossa lettuce and prickly seeded spinach, at the nonprofit's annual seed swap.

Local seed resources and education

by Francie Lin For the GazetteMarch 10, 2022

Cara Iacoponi, organizer of the local seed library project 413 Free Seeds, divides seed packets into smaller labeled packages at her home in Leeds on Friday, March 4.

Francie Lin: Seeds of sustainability

by Francie Lin For the GazetteMarch 10, 2022