Guest Writers and Contributors

Subscribe to The Renaissance Garden Guy The American Diner Diners are misunderstood as dull and lowly establishments, pitted unartfully along crumbling highways and forgotten byways. This is a mistake. The American diner is a humble, accessible gathering place where the spirit of this country rests and replenishes a fraying culture stretched in all directions. It […]

Subscribe to The Renaissance Garden Guy Legacy Inspired by the legacy of one I admired and loved dearly, I’ve discovered some of the most important and worthwhile of my own aspirations. By Allison McBain Hudson I don’t have a bucket list. I’m “only” 53 and hoping not to kick the bucket any time soon, but

Subscribe to The Renaissance Garden Guy Summer Cruisin’, American Style. Nothing holds the anticipation and excitement of summer and reliving a Golden Era of captured memories quite like the classic cars of mid-century America. From roaring engines to sweetheart bench seats, cruising still has the power and bittersweet air of a freedom that once was.

Subscribe to The Renaissance Garden Guy Clash of the Control Titans What if you put two people with an overwhelming need to control the environment in the same space, but their respective ideas of “a place for everything and everything in its place” mean something entirely different? There may be underlying forces so powerful that

Subscribe to The Renaissance Garden Guy Irish Evening I’m forever amazed and heartened by the quiet, crepuscular triumph of an Irish evening over grey daytime skies and grey daytime notions. By Allison McBain Hudson It starts to get to me after a while, the greyness. Summer, says the calendar, but the Irish weather often seems

Subscribe to The Renaissance Garden Guy A Wink and A Dash America’s still a “proper country,” as it was decades ago when suburban teenagers went cruising with family cars. By Russ Smith Several times a week, while looking at X/Twitter, I see a post from a person (or paid-off bot) with a picture of, say,

Subscribe to The Renaissance Garden Guy Betty Crocker in a DoorDash World What an old, well-loved Betty Crocker cookbook can reveal about our culture of modern ultra-convenience, domesticity, and control. By Jenna Stocker Before Thanksgiving, I was sent my grandmother’s second edition (1956) of Betty Crocker’s Picture Cookbook (Revised and Enlarged!) by my aunt in Maine.