Coming up on Thursday, April 27, don’t miss the the Friends of the Meetinghouse’s dinner and a show with Sebastian Lockwood, who will perform Homer’s “Odysseus” at 6:30 p.m. at the Greenfield Meetinghouse.

The Friends of the Meetinghouse’s beloved volunteer cooks, Sharon Andrews and Warren Aldrich, are making homemade meat and vegetable lasagna. Dinner is $10, including lasagna, bread, salad and dessert. Please plan to arrive closer to 6 p.m. to get settled for dinner; Sebastian will start performing at 6:30!

The first time I met Warren Aldrich was in February 2022, when he swept both categories at the Greenfield Chili Cook-Off. I wondered, “Who is this mild-mannered gentleman who pulled off the meat and vegetarian coup?” Warren was as surprised as anyone, but he admitted that he knows his way around a kitchen.

I later learned that Warren was responsible for the stunning flower gardens at the old Cape house across the street from the library, which I had admired for years. This house actually served as the original Greenfield Meetinghouse, where the residents of the newly annexed Town of Greenfield would gather prior to 1791.

For many years, everyone driving through the downtown admired the amazingly eclectic and colorful gardens across the from library, which were 100 percent Warren’s creation.

“People would actually stop in the middle of the road to look at the garden,” Warren recalls. “Which was great, because it slowed down the traffic on (Route) 31.”

Warren and his wife, Teresa, moved to Greenfield about 20 years ago after raising their four children in Dublin. While living in the old Meetinghouse, Warren and Teresa cared for several adults with disabilities. In 2019, they retired from caretaking and downsized, purchasing an unremarkable cottage on Sawmill Road.

Warren immediately began to transform the cottage, which soon sprouted a tiered rock garden, unusual flowers, antique garden implements, sculptures and dazzling Christmas lights. It was obvious an artist had moved in!

A few weeks after the chili cook-off, I ran into Warren at the recycling center, and we started chatting about the Friends of the Meetinghouse. Then Warren said something that made my heart flutter -- he offered to cook for the next Oktoberfest! How often do you meet someone who volunteers to cook a meal for 300 people?

And this is how, last Sept. 24, we had enough fabulous homemade macaroni and cheese, potato salad and green salad for the whole town. Warren commanded a small army of volunteers, including former restaurant owner Sharon Andrews.

Warren is very modest about his skills.

“I just love to cook,” he says about volunteering for Oktoberfest. “I figured I could do it.”

During Oktoberfest, Warren let slip that he had catered several weddings. Then he added that for one wedding, he had not only catered the entire dinner, he also baked and decorated the cake and made the dress. He said this like it was no big deal, as if most people could pull that off if they put their minds to it.

When Warren isn’t catering weddings, making wedding dresses and cakes, transforming real estate, gardening, making German potato salad for 300 or spending time with his grandchildren, he is installing professional window treatments and curating his antiques booth at Eclectic Mix in Amherst.

Warren has an incredible eye for other people’s discarded treasures, and in particular, for mid-century modern colored glass, some of which he keeps for his collection at the cottage. People in town love seeing Warren’s thrift store finds on Facebook.

“It is truly incredible what people give away,” Warren says. “People often aren’t aware of what they have, and they’ll throw out things worth hundreds of dollars.”

Warren has also started his own interior design consultancy, Color, Light and Warmth, which can be found on thumbtack.com, and he also dabbles in antique and vintage furniture valuation. To reach Warren and find out more about his many talents, please email him at tapestrygardensnh@gmail.com.

Email me at jesstimm17@gmail.com with ideas for the Greenfield Beat.

 

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