A busy 2026!...
This year I am once again working with teachers and staff at Mohawk Trail Regional School on Museum on Main Street: Voices and Votes, which came to us via the Smithsonian and the Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities. The exhibit left last year, but we are still creating programming to complement it. See the school's website for full information.
I have a couple of book apppearances coming up; I'm sure more will follow! In April I did my first online book talk with a charming group of Europeans. I was recently the author in "Tea with the Author" at the Hadley, Massachusetts, Council on Aging. There's more to come....
On Sunday, August 23, at 2:30 p.m. I'll be at the 108th annual Heath Fair. I'll talk about the foodways of this country's founding fathers (and mothers), with particular emphasis on George Washington. The presentation will include a demonstration of cooking George Washington's hoe cakes.
On Saturday, August 29, at 11 a.m., I'll do a cooking (or at least an assembling!) demonstration at the annual Peach Festival at Apex Orchards in Shelburne, Massachusetts., followed by serving as a judge in the orchard's peach-recipe contest.
And on Friday, October 16, at 1 p.m. I'll share stories and a song or two with the Council on Aging in Hatfield, Massachusetts. (Hatfield is GORGEOUS in foliage season!)
Be safe, cook and eat well, and don't forget to sing...
Speaking of singing, pianist/composer Jerry Noble and I perform frequently together. we specialize in American popular standards. This year we have three more performances scheduled (so far).
On Sunday, August 9, at 1 p.m., we'll join residents of my small town, Hawley, Massachusetts, for a special Hawley Day program paying tribute to the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of
Independence. The will take place at the Hawley Meeting House at 332 East Hawley Road in my hometown of Hawley, Massachusetts. This program is free, funded in part by local cultural councils and Mass Humanities, although Hawley's historical society won't mind if audience members want to make a small donation!
Jerry and I have a holiday program scheduled for Sunday, December 6 (details coming soon!). We'll also perform a couple of songs at the annual "Thank You" concert for Mohawk Trail Concerts patrons on Sunday, August 30.
I love to speak to women’s clubs, libraries, senior centers, book clubs, and other groups. I also enjoy cooking and talking on television and on the radio.
I cook on Mass Appeal, a Western Massachusetts lifestyle program from time to time. (You can see me below with co-hosts Alanna Flood and Danny New.)
One librarian wrote in a thank-you note, “You had such a rapport with the audience it felt as though we all knew you.”
My favorite topics are the ways in which food can connect us to others through memory and the life lessons one can learn from cooking and caregiving. I also conduct recipe-writing workshops and organize evenings of group cooking. I'm articulate and funny (if not modest!), and I can always sing in a pinch!
If you’d like to have me talk to your group or your book club, please use the contact form on this site.
And now ... a little video! (You can see more of me on my YouTube channel!)
Below I prepare a spring favorite (dandelion greens!) on Mass Appeal. (I forgot to add salt to the dish on the air but urge you to add a little at home.) Please enjoy my hat!
I was also interviewed a few years back for the public-television program Making It Here. (You get to see my dear late mother Taffy in this clip!)
And a little audio, courtesy of the public-radio station WFCR/NEPR:
I shave from time to time stopped by that station to offer a commentary or two, including this remembrance of my grandmother via soup.
Here is what one Massachusetts minister wrote about one of my presentations:
It was an amazing program that Tinky Weisblat offered to our community about care-giving in general and about caring for family members with dementia, in particular.... Tinky read from her new book, Pulling Taffy: A Year with Dementia and Other Adventures. It is a year-long journal of family memories and daily stories about caring for Tinky’s mother, Jan (Taffy), in her apartment in Virginia near Tinky’s brother, and here in her home in Hawley. The book is loving and humorous and informative all at once. Others who came to the program shared their own experiences, and I realized how this is such an understated story.... Thank you, Tinky, for bringing the challenges of care-giving to our attention.
