Talk of the Times: Gourmet groceries come in from the cold

Pinky the elephant, a 5,000-pound fiberglass and concrete pachyderm, has found a home in Gloucester.

Washington Street drivers may have noticed his pink trunk peeking out from behind the R.B. Strong building at the corner of Bond Street. He’s new to Gloucester and a conspicuous presence among the trucks in the lot.

Pinky was a fixture at a Chrysler-Jeep dealership on Route 114 in Peabody for nearly 30 years but had to go once the owners sold the place in September. For a while, they feared they’d have to send Pinky out of state, to bidders in New York. Sara Medeiros, whose husband Jim and son Jim Jr. have owned and run the dealership for 31 years, hoped to keep him on the North Shore.

The Medeiros family paid $10,000 to bring Pinky from Maine to Peabody in 1978. He’s a well-traveled elephant, having also once made his home in Cocoa Beach, Fla.

According to Sara Medeiros, Ronald Strong, owner of R.B. Strong, picked up Pinky for a cool $5,000.

“That’s a very cheap price,” Medeiros said. “I hope it will have a good home.”

Strong isn’t talking at the moment about his plans for Pinky, but Medeiros said he intends to deploy the elephant to promote charity events and his construction equipment company.

In from the cold

Ned Hand spent the summer cruising Cape Ann in a converted electrician’s truck dubbed Ned’s Mobile Groceteria, peddling gourmet groceries, from freshly smoked local fish to foie gras.

But with cold winds blowing, she’s parked the truck for the winter and today goes indoors with a fromagerie in the front of Alexandra’s Bakery on Main Street, offering a line of gourmet food similar to that of her market on wheels.

“My plan was to take it off the road and be done until May,” Hand said. “But I have a customer base now that demands good food — I spoiled them a little bit — so I’m going to continue with a retail store.”

Come next May, the truck will back on the road, but Hand plans to keep the retail shop open year-round.

She also wants to expand to other locations. “I’m looking at Salem, I’m looking at Hamilton, I’m looking at Wenham,” Hand said.

By the way, there’s free coffee and biscotti at today’s opening.

Dump it at the DPW

If you’ve got stuff you’ve been dying to get rid of, next Saturday’s your day. That’s when the Department of Public Works on Poplar Street will hold its first recycling drop-of day. The 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. event is open to Gloucester residents and small businesses (five employees or fewer).

Five vendors will be parked in various locations at the Public Works yard ready to take stuff you don’t want off your hands and recycle it. The best part is there’s no charge (with a few exceptions noted here).

-- Planet Aid will take clothing, textiles, shoes and accessories.

-- Got Books will collect books, videos, CDs, audio books, records, DVDs and comic books.

--Universal Shredding will collect personal papers for shredding. (No credit cards. First box — about the size of a recycling container — is free. Additional boxes cost $5. Cash only.)

-- North Shore Scrap Metal will take any item that is at least 80 percent metal — aluminum, cast iron, steel, washers, dryers, dishwashers, stoves, hot water tanks, radiators, bed frames, file cabinets, silverware, etc. No chain link fence or propane tanks.

-- CRT Recycling will collect and recycle air conditioners, microwaves, computer monitors, CPU boxes, computer parts and accessories, laptop computers and notebooks, fax and copy machines, scanners, printers, phones, video game consoles, VCRs, DVD players, projectors, servers, electronic medical equipment, electronic digital and video cameras and equipment and electronic audio/visual equipment —all for free. (There’s a $5 charge for plastic-covered televisions and $10 for wooden ones and a $5 charge for refrigerators and freezers.)

Residents can still place metal items and white goods at the curb with a $2 or $25 sticker (depending on the item).

For details, call Kathy Middleton at 978-281-9785.

Sail on, sail on

But if you have sails you want to recycle, you might want to save them for Jenny Doane and her mother, Terri Doane.

The Gloucester duo has started a business called Second Wind Sails that makes hand-crafted, high-quality tote, messenger and duffel bags from Dacron and Kevlar sail cloth that has helped propel boats over waters worldwide.

Jenny, a graduate of the University of New Hampshire’s Whittemore School of Business and Economics, said giving sails their “second wind” also helps keep them out of landfills.

You can check out the pair’s handiwork at Wenham Museum’s Sleigh Bell Holiday Boutique today and tomorrow from 10 to 4 p.m. or on the Web at www.secondwindsails.net.

Seeing the not-so-big picture

The Crane Collection/Cape Ann has just finished hanging its “Little Picture Show” at the Manchester-by-the-Sea art gallery on Central Street. An open house is today from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Visitors can browse the more than 100 tiny paintings, some fresh off the easel and others that date to the 19th century. Several artists come from Cape Ann or have their roots here including Don Stone, Caleb Stone, Jeff Weaver, John Caggiano, Ray Crane, Ken Knowles and T.M. and Tom Nicholas. The show is hung “salon style,” with clusters of paintings reaching almost to the ceiling.

Welcome aboard

Five new members now make up the board of directors for Gloucester’s historic Schooner Adventure.

They are Susan Evans, a certified public accountant and adjunct professor at Bentley College in Waltham, who will serve as treasurer, replacing long-time treasurer Len Langer.

David O’Hara, an equity manager with FactSet Resource, will be chairman of Adventure’s finance committee. George Herbster, an intellectual property attorney from Manchester-by-the-Sea, will serve on the finance committee.

Kristine Kelly, who holds doctorate and a master degrees in business administration, will chair the planning committee. Kelly is an assistant professor at the Van Loan School of Graduate and Professional Studies at Endicott College in Beverly.

Rick Kohn, a certified public accountant and senior tax manager at UHY Advisors, will chair Adventure’s enterprise committee.

Student art gallery

Art by students attending Gloucester High and Rockport Elementary schools is on display in the Education Room at Cape Ann Historical Museum through the end of the month. The museum is located at 27 Pleasant St. in Gloucester. For more information, visit www.capeannhistoricalmuseum.org.

Museum appeal

Cape Ann Historical Museum’s annual Appeal Campaign is underway. Gifts to the annual appeal help the museum maintain and display its collection, present special exhibitions, offer free educational programs to the adults and children of Cape Ann and support other endeavors. For more information, contact the museum at 978-283-0455.

Honored veteran

The flag at the Veterans’ Center will fly this week in honor of Vietnam veteran George William Cunningham. Born Aug. 19, 1945, he entered the U.S. Navy on March 31, 1967, and served as a radioman second class with the USS Wallace L. Lind (DD-703), an Allen M. Sumner-class destroyer and member of the U.S. Seventh Fleet that saw action on the gun-line of the coast of Vietnam. He was also on the Andromeda class amphibious cargo ship the USS Oglethorpe (AKA-100).

Cunningham was awarded the National Defense Service Medal, the Vietnam Service Medal, and the Vietnam Campaign Medal.

He was discharged Nov. 26, 1968, and died Nov. 28, 2006.

The flag was requested to fly in his honor by friends Teresa Goldstein, Roberta and Chris Vrachos, and Miriam and Arley Pett.

Anyone wishing to fly a flag in honor of a deceased veteran can call the Office of Veterans’ Services at 978-281-9740.

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