The scene: Sitting on the southern coast of Massachusetts, a sliver between neighboring Rhode Island and Connecticut and close to touristic Cape Cod, Fall River is a small city once known for its garment and fishing industries, both of which attracted large numbers of Portuguese immigrants. It also produced two famous residents, ax murderer Lizzie Borden (the house where she killed her parents is now operated as a creepy bed-and-breakfast cum museum) and Emeril Lagasse, born to a Portuguese mother and easily the city's most prominent culinary figure. Textiles and fishing have both substantially declined, and Emeril left town long ago, but Fall River is still home to a thriving Portuguese community and one of the richest collections of Portuguese cuisine in the nation. Which makes odd Hartley's even more odd.
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