Category: Baking

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Navigating Wilmington During a Tropical Storm

Even as we told ourselves “It’s only water,” Tropical Cyclone Eight was powerful. There was A LOT OF WATER in Wilmington and the surrounding area during our 48-hour sojourn. Our sneakers were wet for nearly three days after the storm, and we had a bag of wet clothes that we carried around for five days until we got home. Note to self: bring extra sneakers during hurricane season!

The Hotel Fiasco

But first I need to talk about the hotel we stayed in. It was a Hilton and usually we don’t have a problem with the Hilton chain. However, the fact that the hotel was texting me at 8:28 a.m. before we had even checked into the hotel begging me to share my experience of staying there, kind of pissed me off. Roughly three hours later (11:45 a.m.), I received another text asking me how my stay was going so far. Since we still hadn’t checked into the hotel yet, I decided this wasn’t a good sign.

The Hotel Ballast looked nice from the outside, had ample parking, and they had a restaurant, a bar, and not one, but two young men who were there simply to valet your car. Since I hadn’t seen a valet since before COVID, this I thought was a sign of a hotel trying really hard to up the guest experience. (I was wrong.)

When we checked into our room, we had a glimpse of the Cape Fear River, and the U.S.S. North Carolina that we planned to visit before we left the area. It also took us nearly 10 minutes to find the switch that opened the blinds so we could see the aforementioned view.

Then I looked around the room and realized we didn’t have a single piece of furniture or luggage rack to put our suitcases on. At this age, I’m definitely not scrouging around on the floor when I need some underwear, so I went out into the hallway and found a housekeeper.

Between google translate and a co-worker, she was able to deduce that a luggage rack was needed and apparently gave me one from someone else’s room. (Sorry, whoever got that room next.) Lynn and I thought about going out for a walk and prior to leaving, I went to the bathroom. After I washed my hands, I realized that the sink was clogged. I called the front desk and after a few minutes I was told I could move to another room. But I had to go down to get the key. No one was bringing it up to me, nor was there any offer of help with our luggage.

So, we packed up the few things we had already unpacked, and I went down to the front desk to get the new key. Luckily, our new room was on the same floor, so it wasn’t a total hassle but an inconvenience. We also had the foresight to take the luggage rack with us, and low and behold, the new room already had a luggage rack, so now we had two. Which is the exact amount of luggage racks I expect to find in a room anyway. Since we had figured out how to open the blinds in the last room, we thought we were in good shape.

Finally, when we went out for our walk (and figured out how to get to the restaurant for dinner), I was feeling a bit angry at Hilton. By the time we got back, the hotel robot had already texted me again (3:34 p.m.) asking how the stay was going. Well, at least this time I had something to complain about. I mentioned us having to switch rooms, our lack of a luggage rack, and not being able to find the switch to open the blinds. I also went onto the Hilton website and realized that they were offering a lower rate with breakfast than what we were paying. Obviously, I thought that needed to be mentioned in my complaint as well. I quickly received a text from the front desk apologizing for the room, and an offer of a $25 food and beverage voucher for our “inconvenience.” This apparently would be at the front desk for me to retrieve when I wanted it. I was also told that a luggage rack would be sent up as well. I decided not to volunteer that at this point we now had two, which in hindsight was a good thing, since the promised luggage rack was never delivered to our room.

Four hours later (7:25 p.m.), we received another text message asking us to text them when we checked out. Did I need to remind them that we had just arrived and were staying two nights? I decided to ignore the rest of the messages until this actually happened.

Dinner at Seabird

At the helm of Seabird in Wilmington, N.C. , are Dean Neff and Lydia Clopton. Chef Neff was named a finalist in this year’s Outstanding Chef category by the James Beard Foundation at their annual awards ceremony. It had been on my list of restaurants to try for a few years so the anticipation on my part was really high.

I expected the food to be good. I didn’t expect the food to be exceptional and the service to be extraordinary. Apparently, other people in Wilmington must think this restaurant is over-the-top good too, since even on a Sunday night the restaurant was packed.

We had oysters to start. And two pieces of cornbread topped with sorghum that were so large and dessert-like that I needed to ask what they were.

The smoked catfish and oyster pie interested me, and I asked our server, Sean (a CIA-trained grad himself), how it was made. Apparently, the pie topping wasn’t your traditional puff pastry, but dough that was made out of gnocchi. This gave the dish a thick crepe-like taste, but I thought it was clever and a fun starter.

Swordfish Schnitzel?

Yes, I knew about the dish. Yes, we were going to order it. Was the hype worthy? Absolutely. Perfectly fried (but not greasy), this is the dish most home cooks aspire to make. If, of course, you live in a coastal area that has access to fish this fresh.

After dinner, we walked back to the hotel and proceeded to get alerts about the tropical storm warning as well as a flood watch. Were we prepared? Other than not having proper footwear, I can say that we were. I mean, the streets look wet but not under water, right?

In the Morning

We woke up to torrential rain. We went downstairs for breakfast clutching the $25 food and beverage voucher I had retrieved the night before. There we were met by a skeleton staff trying to accommodate all the guests whose plans were thwarted because of the storm. There were a lot of people sitting around, looking at their phones, I guess wondering what they should do instead.

We ordered a couple of omelets, really good cheddar grits and English muffins. We had planned to spend the day at Wrightsville Beach, but apparently that wasn’t an option. We listened to the rain hit the glass windows of the hotel and decided to go see a historic mansion instead.

The Bellamy House Museum

Was it underwhelming? Yes. Were we told by the museum staff that they were closing in 45 minutes because of the storm, but we could see the house anyway? Yes. We walked through the rooms and looked at things. And then we tried to get a glimpse of the garden but got soaking wet in the process. I did take quite a few pictures of the kitchen. And I loved the menu for a Christmas dinner circa 1850’s. Probably because our Red House was also built during that time period. But I don’t think I could have made all that food!

Visiting the house and the gardens took less than half an hour and it wasn’t even noon. We looked at the radar and realized that the storm was moving out of the area, so we decided to go to Wrightsville Beach and be on the lookout for flash floods, etc.

Wrightsville Beach

We drove down to the beach and even got out of the car and got pummeled a bit by the wind. There were other idiots who were doing the same thing, so I didn’t feel I was a particularly special idiot. Here’s Lynn trying to not be blown over. And the waves hitting the pier, which I thought was kind of romantic, actually.

After driving up and down looking for things to do on Wrightsville Beach (there wasn’t much in my opinion and I’m glad we didn’t stay there), we decided to get Thai food for lunch. Something hot and spicy after this rainy weather was in order. Luckily, we found a place that was open, and the chicken pad Thai and green curry (also with chicken) were simple and hit the spot with the bad weather we were having.

The U.S.S. North Carolina

I think we were one of four people on the huge battleship that day. We tried not to fall on the decks that were quite slippery as the wind constantly blew all around us. We quickly went inside the ship and navigated the steep stairs. I probably took about 100 pictures and thought about having to cook for nearly 2,300 men on a daily basis. Really, the numbers are staggering regarding the amount of bread that was baked, cakes that were made, and dishes that were consumed. Look at that giant mixer and all the attachments in the locker!

What was particularly interesting touring the ship was that it was its own small town. There was a barber, a butcher, a cobbler, a laundry room, tailor, a post office and a store. Not to mention a dentist, doctor and everything in between. Here are some of my favorite shots from the ship, particularly the shot of the old-fashioned typewriters.

And let’s not forget about the bathrooms. And how there wasn’t an inch of privacy. Maybe it’s different for guys, but maybe not. And what about the bunk beds????

After we navigated getting off the ship and listening to our shoes squeak as we walked, we headed back to the hotel. During lunch we had received an email from the restaurant we had booked for dinner telling us that because of the storm they weren’t going to be open that evening. So, we had to make other plans. Since it was also a Monday, this proved to be a little tricky.

Luckily, we found a restaurant, Circa 1922, that was open, and we had a decent steak dinner after many days of eating fish. Well, we didn’t forgo fish entirely since we ordered half a dozen oysters to start, a salad, two filets, and even crème brûlée for dessert.

Remember the street shot I had taken earlier? Were the streets now flooded on the walk back to the hotel? Absolutely.

During the two days we were in Wilmington I quizzed many of the people I met on how they liked living there. I got an overwhelming positive response, but truthfully, Wilmington was a bit underwhelming for me.

That said, I’m glad we went. And I loved the photograph of us that the U.S.S. North Carolina team members encouraged us to buy.

Hilton Update

When we got home, I took the time to write their corporate headquarters about our stay in Wilmington. Did I mention that on the last day we were there our parking card was somehow deactivated so we couldn’t get into the parking lot? And a line of cars that was behind us had to back up? And that Lynn had to walk up the ramp of the hotel and speak to someone at the front desk to have the card reactivated? Should I mention that perhaps the valet guys, instead of waiting around to park a car, could have maybe worked inside the hotel dealing with customer complaints (like no luggage racks, clogged sinks, and how to open the room blinds in under 30 seconds.)

After receiving my email, Hilton Guest Services promised to deposit lots of extra points into our Hilton Honors account within 24 hours. They also said they would send us a check for one of the nights we stayed there. Three days later, no points had been deposited in our account. And, since most hotels would have just issued a credit card refund, instead of sending us a check, I questioned why this was being handled this way. Eventually, the points were received, but as of this date, the “check is still in the mail.”

Tomorrow, we return to Richmond (where our vacation abruptly ended three years ago) and will wrap up our trip on Fenwick Island.

Until our next “Let’s Go” adventure.

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Finally, Lake Superior!

Part III – And Back to Canada, Too

We left Mackinaw City behind and headed up to see the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum in the town of Paradise, Michigan. Although their website claims that it is a very popular tourist destination, I didn’t believe it. Until we got to the parking lot and there wasn’t any parking. Luckily, we managed to find a spot along the road and made our way up to the museum.

There’s a lot to see. The lighthouse caught my attention first. Then the museum and the lighthouse keeper’s quarters that chronicled what it was like to be a lighthouse keeper in the late 1800’s. There was also an Edmund Fitzgerald film and exhibit about the loss of the ship back in 1975. They even played the Gordon Lightfoot song regarding the tragedy, and it could have been corny, but it wasn’t.

The Driftwood on the Beach

I was surprised by the amount of driftwood we saw on the beach. There were a few people swimming and I did dip my toes in the water to see how cold it was. (It was pretty cold.) Doesn’t Lynn look particularly handsome here? I think so.

After seeing the lake and the museum, we grabbed some lunch at a roadside tavern and headed to see some waterfalls. I mean, who doesn’t like a waterfall?

Tahquamenon Falls State Park

After paying the $11 non-resident fee to get into the park, we hiked a bit. Luckily, the walk to see the water was primarily a boardwalk. (This is important as you’ll see towards the end of this story.) Maybe I’m jaded because we have A LOT of waterfalls in New York State (including one in our own backyard). These were just okay. It was probably a good thing to do if it was really hot, and you were traveling with older children. The water looked very brown though, and I later learned it was because of the tannins from the surrounding trees that leak into the water. Apparently, it’s also nicknamed “Root Beer Falls,” which I thought was appropriate.

On to See the Locks

We had about an hour and a quarter to drive from the park to Sault St. Marie. The mission: to see the Soo Locks. Truthfully, it was kind of boring. I had read a lot about the locks – the key take away is that they are gravity-fed. Operated and maintained by the Army Corps of Engineers, there is also a small visitor center as well as an observation platform. So, we climbed the stairs to the top of the platform, and then everyone just kind of stands around and waits for a boat to come through the lock. When a boat does arrive, you get to watch as the boat goes down (or does the water go up?). This enables the boat to navigate through the St. Mary’s River (where the locks are located), and then make their way to either Lake Huron or Lake Superior. The museum (and the platform to view the boats) are free to the public although there is a security checkpoint when you enter the park. I had wanted to see the Soo Locks and now I did. So, I count myself lucky, if underwhelmed. (I attribute this sentiment to the fact that we, too, live near many locks on the Erie Canal and have watched boats navigate the waterways.)

Sault Ste. Marie (Ontario not Michigan)

When I had first told Lynn we were staying in Sault Ste. Marie as part of our trip, he thought we were staying in the Michigan town. No, I told him, we would be staying on the Canadian side. Why? Well, since I wanted to drive further up the coast in the morning to see more of Lake Superior, I figured it would be easier than having to go back and forth across the border. Plus, (and most importantly), there was an Asian-fusion restaurant that had caught my attention.

I will say that while Sault St. Marie, Michigan, wasn’t anything to write home about, neither was the Canadian town with the same name. Case in point: we stayed in a Holiday Inn that was across the street from a mall that had since gone out of business. That meant the entire area was pretty dead, but bizarrely the hotel was packed. I have to think it’s because 1) there was no place else to stay, and 2) everyone was heading somewhere else in the morning. We had a lovely suite with a fireplace even though it looked like it fell from the sky (it divided the room in half). And overall, maybe because there didn’t seem to be a lot of activity in the town, it was very quiet.

Dinner at Peace

I had picked this restaurant because it was a 5-minute walk from the hotel and also only one of two places in town that even looked decent. Actually, dinner at Peace that night was more than decent. The menu was exciting, the food was delicious, and Wednesday night they have a 50% off bottles of wine deal. We also had a great server, Ella, who besides walking us through some great menu choices, told us what we should see (Agawa Rock Pictographs), and eat (apple fritters), when we drove up the TransCanada Highway in the morning.

Peace’s menu focuses on small plates, so we had quite a few of those. To start: a spicy shrimp dish plated on a dish of julienned celeriac. A crispy salmon roll came out next, and then an octopus special that turned out to be my favorite dish. We were about to order mussels, too, when the table next to us ordered a round of bao buns. One look at their plates and our eggplant-stuffed version was headed our way. The cooking was creative, spicy, and Lynn thought it was the best meal of the trip. (My vote went to Grace’s in London, Ontario.)

The TransCanada Highway

We had planned for at least one real beach day on this trip and today was supposed to be the day. We woke up to chilly, gray skies, and the threat of rain. When we left the downtown area of Sault Ste. Marie heading north, I realized the cause of the town’s demise. Most of the shops and restaurants (primarily fast-food chains) had all moved to the strip outside of town. We’ve seen this in many cities we’ve traveled to and it’s just depressing.

We drove nearly two hours along the coastal highway and arrived at Agawa Bay to see the rocks. The sign shown below should have deterred me. It didn’t. Actually, we started out on the hike without any hiking gear, and quickly went back to the car and got our poles.

Was it treacherous? Yes. Was I extremely uncomfortable? Yes. Did I think I was going to die? (50/50). I kept quizzing those who had made the climb down and were now heading back up. 1) How much further is the trail? 2) Is it worth it? And 3) Does it get any worse? Every single person lied. This includes the Dad who was showing off by carrying his daughter on his shoulders.

In between hyperventilating, I did manage to take some pictures. Did I mention I’m afraid of heights? Not going up, but going down? Did I mention I also broke one of our hiking poles, so Lynn gave me his? See him holding the broken one?

In fairness, once we got close to the bottom of the trail and saw Lake Superior, I looked at Lynn and said, “That’s it.” I didn’t have to navigate any more dangerous boulders to look at basically the view I was getting now.

And then we walked back up (including me at one point having to crawl up one particularly annoying steep, rocky section), until we reached the car. Lynn said to me, when we had regrouped, that he thought I was going to quit long before I did. I didn’t, I kept going and now feel kind of proud about it. However, had we made it around that last bend, this supposedly is what would have greeted us.

The Biggest Apple Fritter I’ve Ever Seen

Even though after that “hike,” I could have easily tossed back a bottle of booze, we stopped at The Voyageur’s Lodge on Batchawana Bay to grab lunch. As mentioned, we knew about the apple fritters, but we wanted more than that. So, we split an order of fish tacos and fries, and ONE ENORMOUS APPLE FRITTER. We had taken our food outside to eat on their deck when it started to pour. We quickly ran to the car and ate there. I mean, look at the size of that fritter!

Harmony Beach

After finishing the fritter (it wasn’t bad even though I didn’t taste a hint of apple in the batter and luckily, it wasn’t a belly bomb), we decided to try and find a beach. Remember, going to Lake Superior and sitting on the beach, even briefly, was the purpose of the trip. (Besides touring the Frank Lloyd Wright house that would come later in the trip of course.)

It stopped raining when we reached Harmony Beach. There were a few brave ones in the water, but I was happy to just stand on the beach (fully clothed) and look at the lake. Had the weather cooperated, I think the view would have been pretty. These pictures just emphasized the dreariness of the day, but definitely not my mood. And yes, there was a lot of driftwood on this beach, too.

The Border Guard

Dare I mention that when we left Canada in the morning and crossed back into the States, the U.S. border guard wanted to know where we had been. When we mentioned the Agawa Pictographs, he didn’t even blink an eye. He just said, “You know people fall off those rocks and have to be rescued!”

Tomorrow we’re driving to Grand Rapids, and then our final destination, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan.

Until our next “Let’s Go” adventure.

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A Very Long Year

I often find myself standing in front of the fridge looking at all the magnets I’ve collected on our travels. Sometimes a memory or two comes back from a city we’ve visited, a noteworthy museum or historic house we were lucky enough to see, or a certain dish at a restaurant that was really good. But the moment is fleeting and once I open the fridge, it’s all about business – planning breakfast, lunch and dinner.

The Fridge Door = A Memory Magnet Wall

As my past few blogs this year have revealed, there’s been a lot of cooking and a lot of eating. Lynn has learned how to make soup and pasta and perfected his pizza making. I baked more than I like to and what we didn’t eat, we froze. I finally got around to looking at old cookbooks that had been sitting on my bookshelves for years. And I read new cookbooks as if they were novels. I devoured each page as if it were a dish itself since my days were based on finding “activities” (i.e., making meals) that would not only pass the time but nourish us as well.

All Kinds of Goodies

Memorable Oyster Moments

I discovered my local supermarket carried freshly shucked oysters from Maryland swimming in their natural brine and bought myself a cast iron pan that I hope to eventually use outside on the grill (where it belongs) instead of in the oven. Taking inspiration from Sarah Leah Chase’s recipe in her New England Open House Cookbook, I learned how to put together a decent version of “Oysters Clark Rockefeller.” I made my own creamed spinach (using frozen spinach and half & half) and it came together beautifully with the addition of some grated Jarlsberg on top. Even as I was making this dish, however, I couldn’t help but remember one New Year’s at Leon’s Fine Poultry and Oyster Shop in Charleston, South Carolina. We spent a sunny afternoon there sitting at the bar and eating platters of coal-grilled oysters while sipping Spanish Cava!

It’s About Time For A Hike

In between all the cooking (and eating), we walked as much as we could before the cold weather and the snow started. We found trails in nearby marshes, walked around a few lakes, and into a lot of forests.

There were waterfalls to visit that were close to home and picturesque covered bridges to cross. All of this made me very happy that if we had to “quarantine” any where in the world this is a pretty nice place to do so.

Crackers and Butter, Why Not?

And then I made crackers. It seemed an okay recipe at the time but the dough was a bit dry and even though they came out fine in the end, the sesame seeds didn’t properly adhere to the dough. Guess what, we ate them anyway!

Then I heard about a shop that was making their own butter. I began to follow them on social media and subsequently paid them a visit even though it was a 45-minute drive away. While I thought the concept was unique, I was disappointed with their product. Consequently, a few days later I just whipped up a batch of my own “compounded” butter flavored with pink Himalayan sea salt. Full confession: I over salted my first batch but have containers of heavy cream sitting in the fridge waiting to be whipped into butter again.

Supporting Local Farms and Stocking Up!

Since March 2020, I have tried to support as many local farms and small businesses as possible. When the weather was warmer and we could have lunch outside at a restaurant, we did. Suddenly though, restaurants started closing. Either they weren’t making enough in takeout orders to keep their establishment solvent or unfortunately, they were forced to shut down because one of their employees had tested positive.

One afternoon we were craving a hamburger from a place we had been to before. I called to phone in an order only to listen to a recorded message that said their restaurant was closed “indefinitely.” So, we went home and for dinner that night I made the hamburger and tempura-fried onion rings we both wanted. (No, the burger wasn’t really this tall; I just wanted a dramatic photograph so stacked everything really quickly and hoped it wouldn’t topple over!)

As the weather got colder, we visited many local farms although Lynn gave a thumbs down to buying a pumpkin. Why? Because last year’s was torn to shreds by either a deer or squirrel or both so we bought tons of squash and apples instead.

I also bought a small freezer to stock up on butter and chicken and meat fearing we would face another round of food shortages going into the holiday season. We had absolutely no place to put an extra freezer in our house so it ended up going in the laundry room which works just fine for us.

Golf? Leaf Peeping? Day Trips?

We even bought some old golf clubs hoping to hit a driving range before it closed for the season even though we never did quite make it there. And we drove, sometimes hours, just to look at the leaves changing colors in a state park.

We visited places we had never been (Hamilton College Zen Gardens below). And went to see as many lakes in the Adirondack Park as we could. (And that’s beautiful Bog River Falls at the bottom of Tupper Lake.)

Picnics!

We often brought lunch with us after buying a really cool thermos that we filled with homemade chicken soup. To kick things up a notch, I also tossed in some store-bought tortellini at the last moment which resulted in a pretty decent version of “Tortellini en Brodo.” Lynn was so pleased that I had even packed a tablecloth on one such outing. He probably thought I was trying to be “romantic.” Actually, I was just trying to cover up any bird poop that might be splattered across the picnic table we were eating on.

Suddenly, Winter

And then it snowed. So we shoveled the snow off the deck and hauled the snowblower out of the garage. We just hoped it would start quickly so we could dig out our driveway!

The local kids started to sled down the hill next to our house and every day we would find another pair of discarded gloves or a hat thrown on our lawn.

The cold weather kept us indoors so I made stuffed cabbage and pulled out the sous vide machine to make chicken. I even ate cauliflower even though it has always been my least favorite vegetable. Hint: tossed with pancetta or bacon, some sliced olives, garlic, parsley and Parmesan it actually becomes edible!

TV Time

We started to watch cooking shows in the early evenings (before the grim newscasts about the number of COVID-19 deaths that day) just to get some ideas about different dishes we could make. This resulted in fish baked in parchment on a bed of slow roasted tomatoes with herbs and white beans. Oh and wine, you need lots and lots of white wine for this dish!

I also finally gave in and bought myself a non-stick frying pan just so that I could learn to make a “real” French herb-infused omelette the way I saw Jacques Pépin do on PBS! (It takes a lot longer to make an omelette this way, but I absolutely love the way it just slides out of the pan.)

I even made biscuits!

Then There Was The Meat Slicer

Yes, truly. I grew up in Munich, Germany, where cold cuts are “king” or at least “König-like” so I was comfortable with this new toy. I also wanted to wean Lynn off of unhealthy processed meat lunches and make my own ‘”healthier” protein for him to eat. After this purchase, we started roasting boneless pork roasts, center cuts of beef and huge chicken breasts. Sandwiches were topped with slices of unfortunately tasteless out-of-season tomatoes but spruced up a bit by a homemade mayo and horseradish spread. Salads were lavishly adorned with slices of chicken and ham was cut to order for leisurely and late breakfasts.

And We Talk and Talk (Childhood Stuff Is Frequently Mentioned)

Lynn and I have been fortunate enough to spend a lot of time together, now even more so. Luckily, we rarely run out of topics. We find ourselves remembering things that happened to us growing up. Lynn likes to tell me his “baked good” story even though I’ve heard it a thousand times before. Apparently when he was a young lad, a friend would entice him to go to a local shop to buy a “baked good.” Even though Lynn wasn’t quite sure what a “baked good” was, he went along for the adventure. (If you, too, aren’t quite sure what a “baked good” is, it’s simply something that was baked, i.e., a cookie, cake or cinnamon roll.) I decided to share with him a food memory from one of my many “summers in Whiting” stories.

Similar to his quest for a “baked good,” my summers in Whiting, Indiana, often involved a trip to a local supermarket with my maternal grandfather. There he would pick up some Hostess cupcakes and I learned from him the proper cupcake eating etiquette. One had to gently nibble first on the waxy chocolate frosting with the decorative white squiggle on top before digging into the cake portion beneath it.

Of course I overcompensate with all this nostalgic memory stuff by making French toast for breakfast one morning using leftover brioche and topped with some raspberries and local maple syrup. And for lunch? Well, I find a recipe I’ve been wanting to make for an Austrian apple cake and decide why make just one cake when you can make two? (We are not total gluttons, we eat one for lunch and freeze the other.)

These days we try to be upbeat but do worry about our adult children, my parents and other family members. To get out of the house we often visit a local farm. There we buy cheese, chicken livers if available, as well as lamb and veal. We freeze everything for future meals and on the way out, we take pictures of Jones Family Farm goats.

Embracing The Gray and the Holidays, Too

We spend Thanksgiving by ourselves, having decided as a family that it was too dangerous to get together now that we couldn’t totally socially distance or be outdoors. Since there was no need to make a turkey for the two of us (we had homemade lasagna instead), I suddenly had an entire afternoon on Thanksgiving Day with absolutely nothing to do! What did I do to pass the time? I decided to cut my hair!

As a woman of a certain age, I have embraced my gray hair and even more so since it’s actually turning a funky shade of silver! And since a visit to the hairdresser as well as a nail salon are big no-no’s for me, I just snipped off about two inches myself. Here’s the new me right after we put up our Christmas tree.

We celebrated Christmas alone as well which meant it was the first time we had spent a holiday without either of our children. We “make do” by eating platters of deviled eggs topped with salmon roe and some fresh dill. And the pâté? Well, that was tucked into little “nests” that I had crafted from the leftover sesame cracker dough.

See that mother-of-pearl caviar spoon? I was lucky enough to purchase it at a restaurant in Paris one year after a very delicious lunch. Sigh, I do miss our European adventures!

And Last But Not Least, Our Final Bathroom

Since we are home indefinitely, we also decided to tackle another (and hopefully last) big home repair project. Normally, this would not have been an article I would have covered here, but since we are not traveling or dining out, I think the “Let’s Go!” blog can make an exception to my own rule.

For those of you not familiar with my previous blog “The Red House Project,” I wrote about the renovation of our house for nearly nine years. Here’s the link to the story that describes how I tackled this very ugly bathroom by myself one summer. http://theredhouseproject.eathappy.net/the-beginning-of-the-red-house/learning-how-to-play-with-boy-toys/ .

We had put off renovating this final bathroom for reasons we can’t even remember. When the kids and their spouses/partners come to visit, it becomes “their” bathroom. It was functional but old and dated. It was time.

So, we went to the “Big Box” store one more time, bought some tile and a new vanity and toilet that will be installed by some subcontractors. When we approached one subcontractor about also updating our bath/shower combo and asked him for an estimate, he responded with a number that was astronomically high. (His fee for this small bathroom redo was about the price of a used car!) Obviously we said no and started to plan to demolish and renovate the bathroom ourselves. After a few false starts and a couple of returns (vanity faucets to be precise), we tallied up the receipts and have spent a little under $300!

The fake marble paneling on the walls came down, and after much trial-and-error we managed to remove the bathtub faucets, too. Hint: white wine vinegar and a special $9 tool! What to see the “Pro Puller?”

To this day I still marvel at Lynn’s drawings and am really truly thankful he can do most of this renovation with a little help from me. This approach also saves us a ton of money!

In the meantime since I’m a trooper, I’m outside in the freezing cold helping him saw pieces of wood so we can build a wall.

Which we did!

Eventually the old drywall will come down around the tub but we needed to put up the wall before the new floor is laid.

Would I rather be traveling and eating oysters at a bar somewhere rather than renovating a bathroom? You betcha! Do I need a few more magnets to add to the “memory wall” on the fridge? Absolutely! As a matter of fact, I hope in the years to come that we can add more than a few to our collection.

Here’s to a happy, peaceful, and most of all healthy New Year everyone.

Until our next “Let’s Go” adventure.

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Shopping, Canning and “Hiking” As We Know It

It’s been a while since I have written. Our summer, like those of many people we know, was highly unusual. First and foremost, we tried to stay as close to home (within a three hour drive at least) as possible. I did miss “road trip” traveling this summer and being home more than usual, I found myself gravitating towards movies on TV that had scenes of Europe. (We were supposed to go back to Italy this year.)

One night Chocolat was on and I found myself looking fondly not only at Johnny Depp but also at Juliette Binoche who plays the character of “Vianne.” (Fun fact about Julie: I love windy days!) Consequently, when Vianne and her daughter Anouk travel to a new town “whenever the north wind blows” and somehow come up with a magic chocolate recipe that becomes their livelihood, well, that just made me want to travel even more.

I’ve always been a traveler and this blog was supposed to reflect that. Consequently, not being able to travel this summer because of the pandemic was a challenge. Therefore, we made do. Unfortunately, I traded in traveling for online shopping. Yes, I became one of those awful people who would eagerly wait every day for our local postman, UPS woman or FedEx guy to walk up our very long driveway, dutifully carrying the stuff we purchased.

They, invariably, wore a smile as they worked and I would thank them profusely for delivering all the things we ordered. Granted, some of the items purchased weren’t necessary but ultimately some of them came in very handy.

Two summers ago I had bought Marisa McClellan’s book, Food In Jars , but had not attempted a single recipe! When I tried to order the jars that I needed, I found that all the mason jars to be had in the entire Northern Hemisphere were back-ordered for at least 2 months. This would have been fine had it been May (the beginning of the growing season) but not August when suddenly I had tons of green beans that would be perfect to “put up!” Beets and garlic were showing up in the farmer’s markets, too, and tomatoes, well, let’s just say there were lots and lots of tomatoes that were waiting to be canned.

One day after my now nearly daily visit to the supermarket, I found some amber-colored jars and even though they were “wide-mouthed,” I bought them anyway. I learned to can “dilly” beans and ginger-infused beets but when I put them in the dark jars it came to me. The reason no one buys dark canning jars is because you can’t see what’s inside! Luckily, a couple of my beans managed to edge their way to one side so I could at least distinguish between the beans and the beets.

I also finally got to use a huge pot I had bought years ago with every intention of perhaps trying to steam my own lobsters. I never actually did that, preferring to buy them already cooked but luckily this pot turned out to be the perfect size and height for submerging mason jars in preparation for canning. When I realized you need lots and lots of mason jars when canning enormous amounts of produce (not just four!), I went back online and found some pint-sized ones with a delivery date of only three weeks. (A month later those same mason jars had also doubled in price but I ordered them again anyway.)

I also learned to make my own lobster rolls (buying the aforementioned lobsters already steamed for the awesome price of $5.99 a pound). Then I began to wonder why all these years (last summer in particular when we were driving through Maine towards Prince Edward Island) we were paying $25.00 or more for a mediocre lobster roll for lunch! (Second photo is one of my really yummy lobster rolls not an over-priced restaurant version.)

Then there were the tomatoes! Yikes, I think I now know why people easily can cucumbers to make pickles and buy tons of berries to make jam but do you know how many tomatoes you need to make sauce? You literally need a box full of tomatoes that will (if you’re lucky) yield less than a dozen jars of delicious, but thin (imagine V-8) sauce.

Besides canning, Lynn and I decided to start hiking. Since we live a mere 30 minutes from one section of the Adirondack Park, there was really no reason not to walk. Problem was, everywhere we went, there were tons of people hiking as well. We decided to try and limit our outings to only going out during the week (weekends being verboten) only to discover that many others had a similar idea.

We walked up Kane Mountain – a challenge for me before I bought a good walking stick since I’m not only afraid of heights but I had trouble catching my breath when hiking up and down the mountain. (I was never a smoker just out of shape.) I also didn’t expect to find all those tree roots! If you are as inexperienced a hiker as I am, one little root could definitely send you falling either on your face or your behind!

But as they say, if you don’t do the climb, you don’t get the view. Here’s the tower I managed to climb!

And here’s the reward:

After that challenge though, we opted for more sedate hikes. We sought out rail trails and easy paths always hoping for something with a view.

We bought hiking poles, an insulated backpack for these journeys and always made sure to have a cooler in the car for unexpected farm stands.

We visited numerous state parks and collected many rocks on the shoreline of Lake Ontario.

We revisited Chimney Bluffs near Wolcott, NY, and discovered Tibbetts Point Lighthouse which overlooked the Saint Lawrence River.

We hiked quite a few trails in the Adirondack Park but also drove miles both north and south of us in search of the perfect waterfall.

The summer had been very dry so every time we drove two hours plus we were happy if the water was actually cascading over the rocks and not just a trickle.

We frequently packed a lunch, usually a sandwich or bagel (plus I would begrudgingly pack potato chips for Lynn since he loves chips) but made sure to also pack some fresh fruit. We would occasionally try to visit a winery during the week (thinking that weekends would be more crowded) only to find that similar to our hiking adventures, many of these establishments were just as packed on a sunny Tuesday!

When we ate out, we would only eat at establishments where we could sit outside. And the menu had to have at least one item that I couldn’t (or wouldn’t) make myself. (See the problem with being a decent home cook?) Most of the time we got lucky; look at this beautiful version of a “Falafel Scottish Egg” as the topping on a bed of arugula encased in a cucumber “ring” while lying in a pool of Romesco sauce! (We had this lovely appetizer for lunch one day at the Otesaga Hotel in Cooperstown. )

When we weren’t out “wandering,” we would hang out on the deck. We would fight (yes, literally) over who got to water the vegetable garden in the back of the house and the flowers and bushes in the front of the house. (Hey, it was an activity.)

In between I baked. A pound cake baked in a Bundt pan seemed like a good idea at the time even though it was big enough to feed eight! A quiche is always a welcome lunch addition and I even tried to make chocolate-filled brioche courtesy of a Dorie Greenspan recipe. (They were belly-bombs!)

We bought a new grill which resulted in me trying to find something to grill that I hadn’t made before. Wait! Want to see the instructions on “how to put the grill together?”

How about an Eric Ripert recipe for grilled romaine that’s slathered with mayonnaise, Parmesan and some anchovy paste? What about a Mediterranean spin (that would be olives and tomatoes) on some home-grown asparagus?

The few times we did take-out, we often had to drive 60-70 miles to bring home sushi or oysters on the half shell. (That sounds reasonable, right?)

And on those days that I was working, we would have salad, or my old 1970’s standby, tomatoes stuffed with homemade tuna salad.

And then there was the sand box. I decided we needed a swing so Lynn built a sandbox, too. We hung up the swing (also purchased online) and one windy day (scenes of Chocolat perhaps?), the branch snapped. In hindsight, was I perhaps trying to swing my way to a make-believe travel adventure? Of course, it wasn’t a clean break but a messy, dangling break that required an amputation!

We even blew up a large kiddie pool complete with beach balls and a couple of “donut” floats. (We never did get the pool level even after three months!)

And purchased some new chairs and a fire pit!

Our children came to see us a few times this past summer and we were careful to social distance and eat outside. When we were inside, we kept the patio doors wide open and they, and their respective partners, were kind enough to get COVID tested before they came up for a visit. Each and every time after they left though Lynn and I both felt sad. (We miss them!)

Going into the fall season, we’ve been hiking a bit less but at least trying to walk closer to home. We walk along the Erie Canal nearly every day (even in the rain) and try to find some paths we haven’t explored yet. One day, we found the remains of an abandoned building, reminding us just how prosperous the town was way back when.

In the meantime, the minute the weather started to get colder, I made dumplings and my version of Ramen.

Now that we are a few days away from turning back the clocks and going into true fall season, we’ve started to put all our outdoor “toys” away. We got the snowblower repaired (it broke last season) and put extra mulch on our rose bushes.

We visited an orchard the other day to get some apples since my second order of mason jars finally arrived and making apple sauce is on my “to do” list. I was also very tickled at the sight of our Amish farmers stack of pumpkin decorations.

Is it too soon to look forward to next summer? I believe so, especially “whenever the north wind blows.”

Until our next “Let’s Go” adventure.

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Cooking, Baking and Some Reflections on Family Life During COVID-19

Since we have been sheltering in place since March 10 (the school district on Long Island that I work for was the first to close because of a confirmed Coronavirus case), it has given me ample time to reflect on the many things I’m grateful for.

First and foremost that the house I live in now is the biggest house we’ve ever owned. There are lots of rooms to wander in and out of, plus a choice of where not only to work but read as well. I also, finally, have a kitchen that’s really big. This means that when I’m cooking, it’s perfectly okay for people to hang out and watch me do so. (Wouldn’t it be lovely to have a family party/feast right about now? I think so.)

There’s been a lot of cooking. There’s been a lot of eating. I have discovered cookbooks that I bought or were gifted to me over 30 years ago. I now have the time to read through them and I have even attempted to make some of the recipes. After all, who wouldn’t want to at least leaf through this giant “coffee table” book of Provence, especially when you can’t go there anytime soon!

There’s also been a lot of baking. Since I don’t particularly like baking and reluctantly do it around the Christmas season, this has become a revelation for me. Now I’ve finally come to understand why I originally hated it; it just takes way too much time to bake things. Suddenly, I’ve come to appreciate it! Why? Because all those steps that are necessary to get dough to rise or butter to soften, well, are actually perfect to follow now when all one has is time. So far I’ve made muffins and bread and a fairly simple Dorie Greenspan apple galette.

I even made my first tray of baklava! I remember years ago trying to work with phyllo and not understanding the concept. What do you mean I had to brush this very fragile dough with melted butter while keeping the sheets of dough I was not using under a “damp” cloth. Now I get it. Note to self: see you can teach an old dog new tricks!

I’ve also been making dishes that are labor-intensive. I’m not going so far as to pretend I’m Julie Powell cooking every single recipe in Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking cookbook (remember she wrote a cooking blog during the aftermath of 9/11 that became a book that morphed into a movie). I have, however, been attempting to cook things I don’t normally make – like challah. I mean come on braiding strands of dough? I could barely braid my daughter’s hair when she was little let alone some dough.

All this cooking by the way, if anyone has been married as long as I have, has made my husband very happy. Apparently, even though I’m a very good cook, he likes the fact that I’m making things I’ve never made or haven’t made in years. Most of which is not very good for him (or me). Case in point: Tempura Fried Shrimp.

And then I spent an entire Sunday afternoon (not that it really matters what day it is anymore) making a new meatball recipe. I know, I know, I don’t like meatballs very much either. But I opened a cookbook, Italian Regional Cooking, (seen here among many others on the shelf above my stove) that Ada Boni wrote in 1969 and I couldn’t resist trying her

Polpetta di Carne also known as “Meatballs in Tomato Sauce Neapolitan Style.” Why? Because I was interested in how combining chopped meat with golden raisins and nuts coupled with bread crumbs, parsley, garlic and “lard” (note: I substituted 2 slices of bacon) would taste. Dare I reveal you have to fry the meatballs and then simmer the whole thing in a big batch of tomato sauce? PS: They were good!

Besides the cooking I’m also working from home. This turned out to be much easier than I thought it would be primarily because our outside IT company was able to get me up and running very quickly. While there are certain components to the job that take 3x as long to do remotely, overall everything is getting done. And ultimately, that’s all that matters.

But working at home has also given me time to reflect on what it would be like if our kids were still young. When I worked at FIT in New York City (and before flex-time was even a concept), I managed to negotiate a four day work week so I could stay home when both our son and daughter were little. I would spend the extra day off (usually Friday) with our first born and sometimes we would go feed the ducks at a small pond in the neighborhood. Other times we’d visit a local amusement park (Nunley’s on Long Island before they tore it down to build a Pep Boys) so he could ride around in a little car.

After lunch and a nap (his not mine), we would color and read and sing songs. Later he would watch me make dinner and when he got older (like around the ripe old age of 3), he was able to make a sandwich on his own or at least pretend he could.

When our daughter arrived five years later, we would walk on the boardwalk in Long Beach, NY. Since my braiding skills even then were lousy, at least I managed to pull her hair back into what I consider a very posh pony tail.

And when she got older, she and I would walk on the sand, often slowly, so she could stop to pick up pretty shells and colorful rocks.

Today during this state of “PAUSE” in New York, I think about parents who are at home with their school-age children and the very many demands that are put upon them. If the parents are trying to work remotely and the kids have school work to complete, too, well say no more. With probably limited outdoor activity and no fun excursions to a beach or boardwalk or local park, I can only imagine the high levels of stress for everyone in that household.

I’m also wondering how Lynn and I would cope with raising teenagers during this time. Both our son and daughter were very independent. Could we conceivably have asked them not to leave the house during this time to go hang out and visit their friends? If we had tried to make them stay home would they have listened to us? I think probably not.

In the meantime, my parents, now in their 80’s, are home on Long Island. Our daughter lives close by with her boyfriend and she does check in with them via phone and an occasional drive-by. Our son and his wife are in Astoria. They run every day to break up the monotony of being at home and trying to work from home. They not only call the grandparents but Facetime us frequently, too. For that I’m very happy. And while I love the tremendous amount of space and property we have at the Red House, I miss our children during these very trying times.

For now, I will keep cooking and baking and working from home. And for all the kids out there, the young ones in particular who are pretend doctors and bakers and carnival-makers (like the two you see below), you never know, some of them might actually remember this time fondly.

Until our next “Let’s Go” adventure.

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Teaching Myself To Cook One Pot Meals

Last weekend I challenged myself in the cooking arena. I pretended I didn’t know how to cook and found three New York Times recipes and one recipe from Food & Wine that I thought I would “try” to make. These were supposed to be simple one-pot meals, which as many working families know, is a blessing if you are trying to put together a quick dinner.

When we were living on Long Island, I would spend a good portion of every Sunday afternoon cooking for the kids (and us) to make sure there were at least a couple of decent meals I could simply warm up in the oven during the week. As a full-time working mother, I often wouldn’t be home until 6 p.m. and Lynn (when he was lucky) wouldn’t be home until nearly 7:30 p.m. In other words, I needed all the ready-to-go meal help I could get!

Over the years, I had developed a few simple meals that I would make repeatedly. Chili, roast chicken, meat sauce for pasta, and schnitzel. I was able to rotate these simple dishes for quite a few years until the kids grew up. Luckily for me, they both got after school jobs at an early age and often just ate whatever they could grab on the run.

I had learned to cook at an early age. I was not even a teen (12 to be precise) when cooking was an activity I really enjoyed. Even back then I could be trusted to put together some sort of chicken or pork dish in a mushroom cream sauce, make crepes (sweet and savory) and even dessert (usually cookies or a cake). Living in Munich, Germany, also had a lot to do with it. I wasn’t into sports, television didn’t come on until after 6 p.m., and there are only so many books a young girl could read!

To set myself up for this weekend challenge I decided I would try to follow the recipes exactly as they were written. This was a bit difficult for me because as I read through some of them, I knew not only was there a better way to do it, but sometimes even a better ingredient could have been included in the dish. Plus, since I’ve been cooking so long (over 46 years at this point – gulp!), I only follow a recipe when I have to bake.

First Dish – Shrimp Scampi With Orzo

I always have a bag of frozen shrimp in my freezer. This may have something to do with me always hoping for “unexpected” guests and being able to whip up some sort of shrimp dish in a hurry if I have to. The fact that I’ve never once in my entire life had an “unexpected” guest visit anyplace I’ve lived is irrelevant. Therefore, since I had the shrimp already, the only thing I would need to purchase for this first dish was a box of orzo. Everything else was already in my pantry, too.

I cleaned the shrimp and cooked the orzo. Luckily the night before I had watched a Jamie Olivier cooking show where he added raw shrimp to a dish of pasta he was cooking. I usually like to cook shrimp before I add it to any other ingredient that’s already cooked. The fact that he was so nonchalant about adding raw shrimp to the pasta gave me the courage I needed to do the recipe exactly as written.

The orzo cooked up very quickly as did the shrimp. When it was done, I thought there was a bit too much liquid. Yes, there was lots of parsley and white wine which I love but I found even the spritz of lemon at the end was overwhelming. I’ve made my own version of this dish in the past, adding some roasted tomatoes and chunks of feta which gives it the creaminess I think this dish was lacking. Here’s a picture of The New York Times version, followed by mine.

Second Dish – Cheesy Baked Pasta with Radicchio

The next night I put together a baked pasta with radicchio that I had seen in Food & Wine. The challenge here was two-fold. First, where the hell was I going to find radicchio in upstate New York without driving an hour east to a Whole Foods or an hour west to Wegmans?

Luckily, a 10 minute drive to the over-priced Hannaford supermarket in the next town proved they could sometimes surprise you. They did in fact carry radicchio and low and behold they actually had three whole heads for a mere $4.99 a pound! (Note the sarcasm here, please.)

I picked up the radicchio that looked the least wilted and was actually bizarrely happy that I found it so close to home. I mean really, look at the color of this vegetable! Yep, I did play around with this image courtesy of Instagram but it shows the layers really well this way.

The supermarket also had prosciutto on sale which was a plus since I needed it for the dish, too. I sauteed the red onions, sliced the radicchio into ribbons as instructed and added the garlic and red wine vinegar. I cooked the pasta and then poured it into a buttered baking dish. Normally, I don’t like any pasta (other than lasagna) that’s baked, particularly macaroni and cheese. I could never understand why cooks insist on putting a breadcrumb topping on such a classic American dish. To me, the whole point of mac and cheese is to eat creamy mac and cheese not breadcrumb-dry mac and cheese. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

I mixed together the goat cheese but substituted gouda for the fontina cheese because fontina was nowhere to be found. I also omitted the nutmeg because I simply don’t like nutmeg. As I made my way through the steps of this dish, I thought cooking all of these ingredients separately was just WAY TOO TIME CONSUMING. I thought about how quickly I can usually put together a simple cheese and veggie pasta dish (which is basically what this dish consisted of). Had I not been doing this “cooking exercise,” I don’t think I would have baked this dish either.

Was it cheesy? Yes and it actually tasted better the second day because all the flavors had time to sit and simply blend together.

Here’s a picture of Food & Wine’s version, followed by mine.

Besides the pasta that day I also whipped together a “simple crusty bread” recipe that I hadn’t made in years. Originally, I thought it was the same recipe my Dad uses when he makes bread but alas, I was incorrect. This New York Times recipe got a ton of press when it came out in 2007 because it had four simple ingredients (yeast, kosher salt, water and all-purpose flour) that you just mix together. How could you go wrong?

As I was trying to maneuver the dough into the pan I was using, I remembered why I hated this recipe. The dough was so wet it was physically impossible to pick up! Plus, more than one-quarter of it kept sticking to my fingers, my hands and the countertop. Also, I really like kneading dough and this recipe omits that step.

The dough did rise however and I took it out of the oven when I “thought” it was done. Looking back it should have cooked about 10 more minutes to get a crispier crust and not have such a dense interior.

Meanwhile back on the farm (just kidding), it was really cold outside. So cold in fact that there were these really long icicles that were hanging off the roof of the house! In addition to the cold, the wind was howling outside, truly sounding like a freight train. When we woke up in the morning (after getting a nice glimpse of a crescent moon and Venus the night before), I opened the fridge and almost everything was frozen! What had happened overnight?

The only thing I can figure out is that the fridge is right next to a window and perhaps the cold air just kept blowing into that area all evening? This meant that the potatoes I had bought to make that night’s adventure in cooking dish had frozen, too! I tried to salvage some of them but just found myself getting angry that I had spent money on food I then couldn’t eat.

Want to see the icicles?

Third Dish – Salmon With Potatoes and Horseradish-Tarragon Sauce

At one point I owned Chef George Lang’s cookbook “The Cuisine of Hungary” but alas I think I lost it in the last move! That said, the fact that this was his recipe intrigued me especially since 1) I love salmon, 2) I love horseradish and 3) I love sour cream! (After all my great-grandmother was from Hungary.)

I sliced the few potatoes that didn’t have “frost bite” as paper thin as I could without the aid of a mandoline. (I’m terrified of mandolines.) I put them in a baking dish as instructed and added some shallots. This is what they looked like after cooking for about 20 minutes.

Then I mixed together some sour cream, tarragon and horseradish. I was supposed to “brush” the sauce on top of the salmon that would then be placed on top of the potatoes. When I did this, however, the sauce ended up looking like frosting and even after the salmon had cooked, it still looked that way! Which was really kind of weird.

See what I mean?

The salmon was very moist prepared this way though and I loved the sauce and the potatoes. Bottom line: I would make this dish again.

Fourth Dish – Dijon Chicken With Shallots and White Wine

Holy Moly. This recipe called for 12-15 medium shallots! I had bought six, used one for the above-mentioned salmon dish which meant I had five left. I thought five would be more than enough, after all these were kind of big anyway.

I melted some butter in a frying pan and sauteed the chicken as instructed. First problem was that the chicken thighs didn’t get as brown as I thought they should. Since I didn’t want to “cheat” by putting them in the oven (which would have given them the brown color I was looking for), I just left them on the stove and added the rest of the ingredients.

This recipe had a lot of wine, almost too much I thought. Ditto for the tomatoes. But the sauce, when it reduced, was really good and ultimately even though the bread didn’t turn out as planned, I grilled up a couple of slices and we ate it with the chicken. If I make this dish again though, it’s definitely going in the oven!

Ultimately, I liked making all of these dishes. It was actually kind of fun to pretend not to know how to cook and follow a recipe pretty much exactly. I do think, however, they might have been too difficult for your average person who doesn’t know their way around a kitchen or even how to shop for some of the ingredients. Luckily for me, this adventure was motivated by the cold weather outside and me wanting to stay inside. After all, we only turn the TV on at night and there really is only so much even this “older” girl can read.

Until our next “Let’s Go” adventure.

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A Fun Cooking Class in Canada

I had only taken a cooking class once before on Long Island at a Viking appliance showroom. They were hosting cooking classes using the showroom’s equipment in hopes that after the class you would order a $6,000 stove because you had just prepared something on one and were impressed. I wrote a funny article about it over 11 years ago which I invite you to read. (Note to readers: this article was written before my cellphone had a camera. Imagine that! So there are no photographs accompanying the story, just text. Use your imagination.)

The Good Earth Food and Wine Co.

This past Sunday’s afternoon cooking class was at one of my favorite wineries, The Good Earth Food and Wine Co. It’s in the town of Beamsville, near Lake Ontario, and in a part of Canada known as the “Niagara Peninsula.”

We had been there twice before, once for lunch and the second time for their harvest dinner. Andrew Thorne, the executive chef of the Good Earth Food and Wine Co., was the instructor that afternoon and I will admit the reason I even signed up for this class was to spend an afternoon with him and watch him cook. Andrew is not only an extremely talented chef but a joy to talk to.

Luckily, this class turned out to be vastly different from my experience 11 years ago on Long Island. This time around there would be no “hands-on” cooking from the guests. Instead, we were given a lovely menu of what Chef Andrew would be preparing that day as well as a list of ingredients he was using in each dish. Chef Andrew was joined in the cooking school “classroom” by winery owner Nicolette Novak. Together, the two of them made our class of 12 feel extremely welcome that day.

We sat on bar stools facing the kitchen area and for the next 2.5 hours watched as Chef Andrew prepared and cooked our four course lunch. Nicolette attended to the details of silverware and dirty plate removal as well as water and wine pouring all served up with some funny anecdotal food stories.

First Course – “Snow Stopper” Menu

Buffalo Shrimp

Now buffalo shrimp aren’t that difficult to make (think chicken wings with hot sauce) but these buffalo shrimp were given a new twist by plating them with a great combo of blended blue cheese and cream cheese. The shrimp, having been coated in a mixture of cornstarch and flour, were put in a deep fryer for a few minutes (three to be exact), then tossed with some hot sauce and butter.

Don’t they look delicious?

Now, I will admit that the dipping sauce looked a bit gray on the plate (because of the blue cheese) but it was absolutely finger-licking good and worked really well with this tasty shrimp starter.

The other great thing about this first course (and the subsequent other courses) was that each of the three savory courses was paired with wines from the winery. And since they are a very small winery (according to Nicolette they produce only around 3,000 cases a year), it’s wine that is both perfect on the palate and wallet-friendly.

Second Course – “Snow Stopper” Menu

New England Style Clam Chowder

I love heavy cream. It probably has to do with living in Munich for 10 years where 75% of nearly every German restaurant I frequented had a dish that included cream or mushrooms or both. There was A LOT of cream in this dish (and the following polenta dish, too) and it was really good.

First, Chef Andrew had par-cooked some Yukon gold potatoes to get a head start for our group. Into a big pan he put in about a pound and a half of thickly sliced chunks of bacon along with an onion, some celery stalks and a couple of cloves of garlic. He spent a good amount of time stirring this concoction then adding some flour and a generous pour of white wine (not icky cooking wine but wine from their winery!) until the mixture looked like this:

Only then did he add some cans of chopped baby clams with their liquid, tossed in the potatoes, added lots more cream and salt and pepper and let the whole thing simmer.

Thing I learned that afternoon: You can in fact make soup without using chicken or beef stock. And if you use canned clams instead of fresh ones, the food police will not show up with a warrant for your arrest!

A bit of red chili pepper was chopped and tossed on top of each serving at the end (along with some chives) which not only gave the dish a splash of color but really kicked up the heat level as well. Should I reveal that the 12 of us ate our bowls of soup in silence? Yes, it was that good.

Third Course – “Snow Stopper” Menu

Lamb Meatballs, Polenta & Rapini, Too

I adore lamb in any form. I’ve grown found of polenta but it has become an “acquired” taste. Most of the polenta I had over the years was either too thick and tasteless or fried and tasteless. One Christmas Eve I even jumped on the polenta bandwagon and made (drum roll please) polenta “stars.” When I look back at that dinner now I think I must have been out of my mind. First I had to make the polenta and then let it cool enough so I could cut out star-shaped polenta’s with a cookie cutter. Then I arranged the polenta “stars” around one of the seven fishes I was cooking for Christmas Eve dinner. If you know how difficult it is timing-wise to cook one fish, imagine cooking seven plus all the side dishes and then making polenta stars, too? After that one Christmas meal I decided polenta wasn’t going to appear on my table anytime soon.

Chef Andrew makes his polenta thick and creamy by whisking the cornmeal into a pot of cream with butter then adding some Parmesan cheese to boot. He paid a lot of attention to the polenta until it became a delicious concoction similar to grits but without any lumps. Here it is already plated.

Meanwhile as he was doing this, he was also checking on the lamb meatballs before putting them in the oven.

He also started to sauté the washed rapini (what we call broccoli rabe in the States). (And in the previous photograph you also see him grating some lemon zest on top of the rapini.)

Thing I learned that afternoon: Put the sauce on top of the meatballs that are in the oven after they have been baking a bit. No need to take the meatballs out of the oven and put them in the sauce that is simmering on the stove. This was such a no-brainer I even feel like an idiot writing about it but truthfully, I never thought of doing it that way.

Finally, the meatballs were done after touching one and “feeling it” he said. But when I questioned Chef Andrew about not “cheating” like I do and cutting a meatball in half, he actually did just that. And it was, of course, perfectly cooked.

Here’s what the final dish looked like: Lamb meatballs simmered in a chunky tomato sauce and plated on top of some delicious polenta with a side of rapini. A generous grating of some Parmesan cheese and a drizzle of demi-glace over the whole dish brought it together.

Finally, in between all this cooking what is Chef Andrew doing? He is making dessert!

Fourth Course – “Snow Stopper” Menu

Chocolate Ganache Tart with Italian Meringue & Cranberry Orange Preserve

Because we were a crowd, he did have to make the ganache ahead of time because they needed to cool. He did, however, show us at the beginning of the class how he had made them and then proceeded to make some cranberry and orange preserves to serve with the tarts.

And then Chef Andrew made the meringue. This meant sugar and water went into a pot on the stove, egg whites needed to be whipped and somewhere in between these ingredients a great deal more heavy cream was added.

Notice how he really is a happy camper? He’s smiling as he’s baking! As my readers know although I can bake, I detest it and by now I would probably be screaming at the mixer. (Even though this mixer is much nicer than the one I have in my kitchen.)

Thing I learned that afternoon: A blow torch and a candy thermometer are things I should have in my kitchen. The candy thermometer will help you measure the temperature of what you’re cooking. And the blow torch will help you extract the delicate chocolate ganache tarts from their steel cells as well as “burn” the finishing touches on the meringue.

Footnote here: since I don’t like making dessert, I will use not having a blow torch as the perfect excuse for not making any dessert that requires one. I will buy a candy thermometer though.

Finally, the tarts were plated but not before a pastry bag for piping was found and perfect little dollops of meringue stood at attention on the luscious chocolate base.

Then when all was said and done, oops, the cranberry orange sauce was forgotten but carefully added on the side of each dish at the last minute. There was a lot more silence from my cooking classmates as we all dug into our absolutely delicious chocolate desserts!

More things I learned that afternoon: Cooking classes are more fun if you are actually not doing the cooking but watching someone cook for you. It’s like being at home but knowing you don’t have to do any of the dishes or have someone ask you to help them – whether it be chopping some parsley or stirring a pot on the stove.

It’s good to have a group of people you can talk to in the class but also more important, for me at least, is that no one was a picky eater. (I hate picky eaters.) The group size (12) was perfect and it was cool to be the only two Americans in the room surrounded by some pretty fun Canadians. (I went out on a limb with that one so I hope the group I was with shares my sentiment.)

Finally, Chef Andrew and Nicolette made Lynn and I feel very welcome and the food and wine were spot-on. Thank you both for being so nice!

P.S. While the menu was labeled as a “snow stopper,” we hit a “mini blizzard” in the Syracuse area on the way home. Luckily we had purchased some bottles of their Big Fork Red before the class. This was a welcome treat when we finally did pull into the driveway about five hours later. (We had to first shovel a bit in order to actually pull the car into the driveway.) And yes, if you don’t hit a blizzard and the line isn’t too long at the border, it really is only a four hour drive.

Wines poured that day: 2018 Betty’s Blend, 2016 Chardonnay, 2016 Big Fork Red.

Contact: goodearthfoodandwine.com if you want to know more about any of their cooking classes, bistro menus and winery hours.