Category: Farmers

Posted on

Luggage, I Missed You!

Sooner or later we would have to start traveling again, right? We were both vaccinated and Lynn had finally recovered from his surgery long enough to sit in a car without me feeling like I was punishing him! So off we went!

We decided to start off small. Literally, stay someplace for one night; first of all to see if we felt comfortable staying in a hotel and eating INSIDE a restaurant. Plus, we had a list of state parks to visit thinking maybe we could squeeze in a hike or two. And, of course, there were a ton of wineries along the way that needed our attention.

We pulled onto the NY State Thruway ramp and two hours later stopped in Seneca Falls to have brunch at one of the few restaurants (84 Fall) that was open on a Sunday. We walked inside and they were packed! “Did we have a reservation?” the hostess asked us. We did not. She offered to seat us at the bar. The bar? We hadn’t sat at a bar in 18 months! “The bar would be perfect, ” I said.

I was so happy to be out again, sitting at a bar, having a drink, that I even ordered a Mimosa! Now people who know me know I detest Mimosas. One should not mix orange juice with champagne (or in this case sparkling wine) under any circumstances. But I figured I had to order one since it was “brunch,” and the drinks were only 99 cents a piece! I drank it; I didn’t gag, it was actually okay. Perhaps my taste buds had changed in the last year and a half?

My brunch entrée – sunnyside up eggs on a mound of “Utica Greens” was spicy and delicious. If you don’t know what “Utica Greens” are, it’s escarole that’s been cooked (usually boiled first then sautéed), and made “spicy” with peppers, maybe some bacon or pancetta, garlic (of course), and lots of grated Parmesan. I have only had this dish a few times in the last 11 years we’ve been up here and I have to say 84 Fall’s version was delicious. I mean, doesn’t this look really good?

After brunch, we drove to Seneca Lake. I need to share how wine tastings in this part of the world happened in the “early” days. You would simply show up at a winery, tastings were often free, and most times you simply stood at a makeshift table or counter to sample their wines. Now we are finding that more and more wineries are asking you to reserve a tasting in advance; you are seated at a table and given a tasting “menu.” It’s a much longer, but not necessarily enjoyable experience, especially if you realize very quickly that you don’t particularly like the wine they are pouring. Most of the time I think the view is really what you’re paying for. I mean, who doesn’t like to look at a beautiful lake or vineyards with grapes dripping off the vines?

We started by visiting Standing Stone, followed by Billsboro, and enjoyed both of their wines immensely. Then we checked into a cheap hotel (really, it was $105!) Which leads me to wonder why I always spent so much money on “Relais & Châteaux” wannabes! We had stayed at this particular Microtel in Geneva, NY, before, specifically to eat at Kindred Fare. In the old days (i.e., pre-COVID), given that it was a Sunday night, the place might have been half empty. Apparently, like us, everyone was “catching up” on all the dining out they had missed since nearly every table was taken both inside and outside of this establishment. Since we were last there, they had done away with the “chefs counter,” so we shared a long table with a three-top. Calamari and crispy chick peas with pickled onions to start? Yes, please!

In the morning, we headed to Letchworth State Park. It had been on my list of parks to visit for a while and I was anxious to see what all the fuss was about. Called the “Grand Canyon of the East,” I had seen pictures of the falls but didn’t really understand the enormity of all that rushing water.

First of all, the park is much bigger than I anticipated – 66 miles of hiking trails according to the NY State Park website. Luckily, there are many areas to pull over when driving through the park, so you have ample opportunity to see the cliffs and rock formations and take lots of photographs! We hiked the most difficult trail first (up and down what seemed like 1,000 stairs), and then drove a bit, parked, and just walked on a paved walkway to see the other two falls.

After all that hiking, we decided to have lunch. Who knew there was a full-service restaurant within the park? We went into the Glen Iris Inn and luckily they had a table outside for us. However, when we walked through the somewhat dismal-looking dining room, I looked at Lynn and gave him my “something is wrong here” look. When we reached our table I asked him, “Notice anything unusual walking through the dining room?”

He looked at me. I wasn’t going to wait for his response.

“No one had ANY food on their table,” I said.

We decided to order sandwiches. Luckily, for us, 10 minutes later, we both had decent turkey clubs and a couple bottles of Perrier. In any case, our lunch was perfectly fine and I thought the Inn looked pretty. After lunch, we walked over to the William Pryor Letchworth Museum and learned all about Mr. Letchworth’s life and his philanthropic efforts. Then we got back in the car and drove home.

By the next day, I had already started planning another getaway. Perhaps instead of just one night we could stay two and try the wineries we had missed? Maybe we could even venture up to both Lake Erie and Lake Ontario? Two Great Lakes in one day? (Yes, in fact, in that part of New York State between Buffalo and Niagara Falls, it’s totally doable. )

A Three Day Trip

We planned to start out the morning by hiking some trails in Clark Reservation State Park. Want to hear the stupid part of the story first? At the height of COVID last year, we went to quite a few state parks (even in the snow) just to get outside and thus, discovered we liked walking and hiking the trails. Prior to the current summer season, we decided to renew our Empire Pass, which for a low annual fee, gets you into all the NY State Parks for free. This particular park had a parking meter that lets you scan your Empire Pass. Once that’s done, the machine spits out a parking ticket with instructions to display it on the dash of your vehicle. I grabbed the ticket and turned around so quickly that I didn’t remember the very low fence that divided the parking lot from the meter. Which is how I lost my balance and tripped over the fence! Yes, I did in fact land right on my elbow and the wrist that I broke six years ago.

Lynn’s reaction: “what are you doing?” was actually pretty amusing. What did it look like I was doing? ( Let me note: I did not cry although I really do like crying and feel it is perfectly acceptable behavior under certain circumstances.) Lynn then started to fuss over me and talk so much (he’s not a talker) that I just had to tell him to be quiet. My concern was: did I break anything? (I didn’t think I did because I wasn’t really in excruciating pain and I remembered how bad my wrist hurt the last time I broke it.) Most disconcerting, however, there seemed to be quite a bit of blood oozing all over my shorts and dripping from my elbow. Luckily, we had packages of baby wipes in the car which Lynn kept handing to me and I rummaged around in our luggage and found some bandages, too! After sitting on the ground for a good 10 minutes while patting the “evil fence” I had tripped over, I got up, dusted myself off, bandaged my elbow (and my ankle, too, which was also bleeding), and then we started to walk.

After that dismal beginning, I was hoping for a more tranquil hike, but there were lots of rocks to climb over and portions of the trail were more than I wanted to deal with at that given moment. See what I mean with all these craters and cliffs we had to tackle?

We decided to cut our hike short and grab some lunch. Ever hear about The Inns of Aurora? In the town of Aurora? Neither had we. Apparently, this is a collection of old homes in the same town that were purchased and renovated by the founder of the “American Girl” doll stores and made into luxury boutique hotels. With most rooms ranging from $352 to $605 a night (yikes!), we weren’t staying there. We did have a decent lunch though at 1833 Kitchen & Bar inside the Aurora Inn which had a nice view of Cayuga Lake.

Then we got down to business: JR Dill Winery on Seneca Lake poured us some lovely reds that afternoon and gave us some pretty interesting “sculpture” to admire. Unfortunately, it was after 5 p.m., and with most wineries closing at that hour, we ran out of time to visit any others.

We stayed in Penn Yan for the evening and after a decent dinner at Union Block Italian Bistro (pasta, clams, wine, no dessert), we walked part of the Keuka Lake Outlet Trail. The trail view gave me this strange feeling that I was in Europe. I mean, look at this, doesn’t it look a bit like Amsterdam? Especially with the boat?

Burnt Rose Wine Bar

We walked back through town and were approached on the sidewalk by a friendly server who was standing outside a new wine bar that had just opened last week. “Would we like to come inside?” he inquired. Who could resist a new wine bar? Not I!

“Burnt Rose Wine Bar” is the new kid in town under owner Rose Curry and her chef-partner, Chet. She has curated an interesting wine list along with some small plates that I think will work beautifully in this area. Did I mention they also had someone playing piano that night which really gave the wine bar the European feel that I love? Alas, we had just finished dinner (as I mentioned), but I’m always up for another glass of wine! If you are visiting Penn Yan, you should definitely check them out.

In the morning, our continental hotel breakfast was waiting for us. Now, listen up, just because it’s “free” doesn’t mean you have to eat it! Lynn doesn’t eat cereal – ever. Why would he eat it on “vacation?” We found a local bakery, grabbed a couple of chocolate croissants and coffee, and hit the road.

Onto Our Next Stop

We managed a quick walk around Knox Farm State Park in East Aurora and thought we had enough time to have lunch before a scheduled 2 p.m. tour of the Roycroft Campus in the same town. The first restaurant we tried told us there would be a half-hour wait for a table. We kept walking, then decided to go back to the restaurant across the street from Roycroft. This restaurant was packed too, but they “found” a spot for us – a table that was crammed into an awkward corner with a view of a dirty brick wall. I asked our server whether a cold sandwich or salad could be delivered in 30 minutes (or less) to meet our tour appointment, and if not, to please let us know, and we would go someplace else. Said server never came back so after another 10 minutes of stupid indecision on our part, we walked back to a gas station we had seen that was serving this:

Yes, “Beef on a Weck!” Now, don’t even begin to think that I had lost my mind! Julie and Lynn eating at a gas station? (We’ve had many good meals at various “Autostradas” while driving through Italy. This was not such a place. ) However, it was actually a separate “establishment” inside the gas station. The woman behind the counter sliced the roast beef to order, then added a generous dollop of spicy horseradish, and a crunchy pickle on the side. We took the sandwiches back to the car and ate them in five minutes with a few minutes to spare before our tour started. And, really, I think not only was this a cheaper lunch ($7.99 for each sandwich) but probably WAY better than anything we would have eaten at either of those two restaurants.

P.S. If you don’t know what a “weck” is, it’s kind of like a Kaiser roll (but softer) with some Kosher salt and caraway seeds sprinkled on top.

The Roycroft Campus and Elbert Hubbard

I knew nothing about this collection of buildings or Mr. Hubbard. Now I do. Founded in 1897, Elbert (after working as a traveling salesman for the Larkin Soap Factory in Buffalo, NY), decided he wanted to become a writer and printer instead. So what did he do? He traveled to England to visit the British textile designer William Morris who was also a key figure in starting the arts and crafts movement. Most of the buildings on the “campus” Elbert built are still there and if you are a history and/or an arts and crafts aficionado, I think the tour and the museum are worth a visit.

Fun fact: I did not know that the word “chapel” (which one normally associates with a small church) actually derives from the medieval term for a “guild hall for printers.” Consequently, back then a “chapel” structure had no religious connotation at all. And the Roycroft symbol (shown below), was a copy of a symbol that medieval monks used to mark the end of their manuscripts. Elbert went one step further by putting an “R” on his publications; thereby, identifying manuscripts that were printed by the Roycroft Press. And, did anyone ever notice the “design” on an Oreo? Neither had I until this was pointed out to us on the tour.

Sad fact: Elbert Hubbard and his second wife, Alice, while traveling abroad, both died on the Lusitania off the coast of Kinsale, Ireland, after it was sunk by a German U-boat. (We’ve been to Kinsale and I don’t think I knew that the ship went down near there.)

We both enjoyed this highly educational visit and after our tour, we had one more waterfall on the agenda to visit. This one came with a twist – fire!

Eternal Flame Falls

I was prepared this time. There was no parking meter to pay, no fence to trip over. I changed into a sturdier pair of sneakers and even took out my hiking poles. The start of the trail started out flat and easy. What I wasn’t prepared for (again) were the rocks, tree roots, and having to descend into the slate creek bed itself which was only partially dry. Lynn held my hand (as he always does) when I come to the realization that some of the climbs we do are just too steep for my comfort level. (For some reason, I rarely have any problem climbing up; it’s just the slippery paths one has to climb down that make me tremble.) About 30 minutes after we began our descent (and after climbing over multiple fallen trees), we reached the “eternal flame.” The actual waterfall is pretty, but small, and yes, there is the smell of gas once you reach the flame.

And then we walked back to the car and drove towards Hamburg. Our destination after a quick shower at a cheap hotel (Comfort Inn $92/night!) was Lucia’s on the Lake. We had been there two years before and were wowed by both the food and the view of Lake Erie. Neither disappointed the second time around although management was blasting music that was in poor taste. (Eighties disco? Really?) We had oysters, lobster and scallop ravioli, a pear and arugula salad, halibut, and even a peach cobbler for dessert! The only let down was the lackluster wine list with nary a single Finger Lakes or Niagara Escarpment winery represented.

Doesn’t this just look yummy? Even so, I didn’t feel guilty after eating all this delicious food knowing the “steps” I had logged that day.


In the morning we continued. We drove up to Buffalo, towards Niagara Falls, waved to the Canadians on the other side of the Peace Bridge (figuratively, of course), and went to see Old Fort Niagara.

Located inside Fort Niagara State Park (but operated by a non-for-profit so there is an admission fee), there is a lot of history and beautiful sights to take in. The main focus is the “French Castle.” Not only is it the oldest building on the Great Lakes, but it survived the French and Indian War, the American Revolution, and the War of 1812! If you are traveling up to see any part of the Niagara region or even the Falls, I highly recommend a stop at this historical treasure.

Yes, I took about a zillion pictures of this place! If you look closely at the stained glass window, you will see two tiny sailboats on Lake Ontario! I have to assume my enthusiasm for this particular venue was because we hadn’t traveled since March 2020! Finally after visiting the fort, there were two more stops we had to make before we drove home later that day.

Chateau Niagara Winery And Lunch

Jim and Kathy Baker are the owners and winemakers of Chateau Niagara. Actually, my first impression of their low key tasting room (especially since there was no indication that they were open) was that one of them (or perhaps both) had to work a second job since there was a white stretch limo parked out front! Luckily, I was wrong. (Why, I thought this and not the obvious “bridal or birthday party outing” I have no idea.)

To say I was super impressed with all the wine we sampled that afternoon would be an understatement. Jim and Kathy make a bevy of French style wines as well as some interesting blends made with East European grapes. Their lineup includes: Pinot Noir, Cabernet Franc, Riesling, Chardonnay, Gewürztraminer as well as a delightful Saperavi and two blends (Trinity and Bulls Blood) that I thought were true palate pleasers. Jim also tried to explain to me a new wine he had crafted called “A La Mode” which you might think should be an ice cream topper or at the very least a dessert wine. “A La Mode” is a wine that has a pale yellow hue to it and consequently, looks like it should taste like a white wine. Wrong, it’s a wine that tastes like a red!

(Jim, if you are reading this, please roll your eyes; first at my crazy idea that you had to drive a limo because no one visited your winery. Now, bang your head against one of your wine barrels (but don’t hurt yourself) because I can’t even explain your delicious “A La Mode” wine to my readers or myself.)

Anyway, after spending nearly an hour with Jim and Kathy and their dog Fionn, we walked out with a wine club membership and a case of wine. I’d say that was a successful visit! And then we went to have lunch.

Have you ever been to the town of Medina? Have you ever even heard of the town of Medina? Neither had we! I’m not sure what’s going on in that town but there were people walking around on the streets! (If you live way upstate like I do, joking aside, sometimes it’s pretty unusual to actually see humans!) And, guess what, they have not one but two luxury boutique hotels! They also have a couple of restaurants, one of them being Zambistro that offered us lunch at their rooftop bar/restaurant with a narrow view of the Erie Canal.

We had grilled chicken panini with homemade potato chips which were decent. But what caught my interest on the dessert menu were “French cream puffs.” Did they actually mean “profiteroles?” Maybe it was the “a la mode” I had just tried at Chateau Niagara that made me think of ice cream. Or maybe, it was the fact that it was 4 p.m., we had just finished lunch and still had a 3.5 hour drive home. There are many desserts I can resist- profiteroles are not one of them. Full disclosure: they weren’t the worst profiteroles I’ve eaten, the ice cream was okay and the “stacking” was impressive. However, the type of chocolate used seemed to be an afterthought. And since I don’t particularly like milk chocolate, I had to deduct some stars for the execution of this dish.

And then we drove home. Next month, we will be traveling for a full five days to a more populated area (Cape Cod and Maine). We hope those who are traveling there as well will be kind to the people who are taking care of them on their journey. The hand written sign I found taped to a door on this current trip, I think sums it up perfectly. Ditto for Elbert Hubbard’s words which I think are still appropriate to this day.

Until our next “Let’s Go” adventure.

Posted on

Chasing Deer and Surgeons

I didn’t want the dream to end. I was in Europe staring at pastries behind a glass window. However, each pastry, unlike the scrumptious eclairs shown below, was placed apart from each other (a good six inches I would guess) with a number in front of it.

I gathered one had to order the desired pastry by number only and then sit down in chairs that were lined up as if one were in the waiting room of a doctor’s office rather than a beautiful cafe. Was this a pandemic-related dream? The six inches (or six feet in real life) seemed plausible. And sitting in a doctor’s office (or at least wanting to) nibbling a sweet treat seemed to be entirely credible given the last eight weeks.

Lynn had hernia surgery in the beginning of May. It was supposed to be a routine outpatient procedure with little post-op complications. Except no one could be there with him. He would have to be dropped off at the hospital and I would have to wait for a phone call from the surgeon. What’s this have to do with deer you ask? (Note the title of this essay.) Nothing, except that up until this weekend, they were always pretty well behaved on our property.

Lynn had delayed having the surgery because he wasn’t in any pain. Plus, once we had started the ball rolling on this semi-elective “event,” we were told the procedure had to be postponed until a surgeon was available and everyone was vaccinated! We were okay with that. After all we have known each other a very long time (42 years actually) and agree on the important stuff. Besides, we love just being by ourselves. We also love cooking and growing our own food. We did hope, however, that the hernia (derived from the Latin word “rupture”) wouldn’t do just that before the operation was scheduled.  

He was not good with anesthesia, albeit the last surgery he had was 28 years ago.  He had been running through Penn Station trying to catch a Long Island Railroad train to get home to me. But he slipped, missed a step on the stairs to the platform, and fractured his ankle.  Did he miss me that much to justify sprinting for the train?  Perhaps.  But in actuality, I was on bed rest for a pregnancy that could go bad at any given moment. He wanted to get home as soon as he could for both of us; everyone was on edge.

So, he, going into this new surgery, which had been delayed because of COVID, made us uneasy.  Could I tell him I was more scared than nervous?

He wouldn’t wear a coat on the day of the procedure. “More stuff to carry,” he said.  “Wear casual clothes” they told him.  After being home since March 2020 what else was there to wear except sweatpants and a t-shirt?   

“At least take a phone charger,” I said to him.

“No,” he countered.

I dropped him off at the hospital early (6:45 AM) but as mentioned, couldn’t go inside.  He went in on his own and it reminded me of the first day we sent our son to preschool many years ago. Neither of them ever looked back at me or even waved.  

I drove home and stared out our kitchen window.  We have a lot of property and woods so I waited for our “resident” deer to come down the hill to give me a sign that everything would be okay.  But they just walked right up to their usual spot – eating the grass and a dandelion or two for good measure. Thinking back on them now, I’m quite happy with their restraint.

They say most couples don’t talk about sex, death and money.  Pretty funny since we talk about all three of those “taboo” topics frequently – sex and money more than death. Should death be at the top of my list to think about today, though?

I tried to read but since we had been up most of the night worrying about the outcome, my eyes refused to focus.  I walked the rooms in our very large house and felt the quiet.  Was I prepared for him not to return?  I wasn’t.  But knew instantly how it would feel if he didn’t come home. I summoned up an old metaphor thinking that the “silence was deafening.”  I wanted to shout, “Yes, it is!”

I busied myself, texting our children, not revealing my fear.  And then the doctor called. “He did okay,” he said.  “Sorry there was a delay.” Turns out, this surgeon had not one but a few emergencies to deal with that Monday morning.  I compared it to waiting on the tarmac at JFK.  One is anxious for the flight to be airborne, for the trip or vacation to commence. Or, in this case, for the operation to be successfully completed and most importantly, for the patient to have a “smooth landing.”

I’m not religious and I don’t pray but I did look at the “bamboo” on our property which a local chef told me was actually Japanese knotweed. Their sturdy brown and green stalks were pushing through the soil up towards the sky. The chef told me that “their tender shoots are edible.”  Suddenly, I, too, felt I was living up to a particular word that the New York Times had written about in describing certain feelings one has encountered in the past year. The word is “languishing,” which made me think; instead of my current state of inactivity, perhaps I should be outside chopping up some stalks and then brewing them into some sort of medicinal beverage to help him recover?

Finally, 12 hours later, I drove back to the hospital to pick him up.  He was wheeled out in a wheelchair and looked even grayer than the t-shirt he was wearing.  I helped him into the car and reached over to fasten his seat belt. I realized it was exactly the same way I used to buckle in our children when they were young. 

“My phone is almost dead,” he said.

I didn’t want to say, “I told you so,” followed by “why didn’t you take the charger?”

Since then, he has been recovering slowly. No pain, but swelling was the primary culprit. He, who has always been the “lifter” of things in our relationship – whether it be bags of topsoil for our never ending gardening adventures or more and more lumber and moulding for house repairs – suddenly stopped lifting.

I would “grow” muscles I thought! I’d wheel out trash cans, carry out recycling bins, lawn furniture and even table saws! (Yes, we do in fact, have multiple saws.) Luckily, the deer decided not to invade our garden until he had healed sufficiently enough to help me try and remedy the problem.

If you recall my last post, I wrote fondly of the new fence we were planning to install because our old one was not only falling apart, but it was rusting and ugly. What we didn’t take into account when putting up our nicer, albeit shorter fence, was that deer can jump quite high to feast on whatever they think is tasty in your average vegetable garden.

We have lived in the Red House for 11 years and this is the first time we had deer be so bold. Around 8:45 on Friday night, we were alerted by a neighbor that a deer was in our garden. It was too dark by then to see what was consumed but in the morning we assessed the damage. Most of the tomato plants were gone, broccoli and Swiss chard, too. A rose bush that our daughter gave us a few years ago (and had a plethora of red roses blooming) was eaten down to the bottom. Ditto for the daylilies and the Stella d’Oro’s.

The lettuce was left mostly intact as were our peas and beans and anything that was squash-related. To say we were furious is an understatement. We decided we had to make our “pretty” fence ugly again by making it higher.

This is the fence that the deer could easily jump over.

And here’s the deer walking around the back of our driveway “pretending” she doesn’t see all the goodness growing inside the garden gate!

But first I went back to the farm down the road in hopes that there would be some vegetables to purchase. I was in luck when not only were there vegetables left but now everything was half price! So for $24, I managed to get new tomato plants, more broccoli, lettuce and Swiss chard. And I bought some Hungarian wax peppers to plant, too. And since I was not particularly confident we would pull off recreating the wheel (I mean fence), I bought some tomato plants that just needed to be replanted into bigger containers that I could grow on the deck.

When I got home, we hauled out the old fence we had unceremoniously rolled up, tying the rolls closed with duct tape. We thought maybe we could just unroll all the old stuff and attach it to the new fence. Our goal was to achieve some height. I mean, really, how high can a deer jump? According to at least four videos we watched, apparently six feet is the magic number. So, we had to make sure the “new” but soon-to-be-ugly fence was higher than that.

And then there was soap. In the past, we, too, had wasted money on bottles of deer “repellent,” dried blood in various forms, and other useless products we were sucked into buying.

Anything that has a powerful “scent” we were told would also aid in keeping them away. So after the greenhouse, I stopped at the supermarket and bought three bars of Irish Spring. Lynn cut them into thirds, drilled a hole in them, and hung them around the “key” areas of the garden.

At this point, for the first time ever, I really started to rethink the garden. After all, we support many local farmers in the area and there are numerous Amish farms within a five minute drive of our house. Couldn’t we just buy ALL our produce from them this summer? There is, however, a certain satisfaction to growing your own food and making something that’s edible and healthy. Plus, what would I write about and photograph if I didn’t have that one perfect tomato or zucchini or celery to brag about?

This, unfortunately, is how we had to add height. Attaching the old fence to the top of the new fence with some wire.

And then we realized we didn’t have enough “old” fence to finish the project. Why that is I don’t know since the dimensions of the new fence and the old fence were basically the same. Which is why at 5 p.m. we got in the car and made the trip to the big box store to look at our fencing options. This item, like lumber, had gone up in price as well. $72 later we headed home with a roll of fencing and finished the job nearly eight hours after we had started it.

My arms were scratched (and bleeding) from constantly hitting a thorny raspberry bush that I kept bumping into as we tried to unwrap the new fence. Why the deer don’t eat these berries is a mystery but they don’t. One of my legs was also dripping with blood since the sharp end of the fence roll kept hitting my leg as Lynn kept trying to measure (and cut) each section we needed. Besides all this, we were also hot, tired and sunburned.

When we were done that evening and I went back into the kitchen, I remembered when he finally came home from surgery that day. He hadn’t eaten in over 24 hours and was hungry! I had planned ahead. There was bread from the bakery, chicken cutlets, salad, even a Guinness-spiked pot roast! He wanted something “simple” so I quickly made him our “jet lag” dish – a ham and cheese omelet with fresh chives from our garden.

“Drink some water,” I implored him as I, myself, sipped a glass of wine, sorry he couldn’t join me.

I started to clean up the kitchen and begged him to sit down but he just wanted to stand and watch me. Apparently, when he was coming out of the anesthesia, he thought the attending female nurse was me and started to stroke her hair. I laughed and was humbled by that innocent, affectionate gesture. And then right before we turned the kitchen lights off, he looked at the stove and said, “you put the burners on the wrong way.”

And that’s why as long as I’m living in the Red House, I will never give up my garden. Even if everything I’m eating tastes a little bit like Irish Spring.

Posted on

A Mohawk Valley Spring: A New Fence Project

Normally by this time of the year we would be planning a summer vacation and perhaps even a fall trip. However, since we, like the rest of the world, have been sheltering in place and avoiding people like the plague – oh wait, COVID is very much like a plague, our planning sessions are only in our “Dreams.”

While I do like the Irish band, The Cranberries, who perform that song so beautifully, we are extremely fortunate to have very green fields behind our Red House. This, luckily, reminds me of Ireland without having to travel there.

However, as everyone knows, being an “armchair traveler” as well as watching as many travel shows as possible (including StanleyTucci’s show “Searching for Italy” which nearly had me weeping), still doesn’t fill the void of not being able to travel. I miss the thrill of getting on a plane or in a car and having a new adventure. I miss seeing new buildings, visiting museums and above all trying different food!

I have overcompensated for this lack of travel by cooking and baking. Homemade gravlax with some chopped red onions, dill and capers? Yes, please! How about a Yukon Gold potato and goat cheese tart in a puff pastry crust? Absolutely!

I spent most of March promoting my new book, Get In The Car: A Food and Travel Memoir. This entailed pouring through old CD’s, revisiting photo albums and searching through my iCloud account for photographs I could use to advertise the book. The challenge was to find the one or two photographs that would accurately portray what the book was about. More often than not, I simply couldn’t decide which photograph to use so would post a few of the ones I thought worked best on social media.

Besides photographs, we also have a lot of great posters that Lynn and I have collected on our many travels. Promoting the chapter about Vienna, all I needed was to take a photograph of the detailed drawing of the “Post Sparkasse” that is hanging in my dining room. And if you are thinking about Paris, so am I. And London and Venice, too! (You know it’s gotten pretty bad when “House Hunters International” becomes your favorite show to watch on TV. )

By the way, all of these photographs were shot by me. I find looking at photographs (and being a decent photographer) helps me when I’m writing. Not only can I visualize the scene I want to put my characters in, but it helps them interact and “talk” to each other. I’m particularly fond of the night shot I managed to capture of the Eiffel Tower on one of our trips to Paris.

If you look at it closely though, the area seems pretty desolate. Lynn and I had just finished dinner and were attracted by the lights of the Tower so we walked towards it. We ended up in a neighborhood we weren’t that familiar with and since two out of the three times we’ve been to Paris there has been a bombing (1986 and 2017 but not 2003), we quickly walked away. Since Paris is still in “lockdown” until the end of the month, I can only assume that these days much of Paris looks like the scene above.

But gearing up for spring, attention must be paid to the garden and specifically the fence. Back in 2010, we put up what we thought would be a temporary enclosure with the assistance of my father. He claimed since he was a “helper” and most importantly, definitely not the “handy type,” that surely the garden fence should have been on the “National Register of Historic Places.” I actually thought that was pretty funny!

Not so funny though is 11 years later, how truly awful the fence looks. Constructed originally just to keep the deer and the rabbits from eating our vegetables and flowers, I’m amazed it actually didn’t fall down (in spite of Dad’s help) because of our very cold and snowy winters.

Here’s what this “beauty” looks like today- rusted gate hinges and all.

Hiring someone to install a new fence wasn’t even a conversation Lynn and I had. We thought we’d order some of that “no dig” fencing, get a really strong rubber mallet, pound it into the ground and hope it would work. We also hoped it would last as long, if not longer, than the first one.

Of course we gave ourselves a “deadline” to do this project. We have about four weeks or so not only to get the garden into shape (weeding, pruning, raking, etc.), but also get all the vegetables and herbs I had purchased from a CSA farm share I bought in January planted.

To take my mind off all this work and to try out a new kitchen “toy” I had purchased earlier in the year (but never used), I decided to take my dehydrator out for a “test run.” This came about because I love chives, especially dried ones. I found myself getting angrier and angrier every time I had to shell out $5 (or more) on a small bottle of chives just so that I could have scrambled eggs with chives! It must be a European thing, I know, but it just makes a potentially shitty day so much better if you at least have the illusion of a “fancy” breakfast in the morning.

These gorgeous goldenrod-colored eggs are from one of my favorite farmers – Jones Family Farm. We’ve known Peter and Suzie Jones since we bought the house and I’m so honored to be able to not only purchase healthy food from them but am humbled by their back-breaking work.

But first, the barrel that the chives had been growing in for probably 20 years before we got here finally collapsed and we had to get a new one. After much heavy lifting, more splinters in our hands that we care to mention, plus the fact that the new bucket had a “Jack Daniel’s” sticker stapled on the side, should have given me a hint. Yes, the wood did in fact smell like whiskey! Would my chives become whiskey-laced, too? (The answer to that is no.)

I thought for sure when we replanted the chives into their new “home” that they would rebel. Would they “kick the bucket” by dying? (They didn’t, they cooperated.) Which is why even a mere two weeks after lifting up the entire chive “hedge” (really it was so heavy it looked like it was a small hedge) and dumping it into its new Jack Daniel’s “digs,” it began to grow profusely.

So a few days ago I decided to read the manual for the dehydrator not realizing that I would need between six to ten hours to “dry” said chives before they could be properly stored. (Don’t you just hate when you read a recipe and realize whatever you are thinking of making is going to take you 2-3 days?) I actually didn’t think it would work. And now I also know why dried herbs cost so much! The drying time alone has got to be a money loser. Here’s my new toy and the progression of the drying process. As you can see, two large racks in the dehydrator yielded less than half of a small glass jar when all was said and done.

I will definitely cut the chives smaller next time and experiment a bit with drying other herbs, too. But since I have an abundance of chives and time, I relish not having to spend money on herbs I can dry myself.

Meanwhile, it’s been raining so our fence installation project is on hold. I did manage to rake up some dead grass and leaves as well as the remains of last year’s various vegetables. And I am very happy to see the tulips that I planted in a variety of colors are blooming!

I needed a lunch break after all this activity and when I looked outside, who did I see but Mr. Bunny! I’m actually not sure if he is a boy or girl bunny but I like to call “it” Mister just for fun. And where is he sitting? Right in front of the fence gate we are about to remove and replace. I will mention that Mr. Bunny seems to be a lot fatter than he was last year. And his little nose was pointing in the direction of the part of the garden he particularly likes to try and get into – where lots of good things to eat like lettuce and broccoli and sometimes, carrots, too, will be planted.

I tried to photograph him but he is very quick to run away. And like many rabbits you see in illustrated children’s books, he has the most adorable white bottom! And most importantly, he has a tremendous hop! Speaking of children’s books, I started perusing my bookshelves for something new to read. (I have also started to compare my “volumes” with all the talking heads I see nightly on TV but tune out to what they are saying just to see what books they have behind them on their shelves.) I picked up an old copy of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s book The First Four Years and truthfully, even though I was an advanced reader at a young age, I wondered how I got through it.

“For it was June, the roses were in bloom over the prairie lands, and lovers were abroad in the still, sweet evenings which were so quiet after the winds had hushed at sunset.” Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote.

Reading this sentence now, I can see the roses blooming across the prairie and appreciate the winds lessening at sunset, but did I at the age of ten? (The book though written in the late 1940’s wasn’t published until 1971.)

On that note, it would be lovely to be “abroad” – using the word as in visiting a foreign country rather than in the context of lovers walking over a wide area. Hopefully, at least by the end of this year we will be able to at least “hop away” for a while so that we, like “Mr. Bunny,” can see some different pastures.

Until our next “Let’s Go” adventure.

My new book Get In The Car: A Food and Travel Memoir is available on Amazon.

Posted on

Get In The Car

My new book, available on Amazon (2/2021) in both paperback and Kindle version, is a food and travel memoir. Written in 2008 (and just published this year), it’s the story of traveling with my husband, Lynn and two children. Canada, California and numerous European countries are some of the places we visit. Join us for the ride.

Here’s the link: https://www.amazon.com/GET-CAR-Food-Travel-Memoir/dp/B08WZFTWDM/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=julie+mccoy+get+in+the+car&qid=1614963641&sr=8-2#reader_B08WZFTWDM

Posted on

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.

Posted on

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.

Posted on

Some Milestone Memories

Just a few weeks ago here in the Mohawk Valley we thought spring was upon us. The tulips were blooming and the bamboo started to grow back as well. Then we woke up one morning to snow.

It gave me time to reflect on how life takes unexpected turns and weather even more so. Since we have been sheltering in place like millions of people all over the world during this pandemic, Lynn and I have spent a lot of time together. Luckily, we never run out of things to talk about – mostly we discuss places we’ve traveled to with a couple of foodie meal reminiscences thrown in for good measure. It’s precisely because we have traveled so much that I’ve come to realize how many memories we have shared together.

“I spoke to you first,” my husband Lynn said to me at dinner the other night. “You know, I kept seeing you on the elevator but you ignored me.”

I had to laugh when he said this to me. I had heard the story before but now that we have been home together every single day and night (except for the occasional trip to the supermarket, liquor store or pharmacy), I actually had time to think about way back when. Full confession: I don’t remember seeing him on an elevator! I don’t think this makes me a terrible person or bad wife, it just means I remember things differently.

For example, I remember the day we met at a dorm party. It was October 6, 1979 and I even remember what I was wearing (white jeans, light blue top). But it makes me wonder, on the day we “officially” met, could we have ever envisioned 41 years later that we would be sheltering in place in a Big Red House a mere 75 miles from where it all started? Highly unlikely.

Want to see what I looked like back then? Yes, I did in fact prefer to wear peasant skirts and a BLOUSE!

Prior to our purchasing the Red House, we used to spend a lot of time in California; January after the holidays (our Christmas gift to each other) and again in September/October for our anniversary and hopefully also timing it with “crush” if we were in Northern California. Who wouldn’t want to look at beautiful vineyards filled with grapes, drink copious amounts of wine and drive the coast – especially with views like this?

If we weren’t in California, then we were in Europe. Often we even took the kids. The first and only time we have been to Berlin we took them with us. If I went back to Berlin now and revisited the Brandenburg Gate, I would probably wonder where they had wandered off to.

Lynn and I have also been fortunate to have traveled to Paris many times. But to this day, even if it’s just the two of us in Paris, I still think of Nicholas skateboarding in front of the Eiffel Tower!

And Rachel? Could she have posed for a picture any prettier than in Monet’s garden in Giverny?

During this pandemic, I started to think about all the family trips for other families that may never happen. What about first dates and chance encounters that are missed? Remember the scene in Back to the Future where Michael J. Fox (playing the character Marty McFly) realizes that if his parents don’t meet and you know, kiss big time, he, himself, would not have been born. And remember how he then spends a good part of the movie watching himself slowly fade away on a photograph he’s holding in his hand? That’s how I kind of feel these days about memories that aren’t happening.

Would our life together have been different if we had never gone to California? This picture of us (one of my favorites actually) wouldn’t exist. Would we understand and appreciate farm to table cooking and good wine as much?

What if we had never traveled with our kids? Rachel never would have been standing on a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

And what about smooching the Blarney Stone? There wouldn’t be a photograph of the four of us standing on the ramparts of the Blarney Castle in Ireland. (P.S. I didn’t kiss the rock, I just looked at it.)

These past few weeks I’ve started to think not only of trips we’ve made together but of birthdays we celebrated too.

Here’s the cake that I made for Rachel’s birthday 10 years ago!

That was the cake for the “family” party. She also had a sweet 16 and celebrated with some of her girlfriends with a limo ride and dinner at a popular restaurant in NYC. She’s so beautiful here in her dress!

How many of these milestone events now during our “stay at home” order will have to be spent at home and not celebrated according to plan? Will these celebrations ever be made up or will we just do something on a smaller scale or ignore them totally and move on?

One of my nieces, Daniella, shared some of her thoughts with me about not having the sweet 16 party she was supposed to have. She wrote, “I really wanted to go to school for my birthday to see my friends and everything but school got canceled 3 days before. And then we found out on my birthday that the restaurant was closed…so everyone came over for pizza that night. I was supposed to have a party and that never happened. And we were supposed to see a Broadway play and that’s been postponed. ”

She also mentioned other friends whose parties keep getting pushed back and knows friends who have “just sat at home on their birthday.” She told me she really “did luck out” with the small gathering she was able to have in her honor.

I think that’s a really good attitude to have these days.

This Memorial Day weekend is bittersweet. Usually by this time of year I’m struggling with the stress of what we call the “end of the school year finish line.” But since I’m working from home these days, the finish line is a lot easier. Normally, Lynn and I have already mapped out summer vacation plans or at least a road trip or two. This year we were thinking about going back to Nova Scotia – an area we haven’t visited in 30 years. We were also thinking about a repeat visit to Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater in Pennsylvania on the way to Nashville.

Then there is Lake Superior. It’s the only one of the “Great Lakes” we haven’t seen together. And when I get an idea in my head about doing something or going somewhere, eventually I make it happen. Apparently, that won’t be the case this summer.

It’s probably the traveling part that I miss the most coupled with the knowledge going forward that there may be no travels whatsoever for us anytime soon. Does this mean we will simply be “camping” forever at the Red House?

I think this is actually okay. We’ve managed to finally catch up on some overdue home projects. After all, it’s been a little less than a year since we permanently moved up to the Mohawk Valley. And yes, believe it or not, there is still one box that hasn’t been unpacked because it’s filled with pictures and some art work that either needs to be framed and/or hung on a wall.

There has also been quite a bit of gardening. I even bought myself a new pair of gardening gloves which I found particularly charming in that they bizarrely had my paternal grandmother’s name stitched on the side.

I realize that this sheltering in place has not only compromised our lifestyle but made us redefine family and home. Now we spend days deliberately and carefully avoiding any contact with anyone. There are signs taped on the floor of one of the few stores we frequent – directing us where to stand and which direction to walk. And always reminding us to “social distance” and remain six feet apart.

Meanwhile, the deer on our property obviously aren’t following the “rules,” they are congregating in larger groups than we’ve seen before.

But I have to think that this pandemic has compromised so many memories. So much of our childhood and young adulthood relies on certain milestones – whether it be a sweet 16 or school graduation. To make matters even worse, it’s the elderly parents and grandparents who can’t celebrate these milestones with us. I’ve seen pictures of people waving to their parents and grandparents through a window. This saddens me. What about those folks who are deemed too “vulnerable” to even go outside to shop or take a simple walk in case they are exposed to the virus? What memories will they have other than of being stuck at home?

Pictures, of course, help immensely in trying to remember how life had been. But you can’t take a photograph of an important milestone if the milestone doesn’t happen.

I mean, look at sweet Nicholas when he won a plaque for competing in a karate tournament on Long Island!

Or Rachel on her first trip to France when I asked her to turn around so I could photograph her in the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles!

Meanwhile, as we prepare for the summer months, it’s good to spend time outside; gardening (as mentioned) helps immensely. Most of the vegetables are planted and I’m working on a new planter box filled with herbs as well.

This is a photograph I took of a mural painted on a hotel room wall in St. Paul de Vence one summer when we were traveling through the south of France. It’s quite lovely isn’t it? Sigh, I do miss that life.

There’s a lot of time for reflection these days. Lynn and I have been lucky. We don’t know anyone personally who has gotten sick or died from COVID-19. We do know many people who have lost their jobs and are struggling with meager unemployment checks and countless bills to pay. We have tried to help our local farmers by purchasing CSA shares and shopping at their small farm stands when we can. We have tried to limit our online shopping, choosing instead to support local butchers and bakers and liquor stores. We play a lot of Scrabble. We have watched more TV than we normally do but we try to limit the amount of news we watch because it’s just too depressing. We have repeatedly cleaned the house and organized drawers and thought of even more projects to do both inside and outside our home.

Actually, like my niece Daniella wrote, I think we did “luck out.” And while I miss our travel life , I’m okay with this new “normal. ”

Until our next “Let’s Go” adventure.

Posted on

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.

Posted on

A First Time Visit to Prince Edward Island

Although we had traveled to Nova Scotia nearly 30 years ago, we had never visited Prince Edward Island. On the itinerary for last summers road trip adventures, it seemed like a logical place to visit since it would save us airfare. And now that we live permanently in upstate New York, it really is easier to travel places that used to take 8+ hours to get to. Particularly when one has to get off the “Isle of Long” first. (Shout out to Larry The Duck on SiriusXM’s First Wave station for getting me through the morning commute and his endearing giggle when he invariably describes Long Island that way.)

My initial impression of PEI was wow! That’s a really really long bridge you have to take to even get to the island. Case in point: The bridge, known as the Confederation Bridge, is the longest bridge in the world crossing ice-covered water. I’m not sure what exactly that means since there was no ice the day we crossed but that’s what a Google search revealed. It’s also really expensive. CA$47.75 to cross a bridge? Granted, it’s only a one-way toll (you pay on the way back) but still!

So once we got off the bridge, we stopped the car and walked around a tourist-filled rest area and then decided to grab a couple of lobster rolls for lunch.

On To Charlottetown

I was a bit disappointed with Charlottetown I have to say. A) It was a lot smaller than I expected and B) There wasn’t really a lot to do there. Yes, we could have gone to see “Anne of Green Gables: The Musical” (just kidding!) since it has been playing annually in Charlottetown since 1965! But since I was already dragging Lynn to see the author’s house the next day, I decided to spare him anything else related to “Anne.” Besides we were already being bombarded by Anne of Green Gables souvenirs and even “‘Anne” chocolates everywhere we looked.

Thing is, I never read Anne of Green Gables growing up. I actually went to my local library this summer before we set out on this adventure, and truth be told, I liked the book and the character. (And knowing how I was as a young teenager girl, I probably would have tossed the book in the garbage because back then I liked reading books by D.H. Lawrence.)

I’m really glad I read the book this past summer since so much of Prince Edward Island is wrapped up in the many stories that author Lucy Montgomery wrote. She managed way back then to create characters that one can emphasize with and the near fairy tale setting of her books on the island only adds to their appeal.

So our first morning in PEI we went to visit the very modest family house where she was born and where she eventually married, too.

Followed by a further drive down the road to see a “heritage place” museum that showcased many of her books and the inspiration for writing them.

Driving between these two places, we would catch glimpses of the water and marvel at the beauty of the countryside. I also didn’t know there were so many farms on Prince Edward Island. Or that their primary crop was potatoes. And why was the soil so incredibly red?

It turns out there’s a lot of iron in this soil and although it looked like “sand” similar to what we had seen in the deep red stones of Sedona, Arizona, this soil was lush and fertile. I stopped more than once to pull over to try and capture the deep color of the earth but the camera just didn’t do it justice.

We continued to drive a bit around the island when suddenly I saw a sign for “Malpeque.” Could it be the same Malpeque that was famous for its oysters? We journeyed on to find out.

Even though it was not even noon, we decided to have an early “snack” of some just-harvested Malpeque oysters, “from the source,” so to speak at the Malpeque Oyster Barn. Now that I’ve had the “real thing,” it’s very difficult to order fresh oysters anywhere else and expect them to be even passable.

Fresh and only slightly briny, they needed just a simple squeeze of lemon as shown here although the Migonette sauce and fresh horseradish were a nice touch, too.

Afterwards we walked around the dock area and looked at all the oyster/lobster traps so artfully displayed.

And then we went to find a lighthouse nearly an hour and a half away on the other side of the island.

Point Prim Lighthouse

When we drove down a sandy beach road looking for the Point Prim Lighthouse, we didn’t expect to find a long line of cars parked on the side of the road. We realized the real reason people were there was to eat at the Point Prim Chowder House.

Even though we didn’t have a reservation, they found a table outside for us. I have to say the view was delicious! The food was decent. And the mosquitoes! Boy, they loved my ankles that day!

So back to the view.

With these pretty white curtains (that they tried to tie back since they had a tendency to billow in the wind), I felt I was in a fancy Caribbean resort rather than PEI.

We had a bowl of chowder and two lobster rolls but genuinely had a hard time thinking who was enjoying their “feast” more – Lynn and I or the mosquitoes nibbling on us.

We ate quickly and then made our way over to the lighthouse where (drum roll) we were one of only two visitors.

After lunch, we decided a visit to the beach (and being able to dig our toes into that incredible red sand) would be just the thing to do.

We had packed bathing suits and borrowed some towels from the hotel (but boy do I hate changing in a toilet stall!) and then indulged in a beautiful afternoon at Brackley Beach.

They have dunes! They have crystal clear water! They have soft red sand! Really, it was very relaxing.

Dinner both nights in Charlottetown was pretty uninspiring but I have to assume that’s because the town was filled with tourists looking for a cheap hamburger and a beer. We did have some fantastic chowder at Brickhouse Kitchen and Bar. Loaded with fresh seafood (at least four different kinds from what I could tell) plus potatoes and cream, it was really good! I went back to check their website, pulled up their menu and this chowder is actually a winner! Named the 2018 PEI Potato and Shellfish Chowder Champion, this one dish has lobster, haddock, scallops, mussels, smoked bacon and PEI potatoes.

Don’t you just want to dive into that dish? I do!

PEI Potatoes and Charlottetown’s Farmer’s Market

Speaking of PEI potatoes, well here we go. Okay, so as I mentioned before, I was trespassing on farmland trying to take pictures of the soil and the abundance of potato plants when I thought well, I have to buy some. Luckily, we were in town for the weekend and Saturday mornings is where all the action is at the Charlottetown’s Farmers’ market. Unfortunately, we had already eaten a (mediocre) breakfast at the hotel, but we walked around the stalls and marveled at all the goodness that was being displayed.

Potatoes right from the earth!

Lettuce and scallions and squash, too!

Wait, are those just-picked Shiitakes?

And lots of different varieties of fresh baked bread?

Are you hungry yet? Because I am!

Needless to say, only three things would bring me back to PEI. The oysters, the farmer’s market and the beach!

Oh yeah, on the way home, guess what I bought?

Until our next “Let’s Go” adventure.

Posted on

Lunch, Dinner and Waterfalls, Too (Back to Canada)

We did a spur of the moment trip earlier this summer to the Niagara-on-the-Lake area with trips to Hamilton and St. Catherine thrown in. We had been to the area a few times before but now there are even more places to eat (and drink) so we like to go back as frequently as possible. The fact that many of the Niagara escarpment wineries remind me a little bit of the California wineries we used to visit in the early 1990’s also helps. I also love to drive around the area to see not only what the farmers are growing but what dishes the chefs are creating with all this bounty before them.

We made it over the border crossing in about 40 minutes (yeah!) and found ourselves at the amazing winery/restaurant of Two Sisters Vineyard. The problem with eating “across the border” is that it is difficult to make a lunch reservation because you never know how long the wait will be to get across! Luckily, even though the restaurant was packed, they managed to find a table for us.

We didn’t waste any time when ordering. Glasses of wine. A wood-burning stove that spit out pizzas (ours was covered with arugula and prosciutto) followed by a pasta Bolognese dish even though it was hotter than hell that day. For those who missed my last story mentioning the “Beef Strogonoff” that Lynn consumed (again on a really hot day), well, all I can say is “Bon Appetit!”

Dare I mention they brought us out the largest bowl of grated cheese I’ve ever seen? I mean it was the size of a casserole dish! Look, our server is even showing off by holding it in one hand! (Actually I asked her to hold it that way so I could take the photograph.)

After lunch we drove around the area and to kill some time before our next meal, we went to a winery, Tawse, in Vineland, Ontario, we had missed the last time around. But first, we drove down a street called Cherry Avenue. What did we find on Cherry Avenue? You betcha!

To say I was excited about seeing cherries for the first time in person, in all their cherry goodness, is beyond words.

Dinner at Quatrefoil

This had been on my list of restaurants to go to for quite some time. Housed in a lovely house in the town of Dundas, Ontario, on Thursday nights they do a 3 course prix fixe “Farmer’s Supper.” So it being Thursday, that’s what we had. For starters, I had the white asparagus vinaigrette. Now this may not seem like a special dish, after all it’s just asparagus, right? But since I grew up in Munich, we waited anxiously every year for the asparagus season to start (usually the end of April/beginning of May). White asparagus was always preferred to the green kind and once the asparagus came out it was sold in farmer’s markets and was a featured dish in nearly every restaurant. To say it was a big deal is an understatement. Now, however, when I see white asparagus in the market, it just doesn’t taste the way I remember. This asparagus with a perfect vinaigrette absolutely hit the spot though.

Next up a perfectly cooked moist piece of salmon. Now, I realize I shouldn’t be that excited about salmon, right? Trust me this was exquisite. Do I dare mention that Lynn had beef (a steak) again? And no, I’m not posting a picture of his steak. Absolutely not.

A few days prior, I had seen on Instagram that the chef de cuisine of Quatrefoil, James Bourdeau, had “acquired” lots of different fresh berries from a local farm. “Where were the berries?” I asked our server. He wasn’t sure but he would find out. Imagine my surprise (and laughter) when a plate of berries was brought out for me to try.

And then Chef Bourdeau came out to talk to us! How cool is that? Thank you Chef!

Dessert included a deconstructed chocolate cake and mousse combo with fresh mint leaves and a lovely rhubarb creme brulee (not shown here since the shot came out blurry – probably from all the excitement.) I mean fresh picked berries and white asparagus in the same meal? I thought the food was amazing, the plating stellar and the service was outstanding.

Craving Indian…Still Craving Indian

Lunch that day was a choice of Thai or Indian in St. Catherines. We chose the Indian since 1. We love Indian. 2. We can’t find decent Indian near us. 3. We hadn’t had naan or curry in a long time.

It’s always disappointing to crave ethnic food and then not have them deliver what you’re craving. While the chicken tikka masala was okay, the naan and poori breads were just not as light and fluffy as they could have been. We sucked it up and decided Thai might have been a better choice that afternoon.

Creekside Estate Winery for Dinner

We had been to Creekside Estate Winery the year before and liked their varietals very much. They pour a strong Sauvignon Blanc and Syrah, too. A chef I had been following on Instagram, Ross Midgley, was cooking that summer on the deck at this winery so of course we wanted to visit.

Friday nights at the Creekside they have a limited menu but live music. Dare I mention it was really hot that Friday night – so hot we were sweltering and of course there wasn’t even a gust of wind in sight. We sat and drank lots of cold white wine to cool off. And then ordered some pretty outstanding food.

We started with a plate of oysters! Yeah, I love oysters! Then moved on to the Mediterranean platter (grilled halloumi, pita, olives and red peppers). Look at those cute little French jam jars – one filled with hummus and the other with Greek yogurt. And finally, the lobster roll was pretty decent, too. Thank you Chef!

We also got a chance to talk to Chef Midgley which was a special treat since he only had one other person helping him in the minimalist deck “kitchen” (fridge/work counter/grill) that evening.

Waterfalls, Waterfalls

Before we left to drive home, we decided to visit a couple of waterfalls in the area. Now since we have a waterfall in our backyard (albeit one you have to hike to), we shouldn’t have been as excited about seeing these. But they were pretty and we basically had the place to ourselves. I’ll leave you with two photographs…

Until our next “Let’s Go” adventure.