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Category: Food

Burlington, VT

Okay, Burlington People:

So I’m having trouble getting student coverage at work for the week of vacation. Because instead of starting the first week of September, this school has decided to start classes two days before I had my vacation planned (what do you mean it’s my fault for not checking since the academic calendar is posted three years ahead?). Erm… so I might be trimming my vacation a little.

Here’s the plan. I’m taking off work on Friday. And we are driving up as far as Connecticut and staying the night.

Saturday (9/12), we are driving to Burlington, and I’ll be checking into my swanky B&B. My parents and I will be going out somewhere delicious for dinner, if you have any recommendations and/or want to meet up then. I’m also taking sight seeing suggestions for that day. After dinner (say by 7-8pm-ish), my parents will probably turn into pumpkins, and I’ll be free.

Sunday (9/13) – Sunday brunch with parents is a must. Noon to 5pm, we’ll take a bus tour of close bits of Vermont. 5:30-10:30pm – there are various opening ceremonies and mediocre cocktails parties with the conference. I can go or skip.

Monday (9/14) – I think I want to find somewhere to do fancipants yoga on Monday morning. And my mother and I are free for an excursion. I’m thinking King Arthur Flour over in Norwich (1 hour away, if we don’t get lost). What else is out that way? Want to come with/guide us? And then we have to be back by 5pm because there’s a dinner cruise on the lake at 6pm. It’s my mother’s birthday.

Tuesday (9/15) – will I have had time to hang out with you by then? If so, I’m going to go ahead and book a 9am train back to philly. If not, I’ll spend Tuesday socializing and go home on Wednesday. Let me know so I can adjust train/hotel reservations as necessary.

Other things to do:
Shelburne Museum
Vermont Country Store
Aquarium

random weekend in the middle of the week – Pick Your Own

I had Jury Duty. Only I called the night before and was told they didn’t need me. So did I go to work like a responsible citizen? No! Of course not! I took today off work. Whee!

Plan a: wake up at 6:30am, get on the road by 7:15; get to a pick your own farm in New Jersey by 8am; pick stuff; drive to a pick your own farm in Pennsylvania; pick more stuff (they have late season strawberries!); have lunch with my parents; drive home; pick up two yoga classes that I usually am working during and have never tried these teachers.

How did that work?

Well, I got out of the house more like 8am. Still pretty darn perky.

Got to the PYO farm in New Jersey. I really like this place; it has a huge variety of things to pick. I started off with slips to pick blackberries and blueberries.

blackberries I love blackberries more than any other fruit-type thing. When I was little, we had blackberries growing in our backyard: tight, little fruits full of flavor. And I’m always a bit disappointed by these lush, overflowing things that have been selected as the ideal blackberry. Well, it looks like the breeding of grafting or whatever you need to do to make the big berries, isn’t 100% because I could find more compact berries on the same brambles as the juicier ones. \o/! So I went down a row and back up and had filled my two containers-worth of blackberries. (and then there was a moment of ick, when my feet, wet with the lingering dew of the humid summer morning, hit the sandy driveway… and there was unexpected sandiness of unpleasantness.)

blueberries I caught the trailing end of the blueberry crop, but I’ve always had a fondness for smaller berries, here, too. So it just took a bit more patience to pull a berry here and there until … well, the container wasn’t full, but I was done.

(side note: that’s twice now this week that I have seemed to be overheated without feeling hot at all. I’m a little worried by this development, but I figure summer won’t last too much longer and my body can figure out its issues if I give it time)

So I decided not to pick peaches or white grapes or anything else on offer, but I did buy some peach and nectarine seconds. (and, yes, a doughnut – they were making them on site)

And then I drove straight to my parents’. We went out for lunch. I suggested the little Mexican shack that had opening up fairly close to their place, but my mother said there was a place in town that was better… turned out to be Qdoba (WTF parents?). Apparently, they’ve started doing their regularly because it is right next to the social security office. (awww… old parents) But they were paying, so I only hassled them a little about it.

Gave them some blackberries and drove home and took a nap.

Dubious food – vintage caviar

So I got two small jars of cheap caviar from my mother (*cough*about 5 years ago*cough*) because she hadn’t gotten around to using them (*cough*for about 5 years before that*cough*).

Do you think it’s a fair experiment to open them up and poke at them a bit to see if they are okay?

Needless to say, if there is an expiration date on these, we are way past. But sometimes those are purely hypothetical.

(no, there’s no bulging. Yes, I know to abort the plan if there are funny smells (what is a funny smell when you are talking about fish eggs? Yes, I know to abort if there is a large growth of mold.)

ETA: received following comment;

And, okay, so the glass is dark, but they’ve been packed in water and salt…you know, I’m still saying you should dump them. Salt’s great and all, but if the eggs’ve been packed in it that long then I’m thinking the salt’s had time to dissolve, and regrow around and inside the eggs…either way you’re looking at inedible.

Removed jars from cardboard packaging and saw that one of them had definite green colors going on. Disposed of them, jars unopened.

productive but sleepy

I have been almost as productive as my ideal schedule of me! Wow.

I made it to karate both Monday and Wednesday (though I’m a bit hobbled by it still, and I’m glad I have a while between Wednesday and next Monday for my body to recover).

I made it to yoga Thursday night.

And I’ve cooked everything except the imam bayildi! So there was tasty beef & kohlrabi stir-fry last night, and I made a leftover quiche this morning. That’s what I’ll grab for dinner tonight! Quiche! In my fridge!

So tonight I am swapping fresh roma tomatoes for dried ones and grey yarn for tall storage jars.

Tomorrow, I shall offer up fresh regular tomatoes and fresh basil in exchange for buschetta. Also exchanging vanilla, parsley, and mint for other delicious foodstuffs and socializing.

Sunday, I shall receive ginger beer as an exchange for jam.

YAY food!

Oh, and I also did laundry this morning. Only one load, even though I had two loads’ worth of clothing because that was all I had in currency. But I got the stinky gi washed, and all of my underwear, and a few other things. And all of the mentionables are hanging out on the line to dry.

And I got to work by 9am. (so I had to catch a cab in order to be timely, but I was totally in on time)

I can haz nap nao?

So yoga at 5:30? Mmm… probably not.

update – food planning aborted due to pantry moths

So I punted on Tuesday’s dinner plans – hopefully the eggplants will still be okay by Sunday.

Did not acquire more free peaches in a rare act of prudence (even if they would have been free again, I just don’t have time to even cut them up and sugar them this week. Maybe next week)

Came home last night to realize that I had a few kitchen moths so I did a pantry purge. Luckily, I grew up with a mother who was terrified of having kitchen moths, so most of my moth-friendly staples are in the fridge (all of my flour and most of my rice). But since I am sans-internet at home these days, I got all of my moth information from Meghan and my mother, each of whom has only dealt with them once. So I threw out the spices I had in plastic bags from the indian market because they are kinda floury (curry powder, ground coriander, etc.) and no one knew for sure either way, though both guessed they’d be fine. It’s cool – they were getting old. And I threw out my baking soda (the baking powder is in a canister) and corn starch and the bag of corn meal I bought 5 years ago and only used 2 Tablespoons of. I threw out my opened, but tightly clipped, bags of legumes but I did not throw out the new bags, which I suppose are just as likely to be permeable and/or infested, but meh! I did not throw out the oatmeal in a sealed plastic container, nor the basmati rice in a screw-top plastic jug. I threw out the tail end of a box of rotini, but I did not throw out the open spaghetti or lasagne noodles. And, without opening it, I think I figured out that the one thing most likely to have moths in it was the canister of bread crumbs, which hasn’t been opened in 6 months or so. So is there anything I haven’t thrown out that you think I should? What about the string of dried chilies hanging from the ceiling? Ooh, and the internet says they eat candy – I guess I’d better polish off my two fancy chocolate bars tonight.