Dinner c/o Two Boots

I left Ohio early Monday morning with a destination other than Philly. I had a job interview possibility in Massachusetts so I was headed towards Martha's Vineyard, which was a pretty long haul. So long that I needed to find a place to break up my trip. I turned to my Facebook network for suggestions of a stopping point that might be economical as well as interesting, and M. the Baker suggested I stop in the Red Hook/Bard area and stay with him and my former photo history professor, L. After deducing that it wasn't totally out of my way, and thinking that it would be nice to see the both of them, I took M. and L. up on their offer. I arrived around 6 or so and, as I always do, felt waves of nostalgia and memory as I drove familiar roads and saw familiar landmarks from my college days. L. had an academic dinner commitment, so M. and I did dinner on our own at a place that hadn't existed when I was a student at Bard: Two Boots. In my day the building where Two Boots now resides, which is just across the road from one of Bard College's campus entrances, was a seafood/Italian type joint that I don't think many students ever checked out. I only went once with my mother and former roommate S. I think we at least considered eating lobster, though my memory fails me a bit when it comes to our exact meals. The thing I do remember about that evening was that I was in my full 'life is performance art, we are never real' stage of my life, which I tried to explain during that dinner. Meh. Anyways. We ordered the meatball sliders on garlic knots. The knots were tender and the meatballs decent. I think they were really three slices of the same meatball, as opposed to three mini ones. I think I may have commented to M. that a pretzel type breading would be an even more interesting choice for the dish. 

 We also shared the Cleopatra Jones pizza, which was a thin crust pizza with sweet Italian sausage, roasted peppers and onions and garlic, with a good smattering of mozzarella thrown in. Pretty good. I saw a few familiar faces and a few faces that seemed familiar but were, in fact, people whom I did not know.

After we finished up our meal, we returned to L. and M.'s house and talked about this and that. L. returned and we conversed for a bit as well. While I would have wanted to hang out a bit more, the plan for the next day involved my having to wake up and get out of the house by 6. Closer to 5 really. So to bed I went. It was lovely to have even such a brief visit in the area and with L. and M. They're good people. It's a beautiful and special place. I wish I could tell you that the treacherous drive through blinding snow in the Berkshires and the ferry ride to Martha's Vineyard resulted in a new direction for me, but alas it wasn't quite to be. If, however, you're reading this and you know of people in the cheesemaking game looking for motivated and passionate apprentices, please holler at me because that was basically what the gig would have been and I was very sad to miss out on it. After the ferry and interview and then another ferry back to the mainland, and then a shuttle to the parking lot, I got back on the road and headed south. It was a long drive, mostly taking place after the sun set. I conquered my fear of driving on the George Washington Bridge and tried a crappy chipotle chicken sandwich from Burger King and was home around midnight.