Eggs Chizmar c/o Bolete

The next day I had to do some work, but got up early enough to do most of it before M&A even awoke. This worked out perfectly, as M. suggested we go to Bolete for brunch. Though I'm out in that general area rather frequently, I am most often alone, and so generally do not go out to eat, which means that the last time I enjoyed Bolete's cuisine was pretty much the last time I saw M&A. So it had been a while, and even longer since S. took me, A. and H. out to brunch back in 2011. The brunch menu was slightly different, but I was pretty much drawn to what I enjoyed that last brunch time: Eggs Chizmar, which features crisp oysters, mushrooms, bacon, mizuna, house-made buttermilk biscuits, chive, and hollandaise sauce. I also ordered a Bloody Mary, which I had forgotten I was rather indifferent about the last time I ordered it. It remained stiff as far as alcohol content, but was a little thin in terms of actual texture and spiciness. I like me a little more horseradish.

While the beverage wasn't a big happy-making success, the eggs held up better. My plate was basically clean - minus the stray potato - by meal's end. The oysters hold up well, even when their crispiness is lessened by the eggs, mushrooms and sauce that are piled on top of them. I'd definitely recommend this dish if you're into Eggs Benedict but what to fancy them up a bit.

A lovely meal with lovely folks. Though I would say that Bolete is better, on the whole, for dinner and not brunch. 

Bucks County Roasted Chicken Dinner

As in years past, I had the opportunity to watch over Mr. Ass's parents' dogs a few weeks back while the collective family traveled south to celebrate the 90+ birthday of their matriarch. I drove up the evening before so I would be properly ensconced to start taking care of the two Jack Russells' breakfast and morning medications, and that meant I got to enjoy the company of the Mr. Ass clan, as well as his lady friend P. Mr. Ass' mother made a lovely roasted chicken dish with prunes and olives, which went quite well with a helping of cous cous and salad.

A lovely dinner with good company. Glad always to catch up, especially in such a wonderful kitchen. I really covet that kitchen.

Fall Mini-Scenes

Among the sprawling conversations L. and I had, there was a bit of fierce debate about the number of times she has joined me in the country. My memory was two, both with Fatty. Hers was three, the first time without him. The blog was surprisingly unhelpful in this regard, at least in part because if there was a first visit sans Fat T. there was no photographic evidence of it. So I really meant to take at least one good photo of L. while she was around. The perfect time to do so would have been when we took a lovely fall walk. Unfortunately I took literally two photographs, both of which were totally not working in terms of focus or composition, and I'm simply not going to post them. The point is that I SWEAR L. was in fact around for this weekend. God. And if I'm lying I'm the person who makes up a friend to eat cheese and tacos with. I am not that person but I can only hope you understand that to be true.

While no photos of L. or me are available, we did see some pretty things on our walk.

UGH. HOW DARE YOU BE SO PRETTY?! At one point we were walking kind of in rhythm, and the sound of our feet sloughing through the fallen leaves was so loud that we could barely carry on a conversation because of the racket. Nature can be quiet, but not always!

The Glory of a Good Field

The last two weekends I've driven up to the country. I keep thinking fall is over, but perhaps it hasn't even begun? I guess I see these photographs of Autumn in Vermont or wherever and I expect all the leaves to turn at exactly the same time. My own country experience certainly was highlighted by a number of beautiful trees, but also trees with no leaves whatsoever. Nature is not quite as tidy as I might like or assume, though it does mean that on multiple visits I was able to appreciate some golden and red and yellow leaves pretty much no matter where I looked. The first weekend was really warm. High 60s/low 70s warm. And sunny. This led me to really take advantage of the opportunity to walk and be outside without a jacket.

This is my friend the groundhog. Did you know groundhogs can climb trees? They can! I saw it! With my eyes!

So I generally haul myself out to this field with my picnic blanket (actually a cloth shower curtain but perfect as a picnic blanket), my camera, a book and maybe a soda and just sit there for as long as I can. The duration is sometimes determined by how long my Kindle lasts. Or how long the sun stays in full effect (it does get a little chilly if the sun is blocked by clouds). Getting hungry also has a detrimental impact on my ability to sit in a field for hours and hours. But on this particular day it was a perfect storm of bright sun, full belly and charged Kindle. I also lugged a tripod with me in order to prove to the world that I sit in pretty places and do very little. This was me deciding that running away from the self-timed camera would be a good idea.

And this is what I usually look like. One could say it's a reenactment, except I was really reading. To the right you'll see my glass bottle of Cheerwine. I've been reading a fair amount lately, a mix of high and low. Though I think on this particular day it was more low.

Just good old fashioned lovely times.

Frittata, Walkabout and Catan

The next morning I was very excited to make a frittata for CPM and R. I beat about eight eggs with a bit of half and half, sauteed mushrooms and green peppers, and then put the eggs in a big skillet before adding the mushrooms, peppers, goat brie, tomatoes and smoked salmon. The result was quite delightful in my humble opinion.

After breakfast we took a bit of a woods and field walk.

Brutus was pleased about it.

This is just pretty.

Obligatory 'I have friends sometimes' shot.

We then played two additional games of Catan before CPM and R. headed out. I was quite happy to have the company and get to spend some time with them all. I am such a sucker for simply sitting around, reading books, playing games and cooking for people. It's basically all I want to do, and that is why I often think the best option for me would be to run a B&B somewhere wonderful. Of course I have also realized that most B&Bs don't actually make money so there's that small problem, but a girl can dream can't she? Yes. Yes she can.

Dog love.

Lunch c/o Ernie's Texas Lunch and Trip to Mr. Ed's Elephant Museum and Candy Emporium

Now I usually wouldn't rush and do so many posts back to back to back, but the truth of the matter is I'm about to embark on a vacation, and I know that I'm going to go overboard with photographic evidence of it, so I'm hoping to prevent total backlog that would lead to my blogging about the vacation three months after it happened. There is some wisdom in this approach, though I also have a 5 AM cab to take, so it may be a mixed outcome for me. In any case. The next morning we all did our own thing for breakfast (I went and tried a new place on the square, but the bagel I had there was so forgettable that I'm not even bothering). I would also generally photoshop these a little for color correction, but again I feel like it's better to power through this trip at this point (it was three weeks ago I think). Ernie's is closed on Sundays, and Monday was going to be a holiday, so in order to get enough Ernie's time in, we returned for lunch on Saturday. We also met up with our cousins F. and N., who have always been very nice folks. I don't know them as well as my mother or my uncle do, but they've never been anything but friendly. It's strange because everyone's getting older, and it's just weird to see. It's weird to see the fact that I have white hairs, and that I'm not 21 and K.'s not 24/5, and that our parents and elders aren't pushing 60 as much as past 70. It's weird. In any case. It was a bit more busy on a Saturday afternoon. The big table in the back and quite a few booths were taken up with Gettysburg College kids who had the look of recuperating from long previous nights. The place has been renovated since I was a kid; brighter red colors and whiter walls, but the basic layout hasn't changed a whit. I asked everyone if they remembered the older woman who used to sit at the last stool in the back, who I swear always seemed a bit in her cups. No one did. This either means I was a very observant kid (possible) or I made it up (also possible).

I thought I'd try something new. Ernie's does what it does and it's not too crazy about new things, so the variety of the menu is pretty limited. I went with a fried chicken sandwich. A step above McDonalds fare, but generally speaking if you go to Ernies, stick with the hot dogs and fries.

A., K.'s bf, ordered fries with gravy. We took up three booths between us all. I ended up sitting with A. the bf, M. the cousin and K. the younger cousin. The kids, of course, rotated a bit. I think A. the kid also spent some time with us as well. Once the food was pretty much eaten, but F. and N. and my uncle were still gabbing, I thought that K. the kid might be less restless if I played a doodle game I remember playing with my mother on plane rides. Basically she'd start a drawing of a face or an animal and then I got to finish it up. I'll need to find the Instagram (@carikuber) photo I took of some of the interesting and creative choices K. made. He seemed to think I always had an idea of what I thought it would look like finished (I didn't) but one particularly inspired image was of a 'three bottomed ghost' as in he had three derriers. I got a kick out of that.

I had gotten pretty excited about the possibility of taking at least some of the kids to the Land of Little Horses. Basically I have all these memories of things I enjoyed, or things that stayed with me in a non-traumatic way, that I'd like to share with family children. Perhaps one day I'll have kids of my own, but that is by no means a certainty, so the opportunity to potentially be the curator of their Gettysburg memories, even just a little bit, was appealing. Plus, whatever, I wanted to see miniature horses and buy a handful of feed for 50 cents and give it to them. I mentioned this desire to the kids' respective parents, and they thought that at least the older kids might dig it. And so that had been a tentative plan...especially because most of the adults wanted to go see the Gettsyburg College basketball game, which truthfully I wasn't as keen on doing. But alas. The horse place doesn't open until it's warmer and my back up non-basketball activity was an Elephant Museum/Candy Emporium and though I may not have kids of my own, I know that bringing kids to a place with crap tons of candy is, like, a totally bad idea and would only lead to sorrow for everyone involved. So, after lunch, we went our separate ways yet again. You know, I'm beginning to think we didn't walk to Ernie's on Friday, that it was Saturday that we walked. In any case, I did make the slight drive out of town west towards Chambersburg, to check out Mr. Ed's Elephant Museum. I only even knew the place existed because of our 2008 summer reunion, during which my father had quite the heart health scare and ended up in the Chambersburg hospital. I drove back and forth between the two towns a few times, and passed the museum each and was certainly curious. It's definitely something. A strange roadside attraction with a certain history and illusion of grandeur that I'm not sure is entirely unwarranted, but isn't quite warranted either. It seems that this collection of elephant knick knacks used to be quite a bit larger, but a few years back there was a terrible fire and a good chunk of the collection was destroyed. When you first walk in, it's a good sized room full of candy, but if you snake your way past the fill your own pixie stick dispenser you'll get to a long and narrow hallway lined with plexiglassed shelves just loaded up with elephants of all kinds. Some look like beautiful little trinkets, other cracker jack box toys from any number of decades. It's sensory overload in a way. So much is crammed on each shelf it's hard to really see any of it.

In addition to the many, many shelves of candy, they also have a fudge case of house-made fudge. You can get 8 different kinds for $13, which I did....but then forgot to document because sometimes I am an idiot.

Outside they also had a strange amalgamation of statues around the main building. It's right off the road so it's one part magical and one part just weird...hard to get lost in the magic when cars are racing by. It had snowed just a little over night, and while in Gettysburg there wasn't much of a trace left by mid-afternoon, the drive west included some rather beautiful vistas of snow covered hills and valleys. Adams County, PA is a kind of weird area, the little I know of it, but not without its charms and beauty...and very strange BYO strip joints (but we don't need to get into that).

Obviously.

Imagine my face there.

Elephant looking over a fish pond. I wondered how the fish didn't freeze.

And on the way west I saw this strange thing and decided on the way back it was worth pulling over on the side of the road to document because....what the hell?

And there you have it.

Hot Dogs and Fries c/o Ernie's Texas Lunch

Once I had eaten, I checked into the same hotel our family has predominantly stayed in ever since Helen's house was sold. This hotel, Quality Inn at General Lee's Headquarters (known by us and for all time as "Larson's"), holds almost as many memories at Helen's house. Even after her death, we'd still manage to meet up there about once a year, usually around Christmas. For a while now we haven't really done Christmas in Gettysburg, which is fine by me - it's COLD, but we still manage to get together about once a year or so. My mother's brother, Uncle E., could certainly be described as a creature of habit...which I think he very much gets from his father. And if you've been a long-time reader of this blog, you will not be surprised by the meals we enjoyed over the next few days. In any case. First I checked in. Then I went to the Appalachian Brewing Company restaurant, which is part of the hotel, and enjoyed myself a delicious stout while waiting for the rest of the folks to come in. Seriously good beer. If you have the chance, definitely check their line of beers out. Soon enough K. and A. and M. and A. and K. and I. all appeared and those of us of age enjoyed beers and a quick catch-up before further regrouping. Then we walked to Ernie's Texas Lunch, which like pretty much everything else in Gettysburg is steeped in my mother's family memories and lore. When my grandfather attended Gettysburg College, he ate there. When my mother and uncle were growing up and they'd visit the Fairfield relatives, they'd eat there. When my uncle went to Gettysburg College, he ate there. When my cousins and I were growing up and meeting up, well...you know...we ate there. And since I returned to the lower east coast after grad school, that tradition has most certainly continued. It was not terribly warm or pleasant, but given our diet for the next 48 hours, a walk did us all good. Little I. was not so keen on walking.

The kids didn't skip a beat once we were inside, lining themselves up at the counter while we took over the large table in the back, which for so so so many generations has had my family members gathered around it.

Fries on this day were hot but could have been a little crispier. You'll note that pretty much everyone not under the age of 12 chose lager for their beverage.

I have learned that I don't really love the full nine yards Texas dog, which comes with chili and heaps of onions. So I got two dogs just with mustard. Still nicely cooked. I think the slightly charred skin is my favorite part.

The staff is really nice, both front of house and back of house. One of the cooks came out and first asked the adults if it was ok to give the kids lollipops, and once given the 'ok' kindly doled them out. I. was quite pleased with hers.

And then I'm not sure exactly what this was about. But she's got pretty cool kicks.

And K. wanted me to take a photograph of this because he was 'a bridge' and he most certainly was. When K.-the OC (original cousin, there are a lot of abbreviated names starting with the same letters) and I were little (and, really, even in the last five years) we enjoyed jumping back and forth from bed to bed in the hotel's rooms. Now with this new generation of actual young people, we are most certainly bad influences...I didn't take any photographs of it, but all four kids, K. and I all jumped vigorously on the beds while the 'grown ups' were still on their way back.

And then, as we have done for as long as I can remember, we gathered around a table and played some cards. Hearts first for the older set, then UNO with the younger. Though I hadn't played hearts in some time, I did quite well. Actually, I think I did better than I ever did when I played it a lot back in the Chicago/France days.

Family Memories and Meh Mexican (Mehxican)

The weekend before last I took a day off and made my way southwest to Gettysburg for a weekend-long rendezvous with my Ohio relatives. I knew I was going to get there before they did, so I first took a small detour to Fairfield, which is about 10 miles outside of the 'burg, and is also where my grandfather and his sisters (and a brother? I can't remember if he was the only boy) grew up. The family has long returned to the town. As a kid, I remember countless drives from the D.C. area with my mother, where we would meet up with our Ohio brethren at my great-aunt Helen's house. Helen was a school teacher and never married, and her house was a general meeting place for numerous holiday gatherings. We rarely spent Christmas-proper there, but always celebrated the holiday at some point. I have so many memories from those days; flashes of the rooms, furniture, knick knacks, wallpaper, piano, refrigerator magnets, unsafe back porch, grassy back sidewalk, clothes hanger, neighbor boxer dog, tiddly winks, armchairs. And the town itself was/is so small that as kids my cousin and I were allowed to walk around it with no supervision. I most vividly remember walking the two or three blocks to the local grocery store every time I was there to buy MAD magazine and gum - two things I never purchased at home. On another occasion, shortly after reading Harriet the Spy, I wandered down the main drag and up and around the few small alleys, taking notes on the various houses and looking for potential ways to get inside the houses...never did get inside, which is definitely for the best. When Helen ultimately had to be moved to an assisted living facility, the house and its belongings were sold. Actually, the things were auctioned off, so many of our family members went to the auction to get a few especially meaningful items (why we couldn't have simply taken them before the auction isn't clear to me). My mother got one of the two bed frames from the back room, where my cousin K, me and often my grandmother too would all sleep (the house may look a good size from the outside, but with three bedrooms needing to serve at least 8 people, things could get cramped. The mattress on that bed had a very pronounced dip in the middle, which I loved. That frame, with new mattress (to my chagrin) became my bed for the remainder of my years at home, and is now in the guest bedroom in Tennessee. I expect that whenever I have a more proper home I might try to mooch it. Mom also got an antique clock that sits in the dining area of the Tennessee house. All to say, this house has a lot of memories and feelings attached to it. So when I went to Fairfield, I first went to the cemetery where we spread some of Mom's ashes (by Helen's and other family members' graves) to just say hello to everyone - figuratively speaking. Then I became a super mccreepster, parking across the street from the house and taking photos. Driving around its block to see how things stayed the same or changed. Things have changed a little for sure, but this front view is exactly what we'd see when we drove up.

After the requisite amount of nostalgic thinking, I made my way back to Gettysburg. I hadn't eaten and wasn't sure exactly when our family meal would happen, so I stopped at a Mexican joint and tried their food. Guacamole was ok, but rather bland.

I ordered a quesadilla/enchilada/burrito combo, which was also lacking in any particularly marvelous or specific taste other than 'white people Mexican food.' I'm not bothering telling you where this was because I'm not recommending it.

NYC Salmon and Bagel; Icy Woods Walk

The next morning those of us without gluten allergies enjoyed toasted everything bagels (from NYC of course) along with the salmon pastrami that I asked L. to pick up from Shelsky's, as well as some of their horseradish cream cheese. Honestly the cream cheese could have been more horse radishy and the salmon wasn't quite as delicious as I remembered it from the crazy bagel I had a while back. Though perhaps they didn't entirely live up to my expectations, I won't say that I was actually unhappy. I was very happy.

After breakfast and laying about for a bit, we took another walk adventure in the now snow covered woods.

We had an especially good time breaking ice, of which there were a few different sets. Here you'll see Fatty holding on to a tree while investigating this particular ice pool.

Here you will see me truly thinking that I was about to be eaten by the ice (it was hard to sense how deep it would be once we broke through, so it was a little scary for a second). Poor L. didn't have very warm shoes/socks and even though she was wearing galoshes they weren't 100% water proof.

Ice. Ice. Baby.

Stop. Collaborate and listen. This ice is going to glisten.

My hat in a new configuration.

A lovely morning and afternoon. I was very sad to see the two of them leave shortly after our walk but I was very glad that they had been able to make it at all.