Next day, time to say goodbye to Merinda. She was flying out
of ELM, so we had lunch at Market Street Brewing Company in
Corning. Surprisingly good burgers, which were cooked as
requested (mine bloody rare), with excellent sweet potato
fries or the signature MSBC fries, which are sort of thick-
cut potato chips but with some soft bits. The beers on
offer: a red (like Killian's); a lager (like Bud); a
blackberry lager, which Merinda and I both thought tasted
like butter pecan; a fairly hoppy but a bit too malty IPA;
dark ale (sort of partway between a nut brown and a stout);
Hefeweizen (I hate this kind of beer); and a decent brown
ale that was sort of English, sort of eh. After the sampler
I had a glass of IPA. Dropped Merinda off at the rather
modern (they've fixed up all the local airports, except
for IPT) Elmira-Corning facility, which boasts a surprising
number of flights, Corning being the third largest tourist
city in New York. Then back to Williamsport via the Friendly
Market, a Mennonite-run store that features beef from the
Circle K Ranch, supposedly Wagyu x Belgian Blue. It comes
frozen solid, so we came back with a bunch of beef bricks.
For dinner, Robbie made a superb risotto Milanese, and I
fairly expertly grilled some veal chops. Mushrooms in sour
cream and asparagus in brown butter completed the artery-
stopping meal, which Billy said was the best meal ever.
=
Saturday, Robbie came by bright and early to drag me to the
local farmers' market, where I had an eye-opener of a Misty
Mountain Farms burger - good beefy Angus meat, done from
frozen. I asked for a rare one, which came sort of medium.
It tasted pretty good, nothing special. I should have cooked
it myself.
We chatted with the locals, bought a few things, and then
back to Annie and Billy's for breakfast.
Breakfast.
Ted's sausage, which is tasty but somewhat underseasoned
to my taste and very, very lean, which I don't like. But
it seems to be the regional style - even the supermarket
sausages are lean.
Mountain View Farms is an Amish concern. I got excellent
sticky buns and rich, cheesy soured-cream butter there for
not too much money. Eggs, too, laid fresh this morning,
with bright yellow yolks and a lovely flavor. Also a pecan
pie, which amid all the other bounty got shunted aside,
so I never tasted it.
Bea's Sweet Treats offered chocolate sticky buns, which
I thought an unhappy compromise, being neither chocolaty
nor sticky enough, and a gooey black bottom cupcake made
with cream cheese (also not chocolaty enough).
=
Lunch for me was beer, including a couple Kiuchi Hitachino
Nest products, which are enjoying some vogue, why I don't
understand. A white ale was a citrusy Belgian-style brew,
which I don't favor even when made by Texans or Belgians.
Real Ginger Brew tasted similar, but with strong ginger
notes and weak urine notes.
=
A fried dinner. Annie had pulled out a 2.5 lb box of cleaned
squid from the freezer. She lamented that neither she nor
Robbie had been able to make decent fried squid; I allowed
as I hadn't succeeded in years, either, having forgot the
technique years before my brain had been sucked out of the
top of my head. We decided to try three ways, stopping when
we found success. Method I: cornstarch only; method II:
cornstarch and then tempura batter; method III; beaten egg
whites and then Panko. After a slight contretemps, in which
the Presto Fry Baby refused to come up to temperature,
triumph was had using a regular fry pan on the stove and the
cornstarch method. Yield: crisp tentacles and crisp-tender
rings in a fragile white flaky coating. Delicious. I held
out a pound of squid for the next day, as I thought 13 oz
of fried calamari a person a bit much.
I also made two-side pan-fried garlic noodles.
Some leftover sweet tater fries from MSBC, refried at a nice
350F, completed the picture. Annie said that this was the
best meal she'd ever had, and I pointed out that it was one
of the few meals where she had not been bugged about eating
her vegetables (of which, not counting the sweet fries,
there was none).