MR in coach, FT do, fall foliage
 

To solidify gold (why, I ask myself) on US and to save
20K miles on DL from going away:

US3706 BWI PHL 0905 0948 CRJ 9D
was 3305 BWI PHL 1150 1240 E70 2A

Phyllis at the club deemed it wise for me to get onto the
earlier flight, as Philly was fogged up, and I ought to get
as far on my journey as possible as early as possible. She
called to the gate just before 9, and when I trotted there,
the plane was mostly loaded up, but my boarding pass was
waiting for me. The plane was full except for the last two
rows and the exit row, so I slid into the exit row and sort
of snoozed. We took off half an hour late and landed half an
hour late. No biggie for me, as I had a 4 hour cushion now.

I'd had just a pint of Silk for dinner the night before, so
the hunger pangs sent me to the food court, where among the
uninspired offerings of a hot dog place, a Chick-Fil-A, a
Sbarro, and a sandwich shop, I found the equally uninspired
Asian Chao, which at least had stuff I could tolerate: had
the $7 special of lo mein (tasted okay but the noodles were
really pasty), bbq chicken (too sweet, too dry, too tough,
even though made out of thighs), and spicy Szechuan-style
pork (not spicy at all; this dish usually has abundant fatty
pork, which I like; the current version had a tiny amount of
lean pork and a large percentage of onions and various
colors of bell peppers, hotted up with a shake of black
pepper only). Did the trick, but I'm not sure I'd do it
again, especially as it doesn't serve beer. And as I found
the Independence Brew Pub just down the way, which has daily
early bird specials, viz. Yuengling for $3 a pint, Bloodys
for $4, and a hot dog and chips for $1.50. On this occasion
I settled for a mild but reasonably well hopped IPA at $3.50
a pint.

Checked at the concierge desk: not a chance on the upgrade,
so I was relegated to the wayback on a fairly long flight;
sigh, builds character, and I owe the universe one, having
just a few days before beaten a Chairman's out of his
upgrade for no apparent reason.

US 965 PHL SFO 1405 1706 321 7A

Took off pretty late, completely full plane, and my Benadryl
didn't kick in, and the full 321 wasn't about to make time
against the headwind, so I got the full coach experience.

The minicabin carved out of the lost first-class seats is
pretty cramped: 4 rows in the space of 3, one TV monitor. I
find it more objectionable than the similar cabin on the 757
(having been in each once). I managed to get a little
shuteye and watch part of a particularly inane movie, about
which I remember nothing.

The person behind me grabbed my seat and pulled often,
despite my having reclined two inches at most. Landed an
hour late, and with the BART its irregular self, I got to
Rockridge a bit after dinnertime. My host and hostess had
had something to tide them over but offered an assortment of
the sorts of snacks you'd expect former flower children to
have, sourced from places like Trader Joe's and World Market
and Whole Foods - Sobe beverages, hummus, that kind of junk.

Next morning I took my friend East Bay Fisher and his son
to that bastion of gastronomy on College Avenue, Barney's,
which offers, and of which we partook, various kinds of
burgers - mine the standard issue, rare, this being an 8-oz
football-shaped patty on a pretty good bun, your choice of
lettuce, onion, tomato on the side. Good dill pickle. Had
an order of curly fries (quite spicy!), at the urging of
the son; also a black cherry soda. Fisher, mindful of the
fact that I was paying, just had water; his son, mindful of
the fact that I was paying, had a big old coffee milkshake,
half of which went away in a go cup. The meat was quite
good, the fries pretty good, the available combinations
interesting. B+ to A- I'd say, not the top top, but very
respectable.

Watched a couple baseball games on Fisher's HDTV, and it was
time to head out for a mini-FT do. Francesco's is a scant
half mile from OAK (walkable, but, as one of the locals
pointed out, not with a bellyful of beer). We were arranged
in a row, with rch4u and lucky at the head, so we were sort
of split into an east and a west coast. The conversations
revolved, not surprisingly, around points and miles and
BBSers not present. lucky handed out sets of UA trading
cards, apparently originally from the famed Capt. Flanagan.
I was tempted to do a little guerrilla marketing and putting
a few of these into the Sky magazines on my next flights
with the notation "hey, kids, you get these when you fly
United."

Present: lucky9876coins; rch4u; Flyinryan; mahasamatman +
"I'm with him"; sy7; cepheid + Mrs. cepheid; me.

I ordered a Maker's Mark straight up, which came
suspiciously frothed and frosty-looking in a martini glass.
The waitress apologized, saying that this was what the
bartender had given her; I told her that I'd wait for this
to warm to room temperature, but meanwhile get me a Maker's
Mark straight up, which came straightaway and was good. As
my flight was 40 minutes before lucky and rch4u's, I ordered
the broiled petrale sole to come early, which it did, only
it was grilled, with the underside of one of the three
generous fillets kind of burned. As the two good fillets
constituted a decent meal (counting the side of spaghetti
Bolognese), I didn't complain (and in fact ate up the third
fillet because it was there). I then started working on the
warmed-up drink, but one sip told me that it was in fact a
Manhattan, not just a Bourbon shaken with ice. Sent it back
for another Maker's Mark. During this negotiation and the
wait caused by a no doubt pissy bartender, everyone else's
food came and was devoured, and the party broke up around
quarter to, so Flyinryan took lucky and rch4u as well as me
over to the airport: I got my boarding pass (zone 6 - this
itinerary was to solidify US Gold and to prevent about 20000
Delta miles from dying, 5 segments, 2 transcons for the
price of anyone else's one way Washington to Albany - okay,
fifty bucks more than Southwest, but I'd gladly pay the
premium not to fly Southwest), hustled in 2 mins through
security, and heard my flight announced in the distance.

violist,

You ate Chinese food at the airport? :confused:
Boy! You are brave. :p

If and when we ever share a steak and some wine again, we'll start it off with Makers Mark. :o

Brt 2008? :d

Very nice report, it was a pleasure meeting you in Oakland!:)^

Another great violist trip and food report ^

dhammer: I've been diagnosed pre-diabetic:eek:, so courage wasn't
much of a factor. Should of course have checked the bar for
snacks first, of course.

beau: I'm too elderly to understand what you're saying?! Can
you expand?

lucky: ditto for you and rch4u and the others I met for the
first time at Francesco's.

w2f: I wanted to get a Burlingame run in this season, but it didn't
want to work out. Next season for sure!

What work2fly said! ^
Can't wait for the next installment of the ever-popular "Violist goes to SIN" series!! :D
Best, Dave

violist trip report
 

What! No Singha!
Sorry, that will have to wait for Bseller and the rest in Sin.
Great report M.

on to Albany
 

DL1236 OAK ATL 2235 0600 757 33A

As I was in zone 6 there was a 20 wait for boarding anyway;
I discovered that, as rch4u had surmised, that this was one
of the refurbed 757s with in-seat video, with old movies,
a couple fairly current selections, games ($5 extra), TV
shows (Iron Chef, anyone? How about The Discovery Channel?),
and Airshow on demand. I snoozed anyhow with the Airshow on.
All I noticed was that one of the flight attendants, wearing
a pink "force for good" t-shirt, was particularly grumpy,
and the others, although professional, weren't nice enough
to undo her bad impression. I cared little, though. I
thought of asking for a $5 Woodford Reserve or perhaps one
of the frou-frou cocktails they advertise, but luckily I
nodded off early enough that that was not necessary.

We landed a bit early, so I tried to schmooze my way onto
the earlier Cincy flight or maybe the direct Albany; at the
gate, the agent told me almost apologetically that standby
was not allowed any more, but if I went to Customer Service
I might get the $50 fee waived for a confirmed seat. Trotted
over there to find a foul-mouthed agent who refused nastily.

Red Carpet Club time. Read my e-mail (nothing of consequence
I'm glad to say) and read a couple magazines in the tiny
room before going back into the bowels of the ugly Atlanta
airport for my flight.

DL 716 ATL CVG 0840 1006 738 23A

This time I was in zone 9, and when I finally lined up to
board, there were still people sitting waiting! so I guess
there must be at least 10 zones on Delta.

A fairly insignificant hour flight, most of which I slept
through. I did notice that this crew was fairly agreeable.

We landed a bit early, so I went to Gold Star for brekkers.
A two-way and a root beer a la carte turns out to have cost
me as much as a five-way, drink, and garlic bread on the
package deal. The chili is watery and a bit bland (not
enough cinnamon, enough allspice, too much clove, no heat);
the spaghetti was not al dente but, surprisingly for 10 am,
still okay. Skyline is better, which is saying something
as I don't care for Skyline.

Took the bus out to the commuter terminal and hooked up
at the free wi-fi center. Our flight loaded 20 late and
took off quite a bit after that.

DL5387 CVG ALB 1055 1242 CRJ 10D

Very friendly service from the Comair flight attendant,
who looked sort of like Rachael Ray without makeup, which
is not a good thing (though not frightening, either, the
way the real ArrArr might be). Biscoffs. Landed 30-odd late.

The Albany airport is apparently hard to get to by auto,
the signs somehow defective; I had a message from Carol
saying she would be there by the time I was out front,
followed by another saying that she had been shunted onto
the Thruway and was running out of gas. We hooked up an
hour later, during which time I toured the airport a
while and basked in the lack of sun a while.

Off in the toy 'vertible through the just-starting fall
colors (what th'? all the forecasts were saying we'd enjoy
peak) to the Vermont Country Store (she insisted), where we
oohed and ahed at the silly knickknacks and ugly clothing
and tasted an assortment of cheeses, dips, sausage, jams,
and relishes. The most notable items were a Vermont
Caerphilly that tasted halfway between the real thing and
a Yankee Candle, and some excellent caramel corn puffs,
which Carol didn't want me to buy as they wouldn't be good
for either of us. Also some sausages from Vermont Smoke
and Cure, or Smoke and Mirrors, or something, which the
gourmet publications just kvell over, but which I found
maybe a tad above average. Hey, how come does the Vermont
Country Store sell wasabi peanuts and mango-habanero salsa?
Just wondering. We picked up a few tchotchkes and pointed
ourselves north and hotelward. Still dubious foliage.

It was just darkening, but we were pretty hungry, by the
time we spotted Rosie's, just south of Middlebury. It looks
and smells like a Cracker Barrel, but we figured we'd stay
if they served drinks.

We both had the nice malty Otter Creek Octoberfest; Carol
stopped at half a beer, as we still had a half-hour drive
up; I finished hers and had a Long Trail Ale, which was
nicer than I'd remembered. The special of the day was rib
roast; I ordered my "queen cut 12 oz" rare; it was pretty
decent beef, tasty and tender, but medium-rare on one end
to medium on the other. Garlic mashed were kind of watery,
and I gave them to Carol, whose roast pork sandwich was
a surprise: it was very tender pulled pork leg in a semi-
nice gravy over apple stuffing and pallid white bread, quite
good, except that the bread was inedible unless one soaked
it in gravy. Pumpkin cobbler was pretty good as well.

Quite dark when we left, and only good guessing on my part
and fast reflexes on hers got us to our destination, the
Basin Harbor Club on Lake Champlain outside Vergennes. When
we arrived, we found they'd upgraded us from a regular room:
we got the wing of a cottage, consisting of a very large
living/bedroom with two double beds and a nice bathroom and
vanity room. Very comfy. And, as we discovered the next
morning, a pretty screened porch with a slightly tree-
compromised view of the lake.

I'm looking forward to a comparison test of the merits of pitchers of
lion vs. tiger. Have you got your tix yet?

P.S. Has anyone heard from mjm lately?

P.P.S. Danny, your bus thingy tends to happen at times when I have
concerts. Maybe this year will be different.

YES.
Unfortunately, no - but, IIRC, one of the reasons that Gene was planning to do the SIN run organizing this year was as a result of (perhaps work?) related committments that Mike had.

Best, Dave

Violist,

mjm will be in my possession between 2130 Friday and 0730 Saturday morning. He'll be resting up in the dhammer first suite (or shall I say pullout). :D

At the breakfast buffet ($16+++, included in our rate), I
had Dakin bacon (very smoky), maple pork sausage (very
flabby), hash (ordinary, but I think that they sprinkle a
little maple sugar on it and brown that), and grapefruit
juice. Carol had a soggy-looking eggs Benedict and a few
other things. Service was attentive but had rough edges.

The lodge itself is warm and inviting and a comfy place to
hang out, if you want to hang out. But for us it was time
to shop. Especially as it was gray and windy and not good
for the Lake Champlain cruise that we'd been scheduled for.

Off to the Kennedy Brothers Outlet Store in Vergennes,
where there were plenty of local crafts and syrup and that
sort of thing. I zoned out rapidly. Luckily, Dakin Farms
was just a couple miles up, with numerous jams, jellies,
spreads, and chutneys on tasting (nothing jumped out at
me), as well as sharp Cheddar (pretty good, probably
Cabot), smoked Cheddar (pretty good, probably Cabot but
smoked on premises) plain and with onion (gooey and nasty;
Carol liked it and bought some), with bacon (okay), or
with sausage (okay minus). Also an array of sausages, of
which the pepperoni was kind of nice and the various
summer sausages okay. I picked up some garlic sticks
(regular and maple) and a pound of slab bacon.

What the hey, just a few miles more, and it's almost on
the way, to Magic Hat, where we sampled

Single Chain - an extremely light but fairly tasty brew,
rather like a better quality light beer;

#9 - your famed apricot-scented ale;

Fat Angel - thick and brown, quite pleasant though low
in bitterness;

Jinx - coffee, molasses, rich maltiness but with a ryelike
aftertaste and thus too cereally for me;

Circus Boy hefe - plasticky, nutmeggy, not horrid, but
I never liked this style except in the dead of summer;

Orlio organic ale - very mild, low bitterness;

Thumbsucker - weird, chemically nose, acidy on the
palate; not bad, just strange;

Roxyrolles - heavy body, sweetish, good hops; and

Big Wheat - this was in fact very big and strange - an
experimental batch, we were told.

Rolled out of there with a growler of F.A., with the
promise from the guy behind the bar that it would last
two days in the car trunk and a week after that.

I had waxed nostalgic about the Ben and Jerry tour, but
as I read the literature I discovered that the tour,
formerly free, now costs $3 - and as I have difficulty
eating $3 of ice cream, tour or no, we decided to give
up on that and see what was north on rte 100 ... there
was the Cabot Creamery Annex (a silly tourist trap if
I ever heard of one) and then the Cold Hollow Cider Mill,
which was a definite go. More tastes, of which I found
the pumpkin butter relatively delightful and the rest
of the jams and jellies kind of ehh. But they were
giving samples of cider down at the cider house, where
you could see the stuff being made in the semi-modern
way that they do. Excellent quaff, and we had a couple
cups each before buying a dozen cider doughnuts (pretty
good, nothing particularly notable despite their being
touted by Gourmet magazine in 2000 as one of the five
great doughnuts in the country) to taste and to bring
back for a buddy who is a cider doughnut fiend.

Across the parking lot is the Grand View Winery tasting
room, so how could one resist? Turns out that to discourage
freeloaders the tastings are a buck or two, for which one
gets a tablespoon or so of half a dozen things. Not really
worth it, especially as the wines are pretty nasty.

A hard cider was okay, not much of that old shoe quality,
which the pourer mistakenly attributed to Woodchuck's using
frozen apples from China. It was fresh-tasting, nothing
special, but probably the best thing on offer.

Pear wine tasted like sweetened nail polish. Bleurgh.

Next was a Seyval made from Finger Lakes grapes - it was
pleasantly neutral and probably one of the least disgusting
Seyvals I've had.

A raspberry-apple wine was appropriately raspberryish, and
a strawberry-rhubarb wine appropriately strawberryish, both
more like melted Jell-O than wine, though.

Finally, we tried a tart, strange-tasting cranberry wine:
started with a peculiar petroleum distillates nose and
foretaste, smoothing out to sour cranberries later.
Extraordinarily weird, and the pourer claimed 1. that it was
a mistake, the company having ordered cherry juice and been
given cranberry juice and 2. that it had become the winery's
best selling item.

In an odd brain fart, I picked up a bottle of the blueberry
wine just because it was blue (and not very blue at that).
It wasn't on the tasting list or even the availability list,
but there were a few bottles tucked in a corner. It was
meant as a gift for our hosts down the road, but we forgot
it in the trunk, so it went back with us.

Down scenic rte 100, the colors just beginning to turn,
to the wooden bowl factory in Granville, which to me was a
bit of a disappointment except that, as with most of these
manufactured tourist attractions, it had a restroom.
Carol picked up a bowl made out of sugar maple, the notable
feature being that it had a taphole. I didn't particularly
see the point. She said it was cute.

Down scenic rte 125 to Middlebury and back to the Club's
Main Dining Room, which sadly housed only about 6 couples
for dinner. It was after the weekend, of course, so that
might have been to be expected, but I wondered if it was
also chef's night off. In retrospect I think it wasn't.

We started with the very clean Graham Beck rose sparkling
wine (South Africa), which the server cheekily said she
would serve us only because she liked it so much; it was
pleasantly berrylike, good balance, fairly neutral.

Carol started with cod cakes with microgreens (cilantro,
baby beet among them), which were quite good; in a reversal,
I had a salad: fennel, treviso, and prosciutto, nicely
presented, the ham slice fashioned into a cone holding the
lemoned fennel, two big leaves of treviso (a long variety
of radicchio) sticking out like bunny ears.

Carol's main course was the chef's special - a tower of,
top to bottom, shiitake, grilled tofu, sliced cucumbers,
and sushi rice, surrounded with the seaweed salad that you
get for free in Japanese restaurants. I laughed at her for
getting it. She said it was delicious. I laughed at her for
saying it was delicious and refused a taste of it. She said
it was so delicious it must have crack in it or something.
I continued to laugh at her and again refused a taste of it.

My Pacific cod with bacon and corn chowder, ordered rare,
echoed a squab with bacon and corn chowder that I'd once had
at Masa's in San Francisco. An excellent dish, the bacon
probably that same Dakin stuff from breakfast, the corn
probably also local. It was served with three fat spears of
al dente asparagus, probably not local.

With all my food I stuck with the Tiefenbrunner Pinot Gris,
which was as expected, pleasantly citrusy and refreshing;
Carol stuck with the bubbly, and everyone was happy.

Desserts didn't particularly appeal, so I just had a glass
of Sandeman Founder's Reserve Porto, which I've grown
accustomed to (in the same way as I've grown accustomed
to Courvoisier VSOP from having it served on the airline);
Carol had a Keoke coffee (one of those frou-frou drinks),
which she pronounced also delicious. A pleasant surprise,
the dining room food, and it probably clinched our resolve
to return to this place some day (that and the screened
porch of the cottage).

Dan, have Mike give me an e-mail when convenient.

It's good to see him out and about again.

I was trying (and failing) to suggest you come to dan's BRT in '08 and have a makers with the other attendees :)

Otter Creek, Long Trail
 

Next day, breakfast for me started off the same (pork
products and hash), but I decided to try the pastry cook's
work - a pretty okay mini sticky bun, a quite good raised
doughnut, and a nasty bear claw, of which I ate only part
- it was horrendously sweet but spoiled-tasting at the same
time; couldn't figure that out: probably made to use up
sour milk.

The guys at the next table were talking about the Culinary
Olympics; one of them was telling stories of working with
Henry Haller, back in the day, another discussing how to get
a whole batterie de cuisine into a box that would fit under
the airplane seat in front of you. Perked my ears up.

Carol had her heart set on the Vermont Soap Factory and
Museum and convinced me that I could drown my boredom at the
brewery down the street. Well. Both are north of Middlebury
on Exchange Street, which misnomerously is an ugly little
industrial road that goes through an ugly little industrial
park. The soap factory is in a big corrugated building,
quite ugly, but what the hey, they make soap, and Carol is
happy with her soap. I deigned to sit there and guard her
purse while she snuffled all the soapy scents: she ended up
spending less than $20 there, yay. And we both got to go to

Otter Creek, where we tasted several things out of wax paper
cups (the girl pourer apologized: their dishwasher was on
the fritz) -

White Sail - less objectionable than many, a mostly natural
set of tastes, coriander and citrus, quite light; I'd drink
one if it was free and it was over 99F outside;

Copper ale - yeasty, rich Altbier style, something that I've
had periodically over the years and have gotten sozzled on
more than once: I actually like the bottled version better
than this one;

Wolaver's Farmhouse - another rich brown ale, a bit too
overtly malty for my preference, but pretty respectable;

IPA - a little mild, innocuous;

and Stout, which was kind of average, maybe less stout than
usual, but with a nice creamy head.

Though growlers of the Copper were on sale for $4.50, we
left empty-handed.

Back down rte 7 to Rutland and rte 4 (quite scenic, but it
was interesting in a bad way to see that most of the inns
and restaurants along it are closed and for sale) and across
to Long Trail, where we tasted

Blackbeary [sic] wheat - pleasant if you like that sort of
soda-poppy thing, which I don't except under certain rare
circumstances;

Hefeweizen - smelly and nasty; neither of us cared for
this, and in fact it was the only one that Carol didn't
like; turns out it goes okay with popcorn (provided),
whose butyric acid masks the off-tastes of the beer;

Harvest brown - a low-hop pleasant but uncomplicated
beverage;

the regular ale - an old friend, easily quaffable, but
not so characterful as the Otter Creek Copper;

Doublebag - very brown, very bitter, like the ale, but,
as one can guess, twice as rich and twice as bitter;

and a moderately bitter IPA, which Carol liked enough
to get a whole Vermont pint of.

There's an Imperial Porter that isn't available for
tasting but available for drinking, so I had one -
rich and smooth, very coffee molasses, just what you
would expect except for a zing of sour at the finish.

We had our lunch here - my burger rare topped with Cabot
aged Cheddar was quite good; for $1.50 extra I substituted
onion rings for fries; these were hugely abundant and
very tasty but a little on the greasy side. Carol had the
Angus cheesesteak, shaved tough greasy meat with the same
Cabot cheese. For the same $1.50 she substituted a cup of
Cheddar beer soup. She asked the waitress if she could
substitute a bowl for an additional dollar (the differential
between cup and bowl on the regular menu), and the waitress
said no, but she would just give her a bowl and say it was a
cup. Deal. Actually, not such a great deal, because the soup
was so rich and salty that in order to finish it, Carol had
to sacrifice much of the crusty hoagie roll (healthier and
better) that her sandwich had come on.

The main purpose, other than the scenery, of Carol's trip
was a visit to the King Arthur factory store, another half
hour up, just north of White River.

I thought it was nasty, one step either up or down from an
outlet mall, and I don't know why people make these silly
pilgrimages anyhow.

It's an octagonal or so building that holds quantities of
most of the things available on the Website, with silly
names like Pompanoosuc Porridge, and with bread machines
cranking out reconstituted bread machine mixes and stuff.
I tried the popover, pretty average, and the potato bread,
below average. Didn't bother with the Vermont sourdough
or any of the other breads. I'm not really that much of
a starch guy.

We got out pretty quickly, with only a small handful of
things for Carol and another small handful of things for
her friends, which is good, as we'd whiled away extra at
Long Trail. So we hot-footed it down 91 to Connecticut
instead of doing the leisurely rte 5 thing as we'd planned.

Beau, sorry, but I don't speak text-message-ese. I have in fact
never held a Blackberry in my hand. (And my favorite movie studio
(as with Ronald Reagan) is 19th Century Fox ...);)

hahahahaha that made me laugh out loud (LOL in text message-ese)
Do yourself a favor and never pick up a Crackberry, my dad (57 years old) did once and he's hooked. If he can get into newfangled technology, anyone can.

Hopefully you can in fact make the BRT 2008 :)

Michael, I could be convinced to cut out the Starbucks stop (don't mention this to mjm,) and stop at a wine bar with you, and U, and me. ;)

Got to our buddy Dave's at dinnertime. His wife wasn't back
yet, having had to work late to get the payroll out or
something. So we noshed on appetizers, the first three on
this list made by Dave, the others synthesized in a factory:

Clam cakes, a southern New England tradition, escape me,
probably because even if they are good ones, as these were,
with a sizable population of clam bits, they are still
essentially just hush puppies. I had one and part of another
and sent the rest of it down to Zim the pit bull to fulfill
its God-given purpose.

Dave made a good thin clam chowder (whitish, as all real
clam chowders are) to go with - a traditional pairing.

He'd smoked some Russian-style bacon, with the rib bones
still attached, taking a cue from some of the delicious
charcuterie at the Russian deli in West Springfield. Good
job - I'd have thought this had come from there, except
that it wasn't quite as salty as the authentic stuff.

We had found blue razz Fizzies at the Vermont Country Store:
a pack of 8 tablets for $4. Highway robbery, and the resulting
chokerage tastes like slightly berrylike Alka-Seltzer. I tried
doctoring mine with Midori, which if anything made it worse.

I just had to try the Dakin garlic sticks and maple garlic
sticks; these were grossly overfatted and quite limp. The
garlic stick was your ordinary sausage, only you had to scrape
a fair percentage off the roof of your mouth; the maple kind
was similar but heavily mapled, the resulting flavor so strong
you'd swear it was artificial if you didn't know otherwise.

Luckily the missus came back so we could have real dinner.

Which was t-bone steak. Mine was a beautiful blue rare; hers,
though cooked at least five minutes more than mine, was not
done enough for her, so back it went. Their daughter, not
fancying steak, made a vegetable stir-fry with hoisin for
her dinner, and Carol made do with more clam cakes and
chowder. Dave, professing lack of hunger, just had bites
of things.

Dave had bailed his brother in law out of a computer crisis,
so that gentleman had presented him with one of his favorite
wines, the Geyser Peak Block Collection Kuimelis Vineyard 97
Cabernet (Alexander Valley). I was honored to be able to
partake of this. Inauspicious beginning, with a crumbly rotten
cork and a sour scent emanating from the bottle. On pouring,
the structure of the wine showed, with still good legs and a
thick almost black appearance. On the palate, harsh and acid
with some burned raisin. After sitting out a while, though,
it tamed down nicely, and we sipped a still gutsy rather
astringent typical Cab, with plum and cassis (the raisiny
aspect taking a back seat), some stems and a touch of green,
and notes of tobacco, chocolate, and mint. Turned out well.

We finished off with a bottle of Kweichow Moutai 53%,
one of my father's more recent gifts to me (though quite a
while back). We could take but one small shot each -
it's not so much the strength of the alcohol but the nastiness
of the congeners. Boy, that stuff could take paint off your
wall for sure.

Dan, I'd love to attend the Bee Arr Tee if I'm free and to
raise a glass or three of Maker's Mark with you and Beau
(speaking of which, your dad isn't substantially older than
I am - are you sure you're old enough to drink?;)).

What's the date
For 2008?

I'd finally managed to get my messages - no cell service up
in Vermont - and there was an urgent message from the night
before to call the doctor. So I called and received the
news that my father had died early that morning. There was
not much that an extra half day or day would do, so we
decided to continue driving down as planned, just not to
dawdle a whole lot. Thinking back, he had asked me to hug
him goodbye (something unheard of in a very non-touchy-feely
family) before I left on this trip.

After a soft billet for the night, we were out of there at
9:30. My original thought was to take the Merritt, but I
mused that last time it wasn't so nice a drive as it'd been
when I was a kid, so the path of least resistance was 84 to
684 to 287, or so I recalled. Unfortunately, we missed the
684 sign, so instead of a quick freeway ride, we crossed
over at Newburgh and took the surprisingly scenic 9W down
the river. In any case, our destination was Piermont, a
waterside community of new affluence and moderate charm but
now well known as a minor culinary destination. We got there
20 minutes later than we would have had we found our turn.
Xaviar's, the local mecca, was closed for lunch (apparently
serves lunch only Friday and Sunday), but the place next
door, the equally touted but less formal Freelance Cafe
and Wine Bar, was open. Both are operated by that X-prodigy
Peter X. Kelly, who once conquered Kitchen Stadium (what a
lode of horsecrap is that) and sent Bobby Flay fleeing with
his tail between his legs.

Estival (Vinedo de los Vientos, Uruguay) looked interesting,
so I ordered it. It was pleasantly full-bodied, a tad off
dry, somewhat floral but not overtly so, with muted citrus
and stone fruit. Certainly not a Chard, nor a Rhine variety.
Viognier? Never had one like it. I couldn't figure it out
and had to look it up - it's 60 Gewurz, 30 Chard, and a tiny
bit of Moscato.

Carol had the smoked trout and horseradish salad with
celeriac julienne - good but not stellar, the presentation
more interesting than the dish itself. A pair of fried dough
things as the base, then the celery root (good), then the
fish - rather too thick pieces I thought, a little fibrous,
but at least not oversmoked. Drool around the plate. The
whole was not more than the sum of the parts.

She then chose a daily special, pasta alla chitarra with
shrimp, scallops, swordfish, spinach, and lobster sauce.

I ordered just the "moules marinieres with vermouth & pommes
frites" and a Yuengling, asking the waitress if that would
be enough for lunch. She opined that it was definitely an
appetizer, "but a large appetizer." As it appeared that we'd
be a low-ticket table, her level of interest in us declined
at that point, which is fine, as I prefer slightly cool to
overheated. It turned out a largish serving of not what I'd
expected at all, as there was nothing mariniere about the
preparation. It was a bowlful of mussels steamed in cream
with a big pile of allumettes blopped on top. I ate most
of the fries first, then the mussels (delicious), then the
cream sauce (delicious too, but the wine was on the fugitive
side), then the few potatoes that had fallen into the sauce
and plumped up like a weird kind of pasta.

At this point I flagged the waitress and changed our order.
I told her to split the special and put in another order (to
split) of a main course off the regular menu, Montauk fluke
with lump crabmeat and green onion risotto. She danced away
and Carol noticed her gesturing in a chopping way at some
unknown person in the distance.

A couple minutes later, the pasta came out. It was perfect,
just the right size, al dente, a generous serving of seafood
atop each of the splits. The shrimp were good; the scallops
were very good, tender and sweet (Carol, who is sensitive to
grit, got a little, though); but the chunks of swordfish,
two each, a tad under an ounce each, were sublime - tender,
rich, and hugely flavorful. The sauce reminded me of lobster
bisque, which it perhaps was, as the bisque is on the menu.
Some wilted spinach here and there and a few bits of tomato
did no harm to the dish.

As soon as we were done with that, the fluke came out, two
4-oz fillets bedded with a jumbo number of jumbo crab lumps
and a little bit of almost perfect (I got a seed or two)
risotto nestled down by the bottom. Quite wonderful, and a
generous serving.

The wine went nicely with everything except the trout, which
would have been tough to match with anything but Champagne.

Another special of the day was an "individual Callebaut
chocolate cake," which I figured was one of those molten
things: it was. In order to underscore the bitterness of
the bitter chocolate, there was minimal sugar in the dish,
fine with me, but there was also a considerable amount of
salt, which was a little jarring. A scoop of pistachio ice
cream on the side (also a balancing act of salty nuts and
sweet ice cream) provided a dialogue.

Slight contretemps when I pulled my Visa card out: they
don't take Visa, just AmEx, and I had just the one credit
card with me. Thank heaven for mad money, I told the
waitress, pulling out a traveler's check.

Mr. Kelly was there - I saw some guy on my way to the
restroom: he looked rather like a tired and dissipated young
Kevin Symons. The loud lady down the way confirmed this was
he, telling her table that she'd seen him talking to some
woman (the nerve of him) in the closed restaurant next door.

After that quick 150-minute lunch, it was back southward:
Palisades Parkway, Jersey Pike, and 301 to the Bay Bridge.

Somehow, we found ourselves at dinnertime in the vicinity of
a place Carol had wanted to show me - Lisa's Small Plates
and Wine Bar, in an ugly strip mall beside rte 50 just
before the bridge. She and her friend Eden had eaten there
not long ago on their way back from the beach, and I'd heard
much (mostly good, all amusing) about the place.

When we were seated, Carol asked about the specials, which
on this night, Ladies' Night, were $3 Martini drinks
(Cosmos, real or fancy Martinis, apparently anything in
that shape glass) and $3-a-glass house wine.

I ordered calamari with Thai dipping sauce, which turned out
to be a dish of slightly oily fried rings with the usual
thick sweet-hot vinegar sauce; decent, would have been
better if fried in hotter oil.

Carol countered with oyster sliders, one apiece for $7 -
a bit of hoagie bread, lettuce, tomato, and a big oyster,
also fried in not-quite-hot-enough oil; on the side
remoulade (decent), cocktail sauce (didn't try), and
something that was between Essence and Old Bay.

My duck breast on apple-cranberry chutney came rare as
ordered, plopped atop a bed of not-too-sweet, fairly tart,
not spicy at all fruit sauce: a nice dish even at $11 for
one breast half and no sides.

Chicken pot pie was definite comfort food, mildly seasoned,
the chicken and veggies in tiny tender bits, appropriately
gummable, the pastry also tender. Not my thing, but I guess
good for what it was.

We tried all the house wines but two (the Nathanson Creek
Sauvignon Blanc and the Modifier Noun Cabernet did not
seem to appeal).

Sycamore Lane Pinot Grigio was a totally neutral wine: one
could drink lots of this lemon water and not get buzzed and
perhaps not remember that one had been drinking at all. As
such, it washed down the food nicely but did nothing else.

I asked for the Sutter Home Moscato (yes, that Sutter Home).
The waitress asked if I was familiar with Moscato. I said,
yes, why? She said, some people find it a bit sweet. I said,
put it this way, what would you drink with fried calamari
with Thai dipping sauce? She said, point taken.

With the duck, the Leaping Horse Merlot was surprisingly
decent, with not only the expected massive amount of fruit
but a bit of tannin and structure as well.

Redwood Creek Chardonnay was lightly oaked, a little off
dry, and good with the chicken pot pie (neither of which
I ordered).

Desserts didn't call our name, so I asked for two glasses of
white Port.

Churchill was only a little sweet, quite acid, maybe a tad
corky. Searingly hot, and when I said it had a caramel
aspect, Carol said no, butterscotch, because of the alcohol.
Also white pepper, raisin stems, other harsh things.

Rozes was quite a contrast: unctuously sweet, very smooth,
no alcoholic kick. Flowers and fruits as opposed to spices,
and here was real caramel (we agreed). It was also crystal
clear, while the Churchill was rather turbid.

Halfway through our investigations, the waitress complicated
things by coming back with another glass - she said that
they'd found another bottle of Churchill in the back and had
tasted both, and they thought that the first one they'd
brought had gone off, so here was another. It was very
similar except that it was smoother and not so boozy - we
thought that the first one tasted like the second with a
tot of raw brandy added.

Turns out the specials for Ladies' Night are good only for
Ladies (duh!), and we were charged full boat ($6) for my
glasses of house wine. Not a great tragedy, except that
that brought the price of Sutter Home to $24 a bottle, a
bit much considering that the stuff retails for $5.

From there it was a mere hop, skip, and jump across the
Bay Bridge and home with the top down.

LOL (you do know what that means, right? :p)
I'm old enough to drink, yes sir, but you did just age yourself considerably!

As for the meal description..wow. My mouth is watering, awesome job, I admire your eloquence.