April 29, 2021 Brunch - Gracie’s on Main St., New Holland, PA. Dinner - Grilled Hamburgers and Hot Dogs with Pasta Salad and Sautéed Asparagus, mushrooms and onions.

April 29, 2021 Brunch - Gracie’s on Main St., New Holland, PA. Dinner - Grilled Hamburgers and Hot with Pasta Salad and Sautéed Asparagus, mushrooms and onions.

We had to shuttle Jean to work at 8:15 so we could drive her car because the van was in the shop again.

She drove us to Primative Patch in Lancaster and we met her bosses and saw her warehouse that she runs with antiques and junk stacked up 30 feet.  We bought several pots and hangers.

The most interesting photo of the trip so far was taken in Jean’s parking lot that is shared with two other businesses.  It was a truck that had the largest cross I have seen in a vehicle.  It reminded me of a penitente procession to the stations of the cross in motion all the time.  But I would still not go to the owner’s house to ask to borrow a cup of sugar for fear of being shot.

We then drove to Costco and shopped for food and equipment for the van.  

Then we drove to Walmart and bought several other items.

I had eaten only 1/2 orange and Suzette had eaten nothing all morning, so we drove to Gracie’s on Main St. in New Holland, PA. 

I am not sure how Suzette found it, but Gracie’s was a really nice combination of a restaurant and a bakery that had an extensive and fancy menu.  We were hungry so we ordered full breakfasts at $10.00 each.  Suzette ordered Chipped Dried Beef in cream gravy over home fries with two over easy eggs and coffee.

I ordered two eggs over easy witht a slice of scrapple, a slice of whole wheat bread, a slice of banana nut bread with cinnamon whipped butter and a small salad instead of home fries.  I also ordered a glass of fresh squeezed orange juice.

Gracie’s reminded me of Maribeth’s in New York that makes their own jams and specialty breads.  I tried the dark cherry preserves on the whole wheat and the strawberry basil jam on the banana walnut bread, which contained more walnuts than bananas. Both were delicious. I liked Gracie’s and would go back, but I found the scrapple a little too grainy, rather than meaty.

                 My eggs and Scrapple with whole wheat toast, banana bread, salad, and orange juice

                                       Suzette’s Creamed Chip Beef in gravy with two eggs 

 After lunch Suzette took me back to Jean’s and we unloaded all of the things we had bought.  I rested until 4:00 when the book club met. Suzette picked Jean up at 3:00 and returned home at 3:30, just in time to load the zoom meeting on her computer so I could use it to zoom.

Beginning at 4:00 I recorded the book club notes and ate a bowl of nuts while Suzette and Jean left for the auto repair facility to pick up the van.  

Unfortunately, they returned a bit later without the van.  In a complicated explanation that included an incompetent unsupervised mechanic, the vehicle was not fully repaired and still needed a steering mechanism and petal motor that would require another week to ten days to obtain the parts and repair.

So our trip plans went out the window.

In the midst of this Luke called to tell us he was buying a new truck and needed to go to Saratoga Springs to pick it up, so we started looking at places to stay and things to do in Saratoga Springs.  Suzette made some reservations for a massage for us at the bathhouse in Saratoga Springs for Monday afternoon and rented a car from Hertz, but most of our plans for the next week are still in limbo.

Forty five minutes after the book club meeting ended I meditated by zoom with my zen sitting group and afterwards felt great, so I walked around the block.  

The walk was lovely because there were so many lovely trees, bushes, and flowers in bloom. This is my favorite time to visit PA because this is the time when the dogwood trees bloom.  We are lucky that Mrs. Lindemuth’s birthday is at this time of year and not in the middle of winter.

Here are several photos I took of this amazing Spring foliage.

                                                                    A tulip tree?..

                                                        A dogwood just past its Max bloom

                                                              A lovely rhododendron 

                              A beautifully manicured yard with peak color

When I returned home I was able to access my accounts and determined that the day ended with a small gain thanks mainly to a $22.00 increase in Facebook shares, which took my portfolio to yet another all time high.

We decided to cook the two hamburgers and four all beef hot dogs left from the birthday party and Suzette adopted my suggestion of sautéing some of the mushrooms and asparagus we bought at Routs Market with some leftover minced onion from the party. Jean also put some of the leftover pasta salad out and grilled the hamburgers and hot dogs on the grill.  The sautéed fresh local asparagus and mushrooms were sensational.  Perhaps the best I have ever eaten in their buttery sauce.

Jean and I drank a Magner’s Apple Cider and Suzette drank a Corona and we enjoyed a quiet dinner.

After dinner Suzette and I ate a few chocolate nibs with cognac and I made an Earl Grey tea and Jean ate some chocolate ice cream for dessert.

We all went to bed at 10:00.

I awakened at 5:00 to blog.

It feels like the real adventure of this trip is just beginning as almost everything in the itinerary has gone out the window and we must invent a new itinerary for the next few days without the van on the fly.

Bon Appetit 

April 28, 2021 Brunch - Monkfish Omelet. Sara Lindemuth’s Birthday Party

April 28, 2021 Brunch - Monkfish Omelet. Sara Lindemuth’s Birthday Party 

I awakened at 8:00 and took a shower and dressed.

When I went downstairs things were underway for Jean and Suzette’s Mom’s Birthday.  Jean added dressing to the pasta salad to marinate more.

I suggested using the Monkfish cream sauce stew to make breakfast.  Jean wanted a bagel, but Suzette agreed to it.  So I melted some butter in a large skillet and added the monkfish stew in cream sauce with snow peas, and mushrooms. Soon there was a steady mist coming off the skillet as the sauce reduced.

After about ten minutes I added 4 eggs whisked and let the mixture cook until it stiffened.  I lay 4 slices of provolone cheese on the eggs and cooked it for several more minutes and then flipped 1/2 of it in pieces onto the other half.  The skillet was not seasoned and the omelet stuck so I had to scrape the bottom 1/2 off the skillet.  I was able to get most of the egg unstuck.  Here are some pictures.  The omelet was really delicious. Perhaps even more delicious than last night’s soupy fish stew. The reason we made the fish stew soupy was so the sauce could sauce the baked sweet potato that was served with the fish.

There are 5 Lindemuth siblings, Jeff, Suzette, Bill, Jean, and Don.

Bill arrived at around 11:00 and soon after Jeff and Don arrived.  Our first activity of the day was to assemble the propane grill while Suzette and Jean drove to fill the propane tank.

After the grill was assembled and hooked up we heated it to char the paint.

Then the tables were moved to the area near the grill and the hamburgers and hot dogs and broccoli, pasta and pot of beans Bill brought were placed on the table.

Don started grilling hamburgers and hot dogs and toasting buns.

Soon we were filling our plates and eating.  I had selected a 6 pack of Negra Modelo, a 6 pack of Magners apple cider, a 12 pack of Corona, a bottle of sangria, two bottles of Bolla Pinot Grigio and Bolla chianti, a bottle of Montepolicello di Abruzzo and a bottle of Josh Sauvignon Blanc.  We drank the three bottles of red, 1 1/2 bottles of white, the six Negra, the sangria, and several Coronas.

I enjoyed the hot dog better than the hamburger.  The hot dogs were Hippeys and the hamburgers were angus.

I sliced and filled two plates with tomatoes, onions and lettuce.

After we finished the meal we discovered that we did not have ice cream for the two cakes, so Jean went to the store and bought a container of vanilla and a container of chocolate.

I cut the cakes and served them.  One was carrot with a cream cheese icing and the other was a white cake with a raspberry filling and creamy icing. Both said Happy 95th Birthday.  Suzette tells me that Mrs. Lindemuth’s is proud that she is the same age as Elizabeth II.

We took a family photo before we cut the cakes.

I really enjoyed talking to Suzette’s brothers, who are all intelligent and charming.  I think it was brilliant of Jean to give us a team building exercise to put together the propane grill.  By working together, we developed a camaraderie.

We opened and served Gruet Extended Tirage pink champagne and toasted Mrs. Lindemuth.

Bill’s beans were prize winning he said.  A paper he submitted the recipe to awarded him a $100.00 reward.

Af about 4:00 Bev took Mrs. Lindemuth back to her apartment at the Masonic Village.  Jean told me that Mrs. Lindemuth has spent most of the last year isolated in her room. Only recently have they begun serving meals in the dining room.  On May 1 they will begin to be able to go outside the building for short walks.  I personally don’t know how she has made it through so well.

Soon everyone else left taking leftovers packed in containers and we settled in.

I took a nap and when I awakened I discovered that Apple and Facebook had good earning reports and were up in the aftermarket. It is hard to believe but, Facebook appears to be up $22.00 and Apple is up over $2.00 per share, which is a .77% increase on top of a slightly positive day to what will surely result in another record day for my portfolio tomorrow.

The van is still in the shop, but we hope it will be ready tomorrow and we can leave for Woodstock.

We only drank water after 4:00 to help digest our massive lunch.

Bon Appetit 

April 27, 2021 Brunch - Oyster Sandwich at Routs Market. Dinner - Monkfish, shallot, snow peas and mushrooms in a cream sauce with baked Sweet Potato

April 27, 2021 Brunch - Oyster Sandwich at Routs Market. Dinner - Monkfish, shallot, snow peas and mushrooms in a cream sauce with baked Sweet Potato

This was a very full day of activity.

It started early at 6:00 with a shower and a bagel with butter, fig jam, and slices of pimiento loaf and Havarti cheese.

We then drove the van to Keller Bros in Lititz for five mechanical repairs.

We got into Jean’s car and she drove us to Routs market, a large sprawling food and flea market.  For example, I met an African trader who lived in NYC who was selling carvings, beads and attractive beaded belly coverings, who said he used to have a shop in Woodstock.

We bought lots of food for the trip, sliced cheese, sweet salami, and Lebonan Bologna and three cheddar sausages for dinner.  Then we looked for vegetables.  Suzette found snow peas and sweet potatoes and I found shallots. 

We then each ate a two fried oyster sandwich and lemonades, after which we left and drove to Oregon Dairy, where we ate lunch yesterday, but today to buy food for Mrs. Lindemuth’s Birthday Party tomorrow, such as hamburgers and hotdogs and all the fixings plus fresh fresh monkfish, smoked white fish, and a number of items for the trip such as granola, whitefish, olive oil, butter, balsamic vinegar, toilet paper, etc.  It was 12:00.

We then drove home so Suzette could attend an on line seminar and I could nap. Suzette insured the van with her insurance company and received confirmation of its coverage. Jean and I made ham and cheese sandwiches, and then I lay down until 4:00. 

I checked the close of the market and saw that I had a minimal gain, which means the market is probably turning down.

At 4:30 we drove to a private title registration office to register the title in Suzette’s name. The process went really smoothly.  

We then drove to staples so Suzette could send tax returns to James, her accountant.  While Suzette completed her fax, Jean and I went to the Weis supermarket next door.

The Weis store had a complete beer and wine department, so we bought two bottles of Bolla Pinot Grigio, two bottles of Bolla chianti, a bottle of Montepolgino de Abruzzo, a bottle of Josh Sauvignon Blanc, a magnum of sangria mix, a six pack of Magners Irish apple cider, a six pack of Negra Modelo, and a 12 pack of Corona.  We also bought three lemons, three tomatoes, and a bunch of Italian broad leaf parsley.

When we returned home and put all the groceries away, then drove home and after a bit Suzette and I made the pasta salad and dinner.  I diced a lb. of pepperoni, a lb. of Provolone cheese, a can of black olives, and a generous handful of grape tomatoes while Suzette and Jean boiled pasta.

Jean and Suzette finished the pasta salad while I started dinner by mincing 1/2 shallot and cleaning the monk fish fillets, slicing five mushrooms, and mincing a handful of parsley.  Suzette put the sweet potatoes into the oven to bake and then de-stemmed the snow peas and made the poaching medium for the monk fish with butter, white wine, water, and added the fish, the snow peas, the mushrooms, and shallot.

After the sweet potatoes were done Suzette started the fish poaching.

Then Suzette made a roux with butter and flour and when the fish was fully cooked, poured the poaching liquid into the roux as Suzette stirred the sauce.  Suzette poured the rather thin sauce into the pot in which we poached the fish and I added thyme and we added a splash of half and half.  Suzette put a baked potato in each bowl and then ladled the fish stew over it. I tasted the Bolla Pinot Grigio and it was light, slightly sweet, but entirely drinkable, so I poured glasses of it for dinner.  

Every one loved the dish of fish, snow peas, and mushrooms in a light cream sauce and we each had a second helping.

After dinner Jean and Suzette went to bed and I stayed up and watched a episode of Morse with a tea, several chocolate nibs, and a cognac and then blogged this blog.

Bon Appetit

April 26, 2021 Lunch - Oregon Dairy. Dinner - Shrimp with rice and mixed vegetables

 April 26, 2021 Lunch - Oregon Dairy.   Dinner - Shrimp with rice and mixed vegetables

I toasted two slices of bagel and spread them with cream cheese and Concord grape jelly and garnished them with slices of Havarti cheese and ham.

We worked on the van and at noon drove it to Oregon Creamery on the Oregon Pike exit of Hwy. 222.

It includes a restaurant, an ice cream shop, and a grocery store.  We ate at the restaurant and I discovered later that we will go to the grocery store tomorrow to buy food for Mrs. Lindemuth’s birthday party on Wednesday.

Suzette ordered a bowl of tomato bisque.  Jean ordered a Reuben sandwich.  I ordered a dish I have never eaten before, Chicken croquettes With mashed potatoes with chicken gravy.  Suzette and Jean said chicken croquettes is a typically Pennsylvania Dutch dish.

I thought it was bland.  There were no herbs, only minced chicken rolled in a cracker coating and sautéed or deep fried and served on a bed of mashed potatoes covered with the chicken gravy.

The tomato soup was a little more spicy but overbearing with spice.

Jean’s Reuben sandwich was also amazingly bland.  The corned beef was rather bland and the dressing was thousand island, not Russian.  

What was interesting was the hot chocolate I ordered with my meal with infinite refills.  It was rich with real whipped cream, milk and chocolate, more milky than chocolatey, but very rich and delicious.

After lunch we drove to Masonic Village to visit Mrs. Lindemuth and then we visited Don and Bev in their new apartment behind the farm house on Main St. In downtown Elizabethtown.

Don and Bev had just returned from Visiting the George Dickel and Jack Daniels Distilleries and several other in Tennessee.

They set up a table with glasses and water to taste the whiskies and Bev served an amazing whiskey flavored truffle.  After seeing Don and Bev we drove back to Jean’s house in Ephata.

Jean planted petunias and geraniums while I rested.  At 6:30 when they talked about dinner I fell asleep on the couch and did not awaken until they called me to dinner at 8:30.

Suzette and Jean had cooked shrimp with a box of ricearoni.

It was surprisingly delicious.  I drank water and the girls drank Apoteck red blend.

We watched the Antiques Roadshow and the some of Rachel Maddow.

Suzette went to bed but I stayed up to blog and Jean watched some TV, including a new show for me named Debris.

At 11:00 I went to bed.

Tomorrow we take the van to the mechanic for further repairs at 7:00 a.m. so time to go to bed.

Eating and cooking on the road will be a challenge.  I wonder how it will go.  I suspect we will change to discreet meals without as many leftovers as we usually have.  I hope it will not be exclusively boxes of ricearoni.

Bon Appetit

April 24, 2021 Brunch - Bagels with Smoked White fish and Marty’s homemade gravad Lax, cream cheese, sliced onions, and Cantaloupe Afternoon snack at Brandywine junxion restaurant Dinner - Mongolian Hot Pot

April 24, 2021 Brunch - Bagels with Smoked White fish and Marty’s homemade gravad Lax, cream cheese, sliced onions, and Cantaloupe  Afternoon snack at Brandywine junxion restaurant   Dinner - Mongolian Hot Pot

We slept in this morning and did not eat brunch until 11:30.  We ate Bagels with Smoked White fish and Marty’s homemade gravad Lax, cream cheese, sliced onions, and Cantaloupe .  It was very traditional and very delicious.

Then we showered and dressed and at 1:00 Marty drove us on a tour of the area ending at the Delaware Art Museum, where they were members.

The Museum is a very modern building. There were only four of six galleries open but three of those four were amazing.  The first exhibited Early American art, such as a life portrait of George Washington by one of the Peele’s.

We then walked down and turned into a gallery with the largest collection of works by John Sloan in the world, plus several of the other seven Ashcan artists, such as Luks, Robert Henri, Glakens, and Bellows.

I was amazed.  Here are several of the paintings.

We then went upstairs and entered a three gallery complex with the largest collection of Pre-Raphaelite paintings in the U.S.  I started taking pictures and could not stop.  I had never seen so many amazing Pre-Raphaelite paintings in my life in one place.  Many were paintings I have studied in Art History classes.  Here are some of them.

After that we walked through a pan American Modernism gallery with a good Hopper and a cactus flower by Georgia O’Keefe and several paintings by members of the Wyeth family including a Henrietta Wyeth painting.

We walked outside to through the sculpture garden to the parking lot to the car and continued our driving tour of Delaware and the Chadds Ford and Brandywine area.  We stopped a Restaurant named Junxion at around near Kenneth Square and Brandywine for a bowl of mushroom soup.

We found out that the restaurant had changed hands and they were out of mushroom soup.  But we soon found out that the new owner’s boys harvested ramps or a form of wild garlic that grows in the area in the spring.  I is milder than the more pungent relatives we typically encounter and there were several items on the menu with ramps.  We ordered two slices of ramp quiche with salads, a cup of chai, and a bowl of minestrone.

We went on and on about ramps with the owner chef. Soon he brought us soft butter mixed with chopped ramps and a sautéed ramp and we bought what was left of the ramps in a box by the front door.

The soup was really good minestrone and the quiche were superb, although I am not sure I agree with his strategy regarding adding corn meal to eggs to give them body.

                                                       .     The Ramp butter

We then drove by the Wyeth Museum and along Brandywine creek, stopping at a fruit and vegetable stand where we bought a container of buttera and a jar of Blackberry fig jam.

We drove by the Montchain Resort and Crazy Cat restaurant where we stayed and ate ramps and fiddlehead ferns fifteen years ago when we visited Winterthur. 

We then drove back to the house and we sipped Zavala XO rum and 23 year old rum while Yoyo

                                                                     The hot pot

                                                    

                                     From left to right, Fish balls, Manila clams, and squid rings

                                                               The hot pot filled and cooking

                                                                  Chinese spinach 

Oyster mushrooms, lobster balls, shrimp, cabbage, yellow squash, tofu and chopped green onion, cilantro, and garlic

                                              The red and white stuff is thinly sliced fresh lamb

                                                 The sesame and peanut paste for the sauce.

Yoyo prepared a Mongolian hot pot dinner for us.

It featured a large metal pot divided in two by a partition in the middle and a multitude of meats and vegetables.  The assortment included, lobster and fish balls, Chinese spinach, tofu, thinly sliced lamb, Napa cabbage, oyster mushrooms, Manila clams, shrimp, squid rings fresh cabbage leaves, and yellow squash.  There were also bowls of fresh chopped green onions, cilantro, fresh garlic, and a bowl of a specially prepared sesame and peanut paste.

On both sides of the hot pot Yoyo added a mixture of chicken stock and water and on one side she added a chili spice mixture for hot pots.

Yoyo heated the broth to a boil on the stove an then put it on a butane brazier in the middle of the table.

She then started placing spoonfuls of the various ingredients in the boiling broth on both sides of the pot and then onto our napkin covered bowls beside our plates filled with a mixture of sesame and peanut sauce, fresh chopped cilantro, green onion, and garlic.

We drank beers to wash down the massive amounts of boiled meats and vegetables.  I loved the homemade mini fish cakes and Chinese spinach.  Some items were more flavorful when cooked in the red chili flavored broth, such as cabbage leaves and lobster balls.

After about twenty minutes we were all filled to the Max.

The girls retired and Marty and I stayed up and National 12:30 talking and  sipping Calvados and Zapada 23 year old rum.

This was the first time we have eaten an official Mongolian hot pot made for us by a real Mongolian and it was an impressive experience.

The thing I noticed is that the broth cooked foods did not weigh heavily on one’s stomach and I felt better the next morning than after a stir fried Chinese meal.

Bon Appetit 

April 23, 2021 trip to Philadelphia. Dinner with Yoyo and Marty

 April 23, 2021 trip to Philadelphia. Dinner with Yoyo and Marty

Yesterday was a bad food day. I added sausage to the previous day’s Miso Pho noodle soup and it overloaded my system with fat and I had a bout of diarrhea.

I recovered by dinner and enjoyed the PPI salmon and baked Casarecce macaroni for dinner with a bottle of Aquino Chianti with Willy joining us for dinner

I was happy to hear that Willy has a new project to establish the location for a new fire station with a maximum drive time of four minutes from an designated service area.

At sunset we went out to look at the garden.  Everything is responding really well to the spring growing season.  Here are several photos.

We awakened this morning at 4:00 to get ready and make our 7:00 flight for the first of three legs of our trip to Philadelphia to stay with YoYo and Marty. We first flew to Houston, then from Houston to Orlando, and finally from Orlando to Philadelphia.  With the lay overs it took from 7:00 a.m. 

Last night I made toasted 8 bagel slices and spread them with cream cheese, and garnished them with slices of red onion and Gravad lax.

This morning at 5:30 we drove to Willy’s and he rode with us to the airport and drove Suzette’s Highlander home after helping us unload the six suitcases we packed with equipment and bedding for the van and our clothes for the trip.

The airport looked like it used to look with a mob of people traveling.  We tried to find a quiet unpopular place to sit and waited for our 7:00 departure to Houston.  Suzette drank a coffee and I drank a chai.

We had a several hour wait for the 2:10 departure from Houston to Orlando so Suzette bought herself a Bloody Mary and me an apple cider and we ate several bagels for our lunch.  They were delicious, especially with the drinks. The flight to Orlando was over the Gulf of Mexico and there were many interesting cloud formations.  Here are photos of several.

We only had a 45 minute wait in Orlando and then at 6:00 we departed for Philadelphia.  The sun was setting as we flew to Philadelphia. Here is a photo.

The Philadelphia airport was a madhouse but we had no problems fetching the suitcases and with a bit of logistical maneuvering, we took them to the curb.  Marty picked us up at 8:45 right on time.

So it was a remarkably uneventful trip.  In fact I would say it was stoic.  No one moved in the airplane.  There was no drink or food service. Everyone tried to sit quietly and read or play computer games.

Suzette bought magazines in Orlando and I read the April book club book, The Burglar who traded Ted Williams.

Marty drove us to their home in South Wilmington. When we arrived YoYo had set the table with two Amish cheeses and slices of prosciutto and salami for a light snack.  Yoyo is an artist so we looked at some of Yoyo’s art, which I liked and then Marty opened a bottle of Chianti and served us glasses of red wine with a bowl of thick green bean soup studded with chunks of ham.  We loved it.

We talked until midnight and then went to bed in their guest bedroom.

We had completed the first big leg of our vacation almost effortlessly.

Bon Appetit