October 10, 2016 NYC to Woodstock

October 10, 2016 NYC to Woodstock 

We had breakfast at around 8:15.  The breakfast was lovely.  I had fresh scrambled eggs and sausage and a waffle iron which I used to make my own fresh waffle with a syrup dispenser.  The news on the it screen TV was all about the second debate.  After breakfast at around 9:15 we walked to the elevated Metro station and took the No 7 train into Manhattan to the Time Square Station and changed to the No. 1 to Penn Station. 

 We were assisted by a pan handler who showed us to the correct location to catch the train to Rhinegold.  She told us to be in line no later than 11:00 and best tear still 10:45.  We waited in the waiting room until 10:45 and when we got to the line it was already long.  Sober information was impeccable.

We train track hugged the edge of the Hudson most of the way to Rhinegold.  When we arrived Like showed up at the lovely stone station before we even returned from the bathrooms.  We drove over the bridge to the west side of the Hudson along 212 to Phoenicia to the Phoenicia Diner where western lunch.  Suzette and I had eaten our last sandwich on the train, so we're not terribly hungry.  We split a grilled trout platter with fresh grilled asparagus and fingerling potatoes and a crab cake  The trees are changing color now.  The oak trees’ leaves in particular change from green to a scarlet red.  The hillside was ablaze with color.  Since some trees had dropped some of their leaves I judged this to be close to the peak of the fall color.  Here are photos of the hillside across the highway from the Diner.

Luke ate a full breakfast of eggs, grits, toasted whole wheat bread, and our waitress gave him the last blueberry muffin on what had been a tray of them.  We also ordered an order of corn cakes,which turned out to be cooked in a more Mexican style, thick like spas, with kernels of corn in them and served with a jalapeño/cilantro dipping sauce.

We ordered two glasses of Kris Pinot Grigio that was very tasty and the entire bill was $58.00.  The Phoenicia Diner reminded me of the Central Diner in Albuquerque that gets high marks for ordinary dishes made with best ingredients cooked and served exceedingly well.

After lunch we stopped at two roadside markets.  The first one was run by what appeared to be Koreans and had lovely produce.  The two stand out items were baby Rosa eggplants and the other were husked ground cherries, both of which we bought.

We also bought red and yellow sweet Italian peppers and a French pumpkin that Suzette roasted at Luke’s house in anticipation of making pumpkin soup.

The second roadside market offered fresh pasta, so we bought a pound of fresh gnocchi.

Luke’s house is rather rustic and set on four acres of forested land, but very comfortable with all the modern conveniences.  

After we settled in and took an hour nap, Luke drove us to Woodstock, where we found a good wine shop where we bought two bottles of red Cotes du Rhone and a bottle of Rose from Provence.

It was dark when were returned to Luke’s at a bit after 7:30 and we started cooking dinner.  We decided to cook a vegetable medley with some of the peppers and the eggplants and serve that on top of the gnocchi.  I sliced four yellow and four red peppers, four cloves of garlic and ½ onion, which Suzette sautéed in an iron skillet.  I then de-stemmed the eggplants and sectioned the larger ones into bite sized pieces.  Luke had selected a bunch of kale and I de-stemmed the leaves and sectioned the leaves also.

Suzette boiled water and cooked the gnocchi while she added the eggplants and finally the kale to the vegetable sauté.  We opened a bottle of 2013 Le Deveze fromDomaine de Dionysos in Cote du Rhone, a pleasant blend of Grenache, Syrah, and Carignan grapes.  

We recalled the recipe for jiffy cobbler, 1 cup of flour, 2/3 cup milk, ½ cup of sugar, 3 tsp. of baking powder and ½ tsp. of salt, so I chopped up an apple and we husked the ground cherries, which are actually in the tomatillo family of plants, and made cobbler.

I added 1 chopped tomato to the vegetable dish and it turned out to be rather like a ratatouille without the zucchini.  We enjoyed dinner with the smooth tasting Cotes Du Rhone.

Then we tasted the cobbler but left most of it for dinner on Tuesday evening.  It was equally delicious and very cake like because of the use of whole wheat flour, so we will probably get some ice creamy or go with it.

After dinner Luke made a pot of hot tea that we enjoyed while we sat on his couch talking until 10:30, when we went to bed.