November 16, 2019 Lunch – Miller’s Smorgasbord. Dinner – Fettuccine with Mushrooms and onions.

November 16, 2019 Lunch – Miller’s Smorgasbord. Dinner – Fettuccine with Mushrooms and onions.

We woke, dressed, I ate some yogurt and tropical fruit salad and we drove to Jean’s house in Ephrada..  We talked for a while and drank tea and shared the lox sandwich.  Then around noon we drove to Miller’s smorgasbord and dropped off Don’s truck and jean drove us to Strasburg to a couple of antique stores.  I almost bought a picture postcard of the Alamo from the 20’s but hit was $2.00.

At 1:00 we drove back to Miller’s and met the Lindemuths, Sara, Don, Jeff, Bill, Jean, and Suzette plus Bev and me.

We took a table in the cavernous restaurant that probably had 300 seats.  The food was arranged in a double square one contained all the cold and hot appetizers and entrees  and the other the desserts.

I ate until I could eat no more.  I had a few bites of corn and chicken soup first and then ate a plate of salad.  They served Caesar salad with that ubiquitous and wonderful dressing. Plus I ate some turkey salad in a cream dressing with red grapes and a seafood salad with processed pollack that is called imitation crab salad.  I then took two fried chicken thighs with some sautéed .kale and sweet and sour red cabbage. Everyone took fried chicken, which was excellent. I then tried to eat Boeuf Bourguignon with mashed potatoes and green peas with Swedish meatballs and could not finish them.  After a rest I took a slice of warm Shoofly pie and chocolate pecan pie with a cup of tea for dessert.  I ate the pecan and Suzette ate the piece of shoofly pie.

We said goodbye to everyone and drove back to Jean’s house by way of the Liquor store in Ephrada  where Jean bought us a bottle of 2015 Cecchi Chianti Classico that had been marked down from $16.99 to $10.99.  On the way home I had the best experience of the day.  I saw a rut on the right side of the road that wound through the rural farms of Lancaster County, the heart of Amish country.  So the rut was the path on the right side of the road that the Amish carriages horses made as they trotted along the side of the road.  Here are a couple of pictures.

When we returned around 3:00 I napped on the couch until 6:00.  Then I watched football and at 7:00 we prepared dinner.  I chopped ¼ onion, four cloves of garlic, and ½  bunch of asparagus and Jean snapped two dozen snow peas and cut them in half.   Also chopped about 2 T. of hot Italian peppers stuffed with a bi of prosciutto, a fresh mozzarella ball and four types of mushrooms. Lancaster county is very near Kenneth Square, Pa.

Kennett Square is a borough in Chester County, Pennsylvania, United States. It is known as the Mushroom Capital of the World because mushroom farming in the region produces over a million pounds of mushrooms a year, totaling half of the United States mushroom crop.

That is why we bought beautiful white mushrooms for $2.00/lb. and Suzette found the more exotic mushrooms in Lancaster, oyster, shitake, and a small frilly one, and a clump of brown one we had not seen before.  So this meal was really about mushrooms as much as anything else.  Here is a picture of the exotic ones.

I had bought two types of fresh pasta for $6.00, fettuccine and basil/garlic.  We decided to boil the fettuccine, because Jean is not a  garlic lover and we already had four cloves of garlic in the dish.

Suzette sautéed the onion and garlic in butter and olive oil, then added the asparagus, peppers, prosciutto, and snow peas, and finally the mushrooms.

She brought a pot of water to a boil and cooked a bag of fresh pasta, which was probably 1 lb.

I poured glasses of the Chianti and when the pasta was cooked to al dente, she added it and a bit of pasta water to the sautéed skillet and mixed everything together.  She then filled three of Jean’s Noritake flat soup bowls.  I chopped about ½ cup of broad leaf parsley and we sprinkled parsley and grated fresh Parmigiana cheese on top of the pasta.

We had a lovely fresh meal.  Fresh pasta is a more alive food than the rehydrated dry pasta, just like wine is a fresh food.

What a treat to have a fresh dish with our favorite vegetables and five different types of fresh mushrooms.

The 2015 Cecchi Chianti Classico was excellent .

The game of the day was Oklahoma v. Baylor, number 10 v. No. 13.

Baylor built a 28 to 3 lead by half time and in the second half Oklahoma clawed back with its bigger, stronger faster squad to win 34 to 31.

A great day of family, food and football.

Bon Appetit