May 7, 2021 Lunch - On the Road. Dinner - Ossa in Chardon, Ohio

 May 7, 2021 Lunch - On the Road. Dinner - Ossa in Chardon, Ohio

Actually the best meal of the day was breakfast today.  I sliced a bagel into three slices and toasted them.  Then I spread each slice with cream cheese and then loaded the remaining 2/3  lb. of smoked whitefish onto the three slices.  I have never had so much whitefish on a bagel and Suzette said it was the best whitefish she had ever eaten.  So we were both delighted with breakfast.  I drank tea and Suzette drank coffee.

We left Jean’s house a few minutes after 9:00.  The trip to Chardon, Ohio the town with the dark sky observatory we wanted to visit was said to be 350 miles and a 5 1/2 hour drive, but in the rain and curving roads over hills and around and through mountains it turned into an 8 hour ordeal even though we thought we were going about 70 mph.

We ate a salami and cheese sandwich with potato chips and a beer inside our van in the rain at one of the travel stops on the Pennsylvania Turnpike, Route I-76. For the first meal in our van.

We finally arrived at the Air BNB a bit after 5:00 in Chandon, Ohio.  The rooms are very lovely and updated.  We were hungry, so we made a reservation at Ossa, that appeared to us to be the best restaurant in town that made its own charcuterie and had duck confit on the menu.

When we arrived the parking and the restaurant was full of cars and people.  The restaurant had an impressive wine list.  It even had fresh oysters on the menu, but we already knew what we wanted for dinner.  Suzette ordered Cassoulet and I order duck confit with sweet potato gnocchi tossed with pesto.

Suzette’s dish was the best, with chicken, duck, and home made sausage stewed with potatoes, carrots, and white beans.  She also played it safe with a glass of Italian Sangiovese wine.  I ordered a glass of Underwood Pinot noir from Oregon. It was smooth at first but became slightly bitter at the end of the meal.  The gnocchi was a disaster, hard as a hockey puck.  When the waitress came over the check on us and asked if we were enjoying the meal, i said, “I don’t like the gnocchi. “

She said, “Could I get you something else?”

I asked, “Do you have a green vegetable.”

She said, “Brussels sprouts or spinach are the chef’s vegetables of the day.”

I replied, “I would love the spinach.”

When it came, the spinach was delightful; lightly steamed and sautéed in olive oil and several thin slices of garlic, a la Mondo Italiano in Taos, my favorite preparation of spinach.”

I ate several bites of spinach combined with deliciously with the duck and became satisfied that the dinner was not a failure.

After dinner we received a favorable response from the waitress to our question, “Is the chocolate mousse good.” 

So we ordered one and miraculously, the Pinot noir went better with the mousse than with the duck.

After we finished dinner, we drove to the outdoor astronomy park and walked around some interesting exhibits including a mounded henge with four large megaliths made from concrete.

The sky was overcast so we could not see any stars, but it was interesting to see a public park devoted to astronomy?  

We then returned to the Air B&B at 8:00 and went to sleep after drinking a shot of VSOP cognac.

Bon Appetit