August 9, 2025 Breakfast - Sushi and yogurt with blueberries. Lunch - Whisk at Masonic Suzette’s 50th High School Reunion

 August 9, 2025 Breakfast - Sushi and yogurt with blueberries. Lunch - Whisk at Masonic Suzette’s 50th High School Reunion

I slept unbelievably wonderfully on the trundle bed st Don and Bev’s for at least 8 hours. 

When I got up we showered and  dressed and I ate 3 pieces of sushi and then a little later a cup of yogurt with some fresh blueberries.

Then we drove to Masonic and walked about 2000 steps around the gardens and through the interesting assortment of trees, mostly pines and cedars.

Then we drove to the Health Center to visit Suzette’s mother, Sara.  We wheeled her out onto the enclosed porch next to her day room and enjoyed the warm sunshine on our legs for about an hour.  

At 11:50 when lunch was served we left and drove up the hill to the Masonic Farm Market, where we bought three steaks, a bottle of watermelon rind, a pint of donut white peaches and a rhubarb plant for Jean’s yard.

We then drove to the Whisk Restaurant at the entrance to Masonic property at noon

It is a beautiful newly remodeled farm to table restaurant in what was the laundry building and very crowded.

We sat inside and Suzette ordered a Tuscan Grilled tomato salad and I ordered a Reuben Sandwich with a bowl of greens with an apple cider vinegar dressing.  Suzette also ordered a mimosa. The food was clean and delicious. Completely better than Lucky Duck.  Lucky Duck was a bar and restaurant of the 50’s vintage with heavy wood paneling, while Whisk was of the newer 20th century with lots of skylights and glass. Whisk was crowded and Lucky Duck was not, so it looks like E town has moved toward a more urbane taste in its dining.

I usually do not order a Reuben but I thought it would be interesting to see how a food to table restaurant handles that dish and I was hungry, and I was a little tired of salad, and had not eaten one in ages, especially one made with corn beef.  Suzette, still enamored with the fresh produce wanted salad that featured grill fresh tomatoes.

We shared and enjoyed both Suzette’s was 675 cal. and my 3/4 Reuben was 775 cal.

After lunch we returned to Don and Bev’s Bev had gone to a class. We got dressed for the 50th Reunion party and packed and then Don showed us the extensive basement.

At 2:30 we drove to the party at an event center at a former farm that now raises chickens also.

The large barn has been converted into two floors and a balcony of open space. There was a raffle and a silent auction of donated items.

We bought $10.00 of raffle tickets that Suzette put in raffle boxes to no avail but I bid $100 dollars for a lovely quilt that I won.

We bought beers and wine. The beer was to help digest the Reuben sandwich and the wine was for dinner. Suzette found additional wine as she mixed freely among the 146 classmates. And spouses and friends for a total of over 180.

At 4:15 dinner was served. Four slices of tenderloin, potatoes, and green beans for me and Suzette was served fish with green beans and potatoes. there was also an attractively engraved sugar cookie with the high school mascot of a bear at each place.

After dinner, there was an entertainment with a mystery solved that involve several members of the high school football team and a speech by one of the former coaches and the honoring of the girls field hockey team of 1974, that one the state championship for Pennsylvania.

As a side note, JEAN, suzette sister at who’s home we are staying was on that team as a freshman.

Desserts were served after the program. I took a slice of carrot cake that instead of the usual heavy sweetened cream cheese icing was iced with the creamy delicate woopie pie filling.

 At around 5:30 we reviewed the raffle results and discovered that Suzette had not won any of the prizes, but I paid for the quilt I had bought for $100.. when we met Cindy Floyd she told us she had made the quilt and that she was related to Suzette through second generation, Kosar, family cousins, so the quilt has special meaning in two respects; we know the maker and she is a relative.

We then drove back to Jean’s house by way of winding hilly roads through the countryside to Ephrata.

When we arrived around 7:30 we talked for a while and then I went to bed around 8:30.

Bon Appetit