And Yet, More Cheese

12/15/12 Fromagination

~Manchester, goat, VT
Creamy, light goaty taste, buttery w/ crumbly texture.

~Goat Chedder, goat, CO
14-16 months. Sweet, crumbly, easy cheddar taste.

~Midnight Blue, goat, CO
Very blue. Earthy blue instead of sour.

~Comte Com Frumae (sp?)
Original alpine cheese, used for fondue.

~Petite Frere w/ Truffle, cow, WI
Sort of a cream chese flavor, plus the sour-sweet of orange-lemon marmalade, mighty tasty.

~Marieke Gouda w/ Clove & Cumin, cow, WI
Like eating Christmas. Smoky, airy, festive.

12/21/12 Fromagination

~Vintage Van Gogh, this we bought
Salty, buttery & creamy.

~Ocooch Mountain Sheep, Westby, WI
Sharp.

~4-6 month-old Marieke Gouda, Jersey cow, WI
Mineral taste.

~Europa, Litchfield, CT, 6 months
Too sharp and mealy.

~Casa Bollo Mellage, 2 months
Delicious as always, but not what I was looking for.

~Delice, cow, Burgundy, France
Light, salty, young  fresh. Very sweet.

~Mt. Tam, cow, Petaluma, CA
Mushroomy, thick w/ flavor.

That's all for now, next will be our Christmas & Christmas Dinner Menu!

xoxoxo,
Kim & Emmy

NH part 5: Heading Home

I'm going to start this (the last, I swear) post by mentioning just how much I hate Illinois. Every darn state I had to drive through had something about it to dislike.

New Hampshire has crazy twisty-turny roads. Massachusets is just, well, toll-happy. New York is boring and the Berkshires are just mad. Pennsylvania is long and boring. Cleveland is in-f-ing-sane. Ohio is long and boring and there's nothing to see. Indiana is duller than an empty hatbox. And Chicago, ohhhh Chicago. From Gary, IN to the Wisconsin/Illinois border that whole stretch of 90westbound is just gross. And I meant it. Gross. Just gross. The amount of factories packed into one region makes the whole place just stink to high heaven. And I do mean stink. We stopped at a tollbooth just south of Chicago's sky bridge and when I rolled down the window I nearly gagged. The air was so toxic it literally, and I am not kidding you, smelled like sick. We changed the car's air intake and sped on, barely gazing as the city spires loomed out of a smog cloud so thick we couldn't even see them until they were directly in front of us.

As we drove this road I found myself thanking what gods I knew of that Emmy and I live in the fresher, cleaner Madison, WI. Sure, Wisconsin has it's faults too: cows, corn, and tree farms are all you'll see when driving around here, but at least it doesn't smell like 2-day-old mini-bar baked under a hot sun.

So on the way back I'm afraid we didn't eat much of anything interesting. All the food we had packed was used up, though we did devour the rest of the maple candies and some of the fudge. Just about the only food I can remember is what we ate at the Marriott hotel in downtown Cleveland. How we got to the Marriott is an interesting story.

About 30 minutes outside of Cleveland we set the GPS (Annie) to find us the Day's Inn. A cheap but decent national brand, I thought. After exiting the highway far south of the city, we drove past three car dealerships and several (as I thought at the time) bars. They weren't bars. Turned out we'd driven into the skeeziest area of town. Strip clubs and adult superstores everywhere. The hotel might once have been the Day's Inn but now it was the "Airport Plaza Hotel", $55 a night. The "club" attached to this "hotel" was rocking some bass music so loud I could feel it in my jaw several hallways away. There was even a sign behind the counter that warned pool-goers that half the pool was walled in glass "For the entertainment of the club patrons".

Ew. Just. Ew.

Now in my defense, we had just gotten off a 12 hour drive spanning 3 states and it was 11:00pm. We were bushed. Completely exhausted. Upon getting to the room we discovered that the fire alarm was hanging out of an enormous hole in the wall, the sheets had cigarette burns all over, the bathroom tile was cracked and limey, the carpet was gross, there was another huge hole in the bathroom door, the alarm clock didn't work, and both dressers were broken. I turned to Emmy and said "If we stay here, darling, my car will be stolen by morning. Let's go."

55 dollars I'm never going to see again. Oh, well. Sometimes safety and peace-of-mind is worth a little extra. We packed up all our gear once more and sped out of there like we were being followed by demons. After another GPS-kerfufle, which involved Annie leading us through the sketchiest part of Cleveland's dockside imaginable, we turned up a hill and suddenly found ourselves surrounded by glitz, glam, and some very sleek-looking buildings. Somehow we'd landed in the heart of Cleveland itself.

Marble floors. Huge Christmas trees. Wall-to-wall wreaths larger than me. Marble columns. Uniformed staff. People in suits and ball gowns everywhere. I had left Emmy in the little drop-off circle and so I approached the front desk.

"How much for two adults?"
"One bed or two?"
"It doesn't matter."
"We've got a double queen on the 22nd floor for $220."
"Oh. Ah, alright, do you know anywhere nice in the neighborhood for around $150?"
"We can do it for $149."
"Sold! Give me the room."

I ran out to a sleepy Emmy and she bravely gaurded the car and waved the room keys at her. "We're staying." "How much is it?" I told her the original price and I swear she paled down to this sort of grey color. I told her I'd gotten it for less and that we were going to the hotel's secure underground parking garage, where Baby would be safe all night. "Over there." I waved across the street to an enormous statue and fountain that literally took up a whole city block. "Under that."

We parked right by the elevators and enjoyed the beautiful, clean room with all our hearts. Dinner down at the bar, where a wedding party was camped out, determined to get drunk but equally as determined not to ruin there clothes. The new husband sort of looked like a tool. Emmy and I passed the time before our cheese pizza came Sherlocking the bar patrons, trying to guess their professions, likes and dislikes. Between us that pizza was gone in about five minutes. Breakfast was waffles, strawberries, scrambled eggs (E), and bacon. Smothered in maple syrup.

On our way out we tipped a young man (Josh? Jacob?) who helped us find an obscure ATM and left a tip for housekeeping as well. Emmy might have felt intimidated by our ruffled appearance and the granduer of the hotel, but we'd spied a couple other people in jeans and I knew that even if you can't tip much, you just tip. It's the right thing to do. Baby took a little roaring to get started (fixed now, thank god), and we were off to Wisconsin!

And so ends the account of our journey to New Hampshire and back again.
A couple more posts to make and then a Christmas post in a day or so and I'll be all caught up before the new year! Yay!

xoxoxo,
Kim & Emmy

NH part 4: Thanksgiving

Well, as we turn toward Christmas I have the last post to make about our Thanksgiving vacation. I do have to admit that I was mainly focused on family that Thursday, and as such I don't have an accurate account of what Mom & Dad cooked for us. But here's what I do remember:

On our belated Thanksgiving Day, Mom, Kath, Kath's sweetheart Chris, Emmy, and I all went on a short hike up Rattlesnake Hill/Mountain near Sandwhich, NH while Dad stayed at home preparing dinner. Kath had to get to work that afternoon for a short shift, so we had to make the hike an early one. We were the only ones on the cold, sometimes icy, trail and despite a chill wind our exertions quickly warmed us. Kath and I stayed close for most of the hike, talking mostly about hiking, what she thought she might do after school, and the appropriate clothing for winter and fall hiking. I felt closer to her than I had in a long time, and I also felt keenly interested in her future choices, since she was about to enter a section of her life that I had just finished with; the initial establishing of oneself after college.

Emmy and I made one more stop at Mill Falls in Meredith, NH on our way home. We got maple candy and maple-walnut fudge at Lee's Candy Kitchen, the only NH-local products, and then headed home for Thanksgiving.

Along with Kath and Chris, we were joined by my Aunt&Uncle from Hopkington, NH. It was a merry gathering, and I did go up for seconds, though it was mostly mashed potatoes. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I seem to remember there being

Mashed potatoes
Turkey
Stuffing x2, vegan (for Kath&Chris), and non-vegan
Green beans? (There was a vegetable, I wish I could remember what it was.)
Gravy
STICKY BUNS (We will discuss these soon, I promise.)
Pie
Ice cream
Hard cider (local, NH)
Wine (white, Prairie Fume, from Wollershiem Winery, Prairie Du Sac, WI)
Cranberry sauce

Although I'm certain this isn't a complete list. I'm not a stuffing or a side person, as evidenced by my plate filling up with turkey, mashed potatoes, and cranberry sauce, so I'm afraid I didn't pay attention to them very well. I do have to say, however, that when Dad took the effort to mention he'd gone down to the local co-op (I had no idea we had a co-op) and gotten a local hard cider, my heart swelled with pride. It still does, too, just to think about it. At the table there was much talk over the sticky buns, how no one dares change Dad's recipe, how I've been slowly perfecting it in my years since college, how the West Coast half of the family doesn't bother making them anymore, etc, etc. I was cautioned not to let a secret this good out into the world wide web, but I can't honestly hold back that recipe. The world needs to know. This year and last year Dad added a splash of a mystery ingredient, but said that nobody had guessed it last holiday season.

At this point Emmy takes her first bite and says, quite lightly, "Ah, vanilla."

Dad agreed that it was and Emmy felt rather proud of herself, too, for having such a refined palate. :)

xoxoxo,
Kim & Emmy
 

NH part 3: Boston Town

Let's see if I can lighten the mood in here...

So on Wednesday Emmy and I woke up abysmally late in the morning, 11am. We had a 2 hour drive from Meredith, NH to Boston, MA. "No big," I said, "Our day is simple.We'll have plenty of time." And we did.

Now, I have a system for getting in and out of Boston. It is the most brilliant thing in the universe. We drive south on I-93 and get off at exit 31 Wellington. Hang a left and go straight past a park and some shopping until you see the sign for the MTA, Boston's Underground. We found parking ($6 a day) and hopped the Orange Line Inbound for Boston. The best thing about this is that you don't even have to bother with the congested traffic around the old capital city. Which, believe you me, is a big plus.

So after obtaining the some Charlie Cards (so named for the MTA's fare hike protest song "He'll Never Return" in the 1970's, I think), we zipped into town. $15 might have done it for all we had planned to do, but in case we had energy for a 4th activity, I wanted to be prepared. So $20 it was. Boston is a BIG CITY, boasting the New England Aquarium, Logan Airport, and many focal points of historical and literay relevance. This was the home of the original Tea Party, the Boston Massacre, and Make Way For Ducklings. Boston accents are thick and varied, but don't wear a Yankees' cap unless you fancy a confrontation. When people cheer the Red Sox just go with the flow. You may hear a lot about Italian mobs in movies, New York, and Chicago, but the Irish ruled Boston and with good reason. South Boston was a concentrated Irish neighborhood before the installation of the highway brought new diversity to the area.

First stop: Harvard Square & the Harvard Museum of Natural History
Down the Orange Line, over a stop or two on the green, and then up the red line (I think I've got the colors right) to Cambridge and Harvard Square. That's right, Harvard school, the famous one. Built or founded by John Harvard, the campus swarmed with all the normal-looking varieties of young students carrying oversized backpacks, and with tours going on in German, Korean, and Russian. Across the main square of campus and past a monumental cathedral, we found our way easily to the Museum. The Harvard Museum of Natural History has more variety and size of any taxidermy museum in the world. Dinosaurs, sea creatures, giant lobsters exceeding 2 feet in length, a North American exhibit, and various other regions were on display including: Afrian, South American, Mammalian, and the giant hanging whale skeletons from the museum's cieling. I loved the tigers, the snow leopard, and the grey wolf. Emmy was facinated by everything, but she really like the whales, dinosaurs, and also the tigers. A couple savage-looking monkeys made us steer clear of their cases, though.
Harvard really just looks to me like any other New England college, especially with its red brick and small windows, just like my old school in Keene, NH, so I never feel out of place visiting.

Second stop: Fire & Ice, early dinner
I should mention that we finally arrived in the city around 1pm, so now it was about 4pm. Instead of hopping back on the T to Arlington's green stop, we beat it back across Harvard Square and down a row of shops to a specialty flat-top-grill establishment that sits under the very streets we had just come from. Fire & Ice is a choose-your-own and I highly reccomend it. You can choose whatever toppings you want, mix and match your sauces, and then they'll fry it all up for you right there. The ingredients are top quality and never frozen or salted, like at Hu Hot or Flat Top Grill (both here in Madison, WI), and therefore far superior

E: Chicken, egg noodles, rice noodles, bacon, pineapple, green pepper, green onion, white onion, garlic, broccoli bits, fried rice. Sauce: mango garlic & peach bourbon BBQ.
Fruity, a little spicy & the noodles & rice gave it good texture. As a first-timer I may have gone a little overboard on the ingredients. Ate mine in a warmed flour tortillas--very tasty.

K: Top sirloin, bow-tie noodles, a little red onion, pineapple chucnks. Sauces: Yakatori, jalapeno lime, & hoisin ginger.
Open & colorful atmosphere. All you can eat, too. 1-bowl lunch special for earlier patrons, usually a dinner place, they have Sunday brunch hours as well. Salad and ice cream bars. My food is sweet with a little heat, very savory with just enough spice.

Third & final stop: Quincy Market
Coming off the Aquarium stop in the blue line of the T, we headed away from the water to be met with a 3-story Christmas tree and a long parade of lighted trees and strung lights. Beautiful. It was cold and dark now but that didn't stop us from shopping for artwork or getting black raspberry ice cream at one of the Market's many food shops.

8pm.
Finally get back the car & rev her up to wake her up (I've since learned what this problem is, don't worry), and we got back onto the not-busy highway and headed home. All told? Easy, quick, and with just enough time to have fun and do what we came to do. If you want my advice never plan for more than 4 stops on the T, and only 1 museum per day, since standing rather than walking can play more hell on your feet.

Next I'll post about our Thanksgiving!

xoxoxo,
Kim & Emmy

NH part 2: Tuesday at the Common Man

Maybe it's just because I'm a native-born New Hampshirite, but I just love everything about this place. Last Tuesday was fab to the max! Emmy and I slept for what felt like fifty-bajillion hours and then we were up and out to the spa!

SPA DAY WHOO-HOO

So when I was a wee lassie of general high school age Mom and us girls would pile into the van and go for a day at the spa. I'm not sure why Mom & Dad started making this a near-annual Christmas gift, but it always made up for not having as many presents under the tree as we got older. This particular spa is first rate, and not very far from "home" either.

The Common Man Inn & Spa in Plymouth, NH. Oh my fardles, you have to go. You've just got to. Every other year or so we (used to, maybe the NH family still does) go up there for our Thanksgiving feast, instead of making it at home. Yes, it's got a north-woodsy theme going on, but mostly in the way of flowing birches, and close, comfortable architecture and soft piano music. Emmy and I stuffed our jackets and backpacks away into white pine lockers and scurried off to take a dip in the hot tub.

By the time we arrived my sisters had already entered the special swirl tub, with a genuine waterfall feature that splashed down a rockwall had filled the tub with suds nearly a foot high. There are a couple photos somewhere of us all bobbing around, four heads in a sea of fluffy white. Then, our massage. Emmy and I got the Destressor, a quick 30-minute job with lavender-scented lotion. Emmy spent those 30 minutes in a new kind of heaven. I spent them, of course, talking about eating locally and sustainably to my massage technician. I think I might need an intervention.

After that, Emmy and I lounged in the padded wicker couches and toured the event hall facilities (we're thinking of having our wedding there) while the sisters got their Destressors and Mom got her toes done. Pure bliss.

Oh, but it got better.

We all piled into the car once more, this time with Emmy and I picking up Kath's boyfriend at their apartment. She dropped off her early Christmas present (a vegan cookbook), E and I met the kitties Audi & Enzo, and then we all squished back into Kath's Honda and drove south-ish to the Common Man Restaurant, in Ashland, NH.

By the by, the Common Man is a chain that runs the length and breadth of New Hampshire, with the company owning inns, restuarants, spas, ski lodges, and more. If it's got the Cman brand, you know it's good.

Dad graciously treated all us hungry kids and Mom to dinner and we all ate like kings (except with silverware).

Common Man: Ashland, NH
~Chicken Nachos, appetizer
Spiced & heaped nacho fixings.
~Camp Crackers, appetizer
Very cheesy, crunchy, & thin flatbread. Gorgonzola & mozerella chz.

K: Apple Chicken
Very moist chicken. Walnut-encrusted w/ cheese & baked apple slices w/ maple syrup on. Not overly sweet. Garlic mashed potatoes & whipped sweet potatoes.

E: Pork Sliders
Pulled pork on silver dollar garlic biscuits, dabbed w/ blueberry glaze. Such an interesting marriage of flavors. Delight fully complex. Side of coleslaw, pretty good.

~Tuckerman pale ale, from a local NH brewery
Very like the WI Spotted Cow from New Glarus brand. Bitter & light.

~Baked Apple, dessert
Like apple pie w/o the crust. Oh my god. Oh. My. Godddddd.

Have we convinced you yet?
Take a look at their website!

xoxoxo,
Kim & Emmy

Next up, Wednesday.

New Hampshire pt 1: Heading East

So I guess what I actually meant was that, as it turned out, I wouldn't open my laptop again until we arrived back home in Wisconsin. Sorry about that, folks!

After Emmy arrived home from work at 9:30pm on Saturday night we bundled ourselves and our gear into Baby (my '96 Toyota) and hit the road by midnight. As a night-shifter, I drove the 7.5 hours down to Cleveland, OH by myself, in the dark. For the ride we had what was left over from our apples, clementines, and sandwhich fixings to tide us over. We switched drivers on the East-bound side of Cleveland (I'm better in high-traffic situations) and I proceeded to get some shut-eye.

Not much shut-eye, as it happened. Turns out, I can't sleep in the car, at least in Baby, who rattles a bit in the wind and as a 1996 model, wasn't exactly designed with sleeping comfort in mind. A pillow and a blanket did nothing to help. I woke up about 1.5 hours later to discover that I had missed PA entirely, and we were now entering south-western NY. I just couldn't sleep any more. The weather was getting flurried and we were approaching Buffalo, so I took over driving once again.

Hungry and past caring about the travel budget I suggested simply plugging in the city and selecting what ever restaurant appeared first that sounded interesting. Well, after driving through sudden deep (lake-effect) snow, a harbor, an industrial complex, a sleek business center, and past an enormous rolling graveyard, we failed to find the restaurant Annie (my rather stupid and three-years-out-of-date GPS interface) had attempted to direct us to. I turned Annie off and we just cruised around until I spotted a place that looked likely to serve a decently priced lunch that wouldn't be made of burger or fries.

What ended up catching my eye was Tokyo II. I wanted Indian food, but Emmy protested on the grounds that we still had 9 hours or so more to drive and she didn't want to have a stomach emergency half-way to Albany. Japanese, and the thought of stopping along the highway with naught but the roll of emergency toilet paper tucked away somewhere in the region of the backseat for comfort quickly won me over.

Emmy's meal:
Green tea. I had my doubts, but it was really good. Loose-leaf, perfectly brewed. Rich yellow-green color, full-bodied, slightly nutty flavor which was reminicent of sunflower seeds. I'd guess a Chinese green from the nuttiness, but don't quote me on that. I could drink a whole pot of this.
Harumaki. Tip-of-the-tongue spicy. Slightly eggy outside, tender chicken & greens inside. Nice w/ the sweet sauce as a side, but I prefered it by itself. Parsley & M.Cherry garnish. (Needless to say E ate both of the garnishes, she's adorable like that.)

Kim's meal:
Chicken teriyaki. Unlike my last chicken teriyaki in almost every respect (that was the Traveler's Hearth, as you recall). This one was juicy (not dry), decently flavored, with most of the sauce available on the side for dipping at my leisure. Sticky white rice was also in evidence, a fact I quite happily enjoyed. My side was miso soup, of a rather thick broth and very tiny tofu chunks. When I was young I usually ate the broth and avoided everything else. But my hunger and adult palette pushed me to eat everything in the bowl, which I did. It was also delicious, and nothing was over-salted. A miracle today. Warm and hearty with the affore-mentioned green tea, we had an excellent, quiet lunch. (They do chef-prepared meals at the table, too, in case you ever want to check it out for yourself.)

Onward we went. I had made a phone call to some family by Albany and so our drive across New York in the blinding snow was made better by knowing that comfortable beds were 4 hours closer than they had previously been. My Aunt & Uncle served us food and we compensated for the short notice by sharing our special WI products I mentioned in the previous post.

Dinner in Delmar, NY.
White-bean chili with ground chicken. Clementine pieces. Holiday nuts to crack at the kitchen table. Cracker Barrel cheese and a supermarket's cheddar. Cranberry juice. Their new dog, Rusty, nosing around in search of scraps. Warm, safe, and happy on a snowy evening, one could hardly ask for anything more. But the drive wasn't over yet. Chili returned at breakfast at my request, though exhausted from a 20-hour day, I'm sad to say I slept till noon Monday.

Baby stalled in the driveway but we got her going again pretty quick (one more repair on my ever-elastic list. Won't this car ever just run?) and headed out. We opted to go over the mountains and forgo the rest of the toll road that would lead us down to Springfield, MA and from there up I-93. As we marched up and down and up and down steep hills that I hadn't seen in a very long time, I began to notice all the empty farmstands by the road as soon as we left Troy, NY. These farmstands, I knew, would be occupied all during the warmer months of the year and many small farmsteads had signs by the road saying that not only were they open, but still selling local meats, eggs, and some produce and cheeses. I felt happy and proud to understand the landscape in this way, to see the patchwork family farms of eastern NY and all of VT as less than a quaint novelty (as I had seen it in childhood) and more as a diverse and counter culture to the big agri-businesses of the Midwest. This was a significant shift in thinking.

The drive took us at a steady 55mph around some frightening hairpin turns with zero shoulder and even less room for error. We crested a rise with a Scenic Lookout somewhere east of the Appalachian Trail (I had promised myself I'd pickup any hikers if I saw them, and drop them off at the nearest town, and so had made an effort to know when we'd be crossing paths with the Trail) and I cried to Emmy, "Be my eyes, darling! See for me!" (Something I'd begun to say in Cleveland and repeated several times over the course of the trip, usually as I was white-knuckled and staring down the road ahead like a professional race-car driver, so at least one of us would get to see the view.)

Keene, NH. My college town. I knew the place by heart, since I'd walked most of it.

Prime Roast, coffee.
E: It's A Bloody White-Out. White chocolate, expresso, raspberry flavoring. Reminded Emmy of specialty chocolate and me of care-free days strolling down Main St and looking into the shop windows at trinkets I couldn't afford.
K: Fast White Banana. I substituted white chocolate for dark here, mostly because I figure that if bananas taste good dipped in chocolate fountains, why not covered in chocolate and whizzed with expresso? Again, a college favorite. The place has always featured local arts and crafts and has an excellent atmosphere.

By now it was dark, so we hiked all the way back to place we'd left the car and our dinner order, Athens Pizza. There is no better pizza joint in the world and I'm prepared to hike Monadnock in an Athens t-shirt to prove it. I already knew what to order so everything was waiting by the time we got back.

The familiar smells and sounds of college wafted back over me. Workers chatting over their stations, the hostess greeting everyone with a big smile, and the owner coming out in his apron to talk to a couple of older patrons seated not far from us about some goings-on in town. Bathrooms clean and immaculate, food swiftly and deliciously prepared, and TV's on, but thankfully muted, carried the news.

Athens Pizza, ie, the best food ever.
Steak and cheese 12-inch sub. Just cheese and meat, no mayo or onions. I must resign myself that every other steak&cheese I ever eat will simply be inferior to this one. I can't tell you what it is, time, love, or spices, but Holy Cow, does it ever work.
Garlic bread, with cheese. Between the two of us, Emmy and I ate all but one square of the garlic bread, including each and every stray bit of steak that escaped the sub bun. It was all so good I think I might recomend a visit from the "Diners, Drive-ins, & Dives" TV show. This place is certainly worthy of mention.
Athens, I don't know what your secret ingredient is, but don't ever change. This restaurant currently sits in my place of highest and most esteemed praise.

That being said, the rest of the drive was a cinche and we arrived in time to sample the rest of Dad's home-made mac&cheese w/ bread-crumb topping. Yum.

Food book-ends our travels together; snacks to help us on the road, and dinner waiting on a kitchen table, the lights of which stream out from the windows, all yellow and golden, and beckon us ever onward. Ever home.

Kim & Emmy