A Local Secret – Dinner at East Hill Farm – Troy

With cold weather finally upon us, and my health taking it’s seasonal decline, I have started to alter my destinations a bit – though I will likely continue to trek through the woods when I can I think it’s time to adjust my attention to some interesting indoor locations. This last one came up as a surprise. I was spontaneously invited to attend a dinner at East Hill Farm, an event they put on maybe once a month or so.

I have driven by East Hill Farm MANY times. I had no idea what it was, I thought it was probably an equine breeding facility or something similar but actually it’s a pretty large complex that has a whole host of services from vacation rentals, special event dinners, wedding bookings, horseback riding lessons, field trips, meat sales, you name it, this place has their paws in it. How could this get by me so unnoticed?! Probably because many of their services are beyond my normal price range, but that’s OK, there’s nothing wrong with checking them out!

So I ended up at this dinner with a group of people and as usual I was a bit out of it. Though I knew where this farm was I didn’t know that so I typed the address into the GPS which summarily drove me into the woods where the road ended rather abruptly. I had to turn around and try again! But I was not late!

I drove in and parked, this place was packed. Luckily there was someone waiting out here for me because there’s three entrances into the place and it’s fairly disorienting. I sat down at the table, laughing about the little mishap on the way over. There was a big table of appetizers here and people were picking at them buffet style. I was starving. I took a piece of vegetable pizza and some other random tidbits and sat down. There was a fascinating mix of people here – from the very young to the very old, many dressed up fancy, but just as many wearing casual clothes. A violin player serenaded the crowd. Off in a side room there was a silent auction composed of all sorts of goodies from local farms and crafters – 50 pounds of potatoes, a box of gourds, several jars of zucchini relish, an unlabeled mason jar of apple cider moonshine. The crafters items were less impressive – etched glass, a few carved woodblocks, a few felt pieces, nothing particularly out of the ordinairy, nothing you couldn’t find in a kitchen or country store. I pondered if I could help that but there was no information on how to donate.

I had quite some time as we waited for the actual meal. I had no idea what to expect but there was a card here with the menu. I thought it was like a normal menu where you pick what you want off it but no, everyone would be fed everything on the menu… four or five appetizers, a rather large meal, followed by several desserts! They specialize in seasonal foods and anything maple syrup. This time around they started out with a bowl of tomato bisque which was amazing followed by a blueberry fritter in fresh real maple syrup which was almost almost too much for my palette to bear. Delicious! The salad was less impressive but not bad. Dinner consisted of pot roast, savory mashed potatoes, carrots, and warm apple sauce that I think was imported from heaven. Never had applesauce warm before. Now I wonder why! Dessert was made from various combinations of local ice cream, blue berries, and maple syrup which was also amazing but by this time I was too full to eat any more. So was the rest of my party. We skeddaddled a bit early, before the last dessert which appeared to be a full bowl of vanilla ice cream topped in maple syrup, something I would normally jump at if I weren’t so damn full!

Outside a horse stared intently at the bumper of a car in the parking lot – checking it’s own reflection? I have no idea. It was weird. All around there were pastures for horses and who knows what else, a large barn off the back of the parking lot. This place must be beautiful in the daytime, maybe I was starting to see why someone would chose to have their vacation at a farm. I will be keeping my eye on this place in the future!

**Photo not taken by me – but I needed to put something up of the establishment…

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November 9, 2017 0

Pittsburg PA – Meeting with Friends

Tonight I scored the jackpot – a friend’s house to sleep at. I arrived at the residence of a certain Emily. She was living with her boyfriend Nathan, his two kids, and her own similarly aged daughter. The house was going through a tremendous amount of growing pains as its kitchen was being remodeled, as well as bits and pieces of the rest of the house. They apologized immediately for the mess, but I understood. Renovations are never a tidy process.

I ended up staying three days and taking a bit of a break here. Despite having three kids this place was calm and comforting. The children were all remarkably well-behaved and intelligent (and yes, I do consider most children to be numb as sticks so this is quite a compliment.) Nathan had decorated the house with his own unique artwork, which we spent quite awhile admiring, and Emily wowed me with her fantastic vegan cooking. As if that wasn’t cool enough they had two outrageously friendly and laid back Tonkinese cats and an adorable little skunk who came out nightly to eat.

I even enjoyed their children who delighted in making chalk art on the rock pathway outside and who dug up worms by the hundreds, squealing at them with wonder. Of course the eldest, a boy, felt the need to fill his sister’s Barbie car with worms before burying the whole thing in the back yard while she cried. It wasn’t long though before the girls found themselves distracted by playing with their own batch of worms, rolling them in the chalk until they came out all sorts of pretty colors (and incidentally stopped moving.)

Later the kids gave us one more hearty laugh as one of the girls asked for a bath. “Teacher says I need one. She washed me up a bit but said I still needed a bath. She washed me with a hose outside!” The children were no dirtier than an average mud-loving child, despite the anecdote making it sound so bad. Luckily everyone was still laughing.

After my visit I was well rested and thanked my hosts with a small parting gift from the Jeep – possum plushie that had ridden on the dash across the whole country.

I also went to visit Jesse during this time. She had promised me dinner and she didn’t squelch on this promise in the least bit. I was treated to a delicious feast of salad, chicken, rice, and a dessert to die for, composed of cinnamon French toast topped with melting vanilla ice cream and maple syrup.

Jesse is an opinionated and driven woman with a creative business sense. She was currently running a small farm and selling chicks, chicken-feathered earrings, and dried chicken feet to anyone that wanted them. I passed on the chicks and the feet, though we did purchase some feathered earrings which were well-made from quality materials. She had fun playing Wii into the night. I sort of played too, though I have played Wii only once in my life, and the last video game before that was probably played when I was still in grade school. Suffice to say video games have always been beyond me. I was vibrantly dizzy and nauseous and so tired by the end of the night but that’s alright, I smiled none-the-less.

***I apologize for any missing photos and galleries as I continue to work getting Catching Marbles fully migrated to a new host. Please come back soon for restored photos and thank you for your patience!***

If you are enjoying Catching Marbles please consider adding a dollar or two to my limited gas money fund so I can continue going on adventures and sharing them with you! Thank you!

July 18, 2011 0

Farewell Feast with Family

I was invited to go to a farewell feast at my father’s shortly before I was to leave so I decided to do this a few days beforehand. They thought it would be amusing to come up with an outrageous set of dinner courses that I may not have ever tried before. These were classic New England dishes, seafood to be exact, and although I was aware of this I still didn’t really prepare for what was coming.

There before me in a bowl was a set of “steamers” or little necked clams as the stores called them. I must have given off quite an expression of repulsion although I was trying desperately to do the opposite. I don’t make a habit of offending the cook. Wendy must have picked up on this as she started to immediately tell me I didn’t have to eat them. Well, they were cooked, who cares if I was plucking the remains of their cousins off the beaches of Maine just a few weeks ago.

I opened up the little shell and there was this gelatinous completely alien-looking piece of flesh staring up at me. It had a rubber band like “body” a bulging soft “stomach” and a hard brown “neck.” None of these labels struck me as being particularly anatomically correct but who am to say? This creature was utterly strange and seemed to be composed entirely of just a digestive system in a shell. I bit into the belly, it was delicate in flavor and texture and honestly wasn’t that bad. Texturewise it was most like a scallop but a lot smoother and softer. A pile of green goo that must have been its last meal spilled out onto my plate. Oh, look at that, the stomach might actually be a stomach. I couldn’t eat the fibrous ribbon-like body, just touching a piece of it with my teeth almost resulted in me ralphing all over the table but hey look! At least I can say I tried!

The next course was rice and shrimp. I have always loved shrimp, but currently I was keeping one as a pet. I mentioned this and Wendy immediately spat out an apology, but it wasn’t necessary, I thoroughly enjoyed the dish.

The next dish was lobster. This I expected. I snapped mine’s tail off with a loud crack and pulled out its meat with a fondue fork. I devoured the tasty morsels in butter and moved on to its claws were it soon lost a thumb with another loud crack and then to add insult to injury we took a nutcracker after the lower claw. I was told all the legs come right off in a clump if we wanted to eat the guts in the main body… I didn’t… I still ripped mine off… more green goo… I sucked on the little ant-like legs with a morbid sort of glee, maintaining this was the most amusing part of eating lobster.

I was past full but there was more. Now it was two slices of seedless watermelon which was so good. Then I was given fresh raspberries on top of a canned pear, everything swimming under home-made whip cream. Now that is a dessert I can appreciate, simple and delicious! More watermelon. Then marshmallows, the big ones, toasted on the fire in the drizzly rain.

I showed Wendy that you could peel and eat the big marshmallows numerous times. I also dropped a marshmallow on the coal and watched it turn into a giant blob of white lava ooze. Wendy was horrified and fascinated, guess she’s never done that with a marshmallow. Her reaction amused me.

I also visited the horses while I was there and checked up on their three wee poodles, all so much better behaved than my mothers. SIGH. All and all we had a fantastic dinner, good conversation, and nothing was too awkward as it sometimes can be.

If you are enjoying Catching Marbles please consider adding a dollar or two to my limited gas money fund so I can continue going on adventures and sharing them with you! Thank you!

May 18, 2011 0