Eating (very) Locally in MA

So, you may recall from earlier posts that Mrs. Bob and I are trying the "eating local" thing. Here we are visiting my ancestral home in the Berkshires. For a change (recently) we happen to be here, when the blueberry crop is in. On Wednesday, between rainstorms, we all went out and picked berries. We got about 3 quarts before everyone was to tired to reach the berries that were still ripe. These are the smaller tart blueberries that grow wild, as opposed to the big mushy ones that are more readily available in most grocery stores.

We had so many; I was inspired to make a blueberry pie. I don't believe I have EVER made a blueberry pie, though I have certainly enjoyed my fair share in my life. We didn't have a readily available Fannie Farmer cookbook, so I did the next best thing. I jumped on-line, and found this blog cum recipe. I followed the recipes generally. For the crust, I used a whole stick of butter flavored Crisco and 2.5 cups of flour. It came out great. For the filling I used a little more than a quart of blueberries, cause I had a deep pan. I also only used 2/3 of the requested sugar, and a little more than a tablespoon of lemon (maybe 2). The pie came out deliciously slightly tart, which balanced with the buttery taste of the crust beautifully. I braved making a lattice crust, which was fun, if a little thick and slightly indelicate.

You can see in the photos that I was enjoying a little of the post-dinner Pinot Noir, while making the pie. You can also see that I plated the pie with a couple slices each of some wonderful cheeses from Rubiner's in Great Barrington. The lechevrot was my favorite of the two cheeses the previous night, served on a baguette. However, the Bonnema State Boerenkaas paired better with the pie. In either case who ever heard of a cheesemonger? Great Barrington may well have become more hoity toity than before, but I am certainly enjoying the results of that.

What to do when it rains in western Massachusetts

We've been in the Berkshires for two days now, and apart from the rains it's been lovely. With two children under 10 in the small house, we have been looking for other cabin-fever beating activities. Today several of us drove to my mother's house to pick up some things we needed. While we were in that neck of the woods, we brought the kids to the Magic Wings butterfly conservatory in South Deerfield, MA.

There were a TON of butterflies. We had a fun time being both indoors and not cooped up in the house, and trying to photograph the butterflies. The camera had a hard time focusing on them, and they had a habit of flitting about. Following are the best I could do.

Vacation Stop #2 – Plimoth Plantation

Did you miss stop number 1? Oh yeah, we packed the family into the car for the 11 hour ride from Pittsburgh to Woods Hole. We didn't take any pictures there, because we have been so many times, there was not too much new to shoot. We were too busy enjoying the ocean and our friends to bother with taking photographs. You'll have to be content with my profile photo which was taken last year in Woods Hole.

So what was stop #2 already? Plimoth Plantation. It's a living museum, with an English settlement a la 1627, and a Native American village of the same vintage, both with re-enactors. I haven't been to there since I was 8 years old or younger, but it all came rushing back to me like it was yesterday. It was a lot of fun, and the progeny and spouse enjoyed it greatly, as did the Woods Hole friends who joined us, even though their 4-year old was a little jaded by the whole affair. Big fun and we were off to the ancestral homeland in the Berkshires. Enjoy the Plimoth pics, and I'll post more soon.

You are supposed to READ the owners manual?

Mrs. Bob has a Chrysler PT Cruiser. It's cute, but after 3 years, the bloom is off the rose. It's not the best car either of us has ever owned. But it's not the worst either, I suppose.

Well, today we switched cars, because she needed my larger vehicle for something. I go out to get in her car…turn the key… it starts up…runs for a few seconds..dies. It does this several times, and then won't even turn over. I am fuming at this point, because I am supposed to be at work pretty soon. Grrr. She comes home from a morning appointment, picks me up and drives me to work, thereby wasting some of her morning.

Flash back a month or so, when this happened to me last time. Mrs. Bob and our daughter went away for the weekend with my car, leaving me with hers. I drove it to Home Depot Saturday morning to pick up some supplies, and the same exact thing happened to me there. That day I ended up walking the 3 miles up and over the very high hill back to the house, carrying my tool bag.

Don't we get home tonight, and I try it again…same thing. Mrs. Bob jumps in the car to try it, though I am sure nothing will happen. Whadaya know, it starts right up. We look at each other incredulously. I give her my key. She tries it and replicates my experience. Back and forth with her key and mine, starting and not starting. We go in the house, shaking our heads in disbelief. I grab the Owner's Manual on the way in, and here's what it says:

Hmph. Who'd have expected that in a krappy, cheap, PT cruiser? Anyone want a PT Cruiser key? The one on the left is available.

Groceries Delivered – woo hoo.

Last summer some neighbors told us about this farm subscription that they had, providing them with fresh local produce weekly. We had just begun to hear of the Pittsburgh Slow Food movement from other sources so we were intrigued. This sort of thing is arrangement is called a CSA, about which you can read more here. Mrs. Bob and I are interested in eating organic and healthy foods. We are also interested in supporting local businesses. So this seemed like a natural fit.

In May, we tried to sign up for a CSA subscription with Kretschmann's Farms, but we ended up on their waiting list. It appears they agree to a limited number of subscriptions being left at each drop off point, and that too many people in our neighborhood wanted their services. Dang! In early to mid June I got a flier at work for a local company named Isidore Foods. While not a farm themselves, they are a new small local CSA distributor. They work with several local farms do distribute their goods, directly to consumers, the same way that CSA's do. Sounds like a good next step, so we decided to give them a go.

Last Thursday (6/26) my daughter and I drove to a neighbor's garage, and picked up our first box of fresh vegetables. It's amazing how many vegetables can fit in one box. Oh, and the strawberries….WOW , were they good. They are the one's on the left, and way better than their larger brethren on the right. There are a couple of new veggies in there for us. Mrs. Bob nor I had ever cooked beets before, and she's not overly fond of Zucchini (to say nothing of 6 in a week). But, we have committed to the CSA idea for the summer. Part of the commitment is that you get the vegetables that are in season this week, and you eat those. So, Mrs. Bob tried cooking both the beets and the beet greens. She wasn't overly fond of the greens, but I liked it all.

Week 1: good start! Next week we'll have to find some sort of cart to drag to our drop-off point 5 blocks away. This way we can burn personally stored fuel (really I should have plenty), rather than gas in the retrieval of our fresh veg. There was one item in our box that we couldn't identify. It's the picture with the quarter included for size reference. If you know what it is, please illuminate us. Tastes like garlic, but it is tiny. Maybe it's just tiny garlic.

Dueling movie sob stories

Start with this one: Be Careful What You Wish For

Then come back and read on...

So on Friday the family and I went to see "Kung Fu Panda," and I too was struck by the new pricing. I assume we were at the same theatre former known as Loews. Simplified structure huh? Used to be a movie that started before 5:00 (like ours at 4:50) qualified for the matinee rate. Oh well, one more way to gouge us. Next they will charge us for each piece of checked luggage (no wait that's someone else, and besides, I digress).

Back to the point. The crap is back, and worse than before. Rather than the crappy old slide show advertising with some annoying muzak, the crappy new “slide show” is clearly video, because there is slight movement in the 3-5 seconds that each ad is on the screen. And to make matters worse, each “ad” has its own accompanying 3-5 seconds of muzak. So you get a fade up, established crappy muzak, fade out…over and over and over. Hard to maintain a conversation over that up and down audio onslaught. Sheesh. And then it’s on to the typical sprint and Coke ads before the previews. So I am glad you enjoyed the brief crap hiatus.

But be careful what you whine about, however. It could be worse, as we learned the hard way. On Saturday my wife and I went out to see another movie (that’s two in the past six months for those of you in the audience with kindergarteners counting). This time because of the planned dining experience, we ended up at a movie theatre in Cranberry township. We thought: what’s the big difference. The tickets were even a dollar cheaper than those the previous night but…..

1. The air conditioning was out in the one theatre showing the movie we wanted to watch. It wasn’t too hot a day so we decided to chance it. In reality it wasn’t too bad, just a little muggy.
2. The seats themselves were some of the worst movie seats I have ever sat in. They were just plain worn out. Very uncomfortable. I did my “old man holding his back” walk out of the theatre.
3. We arrived about 5-10 minutes before the scheduled start time, and a slightly better version of the video crap ads were already running, so I thought maybe we’d get on to the movie not too long after the scheduled start time of the movie. A full 35 minutes after the scheduled start time of the movie, it actually started. Maybe 5 minutes of the holdup was previews for other movies, the rest of it was all ads. Aaaaakkkkk. Let me tell you we enjoyed losing that half hour of our lives, paying the sitter for that extra half hour, and all of us, the sitter included getting to sleep that much later…NOT

In the end we’ll pay the extra buck to go back to the first theatre, and apparently put up with the “new crap.” But we don’t go to the movies that much anymore anyway. This is just pushing us further from being interested.

Don't get me started on how much gas we used, and at what cost on that secon movie night.

This is how I know I am done with a season.

It's my e-mail's current usage graph. It' was the day to clear out all of the e-mails, and get ready for a new year! It feels very liberating. Now on to the next thing.