The rest of March

[figarofigaro1]

Lots of good stuff including cooking classes at King Arthur, amazing dinners with friends and out, (finally) enjoying some winter sports, and other Vermontish delights...

We had a lovely dinner at G&R's house on 03/13. It was rather spontaneous, and still, R put together a wonderful meal with lots of variety. The food was delicious and their company was fun as always.

The next day we went over to take the class at King Arthur. The class was Hearty Soups and Breads, and was taught by Molly Stevens. You might remember from past blog entries, that I love her book, All About Braising, and I tend to use it a lot for both entertaining and regular evening meals. We drove down in the afternoon on Friday. The class started at 3 PM. When we got there, there were ONLY SIX PEOPLE in the class! It was being co-taught by Molly and Susan Miller, the woman in charge of the Baker's Education Center. So we really did get a lot of individual attention. Friday we got some sourdough bread started, and did two stocks, and had a planning session. Each duo got to design a hearty bean soup and a quick bread to go with it. Then on Saturday, we all worked on our sourdough bread, our quick bread, and a straight-dough baguette. We made our bean soups, and then everybody also made a roasted vegetable and tortellini soup and a classic French potato leek soup. We "catered" our own lunch, and sampled all the bean soups and quick breads. Then the afternoon was spent on the other soups and forming and shaping the breads. They brought in one of the bakers who is an expert and handling dough and shaping and slashing loaves. So, for a while we had three instructors for six people! Amazing. I got to play around with the giant commercial oven with the slab flooring and steam injection. Best of all, Molly Stevens was charming, funny, approachable, and wonderful to work with. She signed my cookbook. And it turns out she lives very close to B and me. We hope we run into her around town sometime.

We stayed at the Parker House in Queechee, and had dinner there the first night. The owner was delightful and we felt very well taken care of. I had a bouillabaisse that was wonderfully good. The second night, we also stayed over and dined next door, at Simon Pierce. Again, a delicious meal. We both had rack of lamb and we each got four chops. In the center was a cabbage, mushroom melange that was really quite tasty. We inquired and found out it had braised lamb in it. There was way too much food, and of course I ate all of it.

Sunday morning we got up and drove back to Burlington in time for the Cinema Club. We saw "Flawless" with Demi Moore and Michael Caine. Demi plays a woman who works for a diamond company in London in 1960. Michael Caine is a janitor there. The two of them decide to steal some diamonds. Wonderful movie. Entertaining. Suspenseful. No heavy message. Wonderful vintage fashions. Demi was really good. The direction was often Hitchcockian. If you have a chance, go see it. It's what, to me, going to the movies should be all about.

Sometime during that following week, we went with D&A to see "No Country For Old Men." Interesting film. Not something I'd go see again. We have spent a lot of time talking about it since. I've come to appreciate it more than I did immediately after. But, best picture of the year? Not to me. Meanwhile, Josh Brolin can come visit me any time he wants.

Easter weekend we spent in Stowe. A while ago, B had bid on a weekend at the Stowe Inn on some local auction thing. He won it, and we used it. So we stayed in town. The weather was sunny and cold both days, beautiful! Especially after Friday's gale-force winds. Ugh.

 Friday night we arrived, checked in, and walked to dinner at Blue Moon. Delicious dinner of roasted beets and beet greens salad and Moroccan lamb shanks. Saturday morning, we scheduled a private cross-country skiing lesson at Trapp Family Lodge.

We have x-country skis that we bought in Virginia, where we were able to use them twice in four years. We'd had no instruction ever, and spent most of our time on them in Virginia falling down. So we needed a lesson. And I didn't want to be doing it with a bunch of little kids who would "get it" and then ski around me wondering why the old guy was lying on the ground.

So our instructor was a lovely young woman who managed to get us to the point of being comfortable on the skis. Once we got out of the wind, she wanted us to ski without poles to work on technique. When she said, "Throw your poles over there," I swear, I thought she was joking and I stood for an obviously long time debating whether I really wanted to do it or not. By the end of the lesson, she said I had improved 500%. Yay! After over an hour, we went back inside and I swear I thought I was going to die. It felt like I'd run a marathon.



So she showed us all the baby trails and B wanted to go back out for an hour or so. I reluctantly agreed even though I was already tired. So once back out, I ended up remembering more of the lesson and doing better than B. He fell and hurt his bum. Ouch. I ended up going too high up the last hill and freaked myself out coming back down... so there was some screaming like a little girl and then I laid down to stop. But I think some more practice and another lesson or two and we'll be good to go.

We ate burgers at The Shed after that. Yummy, as usual. Then we did some shopping, and I bought a photograph of an owl in a tree with the full moon behind him, by John Churchman. Awesomely cool, and it's our second photograph by him. He's a great guy, nice studio, and he always remembers us, which is surprising.

Dinner was at Michael's on the Hill, another excellent spot. I had a trout fillet done with crispy skin and served on top of quinoa cooked with beets and broth and served with roasted beets. (I love beets.) We'd always wanted to go to this place, but didn't' want to have to drive all the way home.

Both evenings, after dinner, we hung out at the Stowe Inn's bar. The bartender there gave us a tip on where to do some snowshoeing without having to pay. So Sunday morning, we got up, packed up the car, and then drove up to where the road was closed and then hiked the rest of the way up to Smuggler's Notch.



There were a few skiers going up and back, and we also saw some other snowshoers, and even a few brave souls just hiking up with boots on. The snowshoes were easy to get used to, and we had fun going into the really deep areas in the woods. It was a steep up and back. I don't know how far. It took us 75 minutes up and 45 back down.



We had a nice lunch at Gracie's, chicken sandwiches, and then went to Stoweflake and had massages. Good thing we did, because we were already all sore from the skiing and then on Monday both of us were even sorer from all the exercise.

Now that we've broken in our new equipment for winter sports, we're hoping to use it more next year. (Or maybe more this year. We had snow this week!)



Last Wednesday, we went to hear a French Horn Recital given by our friend A and the Green Mountain Horn Club. It was a concert like nothing I've ever heard before! The first part was pieces for solo horn and piano. The last two pieces were the horn club. The first was 22 of them playing and the last was 23 of them plus percussion. The sound of all those horns was very rich and dark. Someone later remarked that it was akin to dark chocolate, and I thought that was apt. There was a mix-up about dinner afterward and we ended up dining at Smokejacks, just the two of us. Great food, as always.

Friday night we had D&A over for cocktails and then we went to the Kitchen Table for dinner. Excellent food (again)! I had grilled sweetbreads for my first course, and they were superbly done. They had crispy fried oysters as another choice, and I don't often have to choose between oysters and sweetbreads, thank goodness! I had seared scallops for my main plate, and a "deconstructed" hot fudge sundae for dessert.

Nobody can say we don't eat well here in Vermont.

Yesterday morning we went and bought new bicycles during a sale at a local bike shop. We have old mountain bikes that are kind of rusty and beaten up. In Virginia, we stored them outside for several winters when we moved to The Ledge. And we rode them a lot. The gears were not shifting very well, even after taking them to the shop, and with two bike trips coming up this summer, we decided to get new ones. Now I want warmer weather to ride my new ultra-cool bike!

Yesterday was also the second meeting of the Vermont Men's Knitting Group that we have informally formed. We had five guys here at the house knitting. We did another field trip down to the yarn store, mostly to see an exhibit of knitted artwork that was supposed to go until 3 or 3:30 and the guy was already packing it up when we got there. I guess he wasn't really into it or something. A counter full of desserts and coffee and the rest of the afternoon was spent knitting fast during the sugar and caffeine rush, and then knitting slowly when the inevitable sugar crash happened.

Today, I'm on my own. B had to go to NYC for a two-day seminar. He'll be back on Tuesday late. I have to do billing and end-of-the-month reporting for work, so I couldn't go with him. I had lined up some fun things to do with friends today, tomorrow evening, and Tuesday, and everybody has canceled on me. Hmmm. How did that happen?

Palm Springs in two weeks! Woo hoo!