Saturday, May 17, 2008
I think it's pollen. Hope so, anyway. Even though I'm usually immune.
Posted at 10:17:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
Waaah. My gigantic sore throat that started Thursday night isn't going away. Why not?? I feel perfectly fine otherwise.
Posted at 1:17:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
Friday, May 16, 2008
Posted at 12:35:00 AM by Laura W. Petix.
Final lobster roll of the Gingers' visit! We tried The Clam Castle on Boston Post Road in Madison (everything is on Boston Post Road!). I guess it would qualify as a seafood shack--it's fairly shack-like (although larger than it looks in my photo; I cropped off about a third of the low-and-stretchy building so the cute sign would show up better) and is the home of lots of happy clams. (I guess they like being eaten?).
The Gs both got hot lobster rolls and I got a cold one, so I was able to compare them side by side. The Gs liked their hots better and I liked my cold. Both came on a buttered and toasted New England-style bun, and the lobster was tender and sweet, with nice sized pieces. They weren't perfect, though--my lobster salad had too much (and too unevenly distributed) mayonnaise, and the hot ones had too much butter (it soaked into the buns and got on the Gs' hands; they said it was "a three napkin affair"). I tried a bite of their lobster, and it tasted like when you're eating a big boiled lobster and you soak chunks of the meat in a dish of melted butter. I.e., good, but the lighthanded butter on Lenny & Joe's Fish Tale's rolls allows you to taste the lobster a lot better. Oh yeah, the hot ones were plain, but the bun of the cold was lined with lettuce. No celery. Points for the great clammy decor!
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
That was really fun! The Gs and I met up in Middletown and I convinced them to have lunch at O'Rourke's Diner; then we drove over to Colchester to see Susie's new house and yard. We got a big tour of the yard and the Gs ID'ed all Susie's plants for her and gave tips on how to take care of the rhubarb (!!!) etc. And we sat on the nice porch and talked and ate muffins, and when the Gs were ready to drive back to Westbrook, I stayed and talked with Susie more and played with Alex in his cool cork floored playroom (train table and aquadoodle!). He wanted me to stay for supper, so I said okay and did! :-) It was all really relaxed and nice, and the drive was so pretty, too.
Posted at 7:42:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
O'Rourke's was GREAT. We parked at the ION parking lot and walked along Main Street to get there. 100% beautiful day today--low 70s, sunny, not windy. Complete turnaround from Monday. The phoenixed diner is much nicer than before, with a lot more room at the booths, and the menu is giant. Pages and pages! The Gs both got lamb burgers, which they enjoyed immensely, and I had a Fresh Fish Sandwich, sort of like a Dano's! It wasn't exactly like a Dano's (totally different kind of fish, for one thing), but it was still extremely good. The bun was better than Dano's. I requested tartar sauce since I needed that for a true comparison, but it was the lumpy kind. Dano's special tartar sauce is unbeatable.
Oh yeah, and they had lobster rolls on the specials menu, so I quizzed the waiter about them to determine what kind they were. They were the hot kind (Connecticut lobster rolls) and not on New England style buns. The waiter didn't even know what N.E. style buns were. Travesty! :-) I wanted the Fresh Fish Sandwich anyway, and it was great! Walking back to our cars, we checked out a couple of cool Middletown stores including a neat Italian grocery that my Gs said they used to go to a long time ago, to buy bread! It had all sorts of homemade Italian stuff including sausages (soft and hard kinds), pasta dishes, and a jar of gigantic pickles! (I guess that wasn't especially Italian, but it was fab.) There's also a new used clothing store on Main Street that I should go to--it looked cool. Connecticut is so pretty this time of year.
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Posted at 9:42:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
Nice day with the Gs, but I'm tired now. Not sure why. Maybe I woke up too early. We had a shad fillet from Atlantic Seafood for dinner, and it was good! This goofy lobster was in the window of Atlantic Seafood. My dad is reflected (twice, for some reason) in the window, with a bright green hat. Atlantic Seafood still doesn't have a nice label for the shad like they do for the other fish in their fishcase (the others are professionally printed labels, with a cool picture of what the fish looks like). In fact, this year, instead of the sloppy handwritten one from last year, they had NO label at all! I still recognised the shad meat, though, just by the friendly color. I tried to hound the shop girl about the lack of quality sign like the other fish had, but she claimed it probably just got wet or something. Yeah, right. Poor shad! No respect! They massively need a hand-drawn one.
They also had shad roe, but no milt. My Gs suggested that they keep it in the back, and you can request "I'd like a gallon of milt" or something like that, as if it would be in a big vat! (!!) Laugh LAUGH. Milt is not like that. I tried it explain how it's enclosed in a membrane like the roe and comes in pairs...
Anyway, the shad was really good! It's much better fresh than frozen. I want a Captain Dano's-style shad sandwich. I wonder if that little river restaurant near Hale's has shad sandwiches?
The M and I walked on the beach at Water's Edge, but the tide was really high. There were garnets and cool seaweeds and razor clams. (We picked one up and brought it back for the G and offered it to him as a new razor.) Yesterday the water in Long Island Sound was a cold overcast oyster gray with a hint of brown, like the color of all the buildings on Nantucket, but today it was blue. The ocean is really loud!
Wow!!!! Wow. Check this out!! The 50th Anniversary of the Essex Rotary Club Shad Bake! 700+ people expected. (Yikes.) There's a great ad on YouTube--it starts with a big picture of a SHAD!! And look at the photos on the website of how it's done! They NAIL shad to oak boards and cook them around a blazing hot ring of fire! What a thing! Wow. (And no, I'm not going. 700+ people?!)
Posted at 12:00:00 AM by Laura W. Petix.
P.S. Just stumbled on this fantastic blog about lobster rolls, loaded with photos and reviews. The writer shares my taste in lob rolls, and I thought his section on Connecticut's lobster rolls (hot lobster vs. lobster salad) was especially interesting and right on.
P.P.S. According to The Blue Pyramid quizzes, I'm the book Lolita, the state New Hampshire, and a lion.
Monday, May 12, 2008
Posted at 11:21:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
I did it!!! I finally made rhubarb sauce that turned out good! The secret is the microwave. Future Self, here's directions for my new culinary masterpiece. People other than Future Self, you probably can't use these directions unless you have a microwave like mine. Sorry.
Laura's Culinary Masterpiece Resplendent Rhubarb Sauce:
Cut rhubarb stalks into half-inch(ish) chunks. I sliced the skinny stalks in half lengthwise before cutting them, and sliced the fat stalks into four sections lengthwise. Put in microwave dish (I used my cobalt blue "salsa" dish), add a splash of water, and dump on sugar. I used 1 cup of diced rhubarb and about 1/4 cup sugar.
Cover dish and put in microwave, then hit "fresh vegetables" button. That's it. Let cook until microwave beeps, then take it out and lift cover! Marvel at what's inside. The rhubarb is soft and saucy but has held its shape (the largest pieces are still very slightly crunchy) and in the bottom of the dish is a beautiful pink fragrant syrup. Spoon still-warm onto Trader Joe's nonfat vanilla yogurt (I like it better than their lowfat version!) and eat while moaning. It is so pretty! And so good! Not too sweet, not too tart. Perfect! Your teeth will feel like you ate fresh spinach, afterwards. (Also would be good on vanilla ice cream.)
Now I need more rhubarb.
Posted at 7:52:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
Rt. 9 back from the shore is speedy, speedy, speedy. I had fun with the Gingers today, even though it was super-cold and windy. Their place was cozy, and we sat around and talked and looked at photos and stuff (my G is really good with his new laptop!), and the M and I went on a little outing together to the fabric store and Shaw's (I drove) (the M was really jealous of our nice CT grocery stores) and then we all went to Lenny & Joe's Fish Tale for dinner. We all got lobster rolls! (And shared a quahog soup.) So I have another lobster roll report.
There are a zillion seafood places along Boston Post Road in Westbrook, but we picked the Fish Tale because my mom remembered reading in some magazine that their lobster rolls are the best. They were good! The only choice was hot buttered lobster roll (no cold lobster salad roll, like I usually get) (I think the hot kind is a thing in Connecticut...) so that's what we got. It was hot lightly buttered lobster chunks on a buttered and toasted New England style bun, and that's it. No lettuce, no seasonings, no unneeded extras. Very pure. The lobster was quite tasty. Much smaller chunks than Kimball's or Bob Lobster's huge claws, but I think it was claw meat. It was very good. "Perfect," was my mom's judgement. My dad wanted to go back again on Thursday! I can't really compare it to my usual favs since it was hot instead of cold, but it was definitely a quality lobster roll. (I do like the cold kind better, though.)
Posted at 1:33:00 AM by Laura W. Petix.
Lobster roll competition continues from '07 to '08! We flew to the Plum Island, MA airport today (which isn't actually quite on Plum Island, although it's almost), and walked to nearby Bob Lobster, about five minutes away. I was hoping for Bob music and pictures of Bob on the walls, but no dice. (Okay, not really.) Humble seafood shack, combo market and restaurant, with a few picnic tables in heated room adjacent the stand-in-line-and-order room. There were lots more tables outside, and very nice views I'm sure, but it was freezing out, so I managed to snag a spot on a bench. It was about 70° at home, warm and sunny, but ocean-side in Massachusetts was 60° and felt at least 10 degrees colder because of the wind. Seriously, it was bite-y. I was glad I had my Oshima beater and windbreaker, and I wore the Oshima in hood-and-hands mode, like on the top of Mt. Haleakala. Anyway, the lines were super-quick (maybe that's not the case in nice weather) and the prices were great. I got a lobster roll and a tiny crab cake on the side, to try. Both were excellent, but the lobster was so good that I went back and got another helping (minus the roll part--just the lobster salad innards)! Dean ate a couple of FSP wraps that we brought, because we knew they'd have nothing for him on the menu. (Other than ice cream, natch! Which was good, but not as good as Kimball's.)
Here's the portrait. Nice, huh? And here's the report: VERY good lobster. TASTY, huge pieces, small amount of shredded lettuce on bottom, generously mixed in celery chunks, perfect amount of mayo, salt, pepper. Quality lob roll, except the roll itself (New England style) wasn't buttered and toasted--it was just cold out of the bag. Generous amount of lobster--not quite as big as Kimball's, but close. No sides except slaw. If the roll had been buttered and toasted, it might have been as good as Kimball Farm's. Like Kimball's, the lobster was nice and lobstery tasting, and made me moan a little. It tasted fresher than Kimball's (no wonder--Bob is a lobsterman and probably caught it this morning!). I was impressed! Except they need to toast the bun. (I read online afterwards that they actually will if you ask them, so I will have to try it next time!) Also, the staff is super-nice.
Notice how in the photo of Tango above, it looks like it was autumn at the Plum Island airport. It wasn't--there are just a lot of spring trees with autumnal-colored buds. Pretty.
