Hummus and Tabbouleh

Today is a miserable, rainy, blustery day.  No good planning an outdoor experience, so off we went to find a new place.  We went to Utica, NY, to go to our favorite Chinese restaurant, Sunny Asian Restaurant.    Alas, they are not open on Monday or they were closed for a private party.  Now it's experiment time!

We drove around for a bit and found an area with several restaurants.  We decided to try Hummus and Tabbouleh.  Hummus and Tabbouleh, 675 Bleecker Street, Utica, NY 13501

We were early for lunch and were the only patrons.  

This is not a type of food familiar to us, so we just guessed at what we might like

 .

One choice we made was the fish with tahini.

There is a little pile of chopped tomato and a generous sprinkle of parsley.

The flavors and textures were interesting.

I think it was dried fish, though, and it was quite salty.

Delicious, but salty.

It came with a thin pocket-type bread.

D chose Okra.

 It is an interesting mix of rice, okra, lamb, soft tomatoes, garlic, tomato sauce.

 The flavor is flowery.  It was really good.

After dinner, our server brought Arabic Tea and poured it into these small glasses.

She also provided a sugar bowl.

The tea was super hot and very strong.  

An excellent end to a fine meal.

I read in a review that this restaurant is owned by an Iraqi who had been an interpreter in Bagdad after his country was invaded in 2003.  He became a US citizen two months before we went to lunch.  Nice.  I hope other people discover this interesting place.  It deserves to be patronized.  We look forward to returning.

Spring Begins

We have had a warmer than normal February and March, and it's time to look for the first signs of spring.

 Here is the first crocus.  Always a happy sign of new beginnings.

The snowdrops are on the north side of a boulder, so they are never our first flower.

It's a beautiful day to let the girls (and one boy) out to play.

They love scratching in the leaf litter.

D has started apple trees from apple seeds.

It's a gamble.  Who knows what they will be like.  

We're off to Delaware

It's time for a little break from chores and weather.  It looks like about 5 1/2 years since our last adventure in Delaware.

Here Is 2010.

Time to revisit. 

We rented a car and left in the morning. First stop Wegmans.   We picked up lunch fixings and headed south.  We picnicked at a rest stop . . .  sandwiches, salads, macaroons, soda.  Delish!  Then back on the road. 

We arrived at our hotel, La Quinta, in Newark, Delaware, around 3pm. We picked this place because they allow dogs, and Tommy is enjoying this vacation, too.

The room is pleasant, but the furnishings are past-due for replacement, with worn upholstery.  But it does have a microwave and refrigerator, dishes and silverware.   Looks like breakfast will be acceptable, and there is brewed coffee in the lobby all day.

 The last time we were here, we had dinner at Tandoori Grill. We still remember the fantastic naan.  We decided to go back.  We found the menu on line and ordered take-out.  Four different kinds of naan and two entrées.  Well, turns out that it's a totally different restaurant. . .  And we had the whole ride back to the hotel wondering if we should have researched more.

Turned out to be excellent, and we have plenty of leftovers for another time. 

After dinner I checked out the fitness room and enjoyed 25 minutes on the exercise bike. I'm feeling very 

virtuous. 

Tommy and D are napping. 

It's Apple Picking Time

D has come up with some clever solutions to harvesting the apples.

Sometimes you can reach them.

Note the apple bag - more about that later in this blog entry.

But some of the trees we have are "Standard", which means they can be 20-30 feet tall!

This tree we have named Eastern Star and this year it is loaded with apples!

They are a good cooking and eating apple.

To get the high apples down, D made a "panking pole".

This is made of a cut-down narrow hoe put into a lightweight antenna pole.

Here is a three-second flick of the pole in action.

 It's not really lightweight, as you can imagine.

Notice the tarps spread under the tree.  We do not want to use fallen apples for cider - they would be ok for cooking - but since cider is not pasteurized, it is better to avoid contamination with critter droppings.

 The gorgeous red apples on this tree are "Belvedere".   About half are reachable, the rest will need panking.

Check out the apple gathering system.  The apple bag is made of the top 8 inches of a five-gallon bucket.  Sewn to that is a feed-sack.  The straps are webbing from a lawn chair.  Pretty clever, I think!

And another efficient set-up is this gathering pail.
It consists of a 30 gallon galvanized trash can, a square of plywood with a center hole and bracing, the top 8 inches of two 5-gallon buckets.

 The bottom bucket piece stays in the plywood.  A feed-sack is pulled up.  The second bucket piece is reinserted to hold the feedsack.

The gathered apples are poured into the feedsack held in the bucket.  

When it's full, remove the top bucket, gather the top of the feedsack.  Remove the plywood and take the full sack out of the bucket.

Definitely a lot of ingenuity.  

And quite economical.

A great combination! 

Now it's ready to load the apple sacks on the tractor bucket for a drive to the cider house.

Apple Picking

It's a gray, cloudy day.

D has been picking apples and putting them in bags to be transported to the cider house.

Tommy likes to help - actually, he's hoping for a backrub and perhaps a game of ball - look at all those "balls" on the ground!

The tractor makes transporting all those bags a bit easier.

Look at all the apples still to be picked.

He figures there are 17 bushels in these bags.  That's a lot of apples!  And picking has only just begun.

We should get two to three gallons of cider from each bushel.

First Cider with the new Cider House and Equipment

Today was our first cider making of the season.  Ed built a wonderful cider house,

and he and Bry put the press and grinder in place.

 On the left is the grinder.  The press is on the right.  Green boxes are for storage.  You can see part of the large cider container on the far right.

We picked some apples from S's tree last week, and D picked some from one of our trees where the apples were so abundant that they threatened to break the branches!  They will be more ripe in a few weeks, but he hated risking breaking the limbs.

Here is the washing station.  

Apples are in the white bags.

They will be sorted on the table and washed in the trough.

Then they will be lifted to the platform.

From the platform, they will be put on the slide to the grinder.

There is a hole in the side of the building to accommodate the slide.

When the slide is removed, the hole is covered with siding.

When the day's grinding is finished, the pomace (ground apples) fills the wash bin.

The pomace, placed in a cloth, is called a cheese - and several cheeses are stacked. 

We stacked five today.

The press compresses the cheeses and the juice flows.

The end result:  7 gallons of apple juice. 

The containers (5-gallon buckets) are covered, the hole in the lid has an airlock, yeast will be added, and they will ferment over the next few months.  Each batch is an experiment.   For the last couple of years, some were fantastic, some not so much.

Simply Thai

A lovely restaurant in Oneonta, NY

We had errands in Oneonta today, and we planned to go to Brooks' Barbecue for lunch.  Alas, they had a sign in the door saying they were closed today.  So we went back downtown to try the restaurant named "Simply Thai".

We ordered lunch specials.  They begin with salad.

HOUSE SALAD

Fresh Greens Served with 

Warm Peanut Dressing

I ordered a small cup of soup.  It had cute little mushrooms (straw mushrooms?) and chunks of chicken.  It was a little spicy - their level 2 is what we requested.  The soup is a thin sweet/sour broth.

TOM YUM

Thai Hot & Sour Soup

with Lemongrass, Mushroom and Roasted Chilies,

Finished with Scallion

For a main course, D ordered:

SPICY THAI BASIL

NOODLES

("DRUNKEN NOODLES")

Fresh Wide Rice Noodles Stir-Fried

with Onion, Carrot, Bell Pepper,

Baby Corn, Mushroom and Thai Basil

 There were three shrimp and lots of wide rice noodles.  It had a smokey flavor.  The vegetables were attractively cut.  D ordered Level 2 heat.  Spicy but not painful.

I ordered:

MASSAMAN CURRY

Indian Influenced - Massaman

Curry Paste Simmered in Coconut

Milk with Potato, Carrot, Onions

Peanuts and a Hint of Tamarind

Our server suggested ordering Level 1 heat, since curry powder already is a bit hot.

There were three shrimp.  This is served with white jasmine rice.

The lunch and dinner menus are almost the same, with the lunch portions smaller and less expensive.

You can see their menu here.

We enjoyed our lunch very much.  

Just one odd thing.   When we finished our salad, and the server picked up the salad plate, she handed us our fork to save for the main course.  So we sat there holding our fork like at a boarding house dinner, waiting for the next course.