Staycation With Liz and Pat

Our friend Liz suggested we join her for a "stay-cation" trip down to Skaneateles, NY. Skaneateles, about an hour and a half from Rochester, is a resort town on a really beautiful lake. Most of the little towns in western New York State have had quite a hard time of it -- there just isn't any industry to keep them going. But because Skaneateles is on what must be the most beautiful of the finger lakes, it is actually doing quite well.

Our first stop was at Doug's Fish Fry for lunch. We all had the fried haddock -- which was very lightly battered and fried crisp and delish. (My stomach is actually growling as I write this. It was that good! I might just hop back in the car and have it for dinner!) We are fussy about our fish fries here in in Rochester, and Doug's definitely measured up. It was served with hand cut french fries. I liked them, but this wasn't the universal opinion. They just weren't crispy enough for 3 of the 4 of us. The cole slaw was a big hit, however. Cole slaw is one of those things that you tend to just ignore. It's never the star of the show, for sure. But this was cole slaw like no other, with enough onion and celery and a very light dressing.

After lunch, we strolled around and poked our noses into the shops. Nothing was really irresitable, but we did find a chocolate shop. The heath bar-esque thing I had was good.

After our stroll, we ambled over to the dock and boarded the good ship Judge Ben Wiles for a sightseeing cruise. Skaneateles has some pretty spectacular "camps" as they call lakeside mansions here. There was one place that they told us cost $20 million. And, oh by the way, they were adding on to it. It looked like there was going to be quite the sizable addition, based on the construction we saw.

 There wasn't a lot of boat traffic, which was nice. The lake had a very serene feel to it. This is definitely a place I would recommend to you, if you are in the area. I hope we will get back there again soon.

Hurd's Orchards and a Beautiful Summer Day

We are having absolutely the most glorious summer day. The weather is mild, sunny with a light breeze. The birds are singing their hearts out! And, the flowers just keep on coming. We have a lot of day lilies, and most of them have begun blooming. Still to come are the ones we got last year at a wonderful day lily farm near here -- QB Day Lily Gardens. If you are in the neighborhood, you should definitely check them out.

So yesterday we took a drive out to Holley, NY to visit my absolute favorite vegetable stand, Hurd's Orchards. Hurd's is a darling place -- full of jams, jellies, and preserves made from their own luscious fruit. And cookies. And dried lavender. And sweet cottage-y linens. And bowls. It is really adorable, as you can see. They have berry fields about 2 miles from the store and J and I headed over to pick raspberries. We intended to only pick 2 quarts for ourselves, plus one for our friend Liz. But the picking was so easy that we actually picked 4 quarts.

The raspberries canes were just laden with fruit. When we moved into the field, the buzz of the bees was so loud! I was a little nervous at first because I am very allergic to bee sting. But I had an Epi Pen in my pocket, and the bees were actually too busy to notice us. It took us about 30 minutes to pick our 4 quarts and it was only good sense that made us stop at that. It so beautiful there that I think we could have picked until supper time!

On the way home we stopped at another fruit stand and bought 3 ears of local corn. Yes, people. Corn on July 2nd! How is that even possible? I was a little skeptical about how good the corn would be, but it was actually fantastic. Here is how I cook corn: I bring my big dutch oven full of water to a rolling boil, and drop in the fresh corn. Then I turn off the heat, put the lid on tight and make the rest of dinner. J asked me what the minimum time is for the corn to be in the hot water. Honestly, I don't know. I guess it took me about  40 minutes to make dinner  last night. And the corn was perfect then. I think there must be a very wide range of acceptable times to make corn this way because I have never had it not come out perfect and it takes me anywhere from 20 minutes to 90 minutes to make dinner. I only wish I had bought more corn!