Rick’s Rants and Raves

See also Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.

• Friday we took a road trip to visit St. Johnsbury, where Steve, Margi and Jessie used to live. We immediately fell in love with the towns classic New England architecture, and riverside views.
• While in St. Johnsbury, we visited the Fairbanks Museum of Natural History. I found the exterior architecture to be just as interesting as the interior displays. Margi described the museum quite well as a “wealthy gentleman’s attic”. It quite clearly started as a collection of interesting nic-nacs adorning some mansion. There are a large number of stuffed birds and other animals, as well as Native American artwork, Far East carvings, and 18th century bug art–e.g. portraits of Lincoln made from thousands of beetles and butterflies. My favorite was the Bennett’s Bird of Paradise.
• We also visited Caplan’s Army Store in St. Johnsbury. Don’t let the “Army” in the name fool you–it was all about outfitting the outdoorsman. (erm, outdoorsperson?). It had hundreds of gloves and vests and coats and hats and boots.  There were so many things to keep a person warm in the wilderness it made me want to move to Vermont and live in a wood-fire heated shack.
• We finished Friday with a dip in Margi’s hot tub with some light flurries falling. Anne and I relaxed as much as we could while the kids were playing right next to us.
• We departed Saturday morning ahead of schedule thanks in part to Fluffy yowling from bedroom to bedroom around 6:50AM. It was a picturesque drive. We started with a trip to King Arthur Flour, then stopped at Vermont Country Store.
• We ate a late lunch at the Manchester Bar and Grill in Machester, VT. It was only a couple of miles from several ski resorts, and looked like a rustic ski lodge. I worried as we walked in that they would confirm my prejudice against tourist-focused restaurants. I’ve found quite frequently that tourist-focused restaurants typically suck, and so I try to avoid them if I can. MB&G was quite nice, had excellent food, quick service, and was reasonably priced.
• We finally crossed the Vermont state line into New York at 3PM, with a good bit of sadness all around the van.
• We stopped in Batavia, NY for the night. The AAA guide book mentioned Miss Batavia’s Family Restaurant. It was a great not-a-chain-restaurant diner serving American family cooking. The food was reasonably priced, and came to us quickly. It was a decent dinner at the end of a long day.
• At our hotel, we let the kids splash in the pool as Anne and I enjoyed the hot tub. We enjoyed it a little more than Margi’s precisely because the kids were in the pool, not with us .
• We left the hotel just before 9AM (we’re not early movers or shakers), had a few stops along the way, and arrived home around 3:30PM. The last two hours were incredibly busy with occasional accidents and serious slow-downs due to construction. It pretty well sucked.

Some final random thoughts (yes, I know they nearly all have been random):

• Total miles traveled: 1645
• Highest price paid for gas: 2.44/gallon along I-90
• Lowest price paid for gas: 1.61/gallon, just as we left home.
• We saw trails for VAST which Margi explained. I thought it sounded absolutely fascinating.
• We also passed near the headquarters for the American Society of Dowsers, whom Margi said “were a little squirrely”.

See also Part 1, Part 2.

• Thursday was, of course, Turkey Day. Margi spent much of the day preparing the feast (Anne and I helped some) while the rest of us played on the ice, and cuddled with the animals.
• We took a mid-day break from cooking to watch the WKRP in Cincinnati Turkeys Away episode. I think I had seen it years ago, and it was hysterical to watch the late 70′s stereotypes.
• Emily, Nathan, Anne and I relaxed in the hot tub while flurries fell on our faces. Well, we relaxed as much as two adults can relax while two children are in the tub trying to play…
• Thanksgiving Dinner was a 22 pound turkey and gravy, our favorite New England Sausage, Apple and Dried Cranberry Stuffing, our Famous Sweet Potato Souffle, Margi’s attempt to interest us in brussels sprouts, the Famous Brownfield Cranberry salad, and candied pearl onions. We finished it off with, of course, pumpkin pie.
• After dinner we watched Emily and Nathan’s production of Hansel and Gretel, which they had been occasionally preparing for all week.
• Shortly after the play, Nathan complained that he was hungry, which astonished the adults greatly. Its not all that uncommon for him–eat dinner, play for 30-60 minutes, then claim he’s hungry again. So I fixed another plate of turkey, dressing, sweet potatoes and gravy, which he nearly cleaned up.
• We finished the evening off with A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving, and to officially start the Christmas season, How the Grinch Stole Christmas.

After we brought this dish to a family gathering, it has been requested at pretty much every gathering since. It was originally published in Southern Living magazine with an error in the ingredient list, and we’ve made one adaptation.

Souffle

• 1 40oz can cut sweet potatoes, drained and mashed
• 1 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup milk
• 1 tsp fresh grated orange rind
• 2 tbsp fresh orange juice
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 large eggs, lightly beaten
• 1/3 cup flour
• 1/4 cup butter, melted

Topping

• 1/3 cup flour
• 1/4 cup butter, melted
• 1 cup oats (not quick or instant oatmeal), or 1 cup pecans chopped
• 1 cup brown sugar

Stir together the souffle ingredients and pour (or spread) into a lightly greased 9×13 baking pan.

Stir together the topping ingredients and evenly spread over top of the souffle.

Bake at 350 degrees for 40 minutes or until bubbly.

Serves 8-10.

See also Part 1, Part 3.

• Day three continued, after the ice skating, with a game of Apple to Apples, and a host-led trip to a near-by waterfall. Still somewhat obsessed with exercising, and being limited in what I could accomplish in the icy Vermont woods, I took inspiration from hundredpushups.com, and managed to pound out 100 push-ups in 5 sets.
• Day four began with a delicious breakfast, if I do say so my self. Steve and Margi then took us on a whirl-wind tour through Montpelier, Burlington, and Colchester, with a distant view of Camel Back Mountain. They performed their nearly-ceremonial changing of the drivers in front of the state capital, but I was feeling somewhat nauseous and failed to snap a picture of the capital building. We got to see their business, and treated them to lunch at the Vermont Pub and Brewery in Burlington. The beer and the food were decent, but service was slow as molasses in a Vermont winter. After lunch, we did a little shoping, then ventured down to Lake Champlain, where the cold wind immediately turned us around toward our car. It was 40 degrees, but felt like 10. We finished the road-trip with a visit to the Ben and Jerry’s ice cream factory in Waterbury, VT. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to take pictures of the factory floor (not really a big suprise), and they weren’t making ice cream anyway due to the proximity of the holiday.