vacation narrative continued
Danbury has no Whole Foods, so on Friday we had lunch at Stew Leonards, a kid friendly mecca for blue collar foodies. Unlike WF very little is organic. Like Fairway the aisles are labyrinths with many free sample tasting stations, but the Brooklyn Fairway has a health food section that is a store within a store in contrast to Stew Leonards which has very few health food items at all . And the many high end items we love at Fairway are completely absent at Stew Leonards. On the plus side their baked goods (muffins and chocolate chip cookies) are tasty, and their wraps were acceptable. I told Shoshana that someone should start a magazine for working class gourmets, and she reminded me that working class people prefer to think of themseives as middle class, suggested the title The Regular Guy Gourmet, and said it would make a better satiric novel than a magazine. Such a novel would be fun to research and write, but one must have some affection for and familiarity with the demographic in question which I don't.
After lunch we went hiking in Williams Park in Brookfield, which has nice hiking trails. We had a fish dinner at a diner in Newtown; the fresh brook trout was quite good. Saturday we drove up Route 7 to Kent where we had a picnic lunch along Macedonia Brook and then went hiking in Macedonia Brook State Park. We hiked the blue trail up to a point from which one can see the CT Berkshires to the east, the MA Berkshires to the north, NY's Taconic Mountains and beyond them the Catskills to the west. It was a quite challenging combination of hiking and rock climbing. On the way down at one point we had to slide down a steep rocky section on our butts. When we got back to Danbury we had pasta dinners at Bertucci's: Shoshana had the four cheese ravioli and I had the linguini primavera. Not at all bad for a chain restaurant. The dinner rolls were quite good which means that their pizza crust must be too (both are made from the same dough).
Sunday we checked out of the hotel, packed up the car and before leaving Danbury we picked up some hummus at the Stop & Shop; around lunch time we pulled off of route 34 near Derby to Osbornedale State Park where we found a picnic table and ate the hummus with left over corn chips and baby carrots and had muffins for dessert. When we got to New Haven we found a supermarket that had a decent Passover section where we found a jar of Hungarian gefilte fish that is lower in sodium than the other brands sold there; it tastes better too. We got back on the highway and drove to my in-laws in Wallingford. We returned to New Haven with my in-laws to have dinner at Tandoor which we've dined at before and will return to again. Shoshana and I had the vegetarian Thali dinner (a couple of curries, dahl, and raita with poori), my FIL had Tandoori Chicken, and my MIL had lamb.
Monday I worked out at the Wallingford YMCA and later we had seder with my MIL, FIL, BIL, SIL, Shoshana's 12 year old niece Naomi (who has gotten taller, thinner, and is now a purple belt in karate), and my BIL's MIL. Naomi's autistic older sister Rachael spent the whole time in the basement watching videos which is what she always does at her grandparents' home. Shoshana baked a savory sweet potato kugel which was quite good. After the meal my BIL, SIL, Shoshana and I finished the seder singing a selection of the songs. Tuesday we drove to New Rochelle and had second seder with my parents, sister, SIL, my nieces Rachel and Emily (who will be 6 in June), family friends Helene and Joy and their 3 year old daughter Sophie, and my late brother Robert's partner Jordan. This was the kiddy version of the seder and it was nice to see the girls participate. They're very sweet kids. We had no traffic on the drive back to Brooklyn, but when we got home we found that our street was a construction site and parking banned. Since it was late we parked anyway to unload the car and then I moved it to a side street.
Shoshana does not return to work for another week and is much less stressed than on work days. This morning I weighed myself and was 4 or 5 lbs heavier than I was two weeks ago, though we're eating less and exercising more now that we're home.
After lunch we went hiking in Williams Park in Brookfield, which has nice hiking trails. We had a fish dinner at a diner in Newtown; the fresh brook trout was quite good. Saturday we drove up Route 7 to Kent where we had a picnic lunch along Macedonia Brook and then went hiking in Macedonia Brook State Park. We hiked the blue trail up to a point from which one can see the CT Berkshires to the east, the MA Berkshires to the north, NY's Taconic Mountains and beyond them the Catskills to the west. It was a quite challenging combination of hiking and rock climbing. On the way down at one point we had to slide down a steep rocky section on our butts. When we got back to Danbury we had pasta dinners at Bertucci's: Shoshana had the four cheese ravioli and I had the linguini primavera. Not at all bad for a chain restaurant. The dinner rolls were quite good which means that their pizza crust must be too (both are made from the same dough).
Sunday we checked out of the hotel, packed up the car and before leaving Danbury we picked up some hummus at the Stop & Shop; around lunch time we pulled off of route 34 near Derby to Osbornedale State Park where we found a picnic table and ate the hummus with left over corn chips and baby carrots and had muffins for dessert. When we got to New Haven we found a supermarket that had a decent Passover section where we found a jar of Hungarian gefilte fish that is lower in sodium than the other brands sold there; it tastes better too. We got back on the highway and drove to my in-laws in Wallingford. We returned to New Haven with my in-laws to have dinner at Tandoor which we've dined at before and will return to again. Shoshana and I had the vegetarian Thali dinner (a couple of curries, dahl, and raita with poori), my FIL had Tandoori Chicken, and my MIL had lamb.
Monday I worked out at the Wallingford YMCA and later we had seder with my MIL, FIL, BIL, SIL, Shoshana's 12 year old niece Naomi (who has gotten taller, thinner, and is now a purple belt in karate), and my BIL's MIL. Naomi's autistic older sister Rachael spent the whole time in the basement watching videos which is what she always does at her grandparents' home. Shoshana baked a savory sweet potato kugel which was quite good. After the meal my BIL, SIL, Shoshana and I finished the seder singing a selection of the songs. Tuesday we drove to New Rochelle and had second seder with my parents, sister, SIL, my nieces Rachel and Emily (who will be 6 in June), family friends Helene and Joy and their 3 year old daughter Sophie, and my late brother Robert's partner Jordan. This was the kiddy version of the seder and it was nice to see the girls participate. They're very sweet kids. We had no traffic on the drive back to Brooklyn, but when we got home we found that our street was a construction site and parking banned. Since it was late we parked anyway to unload the car and then I moved it to a side street.
Shoshana does not return to work for another week and is much less stressed than on work days. This morning I weighed myself and was 4 or 5 lbs heavier than I was two weeks ago, though we're eating less and exercising more now that we're home.