Good Eats

Thursday night we celebrated the end of the first week of teaching with a few friendly colleagues. First stop: adding to our passports at Mahar's. The wide variety always makes choices difficult, but I went for the Hacker-Pschorr Oktoberfest (just to be seasonal). It was great. I'm working toward that personal mug (only 123 beers away). I'll get there, albeit slowly. We hemmed and hawed about eating and finally decided to go next door to eat. Mahar's: great for beer, not so much for food and we were a bit hungry by then.

I had thought that most of the restaurants very near campus were all student-oriented low budget affairs. Not Café Madison: apparently it used to be, as the only reviews I could find on-line were for its previous incarnations (our more experienced colleagues mentioned it having burned down twice before). Perhaps, like Swamp Castle, the third time is the charm.

The prices were a little higher than we were expecting, but the service was amazing and the food wonderful. I had a flank steak that was cooked to perfection and like buttah. When I got up to use the ladies room mid-meal, the waiter came over and covered my plate with a warming dish. Swank, eh? Everyone seemed quite delighted with their meals and, naturally, great conversation ensued.

Yesterday we packed up the car and headed down to Robert's for a picnic. It's always such an extraordinary experience to be surrounded by the profusion of flowers and plants that fill the yard at Larry and Bernie's house. Dahlias as big as your head! Purple basil and huge stalks of rosemary. We had just missed the blooming of the lotus in the koi pond, but the gigantic koi were swimming restlessly around in hopes of food. Someday I need to have a garden like that.

We headed over to Anna's and decided to just stay there for our picnic. The Celtic Festival was on that day and Kingston was packed with people, so it seemed quieter to chill by the pool, play with Buddy and eat our way through cheese and satay and ripe red tomatoes and cheesecake and everything else. A very relaxing day -- good for Robert as he has to work today because Bard does not recognize Labor Day (indeed).

Back to writing!