Geno's or Pat's?

While we were in Philly, we indulged in a taste test.  Geno's or Pat's?  For those of you not familiar with those names, let me say Philly Cheesesteak Sandwich.  Ah, you say.  That makes sense.  We drove into Philly and found Broad Street.  From there, Connie knew kind of how to find Geno's and Pat's.  Streets barely wide enough for one car, let alone two. 

Lots and lots of stop signs.  And, finally, there they were.

 

Our plan was to buy one of each.  Cheese Whiz WID.  Huh?  WID means with onions.  Ok, that makes sense.  But, Cheese Whiz?  Please.  Well, folks that's how the Philly Cheesesteak is made.  We went to Geno's and bought our sandwich and had them cut it in half.  Then, on to Pat's.  Same deal.  We grabbed a spot at a table and traded halves.

Who won?  Geno's hands down.  The bread was better, the beef more tender, the onions were actually there and the folks were a lot more friendly.

 Geno's

Pat's

Now, let me confess that my favorite Philly Cheesesteak was the one that Connie's friend Dave had the night before.   I'd had plenty to eat between the fried pickles and crab pretzel so didn't order a sandwich.  Both Dave and Connie gave me a bit of theirs.  Dave's was the Irish style.  All I know was it had fried onions on it and it was magnificent. 

Philly

On the road again...  Indy to Columbus to Niagara Falls to Cape Cod - all in the space of three days.  Then two days on Cape Cod.  Some fun time.  Some not.  But at least we have the ex out of our lives.  Wednesday, October 26th we left Cape Cod - headed toward Philly.  The last time I was there was with my real father in about 1965.  A couple of days ago - LOL.  Connie'd been there on business a few years ago but hadn't experienced much other than a real Philly cheesesteak sandwich.  I wanted to see Independence Hall.  You see, my seven-great's grandfather was a fellow named John Hart.  He signed the Declaration of Independence.  And, one of my dear friends visited Longwood Gardens a few months ago and has been telling me since that I need to go there.  Then, I found out that another friend actually does a good bit of consulting there.  He's a nationally renowned expert on glass houses.  And, they've got acres and acres of conservatories.  Last, but not least, I was given the original Winterthur cookbook in 1989.  It's got amazing color photos of part of the collection.  I couldn't wait to see all three!!  And, I really was looking forward to a real Philly cheesesteak sandwich.

Connie got online and hunted for a B and B downtown Philly.  Way pricey.  Then, we looked at the amenities and parking was $30 a night.  Nope, not doing that.  I hunted for a hotel or B and B closer to Kennett Square.  Score!  A lovely place called the Brandywine Hotel.  We got a king room with a fireplace and a jacuzzi tub and it was VERY reasonably priced.  Ok, that dilemma solved.  Now, could we get the Cape house cleaned up and get to Philly and get our gear out of the car and get to a place called MaGerks to meet a friend of Connie's for dinner?  The secret here is that the sheets have to be washed, dried and put back on the beds before heading out of the Cape house.  About 4:30 a.m. I nudged Connie enough that he headed toward the couch with the comforter.  Into the washer went the sheets.  Time to clean up the kitchen and try to get everything just the way Barbara had it.  Finally, sheets in the dryer and Kate in the shower.  Then, Connie in the shower and the bathroom cleaned.  House vacuumed and car packed.  Last, but not least, a trip to the dump.  On Cape Cod they don't have trash service so everyone has to either pay for private trash pickup or take their trash to the dump.  Done and done.

Turns out MaGerks was about two miles from the one person I really wanted to meet and didn't get to - Chef Dennis.  Had we planned a bit better he couldn've joined us after his class.  But, alas, that wasn't to be.  MaGerks was wonderful.  We shared a pretzel with crab dip, two kinds of Philly cheesesteak sandwiches and fried pickles.  We were both exhausted after a VERY long day.

Thursday it was time to visit the Brandywine Battlefield right down the street from the hotel.  Then, we were off to Winterthur.  Finally, the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall.  By the time we got all of that done we were in no mood to hunt for a restaurant for dinner and decided to eat at the Brandywine Prime located a hop, skip and a jump from the hotel.  Good choice on our part!

Here are a few scenes from the day:

This is the excavation of what was George Washington's home in Philadelphia.

This is the rim of the Liberty Bell.  Keep in mind that the bell wasn't intended to be seen, just heard.

The Declaration of Independence was signed here.

 On to Winterthur.  Our 25 minute ride to the main house through the gardens took more like 45 minutes.  Even though there weren't a lot of flowers blooming, it was gorgeous.

 Our garden guide.  What a hoot.  He retired and was home for a few days and his wife "suggested" he get a job. LOL.

The dining room.  The tankards below were made by Paul Revere.  Mr. DuPont rarely mixed any styles.  But, oh my gosh, did he ever have the collection of Americana!!

This is a knife rack.  Amazing.

This wallpaper was incredibly old.  When Mr. DuPont found it, it was too tall for the room.  So, instead of cutting off the wallpaper, he added to the height of the room.

 Part of the conservatory.  You saw the outside of this in the first photo.

This spiral staircase was rescued from a plantation home that was going to be demolished.

 The bar.  Needless to say, mine is not quite as fancy!

A cooler.  I know, can you imagine hefting that into the trunk to take to the college football game... 

See that car WAY DOWN AT THE END OF THE LOT?  That's how you avoid door dings.  It's called a Connie spot.

Friday morning we went to Longwood Gardens.  More on that later.  Friday afternoon we drove to Columbus and had more grandkid time - YAY!  Saturday morning it was time to drive home.  By the time we finally got home to Indianapolis, we were pretty hungry.  Being the frugal person that I am, I had some leftovers.  The eggs that we didn't use on Cape had been hardboiled and put in the cooler.  We had extra lettuce and celery.  And, most of my steak and green beans from Brandywine Prime had been packed in ice too.  It felt like the makings of a steak salad nicoise.  We even had leftover truffled french fries.  The only "newbies" were the mushrooms and the capers and the dressing. 

Cape Cod

Ahhh, Cape Cod - one of my favorite places in the world. My sister-in-law Barb's is kind enough to let us use her Cape house when we're there. We drove across upstate New York then across Massachusetts. The trees were beautiful. We probably missed the best color by a couple of weeks but nonetheless it was glorious.

On Cape just in time to stop and get some lobster for dinner. We found this guy named Salty Lou a couple of years ago. He's a lobsterman. Has a tank on his front porch. So, not only are the lobsters really fresh, they're very reasonably priced. I couldn't find a web site for Lou so we took a guess on the exit to use. Success!! There he was on the south side of 6A east of the East Sandwich exit. Lobsters in hand, it was time to finish the trip to Yarmouth. Middle son, Greg, his girlfriend, Mary and youngest son, Matt, showed up. Off to the grocery Connie went to get hamburger and a few other necessities. You see, Greg doesn't like seafood or fish. Matt doesn't like beans and there's a lot of fruit that Greg can't eat because it makes his mouth tingle. Otherwise, these guys will eat anything. They're so much fun to cook for because I don't have to avoid much.


I bought an extra lobster so we could make lobster rolls for lunch the next day. Once, I ordered a lobster roll at Jerry's down the street. It was ok, but nothing to write home about. I thought the mayo et all rather masked the taste of the lobster. On the flip side, I've had the lobster salad at the Chatham Bars Inn and it's been magnificent. It was time to make my own lobster roll. What did I think? Skip the bun. It's a total waste. Now, some of you may disagree here but I think it just totally takes away from the flavor of the lobster.


Lobster Roll
serves 2

 Ingredients:

1 lobster, cooked and picked
1 rib celery, finely diced
1 t lemon juice
2 T mayonnaise
2 lobster rolls or hot dog buns
1 T butter



Directions:

Dice the lobster meat and toss it lightly with the lemon juice, mayonnaise and celery. 

Melt the butter in a skillet.  Brown the rolls on the outsides. 

Remove the rolls from the heat and stuff them with the lobster salad.

Red Coach Inn

Up and at 'em early on Saturday morning. Heading east to Niagara Falls. First though, we wanted to stop and get some Barberton chicken. Supposedly the best fried chicken in Ohio. In our opinion, don't waste your money, time or calories. It was greasy, flavorless and pretty awful. Fortunately, that wasn't the case for most of the food we had on our vacation.


Several years ago, Connie was consulting at a bank in Buffalo. He got the whole team together for a trip to Niagara Falls. They ate a fantastic dinner at a place called the Red Coach Inn. We checked to see if they were still in business and found they're a bed and breakfast. Super double bonus. Reservations were made. When Connie ate there the first time, he had a swordfish dish that was so incredible that I wrote to the chef and asked for the recipe. He was kind enough to send it to me. Butterlfied swordfish is served on a bed of lightly sauteed spinach with roasted red peppers. It's magnificent.


We got to Niagara with just enough time to head to the Canadian side and see the falls. We parked at the American falls and walked the mile down to the Canadian falls. Absolutely amazing. I'd never seen them and they were on my bucket list so I was like a kid in a candy store.

Back to the Red Coach with just enough time to run in for our 8 pm dinner reservations. Unfortunately, dinner wasn't stellar. The chef was off getting married and whoever was in charge loved the salt shaker. I had to send my scallops on pasta dinner back. Connie soldiered through his lobster mac and cheese even though it was equally salty. My replacement was duck - overcooked duck. But, the flavors were marvelous. Breakfast the next morning absolutely made up for any misgivings I had about dinner. I had a crab benedict. The crabmeat was fresh and oh, so flavorful. The eggs were perfectly poached. And, the hollandaise was exactly right. YUM! Connie had a smoked salmon bagel - and some of my crab benedict. His bagel was so huge that we managed to make half of it our lunch!


If you're in the area, I'd highly recommend staying at the Red Coach. Our room was lovely. Everyone on the staff was so friendly. The whole place is just gorgeous.

For our recipe, let's skip back to Kara's birthday party. I knew there wasn't a lot of time to prepare a meal since I had an appointment the evening before that'd last way late and I'd be lucky to get home by 8pm. So, I went to pork tenderloin. It's so versatile and so easy. The tenderloins were still frozen after our three hour ride. Actually, they served as the ice pack for the rest of the dinner ingredients that needed to be chilled on the way. We butterflied them then slathered them with the marinade. A quick trip to the grill and they were done.  Alongside we had the potato gratins we love,

roasted acorn squash with butter and brown sugar

and a salad with the last of the cherry tomatoes from our CSA and a good sprinkle of shredded gruyere along with a homemade mustard vinaigrette.

Mustard BBQ Pork Tenderloin


Ingredients:


2 pork tenderloins
1/2 c dijon mustard
2 T soy sauce
2 t garlic salt


Directions:


Mix the mustard, soy sauce and garlic salt. Slather it on the pork and allow it to sit at room temperature for about 20 minutes.

Grill to your preferred level of doneness.

Strawberry Torte

What a week it was. We left Friday October 21st to head to Cape Cod via a somewhat circuitous route. We got home this past Saturday, October 30th. Nine days away. I missed my furry critters and was tired of all of the riding in a car. But, I got a lot of cooking magazines read and a lot of recipe clipping done. We got to see our grandkids twice and visited some cool places. Plus, the biggest and best news is our freedom. I've hinted on occasion about my angst over our situtation but I've never really come out and said anything. Now, I finally can. You see, to a great extent this blog was my way of making sure there was a place I could go to be really happy. I love cooking and I've found I love sharing my stories about cooking. And, I've met some of the most wonderful folks through blogging. The angst is a long story and I won't go into it other than to say that finally, ten years after they separated and seven years after I met Connie, he and his ex-wife have settled. She will no longer be causing us to spend thousands of dollars on attorney fees. She will no longer be stalking us - me on my blog and we're pretty certain via private investigators. Now, when I'm working 70-80 hours a week, it'll be for me. We're going to have a heckuva mortgage but the alimony is over. We can move on with our lives. I kept saying that if we could get everyone in a room together we could get it settled. It worked.


(For those of you in states with reasonable divorce laws, you're probably scratching your heads. Ah, but Connie got divorced in Massachusetts. You can go to massalimonyreform.com and see what folks have been going through there.)


Now, let's talk about our trip. I'll break it into a few days so I'm not like your local brook, babble on... We drove from Indy to Columbus, OH on Friday night. That was Kara's birthday party night. Kara is my daughter-in-law. She's married to Connie's eldest son, David. She's one of the nicest people in the world. That's in addition to being wicked smart, pretty, fun and kind. And, she's the mother of the two most wonderful grandchildren in the world. (What? Me biased?) She and David are amazing parents. Every time I'm with them I'm in awe.

So, Kara requested "that strawberry deliciousness." That would be strawberry torte. It all started when we were kids and Miz Lou (across the street neighbor) fixed her mother-in-law's recipe for strawberry torte for Tim's birthday. Tim's the middle of five kids. Ted and Dan were in my class and Tim was best buds with my younger brother, John. Funny story here. So, Lou's mother-in-law, Aunt Katie, was my mother's mother's best friend. Lou and my mother were best friends. John and I grew up with and have stayed friends with the middle three kids. AND, John's eldest, Samantha, went to school with Dan's daughter. Four generations. Ok, back to strawberry torte. John wanted it for his birthday too. So, Mom made it. The recipe called for whipping the egg whites and slowing adding the sugar. We'd all help because it took FOREVER to whip all those egg whites. Then, one day Mom realized the recipe had been written before mixers existed. Eureka! Strawberry torte was something we could do easily. Kara had a taste at one of the family parties at my brother John's house. Now, we're going to have another family hooked on the stuff. Unfortunately, the camera with the photos was left at David and Kara's on the way back so its taken me a few days to be able to post this. And, now I've discovered that the recipe is at home and I'm at the office and I don't have the baking instructions. I'll fill those in shortly.




Strawberry Torte

Ingredients:

7 egg whites
1 t cream of tartar
1 1/2 c granulated sugar
1 t vanilla
1 pint strawberries, cored and very thinly sliced and patted dry
8-10 strawberries, cored
1 pint whipping cream




Directions:

Preheat your oven to 275. Put the egg whites in the bowl of a mixer. Make sure the bowl is clean and dry. Add the cream of tartar and the vanilla. Beat them on high while slowly adding the sugar. You want the meringue to be very stiff and glossy. Scrape the meringue into an ungreased 8-9" springform pam. Make peaks.

Bake for 30-40 minutes or until the peaks are lightly browned. Turn off the heat to the oven and allow the meringue to cool in the oven. Cut the crispy peaks off. REmove the meringue from the pan. DO NOT wash the pan yet, you're going to want all the crispies! Put the meringue on a cake stand or serving plate. Cover it with the sliced strawberries. Whip the whipping cream until soft peaks form. Your choice here: I like my whipping cream plain. Connie likes his sweetened a bit. Or, you can use Cool Whip if you'd like to save calories and fat. Slather the whipped cream over the strawberries and the side of the torte. Now, time for the crispies. Scrape the inside of your springform pan and sprinkle the crispies over the whipped cream.

Top the whole deal with the whole strawberries and the reserved meringue peaks. Confession here: One, I didn't have Connie get enough strawberries so we didn't have any for the outside. AND, David didn't realize I was saving the meringue peaks and managed to inhale them before I could stop him. Oh, well, it still tasted wonderful!