Rehoboth Beach

J and I spent a few days in Rehoboth Beach, DE last week. It was our first time there; we went primarily to check out Dogfish Head Brewery and secondarily to meet up with Rachel@Philadelphia and her husby Eric. We stayed at a really beautiful and fancy place called the Canalside Inn, which was in walking distance to the boardwalk and beach. The weather was great, upper 80s and 90s the whole time.

We didn't do too much in terms of activities; we did alot of walking around town, we swam and laid around at the beach at Cape Henlopen (a Delaware state park that was much quieter and calmer than the public beach at Rehoboth), walked along the beach @ Rehoboth, toured Dogfish Head (damn, that place smelled fantastic), and spent some time with Rachel and Eric.

As far as I'm concerned, all the restaurants that we tried were extremely mediocre. Sure, Rehoboth is not known to be a culinary destination by any means, but still.... If you don't want to eat lousy boardwalk food or pay $35.00 for a piece of salmon (not that I eat Atlantic Salmon anymore anyways) at one of the wildly high-end restaurants, you're stuck with what's in between. And it mostly wasn't very good.

There were some food high-lights:

• Iguana Grill Restaurant and Cantina
• The Ice Cream Store. This place has 70 plus flavors, many homemade with milk from a local dairy farm. Some particularly interesting flavors: sweet corn, spinach, bacon, eggplant, pink mint chip.
• Greenman Bistro & Juice Bar. I'm sad we didn't try this place until our last morning when we ate there with Rachel and Eric. Greenman is delicious and just our style (organic, free range, fresh, local, biodegradable, fair trade, heaven)

The nice thing about this trip is that we were both able to relax quickly and stay relaxed for the duration of the vacation. We had a lot of fun together which is something that was infrequent when I was working overnights. I know I get all balled up about the stress and pressure of life and it was nice to be reminded how much fun J and I have together when we can forget about the day-to-day for a while. For that reason, the trip was really special and memorable.

Check out the photos.

Today in Relation to Other Days

Today is:

• six days until the Finger Lakes Wine Festival in Watkins Glen
• thirty-three days (only eighteen more shifts) until I'll be done with this awful job
• thirty-six days until we leave for Rehoboth Beach (Rachel@Philadelphia, the ocean, sun, sand, kayaking, Dogfish Head Brewery, Canalside Inn, Fifer Orchards)
  
• forty-three days until I'm back at the bagel shop
• forty-four days until I start school

I've got time! Tell me which day you want to be yours!

A Day of Totally New Places!

What a fun day! Yesterday, J and I spent the day in Ithaca and did an couple of things we had never done before. We started with lunch with my mom and sister, Lauren at The Ithaca Ale House. The food is really good and, of course, they have a great selection of craft beers on draft.

Next, we headed to the Paleontological Research Institute's Museum of the Earth. For no apparent reason, I have never taken J there! Weird. Yesterday was the first day of a week-long Darwin celebration both at the museum and in Ithaca.

Darwin Day is an annual, international commemoration of the birthday and ideas of Charles Darwin, a British naturalist born February 12, 1809, and author of the seminal book On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection. This year celebrates both Darwin's 200th birthday, and the 150th anniversary of the publication of The Origin.

The Darwin exhibit was really interesting. I think the portion I enjoyed most was learning about his large family and their various talents and contributions to Darwin's work. Most of his children were at least somewhat if not extremely involved in his studies.

The Ithaca Beer Company was our next stop. Again, there is no sensible reason for this being our first trip to the brewery. Jesse loves craft brewed ale and we both love supporting local businesses so I don't know why we've never stopped in.

We shared a double flight which included the standard lineup (Nut Brown, Apricot Wheat, Pale Ale, CaskaZilla) and some special and/or seasonal brews (Winterizer, Gorges Smoked Porter, Flower Power, TEN). We picked up their newest installment in the Excelsior! beer series, alpHalpHa, which is a double honey bitter.

Before dinner at Viva!, we met my brother, Eric, at The Ithaca Coffee Company for some beer and catching up. The Ithaca Coffee Company is neat because they have coffee for me and beer for the boys. Plus they have a lounge/bar area so you can sit and relax.


The day was really fun and relaxing.

Also, Eric gave us some produce from the CSA. Check out this enormous carrot I ate for breakfast!


images via MOTE, IBC, and the ICC

Happy Anniversary, Middle Ages Brewing Company

Sunday, August 3, Jesse, the boy and I headed up to Sewercuse to the Middle Ages Brewing Company for their 13th anniversary party. The weather was warm but breezy and the sky was clear and beautiful. It was a terrific day to sit in the park, drink some beer (their 13th Anniversary Ale was an Imperial Wheat that the boys enjoyed) and listen to some live music.

We were all really relaxed and it was great to catch up with the boy. We had in depth talks of beer, NY grown hops, the environment and the future with our respective partners. Sometimes, I forget that the boy is an adult until we're having serious talks about his strong, loving adult relationship with Tiffany and their future together.

The End of the World is on My Top 10

St. Petersburg Times columnist, Tampa Bay resident and world beer traveler Joey Redner offers his list of the 10 coolest beer names. One of my favorites is #10!

10. Unibroue La Fin Du Monde How can you not love a beer that calls itself "End of the World?" Fortunately, the only thing that will end after enjoying this complex brew is your ability to make do with just any beer.

9. Harveistoun Old Engine Oil Mega-breweries spend millions of dollars on image building, cultivating a look, image and an enticing name that's not distasteful. Then there's the Harviestoun brewery in Scotland that simply looked at its tasty old ale and named it after the first thing that came to mind: Old Engine Oil.

8. Sweetwater Happy Ending Imperial Stout The name refers either to living happily ever after or the beer's great finish. It has nothing to do with massage parlors. Would a brewery that also has beers named Donkey Punch and 420 go there? I think not.

7. Ridgeway Santa's Butt A butt is a wooden keg of beer. The picture on the bottle of jolly St. Nick's butt crack peeking out from his baggy pantaloons ensures no one misses the double entendre. It has the distinction of having been banned in Maine and New York.

6. Buffalo Bill's Alimony Ale Billed as "the bitterest beer in America," this India Pale Ale is clearly the brainchild of someone disenchanted with the notion of till death do us part.

5. Dogfish Head Golden Shower Originally named Prescription Pills, the brewery was forced to change the name, lest someone think it was a pharmaceutical. Golden Shower saw one release before the government folks figured out what they'd approved. The beer is now known as Golden Era.

4. Mikkeller Beer Geek Breakfast Pooh Coffee The coffee added to the beer is pooped out by a civet (a catlike mammal that loves coffee). A bit literal? Yes. But still funny.

3. McQuire's [sic] I'll Have What The Gentleman On The Floor Is Having Barley Wine The name is a subtle hint that at 12 percent alcohol by volume, this beer is meant to be sipped. If you can drink it faster than you can say it, slow down!

2. Avery Collaboration Not Litigation This beer typifies the spirit of the craft brewing community. Vinnie Cilurzo of Russia River Brewing and Adam Avery of Avery Brewing realized they both had beers named Salvation. Showing a selfish disregard for the financial health of America's lawyers, the two brewers decided that instead of suing each other, they'd team up to brew this bold beer.

1. Wasatch Polygamy Porter The slogan explains perfectly why this is the coolest beer name ever: "Why have just one?" I have big love for this beer's name.

via mental_floss

Sled Dog Doppelbock

When we were wine tasting on July 4, we stopped at Wagner Valley Brewing Company for a tasting. Mikus and I both really liked a Bavarian-style Doppelbock called Sled Dog and we took home a six-pack. Since he left shortly after we bought the beer and had only consumed a single bottle, the rest was left for me. I love it and have really been enjoying it. Its smooth and dark with caramel and molasses flavors; 100% delicious. The Brewing Company will ship your choice of their delicious craft-brewed ales directly to your door provided you are not unfortunate enough to live in one of the states that don't allow such daftness.

About a Boy

My brother, Eric "Boy," has been in Alaska since June 20th with a Wilderness Alaska class. It is hard to believe that he has been gone a whole month; he'll be coming home on Tuesday, July 22. Although we haven't personally spoken to him, we received a postcard extolling the scenery, the wildlife

sea otters, harbor seals, Bald eagles, Marbled Murrelets, ... continually grace our presence...

and the Alaskan brews (Amber Ales, IPAs, Summer Ales).

A few of his adventures in list form:

• Kayaking and tenting on Prince William Sound
  
• Backpacking and tenting along Caribou Creek
• Child's Glacier
• Mummy Island via skiffs
  
• Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve
• Hiking Root Glacier
  
• Kennecott Mine
• Whale watching on Prince William Sound

We're all anxiously awaiting his safe return and I'll pass along some pictures and more details soon.

Brews News, Post Vexation

Thankfully, my poor, violated Subaru is nearly rid of all fetid sputum and I am now prepared to recount the details of our day in Sewercuse and at the Empire State Brewing and Music Festival. We got into the city around 2 p.m. and had a late lunch at Blue Tusk, a pub and wine bar with 69 beers on draught (most served in 20 oz. imperial pints) and an eclectic menu with impressive cheese, meat, or vegetable and bread board appetizers. A definite destination for the casual beer drinker AND the connoisseur.

After lunch, we wandered around Armory Square and into Eureka Crafts, a long-time favorite of ours. This unique contemporary craft store is filled with amazing and peculiar ceramics, glass, jewelery, metal and wood from artisans across the country. Nearly every time we visit, we leave with a gift idea for some forth-coming occasion.

We meandered through a couple other shops and found an enormous dead bug before making our way over to the festival area.

The doors opened at 4:30 and pouring started shortly thereafter. A list of some of our favorites:

Jesse:

• Empire Brewing Company Cask-Conditioned IPA
  
• Middle Ages Brewing Company XIII
  

Lisa:

• Boulder Beer Company Sweaty Betty Blonde
• Rogue Dead Guy
• Rogue Mocha Porter
• Southern Tier Brewing Company HeavyWeizen

While Jesse was off sampling and sampling (and sampling some more), I got to hear some great music. Hot Day at the Zoo is a progressive 4-piece (guitar, mandolin, banjo and upright bass) string band from Lowell, MA. They were really high-energy and playful "zoo-grass."

Donna the Buffalo wrapped up the fun, albeit long, evening. DtB has been around for such a long time that they barely need any notes. They do awesome zydeco, bluegrass, country rock and folk jams; I love watching Tara Nevins on her accordion.


I collected Jesse and closely monitored his wobbly walk to the car. The rest has been scooped, scrubbed, vacuumed, scraped, sprayed away. Next time we're driving Jesse's car.

A Witte for Me, A Double IPA for Jesse

Today, Jesse and I are heading to Sewercuse to the 2008 Empire State Brewing and Music Festival. The nice thing about this festival is that it really highlights the craft brewing industry, both local and nationwide.

There is a new, extra special portion for the true beer snob (read, Jesse): a Cask-Conditioned Ale Tent. And for me, a beginner connoisseur of Belgian brews, a Belgian Beer Tent. The tents are only open for brief periods of time; our experience with last year's Belgian Beer Tent was crazy: tons of people all shoved into a little tent trying to get a 2 oz. sample of some Duvel or Lindeman's Lambic. The beer didn't last anywhere near the length of time the tent was scheduled to be open.

We will be meeting up with our friends Phil and Emily and Dominic and Jessica. My brother, Eric, also an extreme beer snob and brewer, has to miss this year's festival since he is in Alaska.

We had a lot of fun at last year's festival. I'm sure this year won't disappoint us. Details to follow.

Mikus+Jesse+Lisa=A Great 8 Days Part 2

Thursday, July 3. I started the day with a job interview then returned to the apartment to collect J & M. Jesse took the day off and we were driving a little out of town to Chenango Valley State Park. Although its so close to us, we have never gone to check it out and I am glad we finally got around it. The park was really pretty and seemed fairly expansive. We got a trail map from the park office and chose the one that is about two miles long and takes you around the lake. There were a number of trails listed and they were all rated for difficulty. According to our map, the trail we chose was rated as difficult although the three of us breezed through it. The only difficulty about it was that it was somewhat rough with roots, rocks, logs and some wet spots. Basically, though, it was an easy 2 miles. There was some rain at the end so we didn't wrap up the afternoon with a swim.

After we left the park, we made a couple sundry stops before heading home. Dinner plans involved the charcoal grill and, since I had abandoned my "no lighter fluid. It tastes hideous!" standpoint, we went from cold charcoal to dinner in a snap. The omnis ate steak and Mikus ate another meal of tofu brats. We had a giant spinach salad on the side. I suggested an after dinner walk to kill some time before we went to Philip and Emily's for a visit. We had a brisk walk to the park across the street. At some point, the rain came and before we knew it, we were all soaked. I love a walk in the rain so I was perfectly content to splash about. We made it back to our place for a change and then relocated to Philip and Emily's for some Apples to Apples, my favoritest, favoritest game. Yay. What a good day. Mikus and my nighttime activity was Persepolis, one of my new favorite discoveries.
From IMDB:

In 1970s Iran, Marjane 'Marji' Statrapi watches events through her young eyes and her idealistic family of a long dream being fulfilled of the hated Shah's defeat in the Iranian Revolution of 1979. However as Marji grows up, she witnesses first hand how the new Iran, now ruled by Islamic fundamentalists, has become a repressive tyranny on its own. With Marji dangerously refusing to remain silent at this injustice, her parents send her abroad to Vienna to study for a better life. However, this change proves an equally difficult trial with the young woman finding herself in a different culture loaded with abrasive characters and profound disappointments that deeply trouble her. Even when she returns home, Marji finds that both she and homeland have changed too much and the young woman and her loving family must decide where she truly belongs.

The movie is great. Mikus and I both liked it so much. Now you go watch it, too.

Friday, July 4. Jesse, Mikus, Philip, Emily, Tiffany and I loaded into the Godell van for a day of food and wine along Seneca and Cayuga Lakes. I'll report our stops in list form:

• Red Newt Cellars, one of my favorites.
  
• Hazlitt Vineyards 1852, another favorite of mine.
  
• Rasta Ranch Vineyards. I didn't like this place at all and I don't think I was alone. The wine was mediocre at best and there were so many dead bugs around. WTF?
  
• Penguin Bay Winery and Champagne House
  
• Wagner Vineyards, Brewery and Ginny Lee Restaurant for lunch. The boys and I tasted the brews while Emily and Tiffany wandered about the gift shop.
  
• Montezuma Winery
  
• Cobblestone Farm Winery

• Lake Shore Winery
• Thirsty Owl Wine Company

At this point, I think we were all getting pretty tired and restless. We were on our way into Ithaca and we stopped at the overlook at Taughannock Falls State Park.
Dinner was at Viva! Cantina. The food was delicious as always and we kept the booze coming. I was happy to bump into my dear friend, David. It was a long day for everyone, Mikus especially, who did all the driving. He was totally amazing and generous with his time and really patient with his van-full of winos. Mikus and I took another long late-night walk. We were cooped up all day and I know I was happy to get the exercise. The night was really cool and clear; a great night to watch the stars.

Saturday, July 5. The day started with some prep for our dinner picnic: vegan pesto pasta salad, cucumber salad, sandwiches, watermelon, chips and salsa, wine and beer. After packing the Subaru for the day's adventure, we began our trip to the Ithaca Farmer's Market at Steamboat Landing. I haven't been to the Market in years, unfortunately, but I have always had fond memories. I'm really at a point in my life where I am trying to make an effort to buy organic and local products and I love being surrounded by a community with the same ideas. We got there around noon so the early morning congestion had dissipated. We all had terrific food and got some produce to add to our picnic. We didn't stay for too long but it was really fun and relaxing. I know Jess and I will head back soon. We planned to spend the rest of the day at Taughannock Falls State Park. Jess and Mikus hiked the Rim Trail and I laid in the sun to finish my Douglas Coupland book. They were gone for a couple of hours. When they returned, it was nearing the time for Li'l Anne and Hot Cayenne to take the stage for the first of 8 weekly concerts in the park. From their website:

Take half a dozen groovemasters, add a spicy blend of rock 'n'roll, blues and funk to the up-tempo Zydeco beat, and presto, you've got a dance groove that just won't quit.

They were really talented and fun. I loved being in the sun, listening to music and watching the crowd enjoy themselves.

Sunday, July 6. When I got up, Mikus was all packed up and ready to leave. To go home. To stop staying with us. It was totally abrupt. I was going to make pancakes for breakfast and was formulating what I thought may have been his last dinner with us. We had loose plans for Sunday (The Farm Sanctuary and perhaps Watkins Glen State Park) and Monday (Filmore Glen State Park) and I was surprised by his impromptu change of plans. It made me sad that he was leaving. I feel like we had really great, playful adventures and spent many hours talking and laughing together and I was disappointed that he was leaving so quickly. I'm trying not to be upset about it his impetuous departure. I really like that he goes where the breeze takes him so I can't also be hurt by the same thing that I like about him.

I think his Mikus' visit was really good for me and I'm so happy he came. Our time together made me nostalgic for the days in high school and afterwards when I was surrounded by similarly spontaneous and impulsive people. I am left feeling energized. I am hoping to squish a couple adventures of my own into my precious few remaining days of unencumbered bliss.