Thursday, October 13, 2011
The Apple has fallen!
All through the gorgeous summer months the Inn is humming with vacationing guests; some staying for two nights and some for as long as a week. I don’t think that we were quite prepared for how exhausting it was going to be. Our few opportunities for free time was spent on our backs in a cool place under a fan or we escaped in the late afternoon down to the lake with a couple of beers, pushing the paddle boat into the middle to drift around out of earshot of the phone and the needy people. We ached for signs that summer was waning, which meant that our work load would ease up somewhat. And now here we are in the full flourish of autumn colours telling us that the cold and quiet time will soon be here. Memories of summer is all that is left.
I dislike wishing time away and I am made more aware of the folly of that with the untimely death of Apple’s co-founder Steve Jobs. His illness and passing has pulled me up and made me pay more attention to each day that I am here, even when I am exhausted and exasperated with my day and it seems so like a steep uphill climb. At least I have my health and an amazing partner and our children who are a constant source of hope in a struggling world. If I didn’t have this job to hold down I would grab a back pack and go off to ‘occupy’ Wall Street. It is a movement full of desperation with the times, people with their backs against an unyielding wall and it may drag on and on much like the Vietnam War protests, maybe getting ugly before something positive happens.
Meanwhile our little boat is in need of us. We are taking some time off and will be going back to Deltaville, VA in November to do some maintenance and to cover her up again against the imminent snow and ice. We are looking forward to our children coming to the Inn over Christmas and to a winter season in this beautiful part of the country. Time marches on, the seasons do not waver from their proscribed time, all we can do is to hold fast and do the best with every moment we are given.
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
I've been Liebstered
My award was given to me by my sailing friend Nancy who we first met with her teenage son Josh on the street in Charleston S. Carolina - she stopped us and said, "You look like cruisers looking for a supermarket." and she was right on the money. They gave us directions and we later grew to be friends with her and her husband Dave. They are going south for the winter on their boat FAWKES. To see her blog: NancyJNicholson'sBlog
Nancy is a wonderful writer and cook and she is also a master cabinet maker among her many varied talents.
Recognition is a beautiful thing. Now I have to see how to pass it on.
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
Bow Season in the Mountains of W. Maryland
Deer Hunting season is a big thing here. Kids get a week off school to go hunting with the folks, there is deer corn and salt licks for sale for luring the beasts within aiming distance and all over are establishments for butchering and dressing your kill.
I hate hunting, but I do recognize there are way too many deer around and as long as the hunters eat the quarry rather than hang it on some wall I guess I'm okay with it. Here at the inn we bought a salt lick and deer corn to try and lure the deer closer to the property so that they are protected. We have especially been enjoying a pair of twins as they grew up over the summer. But it is the season for laying up the winter provisions and I came across this article in one of my favorite blogs all about the origins of "Humble Pie"
The Mighty and the Offal: Humble Pie - From the blog "The Austerity Kitchen"
Some carried long bows and forked arrows; others harquebusses, muskets and Lochaber axes. They wore thin-soled shoes, tartan hose, knotted handkerchiefs, sky-blue caps, and garters fashioned from wreathes of straw. Thus equipped and adorned, they, the Irish nobility of Braemar, ventured into the Highland countries to hunt deer.
Numbering fourteen or fifteen hundred, these noble hunters would rise with the sun to consult on the particulars of the day's enterprise. After deciding the best place to herd their quarry, they dispersed in all directions. Sixteenth-century Londoner John Taylor, ferryman by trade and chronicler by avocation, relates the details of one such hunting party. The participants were intrepid. No obstacle proves too formidable to overcome. They waded "up to their middles through bournes and rivers" in search of cover. Upon a signal from scouts charged with spotting game, the "tinchel," or circle of sportsmen, would close in, driving the startled ruminants toward other hunters lying in wait, who greeted them with hundreds of snapping Irish greyhounds and scores of "arrows, dirks and daggers." In less than two hours' time "fourscore fat deer were slain" for the noble hunters "to make merry withal."
The choice cuts of venison went to high-born hunters and were baked into a pastry served on the manor lord's dais. Seated lower because a few rungs down on the social ladder, the master of the hunt and his fellows received their due in the form of a pie containing the heart, liver and other inward parts of the deer. Known colloquially as "humbles," "umbels" or "numbles," these ingredients have since come to be associated with acts of mortification and obeisance. An old saying goes, "Whence, as the haunch and neck were for 'Lordings' and the umbles ... for the yeoman."
Victorian writer George Sala insists, however, that humble pie's reputation is wholly unearned. "He who first decried Humble Pie, and libelled it as a mean and shabby kind of victuals," he observes in his 1862 tome The Seven Sons of Mammon, "was very probably some envious one who came late to the feast, and of the succulent pasty found only the pie-dish and some brown flakes of crust remaining."
If you wish to secure yourself a piece of savory humble pie, the recipe below, which also appears in Sala's work, should, despite its fragmentary character, spare you any unwarranted culinary humiliation.
Humble Pie
"Take the humbles of a deer," says the recipe, – you see, there is venison for you to begin with, – and then it goes on to enumerate slices of bacon, condiments, buttered crust, and so forth.
I hate hunting, but I do recognize there are way too many deer around and as long as the hunters eat the quarry rather than hang it on some wall I guess I'm okay with it. Here at the inn we bought a salt lick and deer corn to try and lure the deer closer to the property so that they are protected. We have especially been enjoying a pair of twins as they grew up over the summer. But it is the season for laying up the winter provisions and I came across this article in one of my favorite blogs all about the origins of "Humble Pie"
The Mighty and the Offal: Humble Pie - From the blog "The Austerity Kitchen"
Some carried long bows and forked arrows; others harquebusses, muskets and Lochaber axes. They wore thin-soled shoes, tartan hose, knotted handkerchiefs, sky-blue caps, and garters fashioned from wreathes of straw. Thus equipped and adorned, they, the Irish nobility of Braemar, ventured into the Highland countries to hunt deer.
Numbering fourteen or fifteen hundred, these noble hunters would rise with the sun to consult on the particulars of the day's enterprise. After deciding the best place to herd their quarry, they dispersed in all directions. Sixteenth-century Londoner John Taylor, ferryman by trade and chronicler by avocation, relates the details of one such hunting party. The participants were intrepid. No obstacle proves too formidable to overcome. They waded "up to their middles through bournes and rivers" in search of cover. Upon a signal from scouts charged with spotting game, the "tinchel," or circle of sportsmen, would close in, driving the startled ruminants toward other hunters lying in wait, who greeted them with hundreds of snapping Irish greyhounds and scores of "arrows, dirks and daggers." In less than two hours' time "fourscore fat deer were slain" for the noble hunters "to make merry withal."
The choice cuts of venison went to high-born hunters and were baked into a pastry served on the manor lord's dais. Seated lower because a few rungs down on the social ladder, the master of the hunt and his fellows received their due in the form of a pie containing the heart, liver and other inward parts of the deer. Known colloquially as "humbles," "umbels" or "numbles," these ingredients have since come to be associated with acts of mortification and obeisance. An old saying goes, "Whence, as the haunch and neck were for 'Lordings' and the umbles ... for the yeoman."
Victorian writer George Sala insists, however, that humble pie's reputation is wholly unearned. "He who first decried Humble Pie, and libelled it as a mean and shabby kind of victuals," he observes in his 1862 tome The Seven Sons of Mammon, "was very probably some envious one who came late to the feast, and of the succulent pasty found only the pie-dish and some brown flakes of crust remaining."
If you wish to secure yourself a piece of savory humble pie, the recipe below, which also appears in Sala's work, should, despite its fragmentary character, spare you any unwarranted culinary humiliation.
Humble Pie
"Take the humbles of a deer," says the recipe, – you see, there is venison for you to begin with, – and then it goes on to enumerate slices of bacon, condiments, buttered crust, and so forth.
Sunday, September 11, 2011
A Natural Dilemma - Guest writer Richard Cross
The Inn has few resident neighbors. Of the twenty or so houses scattered through the woods on the fifty acres that once was monastery land, only two are occupied year round. The remainder are holiday homes and rentals. We know more chipmunks by their first names than we do neighbors.
An apple tree grows by the side of the lane on our path to the lake. In the forest we have tried to sharpen our foraging skills gathering flowers, herbs, fungi
and berries and now this little tree is heavy with small, blotch-marked and misshapen apples, the kind that would never be sold in a store, but are so full of promise. For some time the tree has been denuded of fruit, totally clean, to a height of six feet or so, the apple bobbing reach of a standing bear. Now those above the bite line are ripening to lush red.
Will the bear climb the tree to take the rest?
Have the house owners left them for a ritual family apple picking over the Labor Day weekend?
We’re torn. We want to be good neighbors, both to the owners of the tree and to the bear, who surely needs to fatten up for the winter more than we. It would be a crime to let them over-ripen and fall, wasted. We delay (but only for a moment) and then, with stealth, we glean two large bags, twenty pounds, of the little beauties.
Ethical or not and with profuse apologies to neighbors and bear, they cooked up beautifully and seem just right as the evening air begins to gather a little chill bite.
An apple tree grows by the side of the lane on our path to the lake. In the forest we have tried to sharpen our foraging skills gathering flowers, herbs, fungi
and berries and now this little tree is heavy with small, blotch-marked and misshapen apples, the kind that would never be sold in a store, but are so full of promise. For some time the tree has been denuded of fruit, totally clean, to a height of six feet or so, the apple bobbing reach of a standing bear. Now those above the bite line are ripening to lush red.
Will the bear climb the tree to take the rest?
Have the house owners left them for a ritual family apple picking over the Labor Day weekend?
We’re torn. We want to be good neighbors, both to the owners of the tree and to the bear, who surely needs to fatten up for the winter more than we. It would be a crime to let them over-ripen and fall, wasted. We delay (but only for a moment) and then, with stealth, we glean two large bags, twenty pounds, of the little beauties.
Ethical or not and with profuse apologies to neighbors and bear, they cooked up beautifully and seem just right as the evening air begins to gather a little chill bite.
Saturday, September 3, 2011
Long Hard Summer, Nearly Over!
Here we are on Labor Day weekend and although we have several full house week-ends still to come, there is some light in the tunnel during the mid weeks when we are only half full or less. Phew! June, July and August were so crazy we worked and worked and then collapsed on the bed or sofa to get half an hour off our feet. Our guests have run the gamut from absolute horrors to really interesting and accomplished people who 
one can’t help wonder where they find the time to have achieved so much.
There have been some wonderful high points during all the craziness of work. My brother David and sister-in-law Jo came to visit for three days on their way back to Britain from a week in the Outer Banks at a huge annual family reunion (my mother’s side). It was the first time we have seen them for nearly nine years, too long of course and I resolved not to let it happen again. Bears with their cubs and sightings of a pair of deer twins as they grow up in our immediate woods. The gracious musician Don Walters who arrived with his companions a mandolin, guitar and banjo. They wrote music together in Room 1 for three days and on the last night they gave us an impromptu concert under the stars, around the nightly campfire. The frogs and cicadas seemed to be singing louder that night in appreciation of their beautiful music.
The work of running a popular ten room B & B is endless. We rise at 6.30am and the phone is often still ringing with reservation demands or questions from people at 10.30pm at night. Incredibly, we have endured the phone ringing at 2 or 3am in the morning. They are lucky that we ignore them and turn over, because it is a severe temptation to be fabulously rude to that kind of imbecile.
One of the ways I have “escaped” this summer is through some good books and I highly recommend any of them.
“The Millennium Trilogy” by the late Stieg Larsson
(The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets Nest)
“The Heart is a Lonely Hunter” – Carson McCullers
“The White Tiger” – Aravind Adiga
“Fire Bed and Bone” – Henrietta Brandford
“The Help” – Kathryn Stockett
one can’t help wonder where they find the time to have achieved so much.
There have been some wonderful high points during all the craziness of work. My brother David and sister-in-law Jo came to visit for three days on their way back to Britain from a week in the Outer Banks at a huge annual family reunion (my mother’s side). It was the first time we have seen them for nearly nine years, too long of course and I resolved not to let it happen again. Bears with their cubs and sightings of a pair of deer twins as they grow up in our immediate woods. The gracious musician Don Walters who arrived with his companions a mandolin, guitar and banjo. They wrote music together in Room 1 for three days and on the last night they gave us an impromptu concert under the stars, around the nightly campfire. The frogs and cicadas seemed to be singing louder that night in appreciation of their beautiful music.
The work of running a popular ten room B & B is endless. We rise at 6.30am and the phone is often still ringing with reservation demands or questions from people at 10.30pm at night. Incredibly, we have endured the phone ringing at 2 or 3am in the morning. They are lucky that we ignore them and turn over, because it is a severe temptation to be fabulously rude to that kind of imbecile.
One of the ways I have “escaped” this summer is through some good books and I highly recommend any of them.
“The Millennium Trilogy” by the late Stieg Larsson
(The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets Nest)
“The Heart is a Lonely Hunter” – Carson McCullers
“The White Tiger” – Aravind Adiga
“Fire Bed and Bone” – Henrietta Brandford
“The Help” – Kathryn Stockett
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Mushroom Season
We are drowning in endless streams of people coming for their vacations here at the inn. It has been very warm and humid despite the fact that we are in the mountains, although the rest of the country is suffering double digit temps, we are hovering around the upper 80’s. The humidity and plentiful rainfall has produced an amazing array of incredible fungi here in the forest. We have been awed by the beauty of some of them and when we can, we identify them and find out if they are edible or not.
One that we have found just a few feet from the inn is this Sulfur Shelf. It is also called Chicken of the Forest. As long as it is not growing on a Hemlock or conifer it is quite edible and if you simmer it in broth for half an hour it tastes a little like earthy chicken. If the Maple Syrup tasted like the blood of the earth in the Spring, these are the bone marrow. There are so many different varieties of mushrooms sprouting up from the ground and we have never before been exposed to this particular side of nature. As we have said before the seasons on this side of the country are incredibly profuse and defined. We are getting quite excited about the prospect of autumn and what that will bring to our wondering eyes.
One that we have found just a few feet from the inn is this Sulfur Shelf. It is also called Chicken of the Forest. As long as it is not growing on a Hemlock or conifer it is quite edible and if you simmer it in broth for half an hour it tastes a little like earthy chicken. If the Maple Syrup tasted like the blood of the earth in the Spring, these are the bone marrow. There are so many different varieties of mushrooms sprouting up from the ground and we have never before been exposed to this particular side of nature. As we have said before the seasons on this side of the country are incredibly profuse and defined. We are getting quite excited about the prospect of autumn and what that will bring to our wondering eyes.
Saturday, June 25, 2011
What a Bunch!
We have seen this past weekend coming for a long time. We were the overflow accommodations for an Irish/American wedding party being held at a nearby farm. Half the inn has been reserved since we arrived in January for this occasion. Over the last few weeks the rest of the inn sold out. Nothing new there, but one by one the room occupants called to advise us of their particular special needs.
Room 2 - no salt, fats or egg yolks.
Room 4 - allergic to walnuts.
Room 8 - a vegan.
Room 10 - can’t have bread.
So a challenge lay ahead to attempt to feed all these needs with one menu. It drives Richard into a frenzy when the general public won’t eat what is offered, he cannot understand because he eats everything and has always enjoyed trying new foods.
On Friday night we had almost finished checking in our finicky household when the boozy Catholics rocked up three sheets to the wind, hefting crates of wine for the wedding celebrations on the morrow. Half of them got lost along the way (distracted by the pool table) during the welcome tour of the inn. When we got to the place where the breakfast menu was written I asked them to let me know if they had any problems with what was offered. Much to my relief one of them answered, “No darlin’ we eat and drink everyting, can’t you tell?”
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