Durgin Park, Vegetarian-Style

Okay, Fanueil Hall in Boston isn't exactly the place were the denizens of Boston tend to flock. A tourist mecca to say the least if tourist bus after tourist bus didn't tip you off already! However, within the touristy shops and typical "American" style restaurants, there's a great restaurant to visit: Durgin Park. The web site makes it clear that the place is old: "Founded before you were born" and the menu offers up some traditional New England favorites such as indian pudding, coffee jello, and yankee pot roast. It's the place to go in the area to chow down on some good old New England fare. Once a year, my extended family meets up there and this weekend was that weekend.

Mom and Grandpa having a great time. The waitress took a shine to Grandpa and insisted it was his birthday. She brought in an indian pudding with a candle and had the whole room sing to Gramps!


The gang enjoyed themselves and the two pitchers of beer!


And finally, my "Bale of Hay"..carrots, cabbage, corn, and potato. Along with some corn bread, it was the perfect meal even if Grandpa teased me about eating rabbit food!

A Weekend in Portland, Maine

I'm a little behind with a post about our trip to Portland, Maine last weekend to visit our buddies, Sarah and Tom. It started with a Friday night dinner at the Green Elephant Vegetarian Bistro, a vegetarian restaurant in downtown Portland. We may have a few fingers more to count off the vegetarian restaurants in Boston but I think the Green Elephant blows them all away!


I had the Citrus "Spare Ribs" which was pretty good. However, my favorite was the chocolate orange mousse pie w/orange segments dipped in hot fudge which I don't have a picture of...guess I dug into it a little too fast to snap a picture!

Heiko and I enjoyed ourselves as you can tell by the big smiles on our faces!

The next day Sarah and I got up to go to the Portland Farmers' Market..tons of interesting produce and flowers. I got some beautiful eggplants and some cilantro; Sarah got some carrots and a cute little pumpkin.

Afterwards when the hubbies were up, we went for a drive a little out of Portland to an organic apple orchard. We were hoping for a non-commercial type of orchard and found exactly that. A really cute, sunny place with an organic bread bakery, espresso bar, and of course, cider donuts and hot cider.


Who's the apple of Sarah's eyes? She's not telling (although we'd guess it's Tom) but she's making apple eyes at the camera. What a flirt!

How did I decide which apples to pick? Um, since I'm only 5'1 the low-hanging fruit is what I go after! ;)


And finally, we got to visit with the three little piggies at the orchard. They were eating their slops and having a great time but wiggled around so much that I had such a time getting a photo of them. They got me prepped for the Brattleboro, Vermont Literary Festival next weekend when I hope to hear the author of "The Good Pig: The Extraordinary Life of Christopher Hogwood" speak and maybe get to chat with her about my squirrel book!

My Yard, The Great Outdoors

I am pretty lucky that even though I just live steps from Davis Square in Somerville, full of coffee places, restaurants, a really cool theatre, and tons of shops, my yard is a backyard paradise. This is in part to my neighbor Tom who has a very green thumb. We also get a lot of wildlife passing through. This year a deer, wild turkeys and bunnies have been spotted along with our always present white skunks (w/black stripes!), squirrels, tons of birds, and some groundhogs. Today a flock of Canadian geese flew over the house and honked so loud that I jumped. I guess the fall migration has begun! Here are some recent photos:

Baby squirrels peeping out of their nest:
Some flowers pix that I'm taking for a calendar for my neighbor:

My Nutty Neighbor
This is Squirrelly, the baby squirrel we rescued four years ago. She just had her fourth birthday. She's very photogenic and possibly the most photographed squirrel EVER since we've been taking tons of pictures of her ever since she was little. She's very used to us pointing a little black box in her direction. But give her a few walnuts, she'll let you take as many pictures as you want. The fact that she responds to me calling her name has gotten a few stares from people passing by on the street. More on Squirrelly later as I'm writing a book about the experience!