Hello! Our daughter wasn't able to join us on vacation earlier this month due to a busy schedule of summer classes and a research job at MSU. She's currently home for a visit between summer and fall semesters, so my husband thought she'd like an out-of-town trip during that time.
Since she mainly wanted to veg out at home, we only went away for one night. This meant, of course, that we had to go someplace close by. Not a problem, as the northwest part of Michigan's Lower Peninsula fits that criteria.
It's so close, in fact, that it was a bit of a shock to realize that we hadn't been up north since 2008. Since that time we'd either traveled west or east for summer vacations.
So it was with pleasure that we headed up north Sunday morning. I was happy when I began seeing birch trees in quantity along the roadside - they always seem to signal "you're up north" to me.
Traverse City was where we spent most of Sunday. Unfortunately, I was too busy walking around checking out shops in the downtown area to take any photos. But take it from me, it was an absolutely gorgeous day, with brilliant sunshine making the colors of the surroundings pop. The blue, blue waters of Grand Traverse Bay, just beyond the downtown, added to the visual splendor.
I wanted one of everything I saw, but primarily limited to myself to window shopping. Was sorely tempted to spend some money at Cherry Republic, in part because they had samples of some of their goodies out. Chocolate-coated dried cherries, cherry salsa, Hiker's Mix with dried fruits, nuts and chunks of chocolate - all yummy. The store was crowded with shoppers happily shelling out money for some cherry treats.
Also liked the products at Roth Shirt Company; a lot of cute designs on t-shirts like local lakes and various hobbies. I overheard a customer ask if a particular t-shirt came in another color and the clerk said they could make him one in about 20 minutes. How's that for customer service? Judging from their website, the designs are in-house. I know, there are other t-shirt companies in other tourist towns that do the same thing, but I did like their designs.
Besides these two businesses, downtown Traverse City has bookstores, numerous gift shops, other clothing stores and several eateries. There's also a very cool food co-op near the downtown, where our daughter and myself were sorely tempted to buy some handmade soaps (sourced locally). But I'd made myself a pledge not to buy more toiletries until I used up the stuff I already have, so I reluctantly passed.
The subject of where to eat dinner Sunday evening had already come up before we left home. My husband is a big fan of microbreweries, so I wasn't surprised when he had two picked out at possible dinner stops. One of these was North Peak Brewing in Traverse City and the other was Short's in another town, Bellaire. I checked out both menus online and liked the menu at Short's better. That was fine with my husband since he said he really likes Short's beer. Another bonus is that neither of us had ever been to Bellaire before, so it'd be a chance to visit a new area.
Bellaire turned out to be a village; the downtown was only a few blocks long. But even though it was a Sunday night and Bellaire seems small and out of the way to get to, things were hopping at Short's. I can only imagine how congested it must get on Friday and Saturday nights!
The menu is, well, short, with nothing on it that would appear to be dinner-type entrees - instead, there are few selections each of appetizers, salads, pizzas and sandwiches. As for the beers, my husband tried the Loyalty Ale and also sampled a "experimental" beer flavored with - I kid you not - cucumber, lemon, and lilac. What don't they put in beer anymore? (after tasting it, he ordered another Loyalty Ale).
I ordered from the daily specials menu, joking with our waitress that I'm really hard on restaurants, especially sandwiches. I've had a lot of mediocre restaurant sandwiches that I've had to pay gourmet-level prices for. That's always a bummer when that happens.
Not so at Short's, I'm happy to report! I had the Chipotle BBQ Beef Brisket sandwich and every part of it was awesome. Sometimes the ingredients in a restaurant sandwich can be fine but are marred by the use of blah breads. (I suppose I'm picky about sandwich bread since I make my own; had a BLT on homemade sourdough for lunch earlier today). The hoagie bun used for my sandwich was excellent, no complaints there. I was happy to tell our waitress that the sandwich had passed my test with flying colors.
Since dinnertime was one of the few times I'd had a chance to sit down in several hours, I took a couple of pictures inside Short's:
Artwork from Short's beer labels turned into canvas prints.
And if you'd rather wear your allegiance to Short's than hang it on a wall:
Part of a row of Short's t-shirts.
Walked down the block after leaving Short's to check out a gift shop. On the way we noted that Short's is expanding into the storefront next to it. Judging by how popular it appears to be, I'd bet they could take over the whole block with no problem filling up the space with customers!
If you'd like more info on Short's, go here.
We spent the night in Cadillac, which meant that we had a bit of the drive the next morning to get up to Petoskey. It's almost all two-lane once you get a bit north of Cadillac, but fortunately there are several passing lanes along the way. Arrived in time for lunch, and we stopped at a place we'd been to several years ago, Julienne Tomatoes. It was still fairly new the last time we were there, but we were happy to find out that very little had changed since that visit. It's cute inside and has a good sandwich menu.
As was true the day before, mealtime was the only chance I had to take pics, so here are a few from inside Julienne Tomatoes:
It's a small restaurant but is bright and cheery. As befitting the name of the place, much of the decor has a tomato motif. Not shown is the pair of tomato-shaped salt and pepper shakers on our table.
Mismatched vintage tables and chairs. Our table was white enamel, but others were wooden. Chairs were wooden; some painted, some not. I love this look for restaurants!
The above sign, hanging on the wall near the entrance, traces the building's history going back to feed store usage in 1899. We remember when Graintrain, the local food co-op, was in the space, but it moved to a newer, bigger location near one end of downtown.
We were all happy with our sandwiches, by the way. While mine wasn't quite as good as the one the night before at Short's, it was still plenty tasty and I can recommend Julienne Tomatoes. If you'd like to check it out for yourself, you can find their website here.
After lunch, our threesome split up to explore the area on our own. My husband walked along the nearby waterfront of Little Traverse Bay, our daughter checked out shops of interest to her, and I did the same for me. I visited a thrift store, The Gold Mine, as well as the used book sale section of the public library, but didn't buy anything at either place.
As in Traverse City, there are plenty of places to purchase brand-new goods. I was tempted by the creativity on display at Northern Michigan Artists Market. I also liked the indie bookseller McLean & Eakin, although I was amused when the young store clerk asked me if I'd just been in there a couple of hours ago to buy a bunch of comic books. Evidently I have a double out there somewhere (actually, more than a double, since I've been told before that I look just like someone else, even someone over in England. I must have a very common-looking face).
Loads of other nice shops too, especially on Lake Street and on the side streets between it and Mitchell Street.
You'd really need more than one afternoon apiece to explore Traverse City, Petoskey and the surrounding area, but that's all the time we had. Since there is so much to see and do, I'm hoping that we won't wait another six years to return!
Hello! Summer may be winding down, but the weather for much of it has seemed more like fall. I can only imagine the disappointment of visitors hoping for beach time, only to be confronted with cool lakefront air and water temperatures.
It hasn't always been much warmer inland either. Consequently, the warm weather crops in my vegetable garden have been growing slowly. This really hit home when we went out of town on vacation the last week of July. Typically I come home from summer vacation to lots of produce ready to pick. This year, alas, the garden looked like it had barely grown at all in our absence. Yes, there'd been another cool spell while we were gone.
But for a number of reasons, the pots of produce growing on our deck have fared better, such as:
Because of their small size, cherry tomatoes ripen more quickly than their bigger cousins, of course. I have two Sweet 100 plants, both of which I'd started from seeds. It's been fun seeing my little seedlings mature into plants taller than me! Loads of cherry tomatoes are on each plant.
Close up of my Thai Hot Pepper plant. This is a plant that was purchased at the local farmer's market last season. It had gotten chewed up at one point last summer by some unnamed critter, so never got did much after that. My husband suggested bringing it in for the winter, thereby giving it another chance this year.
I can't say that the Thai Hot Pepper plant liked its indoors habitat over the winter, but at least it didn't die on me. It sprouted new growth soon after being returned outdoors. And in spite of not liking the cooler summer weather either, it's set fruit of several peppers. It's likely that not all the peppers will ripen before the first frost looms, but at least we know that we can bring the plant in again for another winter's stay!
One of the plantings on my deck has actually enjoyed the un-summer weather:
Above, several parsley plants in one pot. Parsley can be slow to germinate from seed, but it's worth the wait. It's nice to stroll out to the deck to pluck some for a recipe, but it's grown so well I'll have to freeze some too. Frozen parsley isn't as good as the fresh stuff is, but beats the dried version hands down!
Did read in the local paper today that the cooler temps this week have been a boon for the student athletes going through practices in preparation for fall sports. This is very true, but I'd still rather it felt more like summer - and I think my vegetable garden would agree!
Hello! I head to the fabric store when I plan on sewing a garment, but for craft projects I'm fine with material from secondhand sources like thrift stores, estate sales, or even the decluttered stashes from family members or friends. It's fun to collect fabrics from here and there.
And of course it's fun to make something with these fabrics too. I'm currently working on a quilt that will likely take me a long time (months? years?) to finish, but it's been a great way to go through my fabric collection.
But recently (like last night) I gathered up material for a couple of short-term projects:
A bunch of blue fabrics for a bevy of blue birds. The completed birds will be strung together to become a hanging decorative piece. This will replace something similar that's gotten rather faded.
At the beginning of this post I commented that I've collected fabrics from a variety of sources. One source I hadn't mentioned was where I'd made my most recent fabric purchase: an interior design firm that was participating in our town's sidewalk sales this past weekend. This business was selling discontinued fabric sample books for 25c each.
I found one such book whose samples were all 100% cotton. The samples are large enough pieces to sew into cloth napkins, so I happily purchased the book with that in mind. I mentioned my intent to the employee who took my quarter and she thought it sounded like a great idea.
Here's what some of the fabrics from that sample book look like:
Yes, I like the color blue, but this pattern also comes in green, dark red and rust.
Close up of that top pattern:
I think this will make a nice napkin, and it'll be an inexpensive way to add a little "luxury" to my mealtimes.
Both the napkins and the birds will be quick projects, which is good since who knows when my quilt will be done!
Hello! I like to add granola to my breakfast yogurt, but I don't like the brands out there that charge high prices for little bags of the stuff. Consequently, I make my own - easy to do.
Basically, granola is made up of oatmeal tossed with a bunch of other ingredients. I've tried several recipes by now, including one that calls for peanut butter and one that's made in the slow cooker.
But I recently came across one that was a little different from my other granola recipes. For one thing, it uses orange juice concentrate as part of the "wet" ingredients. It also uses Cheerios and Golden Grahams as part of the "dry" ingredients. The use of those cereals is why I think of it as a "sort-of" granola, although it calls for the usual oatmeal as well. But in the cookbook that the recipe comes from, it's simply called "Toasted Granola".
Here's the recipe:
Toasted Granola (from a volume in Leisure Arts' Spirit Of Christmas series)
4 cups Cheerios
4 cups Golden Grahams
3 3/4 cups old-fashioned oatmeal
1 cup sunflower seeds
1 cup slivered almonds
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup vegetable oil
6 tablespoons orange juice concentrate, thawed
3 tablespoons honey
Preheat oven to 300. In greased large roasting pan, combine cereals, oats, sunflower seeds and almonds.
In small bowl, combine brown sugar, oil, orange juice and honey. Stir until well-blended. Pour over cereal mixture; stir until well-coated.
Bake 45 minutes, or until golden brown, stirring every 10 minutes.
Spread on waxed paper to cool. Yield: 14 cups granola.
Notes: feel free to use store brands of the cereals; I did. I don't care for sunflower seeds, and I didn't have slivered almonds on hand, so instead I used a cup each of chopped raw pecans and chopped raw walnuts. The recipe didn't list any other add-ins like raw coconut or dried fruits, but I'm sure these ingredients could be included to taste.
Here's what the granola looks like:
As for the taste: wasn't sure how the orange juice concentrate would taste in this recipe, but it's fine. It's not really noticeable.
The granola is rather sweet though. The sweetness can be reduced in a few ways: cut back on the brown sugar, or reduce the amount of Golden Grahams, as it's a rather sweet cereal. One could just increase the amount of Cheerios or oatmeal instead (if doing the latter, more liquid may have to be added, as the oatmeal flakes would likely absorb more of the wet ingredients than the Golden Grahams would).
Or, experiment with another kind of dry cereal, like Chex. This would make the granola much less sweet, I'm sure, but the overall texture of the granola would stay similar. I have to admit, though, that I kind of like Golden Grahams, as sweet as they are!
It's a fun take on traditional granola - more variety of textures with the different cereals added. It may be a "sort-of" granola, but it's a good one!
Tired of chips and dip? Rather have pretzels but like the added flavor of a dip? Then try the following, clipped from a community cookbook (don't recall its name)
Mustard Dip
1 cup sour cream
1 cup mayonnaise
1 cup yellow mustard
1/4 cup dried chopped onions
1 package ranch dressing mix
1/2 cup sugar
1 tablespoon horseradish
Mix all together in bowl. Serve with pretzels. Cookbook editor's notes: Try this with veggies, pita chips. Tostitos, or even as a sandwich spread. Keeps well in the fridge. This is addictive!
My notes: low-fat versions of sour cream and mayonnaise are fine.
Although I've made this recipe with the specified yellow mustard, I didn't have it on hand when I reached for this recipe a few days ago. Did I wait until my next trip to the grocery store to pick up some yellow mustard? No, I just used the mustard I had in my refrigerator, which is a store brand labeled "Hot and Sweet". Since I like spicy foods, I actually liked the dip better with this change. (it's still fine with yellow mustard though).
Here's what the dip looks like:
It looks more yellow when yellow mustard is used, of course. My Hot and Sweet mustard has an orange-ish tinge to it, so the dip does as well.
I've only used the dip for pretzels, despite the cookbook editor's suggestions for enhancing other foods with it. However, I agree with that editor's assessment that the dip is addictive. Therefore, I only make it occasionally, and when I do, I just make half a recipe at a time. But since I'd brought a bag of pretzels back from Pennsylvania...well, that was a good enough reason for making it again!
And if you try this recipe, you may very well find yourself making it again as well.
Hello! I recently showed off some vacation ICAD (index-card-a-day) designs, but hadn't gotten around to showing off some of the other index cards I'd decorated in July. Today's post will rectify that.
Blend of old and new: vintage detergent ad and words cut from a current Lands End catalog.
Another blend of old and new:
Catalog image and a bit of doodling along with an altered 1880's ledger page.
Made in honor of our daughter's birthday, this index card design features rubber stamping, art paper scrap, vintage matchbook scrap, painted vintage bingo card, altered menu cut into gift shape, and the word "present" cut from a flashcard.
Lots of rubber stamping, a bit of red and white twine, and a round playing card.
When I was feeling lazy, I'd doodle instead of making something more complicated. Kind of fun to do, actually.
A flower shape was cut from a vintage book of floor plans, then oil pastel colors were added.
A collage made up of scraps from a bin of white papers. Included were pieces from paper company samples, leftover office folders, and rubber stamping projects.
Not shown, but also created during the July ICAD challenge was a "don't forget" list for a big family party on the 4th of July, more doodling, a receipt from a now-closed grocery store in East Lansing, MI (idiot developer), lettering experiments, waxed thread stitchery, the testing out of new-to-me rubber stamps, homages to tea and to Indiana cantaloupes (the best around, currently available at our farmers' market) and more.
So, overall, how did the ICAD challenge go? I admit, there were times it seemed a bit tedious, usually when I didn't remember to do one until the end of the day when I was already tired. It was also a bit tedious to create the vacation ICAD cards on the spot, what with the cutting up and arranging of various images and print.
I'll also admit to forgetting to do a card twice. Both times I made the card the next day instead. I suppose I could have not bothered with making up those two days, but I wanted a complete set, and that's what I have.
Once the challenge was over, I was a bit relieved - no more wracking my brains to come up with something each day! (I never bothered with the daily prompts the ICAD Challenge creator supplied) But within a day or two I actually missed the act of decorating index cards. Although I especially enjoyed the collage work, I discovered I liked doodling with my marker sets as well, and the index cards came in handy for testing out the secondhand craft paints and rubber stamps I bought in June and July.
Glad I did the ICAD Challenge!
Hello! Returned from a week's vacation and here are some photos from our trip.
The National Memorial Arch, Valley Forge National Historical Park. "...dedicated in 1917 to commemorate the 'patience and fidelity' of the soldiers who wintered at Valley Forge in 1777-78."
I'm sure that plenty of people come to Valley Forge during business hours to learn some history, but if you go after hours, as we did, you'll see scores of parents romping with their kids on vast open fields, plus horseback riders, runners, cyclists and walkers like us. With a network of multi-use paths and a hilly terrain, it's an excellent place for exercise and outdoor play.
A short while after this picture was taken, we saw a group of serious young men with serious photography equipment (tripods, large cameras) set up in a row near the arch. They were getting instruction from an older man, probably on tips for sunset photos. But since they were speaking in a foreign language, I didn't really know what was being said. I hope they got some good shots - they had a nice evening and a great location.
The next several photos are from the Enchanted Woods (children's garden section) at Winterthur, near Wilmington, DE. I found it to be very charming, hence the several pictures I took.
Child-sized seating - all you need is your teddy bear, some lemonade and some cookies!
Giant toadstool "house".
And a giant-sized "nest" with three "eggs" inside it.
Words embedded in stones.
Squirrel carved into a picnic table inside a play house.
Along one wall of the play house. These chairs are on a raised platform, so I wondered if kids pretended they were kings or queens sitting on their thrones.
Unfortunately for us, the Enchanted Woods wasn't put in until after we moved away from the region. Our daughter turned three shortly before we moved, so we would have taken her to this section of the Winterthur gardens had it been there then. The children we saw the day of our visit looked to be having a great time there!
A few more pictures from Winterthur's gardens, all taken in the Reflecting Pool area:
Reflecting pool.
Statue at one end of the Reflecting Pool.
Just beyond the Reflecting Pool was this sweet statue. The plaque near it mentioned that the statue was dedicated to one of the Du Pont women (the Du Ponts were the original owners of Winterthur) and said she was noted for her "silvery laugh". Not sure what a silvery laugh is, but it sounds like a nice thing to be remembered for.
Moving on and north of the Delaware Valley region, we used Williamsport, PA as our home base for exploring local and not-so-local places of interest.
View outside a window in our hotel. Westerners would likely sneer at those mountains, since most are no taller than 2,000 ft, but that's still plenty tall for us!
No shortage of funky signage in Ithaca, NY:
We lunched at Ithaca Bakery.
The next set of signs were on a message board inside a mini-mall building.
Just don't see this variety of businesses where we live, so I enjoy seeing such message boards in hip college towns!
I liked the above sign for "Bodacious Cheeseballs", with several varieties of such offered for sale. I never would have thought of starting a cheeseball business, but someone in Ithaca had! I wondered how well their business was doing.
Back to the Williamsport area again:
No visit to the area would be complete without a stop at Purity Chocolates near Allenwood, PA. If you go during the week you'll likely see some candy making in action; large windows at one end of the retail store offer views of the small factory behind the store. Above, pretzel rods are being enrobed in chocolate. You can see the bare pretzels awaiting their coating on the right side of the photo, and on the left the pretzels are finished with their "bath" of dark chocolate. Not shown but to the right of the uncoated pretzels was the employee whose job it was to arrange those pretzels in orderly rows on the conveyor belt.
Purity always has some gigantic chocolate pieces ready for a special purchase. When we've come in the fall it's huge solid turkeys, but this time we saw:
Above, a 3 1/2 pound milk chocolate football, surrounded by small foil-wrapped chocolate footballs. It retails for $39.95. Just the thing to reward your son if he scores the winning touchdown in that big game! There was also a similarly-sized/packaged basketball.
Enjoyed a 5 1/2 mile walk along the Pine Creek Rail Trail after visiting Purity.
Typical scenery along the trail.
Lots of wildflowers, as shown above. The lower photo of the two shows thimbleberries, but they weren't quite ready to pick.
After we were done with our walk it was time to start heading west back toward home. We went as far as Dubois, PA that day. Thanks to Yelp, I'd learned of Luigi's, an Italian restaurant in downtown Dubois, so that's where we ate dinner. I can recommend the stromboli option; it sure was good. It helped that one could pick up to three choices for the filling, similar to ordering pizza toppings. I selected sausage, hot peppers and fresh spinach. What arrived on my plate was a huge stromboli, big enough for two dinners. Of course it was fattening as could be, but worth the calories. My husband ordered the mushroom ravioli and enjoyed that as well. We also gobbled down some slices of delicious Italian bread - made on the premises, we were told by our waitress. (we were hungry after that walk on the Pine Creek Rail Trail!)
Also not photographed, but also recommended, is Zwahlen's of Audubon, PA (yes, the same Audubon who did the famous bird paintings - he had lived nearby). We'd done some serious walking on the Saturday of our trip, on a hot and humid day. Had a relatively light dinner too, so I felt ice cream would be a good ending for the day. We weren't up to driving very far to get some, though.
Was in luck again when I searched on Yelp - it turned out that an ice cream parlor, Zwahlen's, was literally right across the street from our hotel! (Homewood Suites) We'd seen the building as we'd driven up to the hotel, but didn't realize it was an ice cream parlor. The building looked more like it housed a restaurant.
Zwahlen's ice cream is very good and reasonably priced as well. They also make a variety of chocolate candies. It's worth a stop if you're in the area - say, to learn some history at Valley Forge (or go to the nearby casino if that's your thing!)
Lots more I could have shown off, and lots more I could have taken photos of, but I hope you got a sense of the scenic, historic areas we visited.
