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We hit a sunny and somewhat windy day in Provincetown, and these colorful pinwheel stationary kites were spinning like crazy as I stood waiting for my friends. This town is nothing if not colorful - every shop and storefront has it's own character and chain restaurants and shops are delightfully scarce. Sadly, it still costs something like $80 roundtrip to take the ferry out here from Boston, or I might visit more often.
I believe this is a grove of Chardonnay vines, one of the wines grown locally here in Truro. Another grown here, surprisingly to me, was their Merlot.
Who knew the Cape also had vineyards? We discovered this road stop in Truro on our way up to Provincetown. It was a great interlude for a rainy cool morning before the weather warmed up. Five dollars each bought us tastings of five of the vineyard's dozen odd wines - mostly whites.
Here's a "fire road" in among the dunes of Provincetown. We were stopped here, waiting for a few other vehicles to come over the mountain before we blindly ventured up the sand embankment ourselves, with a regular bleating of the horn as our only defense against oncoming traffic.
While down on the Cape for a wedding, we took a guided tour of the Provincetown dunes, only accessible by permitted four-wheel drive vehicles with the tires partially deflated in order to avoid a puncture on the bumpy sand banks. Our driver was extremely friendly and talkative, and gave us a good overview of the lives of the dune dwellers out here - people who spend their summers in one of the seventeen remaining sand shacks that were built in the 1940s. Several are now boarded up and it's a very different life to live out here, without access to running water or other traditional conveniences. Propane is used for cooking and refrigeration from tanks leashed to the houses.
On the local church property sat a lake, home to a family of swans. I learned that the name for baby swans is signets, and we also learned how protective parent swans can be. We flipped an old row boat and decided to take a spin around the mossy top layer. The male swan put on a very puffed up performance, making majestic and threatening swoops across the lake, flapping aggressively, and making gutteral throaty squawks to warn us from getting too close to his babies, probably. The incident sparked an hour-long debate about whether a swan could really "take" a full-grown man in an unarmed conflict.
Last time I came to the U.K. I wasn't there long enough to find a country pub with a ploughman's on the menu. So at the first opportunity, in the town of Lyme Regis, I got the lunch I'd been longing for. A Ploughman's is usually just a French roll with a hunk of cheese and a pickle relish and this one even had onion and salad on the side. A hearty meal for one of our first in England, but highly satisfying!
Wandering down a beach in Sidmouth, Devon, we came upon some undamaged, fully intact sea shells, a perfect palm size. I collected a handful of them (all I could manage), not knowing for what purpose, and stored them in the sleeve of my raincoat as we ran from awning to awning in the unexpected rain! They came in handy as tiny serving plates for the sushi we brought to a family potluck that night; and best yet, even in this most expensive of countries, they were completely free!
While we were vaguely disappointed that the Devon village of Beer was not named for its involvement in the production of a good lager, we were happy to find that a little further north, just outside of a town called Wells, the village of Cheddar was indeed a dairy-farming town, true to its name. Lots of good cheeses were available in the area, and not surprisingly, cheese is infused in all number of other foods here, like these Stilton sausages! My dad made this great fry-up (with a side dish of eggs, sunny side up) the morning we left to come home.
The roses overhead throughout the country lanes of Cheltenham where we stayed made the whole neighborhood smell delicious. From the moment I stepped out of the car, my senses were grabbed by the soft, unperfumed, but ubiqitous frangrances all around. My mom loved this one in particular and said she wanted to grow one of these over her doorway. If only our weather would cooperate!
Our brief adventure in England could be described as a continuous, delightful haze of pork sausages, best bitter pints, lolling about in the sunshine, and countryside games. We played lawn croquet, ping pong, Hearts, and even snooker! I definitely got in touch with my inner child last week.
Take two was MUCH more successful! This time I tried to stick to ingredients that I could actually find at the American supermarkets - a little fresher - and used a recipe found in one of the best cookbook magazines there is, in my view. Cook's Illustrated led me through this version of vegetable curry and it came out amazing! Jason and I were both smacking our lips, really reeling from the spice, but also loving the relief of the cool Greek yogurt I used as a side. Jason did an amazing job as sous-chef tonight, chopping all that needed to be chopped. That's the one thing about this dish - there are lots of bits!
I tried my first homemade Indian dish since my trip last night, and it didn't come out so well! Those deviled eggs in the front were pretty good, but the paneer dish I tried at the back was supposed to be something akin to deep-fried cheese ("Paneer Koliwada") from a recipe book that my friend Madhu and family gave me, but I admit that I subbed in a few ingredients for the real thing, not anticipating too much of a difference, and I didn't have the right pan to effectively deep fry. I plead exhaustion, considering that it took every iota of strength to get over to the grocery store for the yogurt in the first place. However, it was a feeble first try and I am committed to getting good at at least one curry before I give up!
The tulips in the Boston Common brought a smile to our faces. Not only were we done with the walk, but we were in a beautiful place, with the sun finally shining down on us! There are tulips all over our neighborhood right now as well, and it really feels like it's getting green around here. I'm glad we got to breathe it all in yesterday!
When we hit the streets of Boston, our soles crying out for our slippers, we knew we were nearing the end. We were driven by the emerging sun and the promise of ice cream, but the walk had become mechanical and it felt as though my legs were just stilts of wood carrying me forward on momentum without requiring any sort of willpower from me!
The Walk for Hunger volunteers posted regular motivational signs to keep up the spirits of the walkers. They were comical, but not nearly as quaint as the doo-wap quartets that greeted us along the Beacon Street stretch in the first five miles of the trip. Before lunch, even, we got great advice, including "Breaking Up Is Hard to Do."
Yesterday, I participated in the Walk for Hunger again with a few friends. It was a pretty crisp day for the end of April, but I think the chilly winds numbed my legs enough to dull the pain of twenty miles in my joints! I was a complete invalid for hours after the finish, and I'm still hobbling a bit today, but it's amazing how quickly your body is able to bounce back!
Memorial Drive along the river is a great place for checking out the cherry blossoms at the start of the season. It's a pretty drive or better yet walk, now that the city closes off the road to vehicles.