Text 14718, 101 rader
Skriven 2011-08-15 05:42:00 av MICHAEL LOO (1:123/140)
Ärende: echo pic 740
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An unexpectedly early start, as it was a bright morning,
and it's next to impossible to laze abed with the sun
coming out over the lake (very nice views, by the way
out across to the family forest, which is inaccessible
except by boat).

More bacon and eggs, as our stash was still quite considerable.
Eggland's best are not significantly different from ordinary
eggs. I'll take their word for it that they're more
nutritionally sound than normal ones, but I wonder if the
price differential is justified.

Nancy came by to show off the north country to us. First
thing we stopped at a farm stand and picked up local oniony
and potatoey things. Then they dropped me off at the St.
Lawrence University bookstore so I could check my e-mail and
stuff while they went to a farmers' market. Unfortunately, I
couldn't get on. (Un)fortunately the farmers' market didn't
keep them long.

Croghan bologna is the pride and joy of the region. It's a
garlicky coarse-ground Penn-Dutch-style ring sausage from
Lewis County (abuts St. Lawrence to the southwest). We were
told that the Pickens General Store in Heuvelton offered it
along with cheese curds and other rustic specialties.

Turns out that this store, a project of the local historical
society, no longer sells the bologna, and the cheese curds
come in fresh every Thursday. They did have a partial
container of curds, which they let us sample, and eventually,
what the heck, gave to us.

The downstairs is a shop that sells old-time candy, crafts
including woven baskets, some foodstuffs, and an idiosyncratic
assortment of dry goods. Upstairs is a furniture showroom
(Amish stuff) and a couple rooms' worth of farm implement and
quilt museum. We picked up dark chocolate covered pretzels,
pretty ordinary but good for snacking, for $4/lb and ginger
drops, mild but of good flavor, $2.50/lb, both prepackaged
and perhaps not of local origin (also featured were various
kinds of gummis, clearly labeled Product of Spain, at quite
high prices).

The helpful girls at the desk suggested we might find the
bologna at a deli just out of town. So we went there, with
the expected result: they used to sell it, but no longer.
Between one employee and one customer it was determined that
Woods Market up near Ogdensburg was the best bet, so we went
there. Success. There were four rings of it, of which we
bought two. I also got a pound of Squeak Creek honey for
Annie and Billy. We headed back south through some rain.

Nancy's friend Skip owns Lisbon Center Farms, a sizable
operation that sells to Dairy Lea, so we went there on a
field trip, where one of the sons showed us a cow milking
in a new-fangled mechanical parlor and other aspects of
the dairy business. Having seen the smaller of the two
farms, it was decided that the other farm might be a bit
redundant, so we went back to provision at Price Chopper in
Canton, where we found, of all things, a case of Croghan
bologna, though for 50c/lb more than at Woods.

For dinner I made Scotch eggs, accompanied by corn, which
we'd picked up someplace or other. It was good.

Samplings:

DeKuyper Pucker Cheriberi - not much beri, mostly cheri.
A sour hit to begin and a little cough syrup sweetness
after. Unimpressive.

Hiram Walker Fruja tangerine - this tasted like baby
aspirin, no more, no less. You shouldn't buy it.

Tropicana Lite tropical punch contains 4% juice, the juices
being pineapple and cherry in that order. It tastes sort of
like Hawaiian punch, only the first sip is sweet and all
others are artificial tasting. At the Price Chopper it cost
$1 a half gallon. There were also a couple kinds of regular
juice at that price, but Nancy had me check ingredients, and
they were all shot full of apple juice, which she can't have,
so I paid a buck for essentially flavored filtered water
plus 8 doses of vitamin C.

Kutztown sarsaparilla - spicy, like a good dark root beer
with licorice, a little bitter. Quenching.

Hank's Philadelphia-style root beer - a bit of a disappointment
as very sweet and rather bland. I'd guess it might be quite a
bit better if it had less sugar (15 Cal per oz as opposed to
about 10 for real beer).

Carolina Country Snacks pork skins, not puffed. These were
hard little rocks, though the flavor was pretty decent,
porky, salty. Nancy swore that if you let them hydrate in
your mouth, they were a little better; I found that made them
tough and worse.

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