Off we go, at last!

 April 28, 2021 Washington, DC—Finally the Covid induced house arrest is over for many of us.  With care we can travel, see families, and if outside go to a restaurant.  Sunday, Aprll 18, we began one of our Northern treks and enjoyed being away from home for a week.

Our goal was visiting our grandchildren in Massachusetts with stopovers up and back in Connecticut to visit John’s brother.  The drive is long, but the rewards are valuable.  

Our first stop was our favorite coffee shop in Cecil County.  Regrettably it was closed, so we persevered getting our coffee at Starbucks on the Delaware section of I-95, which did an OK job on Ben’s skim extra-extra dry cappuccino.   Lunch was a home-packed picnic at a table at one of the New Jersey rest centers.  Can’t complain about the food—grapes, crackers, good  cheese, yoghurt—since it came from home.  

We arrived in Connecticut later in the afternoon to enjoy a fine glass of wine with brother Andrew, overlooking the lake at the bottom of his garden.  Dinner was a superb, his girlfriend’s special spinach pasta with fresh tomato sauce and chocolate cake.  The trees were beginning to leaf, but it was nowhere near as Spring-like as Washington.

On Monday, we headed north with a run along the endless freeways of Connecticut, with a stop at Blue State Coffee in New Haven for a cappuccino,  a detour to US5 to avoid some traffic jams south of Hartford, and then to Massachusetts, where all was in bloom.   

We spent the next few days playing.  Grandsons are endlessly entertaining.  These two do not like having their photos taken, so even La Victoria Taqueria in Arlington Center, awaiting a Mexican street-food style sandwich, they did not pose.  They did enjoy the Victoria sandwich, as John enjoyed choriqueso, with cheese and Mexican sausage, and Ben a vegetarian quesadilla.  

 

Leaving Massachusetts on Friday, April 23, we did a grand swing back to Fairfield through Fall River, Massachusetts and Providence, Rhode Island.   We have found a supermarket in Fall River, Portugalia, for Portuguese wines at good prices, great cheeses and excellent choriço, made in the store.  We managed a case of wine and cheeses for John’s brother.  Fall River also provides a chance for John to find heritage English food.  Hartley’s on South Main, provides that chance with home-made English pork pies.  A load for John and for his brother to stock their fridges.

In Providence, Ben enjoyed his bone dry cappuccino  at Blue State Coffee on Thayer Street, near Brown.  We’ve been going to this Blue State for years along with another in the chain in New Haven, near Yale Medical School.  There Ben always orders his cappuccino.   What we didn’t now is that the staff at the New Haven store know that we will also stop in Providence.  One texted a friend in Providence to say that Ben was heading north and would undoubtedly stop in Providence.  Big smiles from the barista when he asked for his coffee—“oh, yes, a friend in New Haven texted me that you were in the area!”  Twice a year, and now he is famous (infamous?)

Arriving at Andrew’s house, we opened Portuguese cheeses, a Sâo Jâo from the Azores, and a Casteloes Original.  Both are semi-soft and very creamy.  They went well with the Sonoma County chardonnay served.  Dinner, huge sirloin steak, was cooked outside on the grill but eaten inside because it was still chilly in Fairfield. 

 Saturday, April 24, was a treat.  We headed off wine tasting with bro and his girlfriend Lorraine, to two wineries in central Connecticut: the Paradise Hills and the Gouviea wineries.  Paradise Hills serves a lovely flight of wines, chosen from a menu along with a platter of  Italian nibbles.  

Gouveia has pleasant wines, bought by the bottle, with a fabulous view.  We tasted three, carefully, and brought the mostly full bottles home!  

For dinner, Lorraine put together a one-pot dinner of chicken breasts with green beans and potatoes,

On Sunday, April 25, we headed home.  Stopping first, of course, for the wonderful bagels at Bagel King on Black Rock Turnpike in Fairfield.  Then after crossing New York,  a visit to our favorite Korean grocery in Ft. Lee, Hang Nam, for fish, some vegetables, mussels and fruit.  Of course, we stopped for cappuccino at Cafe Leah.  We did not buy asparagus, hoping that our friend Jake Murphy’s farmstand just off the New Jersey Turnpike on Route 322, would have some.  He did.  They were wonderful, freshly picked and a feast at home.

All in all, this was a lovely trip, visiting relatives, visiting favorite food places for us foodies, and coming home to load up the fridge.  The next trip comes soon.  Nice to be back.