Janet and I aren't what you would call spontaneous people. Part of this comes from the fact that we've spent the last ten years without a car (except for a 6 month period in Slippery Rock, PA&#41… so for us to go anywhere, it took a significant amount of planning. We would have to rent a car, time the trip so we could get the car back to the rental place exactly 24 hours (or a multiple of 24 hours&#41 after we picked it up so we wouldn't be charged for another day's worth of rental… and then figure out how to get both to the rental place and then get back from the rental place after we were finished. Needless to say, making an impromptu road trip was practically impossible.

However, now that we own a car, we have the flexibility to go wherever we want to go, whenever we want to go. But since we haven't had a car before, we really had no idea of where we would ever want to go. Basically, we've been using the car like we would use the bus in San Francisco: I use it to get to work, we drive to the supermarket and to run errands, but we never considered taking any out of the way trips.

Yesterday, our goal was to go to Marshalls (a clothing store&#41 to look for work clothes and to stop at Home Depot for one of those Garden Weasels so we could get rid of the weeds that are encroaching on our pepper plants. So we got on 84 East heading towards Manchester, figuring that we would be home within an hour or two. As we passed through Downtown Hartford, we saw a sign for Foxwoods Casino, one of the two Indian Casinos located in Connecticut. Foxwoods is purported to be the largest casino in the world, with all the amenities and glitz of a Las Vegas resort. I asked Janet if she was up for a road trip, she said "why not" and we were off to Ledyard to the casino.

Foxwoods is nestled in the middle of the woods near the Connecticut Shore, about 45 minutes from Hartford. We thought we were going the wrong way because the highway portion of Rt 2 ended, and we were driving through the outskirts of Norwich before we saw the sign that stated Foxwoods Casino Guests, Next Left. We made the turn and saw it: a massive putty-colored hotel complex planted smack-dab in the middle of a deep-green forest. Following the signs, we parked and jumped on a shuttle bus for the five minute drive to the casino lobby.

As casinos go, Foxwoods is sort of bland. Not a lot of neon, no five-cent video poker machines and too much natural light. The Las Vegas casino owners know that the last thing someone wants to see when they're dropping money into a slot machine is the beautiful sun setting over the wooded hills of Southeastern Connecticut. They want to see scantily clad women bringing free drinks and twenty-five cent hot dogs. Gamblers don't want to be reminded that there is an outside world.

Plus, on top of it all, the slot machines were completely jam packed. We couldn't even find a quarter slot machine that was free. We left a half of an hour after we arrived, deciding that we were better off not waiting in the smoke filled casino for a free slot machine.

When we returned to the car, we looked at the area map that we got from the information booth. We had no idea that we were so close to Noank, the home of Abbot's Lobster in the Rough, so we decided that since we had come all of the way out to the shore, we might as well take the 20 minute drive to get some clam chowder and a couple of lobsters.

This story continues in The Hostile Gourmet's review of Abbot's Lobster in the Rough and then concludes in the 8/1/99 entry of the Barfly Chronicles.

Avery and I have always been fans of Saturday morning cooking shows on Public TV. When we learned that we would be getting the Food Network as one of our cable channels when we moved to Connecticut, we were ecstatic. Here is a quick-and-dirty guide to food shows good, bad, and ucky: 

"Yan Can Cook": In the past, Martin Yan used to be known for his quick don't-try-this-at-home vegetable chopping skills, but lately it seems that he has moved away from that audience-grabbing schtick to merely making googly-eyed smiley faces at the camera while on location doing stories about things such as the intricacies of rice-washing. Don't get me wrong — I adore Martin Yan's series, especially the "Best of Asia" episodes that discuss the cooking traditions of Japan, but sometimes the effect of his hushed commentary while standing alongside his "friend", an often elderly Asian grandmother-type who shoots daggers at him each time he tries to lend a hand with her cooking process, is more humorous than anything else. That and his marinades are becoming a little predictable.
You'll always hear Yan say: "Chop it all up, chop it all up, chop it all up…"

"Jacques Pepin's Kitchen: Cooking with Claudine": I started watching this series with great interest when it first came on. Here was the busy, urban 20-something daughter of a world-renowned chef learning how to whip up some cool French dishes…it promised to show the rest of us an extraordinary but practical way for young people to cook, unlike Jacques' many other shows which concentrated on dinner party-esque racks-of-lamb with haricots verte arranged beautifully on fine china. (And all that could be cooked in just 7 hours! Voila!&#41 Instead, it is 30 minutes of Jacques cooking while Claudine looks on. He'll occasionally let her do something important like putting a pot in the sink or handing him a clean spoon, and every once in a while he'll actually let her assist in the food preparation by letting her slice a potato or peel a clove of garlic, and that's where the weird part comes in: every few minutes he chastises his daughter for not peeling the garlic fast enough or not being able to peel the apple in a single, circular peel, or not knowing how to stir the sauce properly. Both Avery and I end up watching this show simply to see just how Jacques will make Claudine feel stupid and clumsy: will he totally ignore her this week, or just mutter offhanded comments? This show has also spawned a lot of questions: does Claudine actually like her father or is she just getting paid really well? Does she really not know how to cook at all? Is it all just an act, like professional wrestling? Will this week be the week that Claudine finally cracks and stabs her father in the hand with a serving fork?
What you may hear Jacques say: "No, no, no…here, just let me do eet." and "Aren't you finished peeling that potato yet? Just give eet to me, I will do eet."

"Baking with Julia": We usually just ended up watching this one by default, because nothing else was on. Baking is something that neither one of us has the patience for, and since everything that is baked from scratch seems to take two days to make, the show was — for the most part — bor-ring. And what's up with Julia Child these days? She hovers around her guests like somebody sewed the bottoms of their pantlegs together and then acts like she's never set foot in a kitchen before by asking them inane questions like "What is that, that you're adding to the water there, to make the dough?" "That would be flour." "Aahh, flour, yes." One scary episode featured Julia tasting the fresh-from-the-oven baked good and then bursting into tears as they finished the show. We still can't figure that one out.
Don't be alarmed if you hear Julia ask: "Are those…those are eggs that you're adding, aren't they? Oh…and the yellow sticks? Aahh, butter, yes."

"Hot Off The Grill With Bobby Flay": I watched this by accident (read: nothing else was on&#41 one night. Bobby Flay cooks the food, presumably on a grill, and his lovely assistant watches him. Really. Just watches. She sits on the opposite side of the counter from Bobby, observes him and occasionally makes comments like "Mmmm, I love avocados" and "I judge the freshness of a pineapple by its smell." When they go to commercial, she turns to the small, intimate audience sitting on overstuffed armchairs surrounding the fake kitchen set and excitedly yells things like "We'll be RIGHT BACK with our special guest MING TSAI on HOT OFF THE GRILL! STAY TUNED!" She never touches food, not once. And I don't know how Bobby got his own show, but he seems to know next to nothing about cooking. Special guest Ming Tsai mentioned Thai Bird Chilies on that episode and baffled the hell out of Bobby. Even I know what Thai Bird Chilies are, and I don't even have my own cooking show.
Notable Bobby Flay quote: None, as I've only seen that one episode so far. The assistant thing confuses me.

"Essence of Emeril / Emeril Live": When Emeril Lagasse first started to become the Next Big Thing in the cooking world, I pictured him somewhere in the age range of 60 – 65 years old with distinguished-looking grey hair. Little did I know that he was on the younger side, and quickly becoming the hot new Food Network heartthrob. We've eaten at both of Emeril's restaurants in New Orleans, and there's no doubting that he's a good and innovative cook, but along with the massive heaps of praise comes a big ego. Emeril is on all the time. Either you just missed his show, or it's coming on in 15 minutes. He's always kickin' it up a notch, or training his audience to yell words on cue, like "BAM!" (when he throws his "Essence" into his dishes&#41 or "LANGUSTA!" (for no reason whatsoever&#41. Commercials for Emeril's show incorporate an annoyingly catchy "Kickin' It Up A Notch" them song. Emeril raises the roof. Emeril makes the ladies on the front row swoon. The other day, Emeril put a scoop of vanilla ice cream atop a piece of warm berry pie. The audience said "Ooooo" and Emeril threw his hands up into the air and screamed "I'm Emeril Lagasse!" as if he was the first person ever to think of putting ice cream atop a piece of warm pie.
Emeril loves to overuse the phrase: "Kickin' it up a notch" as in "We'll be kickin' it up notches unknown to mankind on tomorrow's show."

I've touched on the major ones, but there are others that I've watched. Who could forget Paul Prudhomme, so heavy that he needed to sit in a special cooking chair with wheels to do his show? Who could forget him frying up a 3-inch square slice of ham in 4-and-a-half sticks of butter? And Dessert Circus! Is that still on? Interesting (albeit confusing&#41 concept, those cartoon hippos in tutus, especially the way they intermittently floated across the screen while an unfunny French man made fattening pastries. And the Frugal Gourmet! Ah, we hardly knew ye, yet we never run out of jokes involving you and your assistant Craig.

As young Claudine Pepin loves to say (through clenched teeth&#41 as she lifts her wine glass (fiercely gripping the stem&#41 at the end of "Cooking with Claudine": Happy Cooking!

When I was growing up, my mother and I never had a lot of money for vacations, so most of our vacations were spent camping. We were real campers: just us, a tent, some sleeping bags, a cooler full of food, a Coleman lantern and a Coleman kerosene stove… one of those old-style stoves that required someone (usually me&#41 to spend an hour pumping the tank full of air so it would have enough pressure to stay burning for the amount of time it took to prepare dinner.

We called it getting back to nature, but in reality it was just a cheap way to spend a couple of days. But it didn't matter, because for a young kid like me, it was an adventure. We would hike around strange new trails, go to forts and other pseudo-educational historical sites, and make friends with other kids whose parents were doing the same thing.

So, when my mother sent me off to day camp at Wilcox Park in Bloomfield, CT, I was all for it. Wilcox Park's camp is a real outdoorsy sort of camp. We would run obstacle courses, learn how to identify plants and animals, perfect our map reading and compass skills, and best of all, we would hike. Every day, all of us campers would get in line and hike a half of a mile up the mountain to the intersection of the Duncaster (yellow blaze&#41 and the Metacomet (blue blaze&#41 Trails. Once every session, we would take a whole day and hike from Wilcox three whole miles to Heublein Tower in Simsbury, a major feat for a bunch of little kids like us.

By the time I was twelve, I was completely bitten by the hiking bug. I volunteered as a Counselor-in-Training at Wilcox and got to go on the big kids hikes… three and four day self contained hikes on the Metacomet and Appalachian Trails. I joined a Boy Scout troop that camped and hiked in rain, sleet, and even the snow. By the time I was fourteen, I had hiked through most of the trails in Northern Connecticut.

But then my mother and I moved from Bloomfield to Granby, CT, and the camping and hiking stopped. It was the early 90s, and camping was no longer in vogue… we had more of a disposable income, and the whole hiking thing sort of ended. Sure, I went to sleep-away camp for a few years, but aside from one two-week backpacking and rockclimbing expedition, I pretty much stopped hiking when I left Bloomfield.

A few weeks ago, Janet brought up the idea of taking a small hike… and the hiking bug bit me again. I went out to Eastern Mountain Sports and bought a new compass and a Connecticut trail map book. I picked a three to four hour hiking path, and even arranged to have a co-worker of mine come along for the walk as well… and yesterday, we met up and took a hike… my first hike in over 10 years. The put-in point for the trail? Wilcox Park in Bloomfield.

Just like I did for the first time almost seventeen years ago, I sprayed on my bug spray, put on some suntan lotion, and I was darting off through the Great Meadow in Wilcox Park, looking for the edge of the obstacle course where the head of the Duncaster trail started. Of course, this time it was just me, Janet and Holly taking the hike… not twenty or thirty campers groaning that it was too hot to go a whole half of a mile.

Everything was the same… the trails were still as well kept as they were in the 80s, and the view from Lookout Rock was as spectacular as ever. The three of us turned South and started walking… and walking… and walking. It was almost two hours later before we arrived in Simsbury at Penwood Park's Lake Louise and decided to turn around. We made it back to the cars a few minutes shy of three-and-a-half hours.

Later that afternoon, while having a meatball sandwich at the Subway sandwich shop in the Bloomfield Mini-Mall, Janet and I looked through the maps to assess the whole hike… we went about 5.8 miles round trip, which is only a mile short of making it all the way to Heublein Tower. As a kid, it would take almost five hours just to get there, and by then, we were ready for the vans to take us back to Wilcox, but now I could make it there and back in a little over four hours.

… and next time, I'm going to do just that.