Well, it’s apple season so we went apple picking.  Jonagold, Mutsu, Golden Delicious and Fujis were the bulk of the apples we picked.  I also picked up some Arkansas Blacks at a farmer’s market, which I’d never heard of before, but was told they were good cooking apples.  I bought them more because we had seen them on the trees at the u-pick place but they were roped off for a school group to come pick… and they looked so bizarre… all these black apples hanging off a tree.  We though they were rotten at first.  Of course, the ones I got at the market are simply dark red… not even close to looking like black.

I’m always amazed by the food up in Black Mountain.  Local, fresh and delicious.  We asked around at a morning tailgate market for breakfast suggestions and were referred to a few places.  We chose Sprout, a little place that used to be a garden center.  The food was all locally grown, the coffee was locally roasted, and all of it was great.  While sitting down to breakfast, we began talking about what we should do that day.  A couple of ladies heard us and started to run down a list of things we could do.  So by the end of our meal, what looked to be a quiet Saturday in Black Mountain, turned into a busy day all over the area.

So now, I have a fridge full of apples.  So I guess tomorrow, I start making pies… and cakes… and perhaps a tart or two. Will post photos if they come out pretty enough.

The View from Metrazur at Grand Central

After the ceremony and the obligatory pics,  they  arranged for a double decker bus to take us all to Grand Central.   It’s funny – we were all as excited as the tourists who usually do these things.  When you live in a place, you tend not to do the basic touristy things that are around… and even now, when I return to the city, I visit friends, eat all the stuff I can’t get back home, perhaps visit the Met… but having lived here once, actually twice, what sort of stuff am I really going to do?  But with the perfect weather, sitting up top and seeing the familiar buildings go by, it was really cool.  So everyone really enjoyed the ride… then the reception was a Metrazur, it sits on the mezzanine overlooking the grand hall of Grand Central – which is just gorgeous!  It’s great place for drinks after work… watching all the commuters head home in this ballroom of a space.  Everything was really nice.

That night, we all met up again and took the Circle Line from the 42nd Pier. It took us as far as the UN on the East River, then over to the Statue of Liberty – then back up the Hudson. It was a lot of fun doing things we don’t and wouldn’t normally do like the double-decker bus and the Circle Line.

We stayed with friends out in Brooklyn, Prospect Park. Sunday was spent hanging out there and getting the Brooklyn experience. Since I lived, worked & played in Manhattan, Brooklyn is still a mystery to me… it’s all fairly new. So we got the mini-tour… and now I’m completely sold.  I started urging friends in Manhattan who told me at the wedding they were looking to upsize, so I am now convinced Prospect Park and the other areas nearby would be perfect!

So it was nice to see old friends, hang out in the City, experience new areas and do a few new things… My friends kept asking me ‘Don’t you miss the City’ and the answer is yes.  I think my husband was a bit put out by my response since I left New York to get married to him and live in St Simons Island.  But what’s wrong with missing a place that’s been such a major part of your life?

This past Friday, he called from work mid-afternoon and said “I’ve got some time, let’s get out of town!” So out of town we went… after my initial hesitation since I had pork souvlaki marinating in the fridge and I had planned to grill it for dinner.  ”You’re going to pass up a chance to go somewhere because you have pork to grill?”

Market at Marion Square

We drove up to Charleston – a 3.5 hour drive from St. Simons Island.  Perhaps it would have been faster, but we hit a massive storm as we got into Savannah and it persisted most of the way up so I couldn’t drive at my normal lead-foot speed.  I got a good last minute deal at the Francis Marion Hotel on King Street and once situated, we walked down King Street, all the way to the Battery and then up E. Bay Street… by then, it had drizzled some more and we were tired, hot and sticky (and grumpy! don’t forget grumpy!) so we began looking for a place to eat.  We felt too gross to go into a nice restaurant so we ended up at the Crab Shack where we ordered beers and reluctantly ordered dinner.  Once the beers came and we had a sip or two, we came to our senses.  So, we cancelled our dinner order and after we finished our beers, left in search of a ‘real’ place to eat.  We eventually opted for dinner at Slightly North of Broad  where we sat at the ‘Chef’s Table’ – basically a low counter facing the open kitchen – and had good wine and a delicious meal.

Queen Street Grocery

The next day, we did more walking… off the beaten path into more residential areas just looking at houses… you would think I’d be sick of looking at houses but these were just so charming and interesting, I couldn’t help taking pictures.  We stumbled upon a little grocery store on Queen Street in an old building and were surprised to find they made organic crepes – so we had lunch of ham & cheese crepes and went on our merry way.

At one point, we turned down a street to find ourselves in the midst of government housing… odd juxtaposition to the wealth and charm just a couple of blocks away.  But we came upon this huge old walled property with an enormous run-down building with massive bars at the windows.  It was really fascinating and we discovered as we came up to the front gate that it was the old city jail being renovated (for what, I have no idea!)… so I was glad we took that wrong turn because otherwise, we would never have seen that building, which was really cool…

So I suppose  what I take away from all this… if you don’t take a wrong turn now and then… you may never stumble upon cool things you might otherwise have missed… is that the Doogie Howser lesson for this episode?  I think it is… Oh and that it was hot… really HOT… and humid and that next time we decide to go to Charleston… it will have to be late fall or the dead of winter.

Since then, my experience with the blueberry muffin has been somewhat lackluster.  In Atlanta, muffins were usually relegated to those purchased as an after thought in a convenience store while paying for gas (since you practically live in your car)) or bought in a clear plastic clamshell at the local Publix… ugh.  When I moved back to New York City in 1997, I went in search of that now mythic place where they raised the art of the blueberry muffin to an art form.  But it was gone.  I couln’t even see a place that might have replaced it so I could stand out front and say, “Here was once made the best blueberry muffins in the world…”  did I imagine the store?  Did those muffins really exist?

Well, since moving to St Simons Island, I’ve really developed as a cook and have begun to really enjoy baking.  So I like to play around, cakes, pies, cookies, whatever.  My husband is a wonderful guinea pig… and whatever he can’t eat, he takes to work where he always gives me an update by mid-morning how the ravenous vultures at his office have devoured whatever baking project he set on the breakroom table.

Of course, by now, my muffin mythologizing had faded away, buried beneath so many years of disappointment and bland, boring, less than average muffins.  Last week, blueberries were on sale at Harris Teeter.  I had already made a blueberry pie (which my husband loves!) so when I caught a glimpse of the buttermilk on the refrigerator shelf, I thought: Buttermilk Blueberry Muffin.  Buttermilk has become a fascination to me… On a recent trip to Asheville, NC,  we had the best cake – Buttermilk Coconut Cake – at the Early Girl Eatery, by far our favorite lunch place in a city full of great places to eat.  I successfully replicated it last week (with a slight difference on the frosting but delicious just the same!) and was stuck with half a carton of buttermilk.

So I Googled recipes for Buttermilk Blueberry Muffins… and found numerous options.  I picked one  that sounded good and gave it a whirl…all the while thinking how fantastic these are going to be with the slight tang of the buttermilk and all those luscious blueberries. In the end, they didn’t rise up very much… and they tasted like something I could have picked up in a clear plastic clamshell in the mass-produced stack by the bread section at Harris Teeter.  Sigh.  And then I realized that buttermilk or no… what I was really expecting without even thinking about it, when I first bit into the freshly baked muffin… was that muffin from the long defunct shop in New York  City.

I did find some other recipes… some calling for sour cream, others cream cheese, all promising delicious muffins.  I suppose I will try them all, but  I think in the end, I will probably have to start from scratch… if blueberries continue to be plentiful and cheap… this could be the summer of the blueberry muffin…  Ryan’s office survived the great apple pie experiment of 2006… I suppose they’ll survive the blueberry muffin test kitchen of 2009.  On this,  I am quite determined.