Ok...Ok... here you go (for the two or three of you that are left since I have been gone from the blog so long!) Here's what I've been up to the past few months which kept me away from the computer.
We took a road trip the last weekend in October and I'm going to post the pix from that over the next few days. We left on Thursday night right after my husband got off work, and drove to NJ to stay at a really nice hotel where my husband's cousin manages the restaurant/food/catering service. He is really wonderful to us every time we've stayed there, so if we are going anywhere within an hour of his hotel, we crash there. Many, many thanks to Rob.
Friday morning we got up and headed off to our first stop pictured below. It's the town of Cold Spring, NY to have lunch at a little restaurant called
the Foundry Cafe.
There is, of course, a story as to why we ended up making this one of our destinations. I watch a show some mornings called
New Morning on the Hallmark channel every weekday morning (at 7 am here.) That's one of my busiest times of the day due to getting 1-3 kids ready for and to school from 7-8:15. So I DVR it and watch it later when Anna's in the livingroom playing.
I watched a show in September entitled
Who's Your Neighbor in which they talked about this little cafe in Cold Spring, NY that had such a neighborly atmosphere that folks have stopped there on vacations and made so many friends there that they relocated to Cold Spring. Well... that's just the kind of thing that appeals to me greatly. Later that week Rick mentioned he had a West Point football game he wanted to attend in October (he played sprint football at West Point and later coached the Sprint football team there when he was an instructor. One friend he coached with is still an instructor,and another is still a coach.) I asked him where Cold Spring was in relation to West Point and he said, "Right across the river, why?" So I asked him if we could stop at this little cafe I saw on TV, and (I love him so) he said, "Of course! We'll stop there for lunch before going to West Point." Kismet.
Here's the video from the show on the cafe. I just couldn't wait to see it and meet the owners.
I will say that we didn't make breakfast (which was the focus on the TV show.) And lunch was crazy. It's a very small cafe, and we're a family of 6 now (which seems to be an oddity whenever we decend upon a restaurant.) So... we walked in and sat ourselves at three very small tables (with exactly 5 chairs at them) in the center of the restaurant. The kids took off to use the bathroom leaving me, Rick and Anna at the three tables. The waitress (partner?) glanced our way, but seemed to not see us. She continued to give menus to and take orders from other people, many of whom came in after us. After driving so far, Rick was starting to get understandably annoyed and I was starting to doubt my decision to add this into our busy weekend. Then finally the waitress approached us and asked, "Are you taking up all these tables?" in a hurried and irritated voice. Rick sighed, and I quickly defended our position, "Ummm... well there are three more to our party using the restroom." I smiled to show I forgave her abruptness. She sighed and said, "Oh." And left. Still no menus. When the kids got back and we were all seated she ran over and slapped our menus down, took our drink orders and disappeared before we could ask about specials. 
Once I did her reply was, "On the board." So I got up to go read them. Rick was growing ever more impatient, and then noticed the menu was all organic health food (not that appealing to him, but more importantly what the heck will the kids order?) Luckily the kids found organic pb and j sandwiches and enourmous homemade brownies and cookies so we were saved. I ordered crab cakes and Rick ordered a sandwich.
The Word of the day was "Prelapsarian" which (according to Dictionary.com.) means "characteristic of or pertaining to any innocent or carefree period" in referance to the Fall of man when Eve ate that apple and tempted poor Adam to eat some too (because Adam did what his woman told him to apparantly. God must have punished all of Evekind by taking that one away for most of us. -Present husband not included ;) That's not the definition the owner and waitress gave to us, though they admittedly couldn't remember it exactly. They told us it meant "before the enlightenment." I like that better but couldn't find it for the life of me. I guess it depends on your take of the apple eating incident! I'm more interested in thinking that obtaining knowledge was an enlightenment, rather than a curse. There's the UU in me :)
It was about this time that things calmed down and half the restuarant (which only seats about 30 or so people) started to clear out. The waitress apologized for how busy it was. I said, "Oh that's ok. We wanted to come for breakfast since we saw you on New Morning, but we didn't make it on time. We're on a road trip from Ohio."
THAT sure changed everything. The waitress was thrilled we saw them on New Morning. She also has a second house in Ohio and had just got back from there that week. She couldn't wait to introduce us to the owner... because we were their FIRST customers who came there because we saw them on the show. She apologized if she didn't get to us soon enough, and explained that breakfast is the jovial atmosphere we saw on the show, where as lunch is crazy busy. She and the owner posed for the picture with us. (He still seemed a little grumpy with the whole thing. She definitely seemed more exited that we stopped by.)
But AFTER she knew we saw them on the show, we were treated like celebrities. And then I realized an important lesson. When you are visiting a new place you have heard of from friends or seen on TV, it might be a good idea to call them that morning, tell them where you saw them or heard of them, and that you need to confirm directions. I imagine if they knew that if they knew someone was stopping by their restuarant after seeing it on TV, they would have been trying to treat every unfamilair face the way they treated us once they found out. Now they should have in the first place...you never know who each customer is. BUT...just for your (our) benefit of not being disappointed... the heads up to them would have benefitted us.
All that being said, it was the best food I've ever tasted. Those crab cakes were on par with the ones I've had in Ocean City, MD every time I've been there. Rick loved his sandwich and the kids were amazed by the homemade organic pb and j sandwiches. Of course we all loved the brownies and cookies.
And when it comes down to it, you're at a restaurant for the food, afterall. So I still recommend you all stop in to Cold Spring and check out the Foundry Cafe, but call first and let them know, "A friend of mine saw you on New Morning and visited your cafe. They said we HAD to try it." Then you should get the good food, AND welcoming hospitality.
Here are some more pix from our walk through Cold Spring, NY.
Loved this sign/artsy shop. The following are some of my favorites....
My sons pretending to have a general mills international coffee moment...
Interestingly named B and B
Beautiful fall folliage/ivy
The self proclaimed Cat/Dog poop/pee lady. She shoos folks away from allowing their pets to do their business on her tree and flowers in front of her shop. So apparently the town has "so dubbed" her. She seemed rather proud of the title (since she's the one to fill us in on it.)
Here's the tree she protects...
And where you might find yourself if your pet takes advantage of the nice greenery...
Hope you enjoyed the visit!
