New pix with the Nikon D3100 0
Some new photos from this weekend, using my new Nikon D3100 with the 18-55 VR lens. Shit rocks, and I just started learning to use it. You can see my photography at MadeMarkPhoto.net.
Dinner at the Carversville Inn (PA) – 5 yums 0
We wanted to give partner Frank’s lifelong friend Lisa a surprise day – modeled after something we do for each other a few times a year: we set a date, and one of us arranges a number of surprises over the weekend the other does not know about until we get there (next up: April, his surprise, my choices). Now that it’s Sunday I can tell you what they were: all three of us getting massages at Massage Envy in Flemington, NJ. Then a financially acceptable shopping spree (I had to put that in there, we’re neither rich nor insane) at Kohl’s, a stop at a wine store where Lisa was given a gift certificate, and finally dinner at the Carversville Inn.
The Carversville Inn is located in Carversville, PA, just “ten minutes and 100 years from New Hope.” Carversville was a 19th Century farming community and earned its National Register of Historic Places status from the Department of Interior in 1979. Carversville, along with a number of other small rural towns in New Jersey, was once a stagecoach stop and business would set up along the route to cater to the travelers on those dusty, bumpy rides. The Carversville Inn was one of those establishments.
The Inn itself has stood since 1813. Since 1989 chef Will Mathias and his wife, Denie, have been the owners of the inn. We were seated in the tavern area, since the main dining room didn’t have an open table until 7:30 and we tend to eat earlier than that. It wasn’t a problem, since the Inn’s tavern is small, friendly, and usually quiet (until we got to our desserts and a crowd of 20 or so people showed up for drinks, something the waiter said he hadn’t seen in his three years there and for which I did not deduct so much as a quarter yum).
The only argument I had was with myself: 4 and a half yums or all the way to 5? I’d only given a handful of restaurants a full 5 yum rating in the three years I’d been doing reviews. However, I made a quick comparison to Marsha Brown in New Hope and realized it wouldn’t be fair not to rate them both at the top. For that matter, the food at the Carversville Inn was better, as unlikely as such a thing would be.
The staff was attentive, gracious and ever-present. Our waiter was delightful (thank you, James), and every item on the menu was enticing. For appetizers I had a mushroom ragout with Gruyere and Frank had crab bisque. My beet salad was one of the best I’ve had, with toasted pecans and succulent beets, while Lisa enjoyed a shrimp salad and Frank had endive salad. My entrée was a mouth-watering grilled filet mignon with roasted red peppers and horseradish whipped cream, joined on the plate by polenta cakes and broccoli rabe. Frank had short ribs of beef braised in red wine with roasted vegetables and bordelaise sauce, while Lisa had mustard crusted salmon with lemon butter. Each dish was impeccably prepared and served, and before we were halfway through the meal I knew this was a special dining experience. We skipped dessert only because the tavern area had filled up and become very loud, but there’s no fault in that and we saved some by stopping at the Giant grocery store for ice cream instead. The entire meal for three ran $175.00. Yes, it’s not your local diner, but I do review those, as well, so don’t worry, there’s something for everyone as we travel around and I hand out the yums. The Carversville Inn easily earns a top-rating 5.
An almost-Valentine’s Day photo 0
I know this is from Halloween (and 2010 at that) but I dug it up when Frank needed another couples’ photo for the Radio FOD Photo Corner. I dig it.
Hanging with the reptiles at the Cape May County Zoo Educational Center 0
Frank and I went to Cape May, NJ, this past weekend to visit friend Cindy and Jim. They’re planning to sell their house and move back to Montana or somewhere like it this coming spring. Cindy’s been a volunteer at the Cape May County Zoo for several years and gave us a tour of the Educational Center. We didn’t have time for a proper tour of the zoo, but this was very interesting. It was especially sweet to see the relationship Cindy has with “the critters” and how much of a friendship one can have with a lizard.
Author of ‘How Not to Look Old’ dies at 58 0
The headline wrote itself, and while it’s sad that she passed away, it’s one of the few instances I’d consider ironic.
(AP) NEW YORK — Charla Krupp, a popular author and commentator on fashion and beauty whose best-sellers included “How Not to Look Old” and “How to Never Look Fat Again,” has died at age 58.
Krupp’s husband, Richard Zoglin, said she died Monday of breast cancer at their home in Manhattan.
Krupp made numerous television appearances over the years. According to her publisher, the Hachette Book Group, she was on NBC’s “Today” show more than 100 times and was featured on Oprah Winfrey’s syndicated talk program and on ABC’s “Good Morning America” and “The View.”
As entertainment editor for Glamour magazine, she interviewed Meryl Streep, Madonna and other celebrities. She also wrote for Time magazine, USA Today, Town & Country and many other publications and had a second run at Glamour as beauty editor.
Her husband called her “a pioneering journalist, a champion of women and an amazing life force.”
Judge uses Bob Marley to illustrate dangerous hairstyles 0
Is that a knife in your dreads or are you just happy to see me?
The federal appeals judge who pictured an ostrich in an opinion has turned to photography again, this time in a decision on a prisoner’s suit over shorn dreadlocks.
“Dreadlocks can attain a formidable length and density,” the Jan. 13 opinion (PDF) says. A photo of the late reggae musician Bob Marley is included to illusthttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifrate. The author is Judge Richard Posner of the Chicago-based 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, who pictured an ostrich and a person with his head in the sand in a November opinion criticizing lawyers who ignore precedent.
The new opinion allows the claim of an Illinois inmate who alleged prison authorities violated his free exercise rights by requiring him to cut his hair. He claimed prison officials allowed Rastafarians to wear long hair, but not members of the his religion, the African Hebrew Israelites of Jerusalem.
“One can see why prison officials might fear that a shank or other contraband could be concealed in an inmate’s dreadlocks,” Posner writes
Happy 69th birthday Janis Joplin 0
I made this clip in 2010, on the 40th anniversary of Joplin’s death. She would have been 69 today.
