Episode 52: Summer in the Valley

We do our big-deal travel in edge seasons, taking to the road just before or after the high months of the destinations we covet, when prices are lower and crowds are thinner.

That means early December in Florida, when the weather is as good but room rates are as much as 40% lower than after the 15th. For the same reasons, we think April, May or September for central Europe or Canada, and October or April for southern Europe.

Because we can, we stick close to home from June to September and January to March, feeling a little sorry and a whole lot smug because we don't have to adhere the standard wage-slave-two- weeks-in-July-scramble.

Daytrips and an occasional overnight are our tickets during those months, preferably during the week, when inn prices are lower, visitors fewer, and restaurants are happy for our business.

Apart from the obvious ultimate drawback, there is much to be said for retirement.

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Food is typically a key component of our excursions distant and near (please don't call them "staycations"), but not always . Teatown Lake Reservation is a 834-acre nature preserve with a robust environmental mission in northern Westchester County. It shelters injured raptors, sponsors walking tours, conducts eagle-sighting days, harvests sap for maple syrup in late winter, and promotes ecological awareness. In the lake that is at the heart of the property is the two-acre Wildflower Island, protected from deer and approached only via footbridge in conducted tours. The point is to protect flowers and vegetation from non-native invaders. We've been meaning to take the tour for years and finally got around to it in June, probably the best month to visit. We'll do it again. The grandkids like the animals in the main building and in the separate sheds out on the grounds where the hawks, rabbits, and turkey vultures are housed. Tours are $6. 1600 Spring Valley Road, Ossining, NY 10562; 914-762-2912; http://www.teatown.org/.

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From the profoundly pastoral to the devoutly urban we went. Friends from France (we met on Easter Island a couple of years ago) alighted in the city for a few days, and a sturdy dose of Manhattan cosmopolitanism seemed in order. Bob and Leah live in a gorgeous corner of Provence, where they've just opened a gite, essentially a Gallic version of a bed-and-breakfast. (E-mail me at TUCKg3@optonline.net if you'd like to get in touch with them about renting.) We met in the lobby of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where a massive exhibit of Turners were on view, over 150 pieces by the British genius who anticipated French Impressionism by about three decades.
Afterward, we walked down to the Carlyle, at 76th and Madison, to check out Bemelman's Bar. The famously whimsical wall murals are original, painted there in the 1950s by illustrator and children's book author, Ludwig Bemelmans. It's a Manhattan landmark, but it's also as dark as inside a closet and a piano player bangs out Cole Porter at disco levels. We drank up, paid ($75.59 for four drinks!), and quickly left.

Next stop was the equally celebrated and higher-toned King Cole Bar in the St. Regis at 55th and 5th. This was better. How many bars have their own maitre 'd? As soon as we walked into a room where every stool and chair was occupied, he set about shifting people and squeezing out enough space for us to sit. The decorative highlight is the 25-foot backbar mural by Maxfield Parish, a 1906 Art Nouveau masterpiece depicting the King Cole tale, recently restored at a cost of $100,000. The music was low, the conversation a happy but restrained buzz, the drinks as perfect as cocktails they should be, at about $20 each.

Dinner was at Metrazur, Charlie Palmer's restaurant at Grand Central Terminal. It's on the east balcony, where the big Kodak photos used to be, under the vaulted main ceiling that depict the heavens. It is one of the grandest interor public spaces in North America, the floor below teeming with commuters and tourists eighteen hours a day. We were met there by Bob and Leah's daughter, Kellie, their very attractive and delightfully self-assured daughter. She lives in the city. The menu can be described as "Creative American Bistro", a sprightly roster of not-excessively-imaginative dishes of largely Franco-Italian inspiration. My main course was a duck confit risotto with white truffle and cannellini brodo, escarole, fennel jam, and charred tomato nage. Only a couple of dinner entrees exceed $29, not to be expected at most New York eateries run by celebrity chefs. Better still, Kellie picked up the tab.

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To See Ourselves As Others Do

A 21-year-old man in Rockland County called the police and falsely reported a robbery. He provided the 911 operator with this description of the supposed suspect: "He's got gray and black hair, kind of a big nose, a gray and black mustache and dark eyebrows, and he's like very old and wrinkly."

When asked, he volunteered that the suspect was about 40 or 45 years-old.

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There are about 80,000 Ecuadoreans in our county, and most of them seemed to gather on a Sunday in August in a park beside the river. There were souvenir and crafts stands, a covered stage for musicians and other performers from back home, and, of course, food stalls. The vendors all served essentially the same things. Aluminum foil bowls were filled with rice and potatoes (Ecuadoreans like two starches on each plate); a strange sort of corn with huge, bulbous kernels (we asked what it was called and they said "corn"); heaps of shredded pork (moist and flavorful). And cuy. Ecuadoreans love cuy. Back home, they make little houses in their kitchen for the cuy to live in until they're selected for Sunday dinner. Cuy are guinea pigs, roasted on spits over hot coals (photo at upper right, kept small for the squeamish).

There were perhaps four other Anglos among the thousands of attendees. As if we didn't stick out enough, we were both pale and tall, at least by comparison. We looked like storks among flocks of penguins. But apart from a few curious glances, there was no obvious hostility to our presence, and they accepted it as entirely

natural that I sounded as if I spoke Spanish.

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Dutchess County has held a farm fair for over 160 years. It is a winning old-timey combination of blue-ribbon farm animals, cooking and gardening competitions, wildlife and conservation displays, carnival rides and games, camel rides and hog races, and booth after booth of every kind of evil fast food you shouldn't ever eat and absolutely lust after. It is quintessenial G-rated Americana, just the thing for a late summer outing with grandchildren, especially if yours are as adorable as ours.

We reserved a room at the Delamater annex of the Beekman Arms Inn in Rhinebeck (on the left), which claims to be the oldest inn in continuous operation in the United States. (There are competing claims.) Avoid Friday and Saturday nights, and you can get a spacious room with king-sized bed, gas-fed fireplace, and unstocked fridge for $175, continental breakfast included.
Contact them at http://www.beekmandelamaterinn.com/.

Then, there were picnics beside the Hudson, an all-you-can-eat clambake at Crabtree's Kittle House in Chappaqua, visits to the Sunday farmers' market at Muscoot Farm........

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Swedish Cucumber Salad

Serves 6-8

Our neighbors Joe and Florence are prodigious gardeners, and at this bountiful time of year we can expect to receive frequent bags of monster eggplants, tomatoes, zucchini, and cucumbers. Here's a Craig Clairborne recipe that does excellent work with the cukes.

4 large cucumbers

6 tablespoons white vinegar

6 tablespoons sugar

Three-quarter cup of cold water

Salt and freshly ground white pepper to taste

One quarter cup minced parsley

1 tablespoon chopped dill

Peel the cukes and cut them in half lengthwise. Scrape out the seeds with a spoon. Cut the halves crosswise into thin slices. There should be about 5 cups.

Blend the vinegar, sugar, water, salt and pepper into a small saucepan and bring to a simmer. Stir until the sugar dissolves. Pour the liquid over the cukes. Let stand until cool. Refrigerate.

Sprinkle with parsley and dill and toss to blend.

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