Pumpkins, Alyson’s Orchard, Walpole, New Hampshire.
10/31/2008
So, it’s Halloween and I planned a post about going to Keene, N.H. for Pumpkin Fest 2008 last weekend.
The thing is, notwithstanding literally thousands of Jack-o-lanterns, there wasn’t a whole lot of pumpkin-related food action going on up there.
We did buy a pie from the Peterborough Children’s Choir’s pie stand and while a friend deemed it ‘maybe the best pumpkin pie ever,’ I can’t honestly say I can tell much difference between the best pumpkin pie I’ve ever had and just a pretty good pumpkin pie.
[Here is where I give a shout-out to staff writer Magdalene Perez's pumpkin pie in the hopes of being gifted with another slice in the near future]
Some of the fair’s non-pumpkin related food was noteworthy: principally the hand-cut French fries and the deep-fried apple donuts sold by the Boy Scout Troop 302 of Keene.
The apples we picked at nearby Alyson’s Orchard yielded a couple of OK apple pies (this, apparently, is a skill I could vastly improve upon).
The two things that absolutely stood out in my mind as extraordinary had nothing to do with Pumpkin Festival: the Brattleboro Food Co-Op and the restaurant at L.A. Burdick Chocolate in Walpole, N.H.
First, the co-op Brattleboro, Vt. off of Interstate 91, offers a fantastic variety of cheese, produce (organic and conventional), bulk cereals, spices, oil, honey, etc., and meat. I can recommend their chorizo and the awesome grass-fed, organic, we-read-bedtime-stories-to-the-cattle-before-we-slaughter-them steaks. A little salt and pepper and into the cast iron and you can’t really go wrong with these.
Burdick’s is 20-miles up the road and besides their hand-made chocolates, they offer a brasserie-style menu in the inviting dining room next door. Everything sounded great except the vegan split-pea soup, (because what is split-pea soup without ham in it?).
The blue cheese salad ($8) was piled with huge chunks of quality blue cheese, quarter-inch hunks of smoked bacon and walnuts. I followed this up with a bowl of mussels ($15), which were very good. However, I quickly became jealous of my friends who ordered the steak frites ($18) and the Provençal beef stew ($16). Oh yeah, the Walpole Creamery pumpkin ice cream was really, really good. Especially with a chocolate Madeleine.
So, now I can say I’ve been to Pumpkin Festival.
–CP
BELOW: Black Oxford apple, Alyson’s Orchard, Walpole, New Hampshire.
…Tell you what, if you buy me a cappuccino from Grumpy, I’ll bring you all the Lakeside doughnuts you can eat.
That is a gorgeous freaking apple.
I’m sitting in my 4 hour long radio lab class at school and I’m drooling over all the deliciousness on this blog. New York City has pretty much everything, but not Lakeside doughnuts and not Colony. I think the LBC should host a “best of” food festival so that I can have all the food I miss in one place at one time. Do it!
I LOVE Keene’s annual Pumpkinfest! Spent my college years nearby and this is the first year I missed it. You definitely visited a few of my favorites, but missed a couple as well. Next time stop in to Harlow’s in Peterborough, Kimball’s Farm in Jaffery for ice cream, and Gabby’s over the boarder in Mass., for a Nor’easter sandwich.
Whoa. Well. I guess the two of you aren’t getting anything from me from now on!
-CP
I’m with Conrad on the homemade crust issue… There’s really nothing like it. I still have mountains of apples to use. Meant to make a pie this weekend, but hoping to look up a recipe in Fine Cooking this week and get it made.
You know, I hadn’t really planned on it, but what with you dismissing my apple pie for having not actually made my own crust, I’m tempted to take another stab at it. I’ve been studying up.
But honestly, I can’t remember the last time you brought something in that you made. (I will, however, declare here publicly that your wife is a fine baker and cook and that I hope this will not dissuade her from sending things our way in the future. Hint: we haven’t had brownies in a while.)
–CP
Pumpkin pie in the newsroom Monday?