Category Archives: Day Trips

Too Much To Do This Weekend

Posted on April 13, 2012 by AnnieRie

Like everyone else around here in the Howard County area, I am seeing lots of things to do every weekend now that spring has arrived.

It is funny how all the big events start clustering together in April and May and cluttering our calendars.

What to do? What to do?

Greenfest is where I will be, since I volunteered to spend three hours manning a booth for the Conservancy. The hike to the river is where I’d like to be, but can’t navigate treacherous hills until I have more mobility in my neck.

The Housing Fair is happening, but since we aren’t in that market, it didn’t make my short list.

HoCoConnect did a really good summary of what is going on at Greenfest, and I will add what I want to see. He also highlights two other events I missed.

Well & Wise has a list of upcoming events, too. They include the announcements of the Conservancy events this week and next.

At Greenfest, I will be attending at least two workshops, one on stormwater management in your yard, and one on backyard composting. We do compost some, but I can always use more tips and tricks. I wish I could do the watershed walks, but they conflict. Hubby is going to hear Cathy Hudson talk about raising chickens in the morning at 11am, while I am working at our table. And, just walking around talking to vendors is interesting. I applied last year for the lottery for a free energy audit, and won. We now know what we need to do to finish the weather proofing of our house, making it more energy efficient. As I said above, what to do, what to do?

Don’t forget, there will be a mini farmer’s market there too.

Sunday morning I may make the trek into Baltimore to check out the market for some herbs from Knopps Farm, one of my old favorite vendors when I went to visit family in Severn. If you have never taken a Sunday morning drive to this market, you are missing one of the largest and craziest markets around here. Worth the drive up I-95. There are 45 vendors registered for this year, some with crafts, some with food products, others with produce, meat and dairy, and we love the excitement.

Go early if you do want to find things. It is just an amazing array of food, people and good times. South Mountain Creamery and Zahradka Farms are there. My source of dairy most of the time, and my winter CSA. Both of these vendors will be at Glenwood in four weeks, but until then Baltimore is a good place to get their products, particularly for Elkridge and East Columbia Hoco residents. The market is set up under the Jones Falls Expressway.

And, then of course, I get to come home and file income tax. Not letting MD get those few dimes of mine until the very last minute. At least we broke even and get a few bucks back from the Feds. Hmm, I didn’t check, do we get an extra day or two? Yes, google my friend, says we have until Tuesday, so if the weather is nice, we can spend more time downtown.

I love spring!

hocoblogs@@@

1 Comment

Posted in Community, Day Trips, Farmer's Markets, Food, Gardening, Howard County, Local Businesses, Locavore, Nature, People, Volunteering, Weather and tagged community, day trips, farmer's markets, Food, gardening, hoco loco, Howard County, howard county conservancy, local businesses, Locavore, nature, spring flowers, volunteering, weather. Bookmark the permalink.

A Jug of Wine, A Loaf of Bread, And Thou

Posted on April 7, 2012 by AnnieRie

From Omar Khayyam, the phrase from the Rubaiyat that resonates with me.

Today was one of those lovely spring days. No, we did not want to do yard work. Or spring clean up. We went first to look at the chicks and pick up bird seed.

Then, we did what I haven’t done since fall.

Drove up to Black Ankle for lunch.

Now, it may be one of the closest wineries to us in West County, but the roads will test your car’s shock absorption ability. Unless you take the long way round. On the paved roads.

Black Ankle Road isn’t paved. We actually came home on the short cut, but went up the longer route.

They are out of whites until late May. It is a tribute to those who love good wine, that this young MD winery sells out their whites every year. Nothing left. The winery is beautiful, a green building with straw walls and a planted roof. Cows in the meadow below the patio.

Here is where the Friday night music is played. Where we usually come to picnic and listen. Today for lunch we watched the cows and the tractor while enjoying local cheese made in Easton MD, some mixed olives and a good bottle of Rolling Hills.

Picked up a few bottles and wandered on home to enjoy another lovely MD spring day. If you live in Howard County and want to spend some time relaxing in a lovely setting, this is a day trip worth taking.

hocofood@@@

A Day Trip to Breaux

Posted on March 24, 2012 by AnnieRie

About an hour from here is an amazingly beautiful vineyard, developed by Paul Breaux as one of the area’s destination wineries. They purchased 400 acres of land to the east of the Appalachian Trail near the border of VA and WV. They are six miles south of Harper’s Ferry WV. When you cross the bridge from MD to VA on US 340, turn left at the gas station and drive the six miles.

On the site, they planted 100+ acres of mostly vinifera. This was one of the few large scale, well bankrolled wineries in VA in the 1990’s. First class all the way. Paul Breaux had done well in real estate. You may know of his company, Sun Realty. If you rented a place in the Outer Banks, it may have been one of his. In an interesting “six degrees of separation” moment, it was Sun Realty that rented us a house on the Outer Banks for our honeymoon in August 1980, when they were a fledgling company.

In the year 2000, we first went to visit the vineyards with friends, after a morning hike in Harper’s Ferry. The building is impressive. Way bigger than almost any winery I had ever seen in the mid-Atlantic. Now, after a trip to Napa and Sonoma, I can put it into a different perspective. Barboursville in VA also has impressive grounds, but we never saw the other big VA wineries until years later. So, for us, this place was awesome. They had invested in much better equipment than any Maryland winery we had visited in the 1980s or early 90’s. This place even has a misting machine in the barrel storage chambers, to keep the barrels from drying out by regulating the humidity. And, they are still growing.

Coming up to the building yesterday, we saw massive construction going on. A new building that promises to add more capacity for storage of production, as well as surprises, since they are not revealing yet what all will be housed there.

We are charter cellar club members. Breaux and Linden are the VA wineries we support as case club members. Black Ankle and Boordy are the cellar clubs in MD that we also support. As a hobby, wine collecting is not inexpensive, but it beats car collecting, or having a boat, or playing golf. All those other things are money sumps, just like our winery visits are. We have become very selective about where we go and what we purchase now that we are retired. We continue our Breaux membership because we believe they provide a great value for the money. The wines for the club are not available to the general public.

Yesterday we went to pick up six bottles. We get two bottles every two months, or a case a year. It is one of the more affordable clubs, as others were requiring two bottles a month. We were last there in October. The hostess opened a bottle of one of the cellar club wines for us to taste to decide if we wanted to purchase more. We ended up getting a couple of bottles of the Cabernet Franc Reserve, and a couple of bottles of the Viognier, which has won numerous awards. Viognier is a wine that Virginia does a very good job of producing, and Breaux makes a stellar bottling.

We bought a baguette and some salami, and took our picnic lunch of local Howard County cheese, and my brownies out on the patio to enjoy the view.

Served with a bottle of Lot 10-08, a cellar selection. We enjoyed a glass and corked up the bottle to bring home for later.

As a committed locavore, I want to support local wineries as well as the local farmers. Even extending my tendencies to buy local to buying pottery, and plants, and services. Supporting local businesses puts some of our money directly into our local economy, and I feel good about that. Not to mention, day trips to wineries are a benefit of living in a very good viticultural climate.

Cheers!

1 Comment

Posted in Day Trips, Hobbies, Locavore, People, Retirement, Wine and tagged day trips, hobbies, Locavore, retirement, wine. Bookmark the permalink.

Out and About – Roots, MOM’s and R&R

Posted on March 20, 2012 by AnnieRie

The past two days saw us out doing errands and shopping for a few things I needed in order to meal plan for the week.

The destination Monday was lunch at R&R. We decided this time to try the tortas. Trust me, ours did not look like this.

Tortas are R&R’s contribution to the sandwich trade. OK, but not my favorite. We ate there, crowded in a corner. We had the barbacoa, aka lamb. The lamb was very good, as was the Mexican cheese. Bread a little soggy and not much avocado. We will go back to eating the tacos in the future. You just can’t beat their tortillas.

Before hitting R&R, we stopped at MOM’s to get a few things. That grew, but I did get quite a few local items. They have a larger selection of local items than Roots.

The local haul from MOM’s. These will find their way into my next two local meals.

As for Roots, we hit there Sunday while my hubby had to go to Kendall’s.

Highlights included: sea salt, rosemary crackers, hummingbird farms hydroponic tomatoes (local) and bulk pepitas for salad.

I also picked up some locally baked croutons from Canela Bread to serve with my Bowling Green Farm jalapeno spread.

And organic limes for the mojitos Sunday night. The mint in the mojitos is from my garden pots outside that are already producing.

Yum, mojitos and appetizers on the patio. In March. Love the weather this month.

hocofood@@@

1 Comment

Posted in Day Trips, Food, Local Businesses, Locavore, Restaurants and tagged day trips, Food, hoco loco, Howard County, local businesses, Locavore. Bookmark the permalink.

West County – Lunch in Lisbon at the Grill

Posted on March 10, 2012 by AnnieRie

Today we headed out for a short trip to accomplish three things. Pick up cheese and meat from TLV, check out chicken coops at Myers MiniBarns, and have lunch at the Town Grill.

OK, we lived here seven years. Never stopped at the Grill. It is always crowded when we drive past, but today we decided to brave the rush and get pulled pork. This place smells so good when you drive up.

This would be why. Smoking the meats right in the lot in front of the Grill. All sorts of good stuff including salmon and trout for the fish lovers among us. Definitely small inside, but you can get a place to sit if you wait a few minutes. People are coming and going constantly and it is a mix of locals, bike riders, workers, passers by, and people who just love pit beef.

I did not want to be as geeky as I usually am, and take pics of the food, but I had a BBQ sundae, which is cornbread topped with pulled pork, cole slaw and a deep fried pickle. My hubby had a pulled pork sandwich with sweet potato fries. They did not disappoint as the smoky intensity is what makes their pulled pork so good. And, it is chunky, not all mushy like some BBQ sandwiches are.

Definitely we will be coming back, maybe even for an occasional Thursday night dinner. They just recently started these.

It puts a whole new meaning on the term Gas and Go. Now, as we also love R&R Taqueria we are becoming gas station food afficianados. Not a bad thing, by any means.

As for other reviews that support how great the food is, check out HowChow and Wordbones.

As for the rest of our trip, we got a brochure and an idea of what the Taj Mahal of chicken coops cost. Trying to decide if we get chickens in the next year, do we build our own coop and spend a fortune on materials, etc. or buy a ready made chicken tractor.

Dreaming and planning. That’s what makes it fun out here. And, yes, we got to TLV for kielbasa and a promise to have a brisket saved when they next butcher a steer, and some Bowling Green Cheese. All in all, a good Saturday morning.

hocofood@@@

3 Comments

Posted in Community, Day Trips, Food, Hobbies, Howard County, Local Businesses, Locavore, Restaurants, West HoCo and tagged day trips, Food, hoco loco, hocoblogging, Howard County, local businesses, Locavore, West HoCo. Bookmark the permalink.

West County Hidden Treasures – Glenwood

Posted on March 8, 2012 by AnnieRie

I am not sure when I first went into Casual Gourmet. I think it was when I was looking for a wedding shower gift and happened to notice a new store just down from the Glenwood Farmer’s Market by the library. It was before Hillmuth moved in, and now of course the Pasta Blitz franchise, Vittorio’s is out there. HowChow blogged about it, and there is a favorable report on their pizza in his comments.

Casual Gourmet was one of the earlier tenants there in the strip mall.

I stop there for a latte on the way to the Glenwood Farmer’s Market, and I have bought a locally sourced pepper jelly assortment from them. Suzanne’s Pepper Jelly Heaven, Purgatory and Hell. Suzanne is a local from Glenwood, and her home business has blossomed big time. Her web site says she now makes a Pepper Jelly Ghost, labeled scary hot, and with a warning tag. Who is brave enough to try it and let me know if they live?

We bought a little sampler a while back, used it everywhere except we can’t handle Hell. Need to tone it down, but we picked up some recipes from the shelf while we were there.

They also have a fill tank for their Ariston Italian Olive Oil, a really nice oil I use to drizzle on my heirlooms in the summer.

Hard to find kitchen utensils, like my ravioli skimmer. I have used this for the past few years on the rare occasions that I do break out the pasta maker, and it also does a good job with other small pastas.

Go in, browse around, check out their huge selection of sauces and marinades and, if you live in West County and need a specialty basket put together for a gift, they do it. Haven’t tried their lunch foods yet, but they are in that business too.

hocofood@@@

A Quick Trip Out to Mt. Airy for Ham Hocks and Soup Bones

Posted on March 6, 2012 by AnnieRie

You know you’re deeply ingrained into living in West HoCo, when you spend more time in Tractor Supply Co. than you do in Home Depot. Actually, you rarely do Home Depot. If TSC doesn’t have what you need, you are shopping at Clark’s or Kendall, supporting local businesses.

Today we needed stuff (or my better half did) for his tractor maintenance, and to clean up a few things on the snow thrower before putting it away. I wanted to visit Wagner’s Meats to get soup bones and ham hocks. I have some anasazi beans soaking to make soup in the crockpot overnight. I am getting into good enough shape to soak beans. If we get a crockpot soup done, it will be three of four meals worth.

Wagner’s processes meats for local farmers and sells also from a storefront. Yes, you can get a side of beef here, but you can also come in and just buy a pound of whatever you need. Soup bones are 89 cents a pound. Ham hocks were big and meaty and smell really wonderful right now as I am typing and they are cooking away.

This is my first visit to Wagner’s as I usually run down to Boarman’s but I can’t drive for a while, and the last time I hit Boarman’s, they were out of beef bones for making stock. I got four pounds today, safely stashed in the freezer until I have the time and am allowed to cut up all those veggies to add to make beef stock. Nothing like homemade stock to make soup.

While out there, we checked out the location of Cartercue, the BBQ joint out on Main St. It wasn’t open or we would have picked up some carryout to bring home for dinner tonight. Turns out the temporary cook aka my husband will be heating up leftover soup from the other night’s dinner.

I can’t wait to be cleared to eat real food again. This soft diet is driving me nuts. I must be healing. I am hungry.

Mt. Airy has the distinction of being in four counties in MD so you find yourself seeing county entrance signs almost every time you cross a creek. Since I enjoyed being outside on a great day, we came home on back roads south of the interstate, roads like Long Corner and Florence. Really west county out here. Yes, this is a named road, and not someone’s driveway.

If you don’t live in west county but want to see some incredibly beautiful parts of Howard County, take your GPS and put in a destination avoiding highways and taking the shortest distance instead of fastest time. We were heading south on Rte 27 when we input “go home” and it took us on roads like Gue, which is the road above in the picture. Never been on this one before.

Oh, and you definitely know you have changed how you live when many of your shoes come from Tractor Supply. Ariat I buy them when they go on sale.

hocofood@@@

2 Comments

Posted in Day Trips, Food, Howard County, Local Businesses, West HoCo and tagged Food, Howard County, local businesses, West HoCo. Bookmark the permalink.

West County Hidden Treasures – Triadelphia

Posted on March 4, 2012 by AnnieRie

Today we took a ride. I needed to relieve cabin fever and it isn’t that far down the road, just to get out and walk around the northern access to the Reservoir. We had the added delight of getting to see an eagle perched on a tree and talk to a fellow visitor who has seen as many as eight eagles flying, perching and fishing at this point.

There is a boat ramp here with access here mainly used by kayakers and canoeists to silently glide along the water’s edge and look for eagles and other birds as well as just enjoy the less visited north end of the reservoir.

Most are more familiar with Brighton Dam.

Put on your calendars a reminder to come out here when the azaleas bloom. It is a tradition to visit the gardens. A Tip — avoid Mother’s Day at all costs unless you love traffic jams. More people come out to Brighton Dam for access to the reservoir but there are other “put in ” points all around the perimeter.

An added attraction just down from Big Branch, and up Green Bridge Road is Greenbridge Pottery.

It is definitely worth a visit. Becky had lovely items at our last holiday crafts fair at the Conservancy. Come on a Saturday and after taking Green Bridge down to the pottery shop, turn right on Triadelphia Mill and follow to the reservoir, then continue up for fresh meat, eggs and veggies at TLV Tree Farm.

I saw on their web site that they are open on Saturdays now from 10-2. I am down to one pound of bacon in the freezer and a pound package of short ribs, so time to go up and see Jamie.

We bought trees from them for years. Cutting our own, until we finally gave up and got a small artificial tree. I still miss that post Thanksgiving trek across their property looking for the perfect tree.

They sell at three Howard County Farmer’s Markets. Their family has farmed here since the late 1800’s.

You can stop at most of these places doing a loop from Triadelphia to Triadelphia Mill to Greenbridge or vice versa. TLV Tree Farm is another of the family owned farms here in the County put into preservation, to continue the traditions of our past. Supporting this young generation of farmers just makes sense. Better food, made close to home.

The Joys of Retirement – Day Trips

Posted on February 3, 2012 by AnnieRie

Today we had one of those days where we just went where we wanted and sampled local goodies, and found new places to visit. We had some errands to run in Columbia, and then I wanted to get to Atwater’s to buy bread.

I have never eaten in a “Triple D” dive. Now, I can say I have and it was awesome. R&R Taqueria in Jessup (why they call it Elkridge is beyond me, it is in Jessup) serves the most amazing tacos al pastor. Even worth eating them in the car before continuing our errands. They are just like what we found in Mexico, and Rodrigo the owner is really a great person. They originally gave our tacos to someone else, the place was mobbed at 1130 on a Friday morning, and made it up quickly. I love the corn tortillas. The spices were done right. We have to go back and try the posole to see if it passes my test, a coworker who lived in Albuquerque makes the best posole I have tasted outside of Mexico.

We then popped down to Catonsville to get bread, before heading up to H Mart. What a place! Heaven if you want international flavors, or fish like you have never seen. We will be back, including a visit to try the Korean fried chicken recommended by HowChow.

We haven’t been on the side roads in Howard County and Catonsville in ages. We found The Breadery in Oella. And Treuth Butchers right down the road. Both are locally owned and are worth the trip.

It is easy around here to find locally made goodies. Ignore the big box stores and chain restaurants and keep locals in business, that is our goal.

Here is an earlier picture of Atwater’s bread and cake. Today we picked up rosemary bread and a sourdough loaf to freeze for later.