For most of my life I associated grits with the bland, icky-tasting pablum type stuff served to me when I was 14, on the cross-country trip I took with my parents when we moved from San Diego to Newport, Rhode Island. Sidebar: we moved back to California 3 years later when my dad’s project was completed. If you want to read a bit more about those years, click over to this post.  This was in the late 1950’s and a loooong time ago, obviously. My mother never made grits. I never made grits. Based on that stuff I ate at one breakfast somewhere in the south, it soured me on grits for near-on 35 years. I suppose some people in the south are willing to eat the plain grits that have nothing but cornmeal grits and water, boiled until it’s thick. Maybe a dash of salt. It tastes something like cream of wheat with nothing at all on it – no milk, no butter, no nuthin’ as they say. The grits I ate had a little pat of butter. It was awful. I think the waitress insisted that I needed to cover it well with pepper. Hmm. But then I discovered polenta in the 1980’s and learned that polenta and grits are almost the same thing. But there’s grits – and then there’s grits.

Now I love grits. Not that I make them all that often, because I don’t like them unless they’re loaded with flavor that comes from cheese and butter. These grits fall into that category. Probably not all that good for us. But gosh, are they ever GOOD! I tried to give myself a smaller portion that you can see in the above photo. That was Dave’s portion which made for a better photo. It went with the Picadillo I’d prepared, which I ladled on top of the grits. Really delicious.

What I liked: the buttery, rich taste. I almost never eat them alone – it’s usually just a “bed” for something else. But you certainly could eat them alone.

What I didn’t like: can’t say there was anything. You have to not mind the kind of cream-of-wheat texture, though. If you don’t like that, you’ll surely not like grits in any way, shape or form!

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After nearly three weeks on the road, we’re just so happy to be back home.

My frustration with blogging from my iPad is significant. I have no clue why I could not upload photos (except a couple at the beginning of our trip). Only thing I can conclude is that the hotel/b&b/inn wi-fi’s I used just didn’t have enough bandwidth to up the photos to my website. But it’s extremely frustrating. I never had trouble with that when I was using my mini-laptop (Windows based). I know, you readers probably don’t care a whit about my upload difficulties, so sorry to bore you with this part. I was so hoping that on future travels I’d be able to do everything I want to do with my iPad which will fit in my purse. It requires very little equipment to go along with, too.

My DH and I had numerous frustrations with some of the places we stayed on this trip. (Sorry, you’re going to have to listen to a couple of rants). I’ve always preferred inns or B&B’s when we travel. I like the ambiance of them. The quaint rooms, the nice, wholesome breakfasts. The conversation and advice from innkeepers. And I try to book B&Bs where the room is on the ground floor. Alas, I couldn’t get ground floor rooms in nearly all the places we stayed on this trip. It’s no fun lugging suitcases up a flight or two of stairs. With my DH’s prosthetic legs, it’s sometimes a real trial for him. He rarely complains about it, though. My suitcase is always heavier than his – I usually take more clothes than he does, although we travel quite light by standards of some people. I take care of my own bag – ever since he lost his legs I’ve taken charge of my own bags. But I have to bring my good DSLR camera (heavy, awkward sometimes), the battery charger for the camera, numerous charging cables/cords for our variety of electronic devices as well. Then there’s my hair dryer and curling iron and cosmetic stuff. My Kindle. My iPod too. So I take a suitcase and a rollaboard (small, very small, in the shape of a large, deep briefcase) that will sit on top of the suitcase to flit around airports or into and out of the inns, etc.

But once we’ve checked into a place to stay, I’m peeved too often when I can’t find a plug to charge these darned things. My iPhone requires a couple of hours to charge. So does my DH’s. My Kindle only needed charging a few times on the trip. But my iPad required charging at least every night or two since I used it for reading Kindle books. In numerous places we stayed, the only plug available was in the bathroom, and sometimes one of the two receptacles were permanently wired for – say, a coffeepot, or a refrigerator. So that meant we really had just one plug to charge things. Many times I was down on my hands and knees trying to FIND another plug somewhere. Forget about it if it’s behind the bed, or a dresser. I’m not moving furniture to find a plug. I was also concerned about leaving my electronics in some rooms while we went out to dinner. I did do it several times, and always returned to the room and immediately checked to make sure my iPad was still there. Or my  camera. Mostly I left the camera in the car, hidden as best I could under the driver’s seat. Not altogether smart, but necessary. We also had a brand new Garmin Nuvi 2350 GPS we took along (it was a lifesaver, I must admit, on numerous occasions), which required slipping it into a hidey-hole in the car throughout the trip. Fortunately, it charged in the car through the cigarette lighter. But that meant I couldn’t charge my iPhone there, even though I brought along the adapter for it.

I’m sure the economy has had some bearing on this next subject: uncomfortable hotel beds. I must be more particular than a lot of people because my back just isn’t very happy after a night on some innkeeper’s beds. At the posh hotel where we stayed in New Hampshire, they’d put some kind of 4-inch thick pad on top of the mattress, but once I rolled into it (it was a high bed to begin with, but with the pad it was high enough I had to kind of hop up to get on it), the center of this pad just sunk in. About the shape of a body, obviously. The edge of the bed was up several inches higher than I was, and when I tried it get up, it required a bit of maneuvering to get my legs over the edge to slide my feet to the floor. Maybe taller people have no difficulty with this, but I sure did. I’m 5’3” tall. The second night I didn’t even sleep on the bed, but chose the comfortable long sofa in the room. When you’re paying nearly $300 a night for a hotel, you sort of expect a good bed. A couple of places we stayed had no amenities except a bar of soap. Now that’s really Spartan. Most had more than that, but one inexpensive (yet highly rated Trip Advisor location) truly didn’t have shampoo, lotion or even a shower cap, if I’d wanted one.

After nearly three weeks of inns and B&Bs (and a week at a house in Maine – bedrooms upstairs, but we only had to schlep the bags up once, and down once), we stayed in a Howard Johnson’s in one city. That’s because staying in any of the nicer, view-type hotels in Newport, Rhode Island, were upwards or more than $400 a night. We’d already splurged enough on accommodations on this trip, so I chose a Howard Johnson’s there. The room was all right. Nothing to write home about. But clean, and the bed was better than most other places we stayed, actually. And we paid about $180 a night for that.

Our last night was at the Boston airport. You know when you’re going to stay at an airport hotel, you’re going to pay-pay-pay; the bigger the city, the larger the tariff for a hotel. And yes, indeed we did. The Hilton offered the best price, I thought, when I booked online a couple of months ago, and we paid $290 for the one night. But, it was a very large room. A really comfortable room with a big flat-screen TV, a large bathroom, and plenty of room to spread out as we re-packed our bags for returning home. And a fantastic king-sized bed. We didn’t regret one dime of the expense for that room.

My conclusion after planning out this trip is that in order to have a better room, you have to pay over $200 a night most places, and more and more the closer you get to or in cities. Sure, you can find some for less, but you get what you pay for. Lots of the inns have standard prices most of the year, then during leaf-peeping season they raise their rates about 25%. They do it because they can. For most of the trip we had a widow friend with us, and twice we stayed in a room that offered two bedrooms and one bath. She was fine with it, and we were able to share the bathroom with no difficulty. It saved money in both places and both offered a small living room area, which was nice to have.

So, does that adequately explain why we’re happy to be home? Home to our comfy bed. My lovely kitchen. Our patio area, where it’s still warm enough we ate outside last night. I reached into the freezer and grabbed the first thing I saw, a package of spicy bratwursts. There’s no date. I didn’t buy them, I’m certain. Where did they come from? No recollection! We had someone staying in our home while we were gone – maybe he bought them and forgot to take them when he left. Well, they were simple and tasty.

I uploaded 191 trip photos from my camera to my home (PC) computer last night, so I’ll be going through those and giving you stories and photos in coming days.

Ever even heard of picadillo? That’s pee-ca-dee-yo in Spanish. Actually this has a Mexican derivation. And its much beloved in the culture. We’re on our way home from our trip today, so I’ve set this up to post ahead of time.

Oh gosh was this ever good. It probably doesn’t look like much – a ground meat mixture on top of something. Yup. So delicious. So easy to make and just bursting with flavor. Traditionally, Picadillo is a Latin American dish, but variations exist in many countries, including Cuba. All the variations include something a bit different. This recipe, which came from Dean Fearnley-Whittingstall’s book River Cottage Meat Cookbook, is most aligned with the Mexican version, although it does contain a couple of ingredients from one or more of the other country’s variants. And then I added chives. Not typical. So I suppose that then becomes my variation. And I served it on grits, which makes it even more unusual. Southern cooking is not anything like Mexican or Latin American cooking. Ah, forget all that. Just make it.

This started out because I defrosted a pound of ground pork from our most recent 1/4 pig purchase – a Berkshire pig from a local 4-H kid. I went to my kitchen computer, to Eat Your Books website and typed in ground pork and scanned the recipes from my own books. Not only does it tell me where the recipe is, but it lists the most common ingredients. Yippee! I had everything needed. Except tortillas to serve it on or with. So I improvised. And it called for ground beef too, but I just used the ground pork instead.

First I started sweating the minced onion, red bell pepper and chiles. A friend had given me a lovely Cubanelle pepper a few days ago. Perfect for this. It’s not a hot pepper, but it added nice green color and flavor too. I added some chipotle chili in adobo sauce to the dish to give it a bit more character.

Then I added all the other ingredients – garlic, salt, pepper, sugar (just a little bit), the ground pork, raisins, some olives (I used a bottled product called Olivetta – a mixture of lots of different olives (and a few other things), all minced up – something I buy at my local Italian market), some diced tomatoes, and some tomato paste, along with some pork stock (which was just a dip into my jar of Penzey’s pork soup bases that I use so often). While that simmered I made the cheesy grits (recipe up tomorrow). Then I just served it like a sauce on top of the grits, with some slivered almonds sprinkled on top along with some chopped chives (optional). Dave and I talked about going back for seconds, but we decided we shouldn’t, even though the tastes of everything beckoned us. So, make this, okay? You won’t be sorry!

What I liked: oh gosh, everything. Flavor, texture, comfort food, warm on the stomach. Worth making for sure. Also, it’s versatile – serve it on rice (more traditional), tortillas (or even chips) or mashed potatoes (which would be great for using up leftovers). I think the raisins (that little bit of sweet) is what “makes” this. It’s like finding pineapple in a curry sauce.

What I didn’t like: ah, nothing. I’ll definitely be making this again.

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We will see whether I can upload a photo today. (nope) The above picture was in Manchester, Vermont, in front of a darling independent book shop called Northshore Bookstore. If I lived there I’d have to have an ‘account,’ I think, as some locals ahead of me just said “put it on my account, please!” I bought 4 small books there. Once I’m home I’ll give you the names and links. No time to do links right now!

As I write this I’m in our hotel room in Newport, Rhode Island. My iPad SAYS I have full connectivity on their wi-fi, but we shall see once I try to upload. If there’s no photo you’ll know why.

Today was a day full of nostalgia for me. My DH, Dave, has been very patient as I drove hither and thither around this town since I haven’t been here in about 50 years. I lived here for 2 1/2 years when I was a teenager. I have photos from our wanderings today, but I’m not going to try to upload more than the one above right now. I will have to write up a single post about Newport. We drove by both of the homes I lived in here. Not remembering the street names of one, I just drove with some bit of innate reckoning and found it. It’s a bit rundown so I didn’t take a photo. I thought the people who live there might have been suspicious of some woman out on the street taking a picture of their ramshackle house. I did take one of the other house, though. More on that later.

It’s a beautiful day here, in the 60s and blustery. Big time! Tonight might be our last chance to have lobster – lobstah, as they say it around these parts. I’ve had it just once on the trip. And it was fantastic.

Looking for an easy dinner entrée – worthy of serving to guests – that’s not all that difficult, AND can be made ahead one day? Try this one. If you don’t love broccoli, try asparagus instead.

Can you just tell by looking at that photo that this tastes good? I can’t always tell, sorry to say, unless I look at the list of ingredients. And sometimes, even then I’m wrong. Alas, what tastes good to one person doesn’t taste good to another. That’s what makes us human! But IF you like broccoli, bacon and cheddar (with some cream cheese in there to help hold it all together) you’ll really like this dish.

Once again, my hero, Phillis Carey, has created a chicken dish that is just delicious! Since I own her cookbooks, you’d think I don’t need to go to her cooking classes anymore. Wrong. She keeps coming up with new and innovative ways to cook and prepare chicken. This time it’s a method of oven browning that I’ve never tried. She’s just a wizard at it, I tell ‘ya!

What’s great about this one is that you can do most of the prep a day ahead of time. You will have to coat the chicken bundles in egg and bread crumbs, and bake them just before serving, but truly that won’t take that much time. If you prefer to keep the calories down, you can use low-fat cream cheese in this, and you can use less bacon. Or no bacon at all. If you’re not a fan of broccoli, Phillis suggested asparagus spears – precooked almost completely when you stuff it. The chicken breasts have to be pounded thinner than usual – to 1/4 inch thick. Carefully, so you don’t break them apart. That’s part of the secret to these – you have to pound the chicken thin enough to surround the filling.

And don’t forget this new method of getting the breaded chicken golden brown without frying – just by doing it in the oven. Phillis poured a little oil in the bottom of a large rimmed sheet pan and carefully laid the chicken bundles in the oil (after the pan and oil were heated up in the oven for several minutes), and 8 minutes later you turn them over to oven-brown the other side for 6-8 minutes (if using Convection/Bake, it’ll be closer to 6 minutes).

Once, years ago, an acquaintance of mine pounded chicken breasts out flat, filled each one with a wet, traditional bread stuffing mix, then pulled the edges up around the sides of the filling in a kind of cup shape, and used kitchen string to tie it in several places. After baking she clipped off the string, poured some chicken gravy over the top and served it with a green vegetable. It was kind of like eating Thanksgiving dinner in a single serving. I thought it was delicious. I didn’t really know this person well enough to ask for her recipe, so I had to do some trial and error. Mostly error and I gave up – it was always too dry. This method of Phillis’, though, is very similar. Maybe I’ll have to give that a try. I’m sure I baked these other cup-like chicken breasts too long and not in a hot enough oven, either. Here, at 1/4 inch thick (that’s really thin) they’re baked a total of 15 minutes at 425°. Hmmm. That has me thinking . . .

What I liked: just the overall flavor and texture. The broccoli. The bacon. The cream cheese. All yummy. Easy to make too – honest.

What I didn’t like: nothing at all. I suppose if I were making this for guests, I might consider drizzling the top with a light gravy, maybe, but it truly isn’t necessary.

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We are at the tail end of our trip now. We will see if I’m able to upload any photos. We are staying at a beautiful B&B in York, Maine that has a wi-fi. Answer: no. No photos. Sorry everyone. This must be an iPad problem or user dumbness!

The last week we have been staying in East Boothbay, a tiny hamlet of a village near Boothbay in Central Maine. The fall leaves are in full color here.  A friend of ours owns an old Colonial home she visits a few times a year and she graciously allowed us to use it! We made dinner there several nights and went out the other nights. Oh, the Maine lobster!!! So fantastic. We had several beautiful days of warm weather, thank goodness. Rain started again today and I drove 5 hours in pouring rain. Not fun.

I had some recipe posts waiting in the wings, so tomorrow I’ll put up one of them since I’ve had so few photos to give you. I’ve missed writing, telling these long-winded stories of mine. 

Sorry, I cannot upload any photos. We were near Woodstock, VT. I had some photos to show some of the flooded trees and root systems affected by the tropical storm last month. We saw areas where the flood waters had to have risen over 20 feet. We saw mobile homes crushed like matchsticks. We saw numerous barns, mostly ancient ones crushed to bits. Trees on both sides of the rivers torn from their roots. Debris everywhere. We have been traversing the country roads on our quest for fall colors, for pretty winding-road scenery, and we have encountered work crews in dozens and dozens of places repairing roads, embankments, guard rails, shoring up the roadsides. We have become used to the orange warning signs telling us “flagman ahead.” or one-lane road ahead.

The trees are just barely starting to change color. My meager few photos of some orangish trees are not memorable. The last 2 nights we have had a freeze, so hopefully we will see more color in coming days. Yesterday we drove to Maine. Where we are staying we won’t have wi-fi, so I don’t know if I’ll be able to blog. We will be here for a week. Our friend who is loaning us her house in East Boothbay, told us to drive to the little corner store, an old fashioned kind of general store, park in the tiny parking lot, sit in the car and use the wi-fi there. It’s free! Every time I’ve tried to upload this post it won’t send because of the photos. It gives me an error message telling me there is a problem with the photos. Sigh. I’ll keep trying.

Well, we have been on the road now for a week. Five days it rained.
Yesterday finally the sun returned. We are happy campers. We have picked up a dear friend of ours from England at the Albany NY airport and have done some leaf peeping. Problem is: we came too early. Very few trees have turned. Yet.

I would have blogged more often but have had problems in most places with sufficient wi-fi connectivity. And am still having difficulty uploading photos. Obviously I need more info on how to upload from an iPad. I’ve downloaded two apps to help me, but no go. I can get a small photo to upload but they’re not big enough for you to hardly see! Here’s as good as I can give you for today. Photo taken today in Woodstock, Vermont on a beautiful country road.

Rain. Mist. Fog. Wet. Drizzle. Precipitation. Mud. Yuck. Drip. Raincoats.

Didn’t think we’d be in so many days of inclement weather. Hard to see the trees, those few that are turning. No photos at all. Raining way too much to jump out of the car to snap even one. Having to stay focused on the nearly all 2-lane roads we are driving. Stressful is what it is. The forecast is for 3 more days of solid rain. We have had 2 days of rain out of the last 3. We are in Northern Vermont now. Did visit the Ben and Jerry’s factory today. They don’t produce ice cream on Sundays, but we did sample their version of vanilla and Oreos, which was very good. They told us that they’re completely sold out of the Schw***ty Balls flavor, the one that’s caused so much controversy. Some states have banned it. Also stopped at the Cabot Creamery. Didn’t take a tour but ended up watching a tour bus get stuck across the 2-lane road. Everyone was very patient. Waiting.

Meanwhile, tonight we are in a BnB that doesn’t have TV. Back to my book, Caleb’s Crossing, while we listen to the steady drip of rain outside.

Actually yesterday was a beautiful day. Mostly anyway. The above photo was taken from a unique location – at a home on a hilltop above the east side of the lake. At Castle in the Clouds, a home built in about 1912 by a wealthy shoe manufacturer. A gorgeous place. More photos of that later.

There’s the same view as my last post taken from our hotel in Meredith, one of the pretty villages dotting the edge of the lake. Just sunshine instead of rain. You can see that the leaves aren’t really changing here yet.

I wanted to come here because I visited this gorgeous lake when I was about 15, when I attended a church summer camp. It’s just as beautiful as I remembered.