vip in the city

Clams on the Cape

This weekend, we revived the Cape Cod tradition for what may be the last time for a long while.

J and J drove in to pick me up just as the sun was rising over Central Park this dreary, chilly morning. As we made our way north, we stopped just once, somewhere in Connecticut — all the excuse I needed to pick up an Egg McMuffin on the road. No matter how I feel about the rest of McDonald’s menu, the McMuffin retains a soft spot in my heart. Something about the synergy of warm, chewy English muffin, salty Canadian bacon, day-glo melted cheese and unnaturally round griddled egg.  It’s a classic breakfast combination I’ve come to associate with traveling, since I rarely indulge in these mini-sandwiches outside of rest stops and airports.  Now if the fast food chain would just bring back the deep-fried apple pie…

Over the Sagamore Bridge and onto the cloudy Cape:

At the Cove, we attended to the business of our weekend. Strange to think with how little fanfare two decades of tradition is dispatched.  (Hawaii, here we come!)

I was struck by how different Cape Cod is in the quiet season. The usually bustling Route 28 was half deserted. The seafood shacks, ice cream parlors, salt water taffy stands and mini-golf courses regularly teeming with families in the summer, were all closed for the season, leaving behind an eerie landscape of empty parking lots. Happily, our old standby Seafood Sam’s was still open for business.

We couldn’t bid adieu to the Cape without at least one more visit. Locals and visitors have been flocking to this place for some of the best fried seafood in the area since 1974, when the first Seafood Sam’s opened in a tiny, former laundromat with just six employees. Three decades later, three of those original six now own and operate the mini-chain of Sam’s restaurants. In the years since we’ve been going, we’ve seen the Yarmouth location evolve from a glorified shack with several open-air benches to a full casual-dining restaurant. There’s still no table service, but the airy main seating area is now enclosed within solid walls (vs. the former combination of sturdy canvas and clear plastic) and the bathroom was moved from outside and around the corner, to just down the hall from the dining room.  What hasn’t changed: food orders are still placed with the cashier, and arrive piping hot on disposable plates; the faux-wooden trays are scattered with clear plastic cups of tartar sauce and wedges of lemon.

Another advantage of visiting off-peak: no lines, no waiting.  Well, no waiting to place your order, anyway; the seafood is still fried fresh — sure they have broiled items on the menu, but why? — but now instead of hovering by the formica-topped counter as you wait for your food, the cashier hands you a red plastic lobster that flashes when the order is ready for pick-up.  Like this:

No lobsters were harmed in the making of these lollipops:

Fried clam strips. These decidedly aren’t the fancy, succulent whole bellies version, but more the shack-on-the-beach variety, best suited for serving in a paper boat (or here, on a paper plate, over fries).  I still love them.  J conjectured that it may be that perfect proportion of hot, crispy fried batter to chewy clam center that I find so appealing.  She may be right.

Tags: Cape Cod, clams, Cove at Yarmouth, Egg McMuffin, McDonald's, seafood, Seafood Sam's

Luck o’ the Amish

Final stop: Lancaster, PA

We arrived in Lancaster with a couple hours of daylight left, in time to stop for a round of appetite-spoiling ice cream cones and to catch a drive-by glimpse of the old CTY campus at Franklin & Marshall before dinner. (Ah, memories.)

After a quiet night at the quaint Country Inn of Lancaster on Old Philadelphia Pike (which used to be known as King’s Highway, and once stretched from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh), we rose early for one final round of treasure hunting.

A few sights caught our interest along the way, like this farm market run by two young Amish women, which was overflowing with beautiful, luscious produce. We loaded up on fresh-picked corn on the cob, peaches, melons and tomatoes. But please, no photos of the women:

For lunch we set up a picnic table outside a local grocery with “smackaroni salad” (a curious cross between macaroni and potato salads), Amish chicken pot pie (best envisioned as a very thick, very salty, chilled chicken noodle soup, with hefty pasta squares in place of crust), and sweetly tangy pickled beets and eggs (which were actually far tastier than they may sound.)

We wound our way past horse-drawn buggies, through endless miles of cornfields (and the occasional strip mall), skimming along the local townships of Bird-in-Hand, Paradise, Blue Ball and Intercourse, whose saucy-sounding names I recall as a 13-year old were the source of endless snickering.

And suddenly, improbably, we happened upon the very antiques shop J and S had discovered on their last trip to Pennsylvania Dutch country some 4 years ago. It was only a matter of time before we found the farm of the woman S had been talking about seeking out for weeks: the kindly octogenarian who sold antiques out of the barn adjacent to her home. We caught up with her at her house – as she was taking a break from mowing her own lawn(!) – and though she informed us she had closed up her business a few years ago, after just a little bit of wheedling, she agreed to open up her barn and shed for our private perusal.

Our persistence paid off! It was all around the most successful sale day of our trip.

I would drive 500 miles

…but I didn’t have to, because J took the wheel for the entire road trip. (Thanks!)

About last night’s hotel: I’d never walked away from a hotel before, and as of this road trip, I’ve now left two. Our Cincinnati hotel was far from fancy… or even, well… clean, but we probably would have stuck it out if S had not pulled back the sheets of her bed to discover a bedbug. A bedbug — eee! She’d read enough horror stories about these highly insidious, notoriously difficult to elimate critters to know that we should not stay.

On the bright side, it was the smoothest hotel check-out ever. The man at the front desk merely shrugged, before processing our bill almost wordlessly, leading us to suspect that we were not the first to have had this issue.

Within half an hour, we were in our new, much improved (i.e., infestation-free) digs at the Sheraton “North Cincinnati,” actually, “Sharonville.”

We got ourselves an early start; we had a lot of road to cover today. Hours and hours of driving later, I had my very first meal at Cracker Barrel. How I managed to avoid this chain on those New York City-Austin treks will remain a mystery; there are a staggering 550+ restaurants spread over 41 states – almost all along interstates (and none in New York City or on the West Coast.)

I don’t even know where in Ohio we were when we finally stopped for lunch, but here we are. (Go, Buckeyes!)

One of the last opportunities for “a glass o’ sweet” and “vegetables” like Monday’s special “cornbread dressing.” (Yes, I had both.)

Sweet tea in New York!