Super Saturday Part 1- Farmer's Market & Wine Tour

Since my weekend was totally awesome, I am going to break it down into two parts. Friday night Ryan and I went out to Snapper's in Mechanicsburg, PA to hang out with his parents. It was great. I did take some photos, however, my camera phone was acting like a jerk and didn't save the pictures. (Boo)

Saturday morning, after a sneaky hangover, we headed over to the West Shore Farmer's Market in Lemoyne, PA. It's always a great time walking up and down the isle, eating random goodies. Our first stop of course was the ATM. We forgot to pick up cash. We headed upstairs to get some cash, Ryan was accosted by some lady trying to get us to buy her book of poems. Umm...no thank you. She actually shoved the book in Ryan's hand. Luckily, Ryan was swift with his response, "We don't read, sorry." We quickly retreated downstairs to find another ATM. We don't read? That was the best response he could muster? Yikes. We laughed about it. Hi, I'm Ryan, we don't read.

We found some cash and headed right over to our favorite place, Casero Pizza. I did a little write up about them a couple weeks ago. This is where we first learned about the awesomeness of their pizza.

Ryan got a delicious pepperoni roll and a slice. I got a pepperoni slice of Sicilian pizza. It was really tasty. I couldn't even finish my slice. Ryan helped me out of course.

Next up we hit the bread stand. Mussoline's has the softest fresh rolls. Great for sandwich making. We got four wheat seeded rolls.

You can't have a soft delicious roll with out something to eat in the middle of it. We stopped by S. Clyde Weaver's Specialty Meat and Cheese stand. This place is always busy. So busy, they have multiple people helping out to make sure you get your order fast. We ended up getting a pound of thick sliced bacon, a pound of rare London broil, and three quarter of a pound of Colby cheese.

Our final stop at the Farmer's Market was for pretzels. Yummy, yummy pretzels by Zook's. I felt kind of odd taking a picture of this one. The stand is run by Mennonites, or some time of Amish people, and I know they are funny about getting their picture taken.

We ended up getting these little mini wiener pretzel rolls. I had never had these treats before. They were ultra yummy. Who knew you could wrap a mini hot dog in a pretzel and it would rock? We got home and dipped them in spicy mustard. Nom Nom bitches.

Next up, we headed to two different wineries. The Mason Dixon Wine Trail has tickets for $15.00 per person; you get to visit 14 different wineries over a two weekend period. The majority of wineries are out by our way.

Now, originally we were going to go with a bunch of people. I'm really bad at gathering people up. We had some couples to go with, but they all couldn't make it. With my mini-hangover in the morning, I wasn't sure I was even going to bother going.  After chowing down at the Farmer's Market we felt good enough to go to try some new wines.

First winery up was Moon Dancer Vineyards and Winery. This was in Wrightsville, PA. It took us a little over a half hour to get there. In fact, when we pulled up to the place I actually thought we were walking into someone's house. It did not look like a business; just an awesome house overlooking the Susquehanna River.

Me

Ryan

So, the place looks really nice, and the view is really nice, but the worker's there were kind of shitty. This is the part of my blog that I hate writing. I love telling the masses about a great place, but always feel like a dick telling peeps when I didn't have a good experience. I don't want to totally trash a place, but if I didn't have good service, I think I should tell the truth about that as well. We start trying a couple wines and it seemed like the pourers had better things to do. Like standing around? Every time we asked for a different sample I felt like I was inconveniencing them. Sorry I showed up and you have to work. If you don't enjoy your job, that's cool, but can you just pretend that you want to take my money? Pretty pretty please with a freakin cherry on top. Thanks.

I believe we tried a couple of their wines. They were mostly dry to semi-dry wines. Ryan and I are not really big fans of the dry wines. My unsophisticated palette hasn't gotten their yet. Plus, the wines at Moon Dancer were kind of expensive. I truly believe you do NOT need to spend more than $15.00 for a good bottle of wine. Most of the prices here were over $20.00. We didn't even ask that many questions because the woman "helping" us looked like she ate a pile of shit. We did try a blueberry wine that is good to mix with whipped cream vodka. We bought two bottles, one a Riesling and the blueberry stuff.

They were giving tours of the cellars, but we were so over it, we just wanted to get out of there.

Next up was Allegro Vineyards. This winery is in Brogue, PA. It is about twenty minutes from Moon Dancer. It was a very scenic and beautiful drive. However, I realized while driving that I was low on gas. Shit! Why did I not notice this before? The rest of the drive over to Allegro was extremely stressful because I was so worried that we were going to run out of gas in the middle of no-man's land. We made it there thank goodness and Ryan found a gas station close by through the GPS thing.

When we arrived at Allegro the building was very unassuming. It just looked like a regular building, nothing fancy. But what the building lacked on the outside it made up for with it's excellent service on the inside. We walked in and there was several tables of snacks. Yes, I will help myself to your delicious goodies, thanks! After a bunch of people showed up, one of the staff took us to another room, the storage room, to give us a presentation about their winery. I didn't get the man's name, but he gave a great presentation. He told us about a couple different wines and about how PA's ever changing seasons give the wines a different taste each year. We tried two different wines during the presentation, Rose Nouveau and 2010 Chambourcin. They were both too dry for our liking, but it did pair well with the sample turkey stuffing morsel they gave us.

Next we were free to try more samples in the next room over. This room had a chocolate fountain! Holla! They had two stations where there were sweet wines and dry wines. The gentleman pouring the sweet wines was extremely knowledgeable and talked to us about the flavors of the wines we tried. We tried the Susquehanna-White a semi-dry wine. It was good. But we really liked the Vidal Blanc ($12), it tastes like a German Riesling and the Fusion ($12). We ended up buying two bottles of the Vidal. The pourer told us he has a stand over at the Giant store in Enola and if we like he can give us a dollar off of the Fusion on Sundays. Umm...yes thank you! We really liked the Fusion it's more of a spicier wine, but a dollar off is a dollar off.

After we were done with trying the sweeter wines we moved over to the dry wine table. And older gentleman helped us try the 2009 Merlot ($17) and the 2008 Cabernet Sauvignon ($19). Like I said before, we aren't really into dry wines. But what better way to learn about dry wines than to go to a wine tasting! The Merlot again was a bit too dry for our liking, but we did buy the Cabernet. It is supposed to go well with steak and pasta. We ended up chatting with the two pourers for about twenty minutes about different kinds of and why they like working at Allegro. We learned that chilling wine is not something that they recommend. Huh!?! The woman pourer told us that chilling a wine typical hides the taste of the wine and they usually do that to hide a bad wine. Did not know that. Both pourers told us they drink wine at room temperature or slightly cooler. This goes for white and red wines.

This place was freaking awesome. I totally recommend it for anyone that wants to get good information and great tasting wine that isn't going to kill your wallet. Ryan and I were both so impressed by the attitudes of the people that worked there. They love wine and it shows. I would go back to this place again in a heartbeat. They also have a stand at the West Shore Farmer's Market if you don't want to take the trip down to Brogue.

Coakley's = Meh.

Last night Ryan and I had dinner at Coakley's Restaurant and Irish Pub in New Cumberland, PA. Coakley's is about three miles away from our house, but we rarely go there to eat. The service of the wait staff is always outstanding. The are friendly and prompt. The menu online does not reflect what they actually serve. It does give most of the items, but what we had is not on their online menu.

We ordered the crab pretzel for an appetizer. It was really good. Very cheesy and had some crab in it. Could have used a little more crab.

We each ordered a burger topped with crab meat and cheese. I asked the server if anything else comes on it. He said that it's good enough as it is. Coolio. I love when servers give recommendations, it makes me think he actually gives a shit about getting a tip.

This is what came out. The fries were a little on the yellow/brown side. The were still really crispy. I ordered the burger medium and that is exactly how it came out. However, the crab that was supposed to be on there was pretty much non-existent. I peeled the cheese off and there was nothing impressive.

Where is the crab again?

We both used the Heinz ketchup, but Ryan was convinced that it was not really Heinz. We both looked at the ketchup a little harder and agreed it was more brown than the Heinz brand. This led him to go on a five minute rant about how shitty it was. Me on the other hand kept shoving fries into my mouth.

I was unable to finish all the food, so we packed the burger to go. The bill came to $30.00, now I purchased a $15 half off deal from Living Social. So, we paid on $15 for the meal and we tipped the server $10. When we left we saw the cooks outside smoking. Let's just say they didn't look like the type of cooks that love to cook. Needless to say we won't be back for dinner again. This was the second meh time we ate there. Sad biz indeed. Sad biz.

Johnny Joes & Adrian Blitzer

We were out last night like a boner in sweat pants. Last night was the official party night of our anniversary. We first stopped to visit with the Ryan's folks and Uncle Bob at Snappers. We then made our way over to Johnny Joes to meet up with other friends to listen to Adrian Blitzer rock the house.

Johnny Joes

First off, I love Johnny Joes, they always show us the best time. We always get wonderful service. And when you spend money you want to get good service. As to not become an idiot, we ordered a $5.00 large pizza. I got half mushrooms (Yum!) and Ryan had half pepperoni. The pizza was awesome! It was super hot and tasted really fresh. The only bad thing was that we forgot to take the left overs home with us. Sad Face!

Ryan scooped up his slices before I could get my camera out.
The pizza was very tasty.

Captain on Acid

Brett & Ryan

Steph & Ryan

Steph, Erica, & Ryan

Ryan may have his head down in embarrassment

Later on Steph and I were trying to do sexy faces at the camera.
Please note, I do not have a sexy face. I have a smiley face or
a face that looks slightly retarded. Here is my sexy face aka retard look.
I will not put Steph's sexy time face up, I only like to embarrass myself.

Now, the reason we are at the bar at all is to see Adrian Blitzer. This band is freakin rad. I had taken plenty of video with my phone, but I'm not video person. My hand keeps moving like I have Parkinsons. Not good at all. Then I kept moving it back to the bar where we were sitting so I could watch us ALL sing along badly. I found a couple songs off Youtube that show case the band a little better than me.

This video is when they played at the Drinkin Bone in Wormelysburg, PA. Ring of Fire, Johnny Cash

The band played all kinds of awesome songs. Kid Rock, Johnny Cash, Snoop Dog, Green Day, Creep by Radio Head, Jay-Z, Sublime. I knew and sang to the best of my ability every song with them.

 

Freakishly Awesome Potatoes

I was having the worst blog block of my short blogging career. I was going to be all sentimental and stuff, but I didn't have it in me today. Instead I shall blog about my freakishly awesome potatoes. Now mind you, I didn't say freakishly awesomely healthy potatoes. I just said freakishly awesome potatoes.

These pan fried potatoes take about 30 to 40 minutes. I'm pretty much always cook them way earlier than the rest of the meal. I've learned that if I start all the food preparation at the same time as the potatoes, the rest of the meal goes cold waiting for me to finish them.

Above are the ingredients I use. I chop up the whole onion and potatoes in small pieces and put them in the pan with a little EVO and a couple of heapings of butter. I keep the temp of the stove around medium and put the lid of the pan.

 

 

Gotta keep stirring every 2-3 minutes. I like my potatoes really soft on the inside and crispy on the edges. After about 20 minutes I take the lid off and pour a little white wine. I leave the lid off now.

Lastly, I put the spices on. A little Italian seasoning, garlic, pepper, and don't forget the nutmeg! That's the special ingredient. You don't have to use that much nutmeg to get a good taste. I always put the spices in last, and I don't use salt. If you want salt on them, put it on yourself.

Cook them babies for a couple more minutes and this is what ya get. It goes really good with the Rib Eye steak on the grill.

Casero Pizza

Last night we went to Casero Pizza in New Cumberland, PA for dinner. The Patriot News did a little write up about them.

I wouldn’t really consider Casero the typical pizza shop in terms of quality. It's better. No fryers. You could taste the fresh ingredients. Good service too. The actual food preparation area was very out in the open. If you wanted to, you could actually watch them make your food.

Since it was our first time at Casero’s, we ordered more than we normally would. Gotta make sure we can give a good report on the food. We asked what Casero’s meant. Our cute little server said it meant homemade in Spanish.

Our first item up was mini garlic/cheese strombolis. They came out pretty fast. It came with a sweet tomato dipping sauce. The crust for the boli was out of this word. It was great. The bolis were excellent too. Perfect combo of cheese and garlic. The sauce could have been warmed up a little more. I probably could have been done eating after this.

We ordered a steak sub with sauce, cheese, onion, green peppers. We were told on the menu that the steak was from the West Shore Farmers Market. When the steak sub arrived it came with kettle cooked chips and a pickle. Again, the bread was great. Soft and had a lot of flavor. Best dough we’ve eaten in a while. The sub didn’t have much onion flavor; we could only taste the green peppers. The peppers tasted fresh. These hadn’t been sitting in some container in fridge for three days.

We also, order a Meatzza pizza. Wow! We ordered a medium. It came with hot Italian sausage, meatballs, two types of pepperoni and ham. This was high quality meat (hehe). The thing that Ryan pointed out was that even though we ordered different toppings we still got a lot of toppings.

The pile of meat on this pizza was extreme. Ryan could not stop picking meat off the other slices and shoving it into his mouth like I couldn’t see him. I’m like dude, I’m sitting right in front you!

We could hardly finish more than once slice each of the pizza. The crust a thinner crust but it was great. The owner ,I believe that's who is was, came over and asked us how everything was. The food prices were maybe a tad bit higher than other pizza places. But who cares? I’m so tired of spending money to get mediocre food and meh service. This was a breath fresh air with mouth watering ingredients!!

Will we go back? Damn straight we will. And I recommend this place to you too! It’s high time people make food with love.

Friday Night Delight

Friday night was a such a blast. Ryan and I met up with our friend's Steph and Brett to eat at MoMo's BBQ & Grill and listen to Nate Myers & the Aces. MoMo's is in Harrisburg on Market Street. I didn't realize they have a blues night every Friday. Nate Myers is a awesome bluesy band. It's been years since I seen them play live. But I tracked them down and they were great!

When we arrived at MoMo's, the staff greeted us and led us to a table. I turned around and saw a HUGE wall full of the different kinds of beer they serve. At that time angels and lights from heaven were shining down on me. Ryan and I quickly started looking over the book they gave us. He got a chocolate stout, I got some monster size beer. It was very good.

Really nice size bar and lots of big TVs

No matter what the size, it's still only one beer

Ryan the hubby

When Steph and Brett arrived we ordered appetizers. We each got an order of chicken and pulled pork BBQ quesadillas. Man....they were supreme. I could have just ate them the rest of the night. We each order a half rack baby ribs and sides. Ryan ordered the brisket. I wish I had enough room to poach some of his. There was so much food, I could barely finish my entree. Only thing I could have changed about the meal was I thought the ribs were a little well done. Don't worry folks, I still ate them all.

Brett and Steph

Ryan's brisket and Stella. Nom Nom Nom

The service was great. Our waitress was on point with recommendations, didn't push us or leave us hanging. She always seemed to know when we need more beers or shots. We each ordered two snake bites and two captain on acids. I'll know next time to stick with beer. They were literally in shot glasses. When we've ordered them at other bars and there was always so much liquid it was hard to swallow all of it at one time.

Nate Myers & the Aces

Nate Myers started playing promptly at 8 p.m. They were great. How many times do you get to hear some play the harmonica well? The whole band rocked it for hours. People were dancing, Steph and I chair danced too. Spent too much money. It was a freakin awesome night.