Let It Ride

Blerg, it will soon be two months since we returned from our summer vacation, and I still haven't finished telling you, the patient reader of False Reckonings, about it. I know you have been on the edge of your seat. I promise to be better in 5770.

So after all of the dampness, we were only too glad to be indoors for a bit. The whole trip was conceived because John, casino connoisseur (casinoisseur?) had been itchin' to check out Atlantic City, and we heard such extreme tales of horror about the place that we had to see it for ourselves. Plus, if you look at a map of the mid Atlantic, it just looks cool, all capes and feathery bays. So our plan was to return from North Carolina along the coast, crossing the Chesapeake (by car--20 miles of bridge and tunnel. Yikes!) and Delaware bays, ending up in Atlantic City.

Above is the lighthouse in Cape May, a pretty, older summer vacation town at the very tip of the Jersey shore. This was our first stop after the queasy 1 hour 25 minute ferry ride across Delaware Bay. About 20 minutes into the trip, the captain came over the loudspeaker and said we were about to leave the breakwater and enter the open waters of the Delaware Bay, and the seas were rough, so we ought to be seated or holding on to something. I thought, whatev, like a few waves are going to affect this enormous boat, carrying many thousands of tons of vehicles and their passengers. And perhaps I was right, generally. But these were 20-foot waves! A short while later we had to lurch up to the gift shop in search of Dramamine (they had it!), at which point, of course, it was too late. So despite the fact that it was dusk, the rain was beating down at Cape May Point State Park, and not another soul was there, we were only too happy to traipse across the parking lot in the fresh air and admire the lighthouse.


The following day was blustery, windy and rainy, but what did we care? We were staying in a hotel! We walked up the boardwalk, stopping to admire the knockoff Coach handbags, flip flops, saltwater taffy, I ♥ NJ T-shirts, and, of course, the one-armed bandit. It was pretty much as grubby and run down as everyone said, but it had a certain charm, like a lot of vacation spots on the East Coast that were the only destination people could feasibly get to in their heyday, and have now been replaced by something New and Improved. The casinos, shops, and the boardwalk itself had a dusty, abandoned melancholy that appealed to me. Then again, perhaps I was just happy to be indoors. Plus it was neat to see the place where Big Pussy Bonpensiero, in the form of a codfish, confessed to Tony that he had been cooperating with the Feds. Above is John on the Boardwalk (he wants me to remind you of the windiness. This is not the work of volumizer).

We decided to spend the last night of our vacation in Atlantic City Style, and treated ourselves to a ridiculous dinner (lobster & squash blossom risotto ... mmmm) at the Borgata Casino, the swankiest of them all. If swanky Atlantic City casino isn't an oxymoron. It is brand spankin' new, apparently, and has a whole bunch of Chihuly pieces very interestingly juxtaposed with flowers and plants, which I think makes Chihuly very glad.

Pumpkin Tureen

I'm posting this recipe, from the Enchanted Broccoli Forest (although I have cleansed Mollie Katzen's original recipe of dippiness wherever possible), at the request of my little friend Kevin. And after all, tis the season. Below you see the finished product as modeled by handsome pumpkin model John O:

1 3-4 pound pumpkin
1 T butter
.25 c finely minced onion
1 t prepared horseradish (increase to taste)
1 t prepared mustard (increase to taste)
1 13 ounce can lowfat evaporated milk
2 slices rye bread (with caraway seeds) cut into cubes
a few dashes of each: salt, pepper, cayenne, nutmeg
.5 c (packed) grated Swiss cheese

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

2. Prepare the pumpkin as you would a Jack-o-Lantern, stopping at the part where you carve holes in it.

3. Rub the interior of the pumpkin with the butter.

4. Add all remaining ingredients, replace the top (you may want to put foil under it in case it shrinks), put it on a tray, and put it in the oven.

5. Bake until the pumpkin becomes tender (about 2 hours). You can tell it's done when you can easily pierce the outside with a fork.

6. Make sure you scoop out the cooked pumpkin from the sides and bottom when serving.

Enjoy.