Day 1 Part 1

So, to start with, once we’d finished packing and running through our mental checklists of everything that we needed for the trip, neither of us was all that sleepy. So we played Scrabble.

And Jay beat the PANTS off of me because he got the Q and the Z and the X and the K. This is the second game in a row where that has happened and it’s just not fair.

I should tell you about what a game of Scrabble is like for me a Jay: I’m pretty sure we’re not playing by the rules. Some games we take more seriously than others, but if we’re feeling silly, we’ve been known to trade letters “Go Fish” style, let words run off the board, and point out really cool words that could be made just because it would be neat to see it on the board. There may have also been an occasion when I took Jays letters and threw them back at him saying “No!” because he was landing a Q on a triple word score (or something like that) and I just wasn’t okay with that (and there may have been a time when Jay did the same to me because my word interfered with the one he had been really excited to play). We also play with nine tiles, instead of seven, which makes for an infinitely more interesting game, and also a much faster one, which is good when your husband has ADD.

Any way, Jay beat me at Scrabble, and I wasn’t okay with that, and I was still wired, so I demanded a second game. It was around 11:30 at this point. I was definitely winning this game, but about halfway through, I started to fall asleep, and Jay figured out that if he took long enough on his turns, I’d eventually quit. So yeah, we didn’t finish that one, but I TOTALLY would have won if we’d kept playing.

We set the alarm for eight, but Jay woke up at 6:00 am, thinking “is it time to go yet?....no.” And then again at 7:00. And then again at 7:45, at which point he got up and started getting ready. At eight the alarm went off and I stumbled out of bed and on the way to the bathroom, Jay snuck up and snapped this lovely picture:

Which I am only sharing with you because I am such a good sport.

Within 20 minutes I was ready to go and Jay and I were on the road (after stopping at Espresso Royale for breakfast. We shared a piece of sourcream coffeecake and Jay got a chocolate chip scone while I enjoyed carbohydrate crack, aka The Cinnamon Crunch muffin, and some delicious Peruvian coffee which I’m only mentioning cause Jay is reading over my shoulder saying “Hey, don’t forget the coffee.”). Jay took over driving after a couple of hours and we made it into town just in time for lunch.

On the way in we drove by the water, which is beautiful. We’ll have more pictures soon, and this one is blurry, but I wanted you to see the color of the water, cause I thought you only saw water like that in the Caribbean.

We went to the Centre Street Café.

Their soup of the day was “Swamp Soup” which I regret not asking about, but I quickly got distracted by their specials.

Two things stood out:

Smoked Duck Pizza

Flat bread pizza topped with cherry wood smoked pulled duck, goat cheese, smoked gouda, cilantro, red onion, shaved fennel and apple-pecan chardonnay reduction

and

Off Centre Mac & Cheese

Cheddar, asiago and fontinella cheeses combined with crisp prosciutto, scallions, cream and bronze cast rigatoni pasta topped with scallions and croutons.

Anybody who knows me would expect me to get the duck, and I have to say, I was a little surprised myself (and Jay was shocked) that I decided to get the Mac & Cheese instead. My only excuse is that I didn’t fully read or process the description on that pizza. Fortunately, Jay decided to get the Duck Pizza himself, so we got to try both.

I made a huge mistake.

And by a “huge” mistake, I really mean that I made a little mistake, because my husband is awesome and let me have a whole piece to myself (he offered to go halves on both dishes so I could have more, but I was good with one...sorta).

First I should say that Mac & Cheese is my ultimate comfort food. I LOVE Mac & Cheese. I used to make huge pots of it for my friends in college. If I hadn’t had them to share it with, I would have eaten entire batches on my own with the giant spoon I used to mix the cheese in, or, failing that, my hands. But my version of Mac & Cheese is little more than a vehicle for melted Velveeta, which is, in my opinion, one of the greatest things modern science has given us. I don’t care what’s in it, I don’t care what you want to call it, all I know is that when you melt it in a pot of hot pasta with a little bit of butter and a splash of milk, you get your own little private bite of processed-food heaven.

As a result of this predisposition, gourmet Mac & Cheese, made with, you know, ACTUAL cheese, never really lives up to my expectations. Yet I keep on trying.

The Mac and Cheese was delicious, don’t get me wrong. Perfectly cooked pasta, gooey lumps of melty cheese with chopped up prosciutto, it was all good. But Jay’s was fantastic.

As Jay describes it, the pizza was like a mix between an apple pie and a duck flatbread. There was the savory pulled duck with yummy cheese and red onions but underneath that was this sweet chardonnay reduction with bits of cooked apple and pecans in it that was really truly delicious. I love mixing sweet and savory, so this would have been a really great dish for me.

Too bad I’m an idiot.

And good thing my husband is so nice!

Here’s a picture that pretty much sums up the meal, me (in my RED sundress) eating duck pizza while my Mac & Cheese sits ignored.

We’re at the bed and breakfast now and I want to go taste wine, but I’ll write more later.

Still to come:

Our trip the asylum

A drive up the peninsula

Sarah