Flavors 518

We used to take the Amtrak or drive to Poughkeepsie to take the Metro-North to visit NYC. In more recent times though, we've discovered the charm of driving. Insane Manhattan traffic you say? Take the BQE. Expensive parking you say? My mother-in-law spotted a place in Brooklyn that costs $7 a day. And there are benefits too - flexibility of timing, being able to buy stuff there and cart it back (no one wants to crush their pretty Paper Source loot or One Girl whoopie pies in a backpack), and in the case of my job being able to move artwork around. The Taconic State Parkway is also beautiful and incredibly civilized to drive on. You feel a bit like Don Draper dropping Sally off at boarding school. You can imagine all the old timey road trips taken on that very strip of asphalt. I drove down for work a little while ago, fought through traffic in the Bronx, got to a spot near Hudson on the Taconic and experienced the most beautiful view. It was all fresh air, arm-stretching space, ...

On one of our super fun day trips to the Hudson Valley last fall we discovered the small town of Millerton near the CT border. Its a cute town, like a mini Hudson - there's a handmade glass place, a cute vintage store that sells the kind of lingerie from the 1940s that can help you pretend you are some kind of old Hollywood starlet (I just wish I had this Pier 1 mirrored vanity as well), a well-curated wine store that offers weekend tastings given by friendly staff members, and Oblong Books . For my point of view, the best part of Millerton is the solidly outstanding coffee shop, Irving Farm Coffee Roasters . Like all really delicious coffee places, they really pay attention to where the green beans come from and sell the roasted beans as close as possible to when they were roasted. You really want to make sure you grind your beans as close as possible to when you brew the coffee for best results. All that combined is pretty much the formula for an amazing cup of coffee....

A couple weeks ago I attended the Saratoga Wine and Food Festival with my friend Jessica who wrote about it on the Fussy Little Blog . Last week I attended the Capital Region Apple and Wine Festival with my husband, which was a very different event, and this weekend we did a little bit of wine tasting in the Hudson Valley. Here's what I have to say about all this. First of all, the Albany Chef's Food and Wine Festival in the winter is so great because you get to try so many different things ( here is my post from 2012 ). We first learned of All Good Bakers and The Hungry Fish there.  Because I was thinking of how much food you normally eat at the Albany food and wine event, I didn't eat breakfast before going to the Saratoga Wine and Food Festival. There were about 5 bites of food offered at the entire event and endless tables of wine. Now, maybe you shouldn't try so many things in this situation unless you want to get to a point where you announce to your friend...