This summer, I was very happy to discover  that the Clark Museum of Art in Williamstown , Massachusetts, is only an hour and 20 minutes drive from the Chesterfield Inn. It was close enough for me to jump in the car on a Sunday afternoon and drive there for a much needed art infusion. The drive itself was a pleasant diversion. I drove west on Route 9 through West Brattleboro, Vermont, and across the rolling hills to Wilmington and then Bennington, Vermont. In Bennington, I headed south on Route 7 and soon Mount Greylock loomed on the horizon and I knew that I was in Williamstown.

I followed the signs to the Clark Institute of Art and parked. I had visited the museum many years ago and remembered their outstanding collection of French Impressionist art.  My plan was to wander the galleries and bask in the gorgeous colors and shimmering shapes of the Impressionist artists.

However, before I entered the main museum building, I stopped at the Stone Hill Center, a separate building on the Clark campus. I was immediately drawn into the world of Juan Munoz, a contemporary sculptor. All I can say, is “don’t miss this exhibit”-it will be at the museum until October 17.

I then continued down a wooded path to the main museum and was happily surprised to see the featured exhibit “Picasso Looks at Degas”. This will be shown until September 12 and is well worth the trip. Stunning  paintings and unexpected parallels between the artists can be seen throughout.

The rest of the afternoon was spent wandering the permanent collection, until closing time , when I reluctantly left the museum, promising myself to return soon. I made plans to drive over on a September Sunday, when the leaves are turning in the higher elevations  with beauty that rivals Impressionist paintings.

The terrace on a summer evening

On these beautiful summer nights in New Hampshire, we invite you to enjoy drinks and dinner on our terrace. We have a few wrought iron tables with chairs and green umbrellas on the blue stone terrace where you can settle in, have a cocktail or a glass of wine, and watch the sun set. Dinner is served on the terrace, from 5:30 until 9:00.

I had the pleasure of entertaining some friends for dinner on the terrace last week, and they thought it was the nicest outdoor dining in the area. The rolling hills, the lush meadow, and the gorgeous sunset  all combined with delicious food make for a wonderful evening!

Driveway at Dusk

I love the beginning  of January

when the door slams shut on the old year

and we have a chance to start again.

Low time for New England innkeepers,

we order new sheets,

clean house,

cook comfort food for our families,

and rest.

Here I sit with my tuxedo cat,

warm by the fire

while the wind whips the snow into a dervish outside the window.

The Christmas tree leans against the porch in a snow drift

enjoying its second life as a bird feeder.

Each day I venture outside for my walk,

bundled up in my green Christmas scarf

breathing deeply the smell of the crisp clean air,

looking at the snow with the navy blue shadows

where the the meadow meets the woods.

The sky is heavy with snow,

slate gray behind the pines,

I hurry inside

as snowflakes fall in my hair.

Scones

I love the time between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day because we cooks have license to use cranberries liberally. After the holidays fresh cranberries are not as widely available, so sometimes I stockpile them so I can extend the season a little bit.  There’s something about the dark ruby color of the berries, as well as their tart flavor that sweetens when they are dried or cooked that makes them so appealing to me.

One of my favorite things to make for breakfast is our Cranberry Cream Scones. They are soft, flaky and delicious-a great way to start the day! Here’s the recipe:

Chesterfield Inn Cream Scones

1 cup unsifted flour

3 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 Tablespoons sugar

4 Tablespoons cold butter

1/2 cup heavy cream

2 eggs, lightly beaten

1/2 cup dried cranberries

egg wash

Lemon Glaze: juice of half a lemon and enough confectioner’s sugar to make a glaze

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Combine dry ingredients. Cut in butter with a pastry blender until the mixture resembles coarse meal. Combine eggs, cranberries, and heavy cream; stir into flour mixture with a fork, then mix with your hands just enough to combine. Divide dough in half.; shape into rounds about  1 1/2 inches thick. Cut each round into fifths and separate wedges slightly on ungreased baking sheet. Brush with egg wash.

Bake for 15 minutes. While the scones are baking, mix up the lemon glaze. Note: it’s easy to over bake these, so remove them from the oven even if you think they’re not done. Let cool, drizzle with lemon glaze.

Another of my favorites for the holidays is a cranberry relish that my friend Betsy Bates taught me years ago. When you see how easy this is, and how delicious, you’ll never buy canned cranberry sauce again! All you need is:

1 bag fresh cranberries

1 jar orange marmalade

1/2 cup orange juice, and more if needed

Put the cranberries in a saucepan, add the marmalade and orange juice. Cook on low heat until the cranberries pop, and everything has melded together nicely. let cool. Refrigerate until needed. Keeps for at least in a covered refrigerated container.

White Wine

One of the best parts of my job as Innkeeper of the Chesterfield Inn is choosing the wines featured on our wine list! I’ve worked on the wine list for years, as it evolves and changes with trends and our guests’ taste. People who stay and dine with us tell me about wines, I taste wines and read about wines, and the list evolves!

In the last year, we have begun a program that features 4 or 5 wines each month. I’m particularly taken with our Summer Wine Specials, which are all from New Zealand and Australia, and I’d like to tell you about them. We have two  red wines. The first is a Cabernet Sauvignon from the Barossa Valley in Australia called The Cover Drive from Jim Barry. Jim Barry is a small, quality oriented winery, and this wine is the result of careful wine making. The flavor is dense with rich fruit and the wine has a wonderful nose. The other red wine that we are featuring is from Yalumba Vineyards, also in Barossa, and is a Shiraz/Viognier blend. The Shiraz is blended with Viognier to bring out the color and aroma. The result is a light, fruity wine, with jammy flavors.

For white wines, we have an Un-oaked Chardonnay from Tohu, a vineyard in New Zealand. This is a full bodied chardonnay without the heaviness of oak, with peachy and lemon overtones. Of course, we must have a New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc in the mix, and the Sauvignon Blanc is Harbor Town, from Marlborough. The wine is made by Alan Scott from some of New Zealand’s finest Sauvignon Blanc vineyards. It has a rich , intense flavor. Then we have a Reisling from Yalumba Vineyard, which is dry with lush tropical friut overtones. This wine is a perennial award winner with a host of food pairing possibilities.

These wines are all delicious. We’d love to share them with you-maybe out on the terrace at sunset?

We now have Walpole Creamery ice cream on our dessert menu at the Chesterfield Inn! The Walpole Creamery is located right on Route 12 in Walpole, which is about a 20 minute drive north of the inn. Their ice cream is made entirely from scratch, using all natural ingredients, and hormone free milk from Walpole  farms.  You can visit the Walpole Creamery from noon to 8:00 PM daily and sample any of their delicious flavors.

We serve their Sweet Cream ice cream with all of our desserts as the house “a la mode”. It’s just delicious on the Strawberry Rhubarb Crisp! Or, if you like, you can have your Sweet Cream  in a marbled white and dark chocolate cup with chocolate or caramel sauce. We also offer one of the other flavors as a monthly special. This month the special flavor is Chocolate Chocolate Chip.  It’s fabulous!

Spring is definitely here! We know it because anyone who has rhubarb in the garden is picking it, and cooking with it. Rhubarb is the first  plant that  can be harvested in the spring, generally from late April through June. The stalks are the edible part of the plant, while the leaves are toxic to humans and are discarded.  The flesh is red and green and very crisp with a fresh  astringent flavor.

Rhubarb, the First Harbinger of Spring

I made a rhubarb compote on Sunday morning to go with Ruth’s coffee cake (the recipe is included in my blog posting of October 28, 2008) and people were asking for seconds! My favorite way to cook rhubarb is to make a Strawberry Rhubarb Crisp. Here is my recipe:

2 pounds rhubarb stalks, cut into 1/2 inch pieces

1 1/4 cups sugar

1 pound strawberries, quartered and hulled

3 Tablespoons cornstarch

2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 stick butter, softened

1 1/2 cups light brown sugar

1 1/2 cups flour

1 1/4 cups quick cooking oatmeal

3 Tablespoons canola oil

1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon

3/4 teaspoon salt

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. In a bowl, toss the rhubarb with 3/4 cup of the sugar and let stand for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally. In another bowl, toss the strawberries with the remaining 1/2 cup sugar and let stand for 10 minutes. Using a slotted spoon, transfer the rhubarb to the strawberries, discarding any extra liquid from the rhubarb. Add the cornstarch, lemon juice, and vanilla and stir well. Transfer the mixture to a 9 by 13 inch baking pan. Combine all of the remaining ingredients, and mix with your fingers until large crumbs form. Sprinkle  the topping evenly over the fruit. Bake 30 minutes at 375. Reduce the heat to 325 and bake for 30 more minutes. Let rest 10 to 20 minutes before serving.

Delicious with ice cream, whipped cream or both!

It’s maple sugaring season in New Hampshire, a sure sign that spring is on the way! The weather dictates when sugar season begins, since for the sap to run there must be temperatures above freezing in the daytime and below freezing at night. This New England tradition was begun by the Native Americans, and continues to this day. Sugar houses can be found all over rural New Hampshire, with operations both large and small. New Englanders love their maple syrup, and enjoy it on pancakes, french toast, and ice cream.

When the temperatures are high enough for the frozen sap in the trees to thaw, the sap melts, and pressure builds up in the tree until the sap begins to run. Maple syrup makers tap the trees by drilling holes in them, collect the sap, and boil it down into syrup. Trees are tapped and a bucket set on the trunk of the tree to catch the sap. The farmer then goes from tree to tree in the sugarbush emptying the buckets into a larger bucket to transport back to the sugar house to boil down. (In larger operations, the taps are set up so that the sap runs into tubing that runs between the trees and collects the sap at a central point, saving time and labor).

Once the sap is back transported to the sugar house, it is boiled down over a very hot wood fire, until the water evaporates away and syrup is formed. If you visit a sugar house when they are boiling, when the syrup is finished, they offer around little paper cups of syrup so that you can taste the freshest maple syrup you will ever have. When our children were young, we  visited a sugar house each spring so that they could see the syrup being made and have a taste. Another big treat, called Sugar on Snow,  is to pour the hot maple syrup on packed snow, where it hardens like taffy and you can twirl it up and eat it, followed by a bite of dill pickle to cut the sweetness. Yum! Our local sugarhouses are open and boiling, so come on up and try some!

The maple syrup that we serve at the Inn comes from a local farm in Chesterfield owned by the Mitchell family. Peter Mitchell and his dad make syrup every year, and have it down to a fine science. Bill Mitchell has been making syrup for 70 years, since he was a boy, and it is delicious!