Time to Make the Quiche
Today I am making broccoli quiche for dinner and will turn to my trusty Moosewood Cookbook for the recipe, written years ago by the folks at Moosewood Restaurant in Ithaca, New York.
Ithaca has played a big role in my life. At 17, I spent a summer there taking English and government courses for high school juniors. That experience, being away from home and on a gorgeous, bucolic college campus, changed my life. It was such an idyllic summer, walking into College town, hiking around gorges, viewing Cayuga Lake. I had a great roommate and friends who made me desire a whole new world. A couple of years later I had my first camping experience in Buttermilk Falls State Park with my then boyfriend/now husband.
Both my daughters wound up going to college there. They were undergraduates and being three years apart, overlapped for a year, so we had many years of visiting Ithaca. Then my older daughter went to law school there – so add another three. We had a total of nine years traveling back and forth on Route 17, past Binghamton, to Ithaca. We spent so many Augusts unpacking them into new dorms and apartments, and so many Mays packing them up from Ithaca.
The Ithaca farmer’s market was and still is one of my favorite places. There is always fresh produce, and cool products locally made, and hippy crafts, and the most beautiful fresh and dried flowers ever. Purplish blue mugs from local potters are a staple in my kitchen cabinet. Purplish blue vases grace the living room where we house dried flowers. The pastoral Ithaca picture of the girl with long, flowing hair hangs in an upstairs room.
We attended three graduations there – two for undergrad, one for law school. Grandparents, aunts and uncles came together for all of those festivities. We would eat at a wonderful restaurant called the Boatyard, situated on the lake. The warm chocolate chip cookie pie always ended a delicious meal.
One added bonus is that my brother-in-law and sister-in-law have lived in Ithaca so we saw them a lot during those years. We last went up in July of 2018, but I’m hoping perhaps we’ll go up there for the annual “Apple Fest” this September. Ithaca is my happy place.
And now it’s time to make the quiche.
When I started your piece, I had no idea it would be a beautiful ode to Ithaca. Ithaca is where my son longs to be right at this moment. It is where 80% of his belongings are right now. He is in his 6th year at Ithaca College in a town that he calls home. He was to graduate with his masters this fall, rescheduled (fingers crossed) to August 1st. Before we, as a family, leave Ithaca after six years of Rte 17, we will have to go to the Ithaca Farmer´s Market and the Boatyard. Last Easter, we had brunch at the Moosewood Diner. I love this place, the Commons... it is where I left my insecure 18 year old who is now a mature 24 year old man. Thank you! I will show him your post!
ReplyDeleteThe quiche can wait, for reveries about Ithaca! Hope the dinner turned out as nicely as these flashbacks. And that Moosewood Cookbook: timeless, with a welcome spot on our shelves, too.
ReplyDeleteI hope making and enjoying the quiche called you to continue on your memory lane to and from Ithaca. We all have those special places in our lives.
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