An Amazing Detour: Burdick Chocolates and a look back at summer 2011

Even though summer is now past I can't help but look back on some of the amazing adventures we had. If I had been a good blogger, you would know all about them but alas my blogging skills, especially in the summer months leave something to be desired! Our summer started out with an amazing trip to Stockholm, Sweden. We had many fun adventures including eating a luxurious traditional Swedish Smorgasbord at the Opera Cafe (a cafe/nightclub on the grounds of the Opera house). Unfortunately while it was quite beautiful inside, it seems that our tastes are not as fond of traditional Swedish cuisine as we might have hoped.

This summer also involved many different weddings. We saw 4 different friends (well 8 technically!) married this summer and each wedding was so different and unique. I am amazed that I could go to four wedding not see one repeating element ... all of brides even walked down the aisle to a different song! take that Wagner.

It was on the way to one of these weddings that we took a little detour to a small New Hampshire town and spent a lunch at L.A. Burdicks How did we find this little gem? Unfortunately I don't have a romantic story of us antiquing through the small towns of Vermont and New Hampshire and randomly stumbling upon a quaint town with this cafe (though the town and cafe were adorable!).... in fact I don't think that I have stumbled accidentally upon anything in the past few years. In this age of technology and iphones, I did what any self-respecting foodie in a foreign land (haha I don't know if a state 3 hours drive is exactly foreign but stay with me here) would do... I googled it! When I saw that Burdick's was mentioned in three different Chowhound.com posts (and it was only 3 exits away!) I was sold (and hungry).

We arrived at a bit of an odd hour between lunch and dinner so we had the place almost all to ourselves. The pending Hurricane Irene made the quiet sleepy town even more so as most people busied themselves at the supermarket collecting water and batteries to prepare for this 100- year storm that was on track to punish New England. As the hostess called to warn those with Sunday Brunch reservations to call first in case they lost power, we sat savoring one of the most decadent mochas of all time. From the oozing, gooey, cheesy crust on the French onion soup to the freshly made salads, we very much enjoyed our visit to Burdicks. But the best part of the meal came with the check... these adorable little penguins, a Burdick trademark made paying the check a bit sweeter (along with their mice...made of chocolate of course!) After that small sample, we couldn't help taking a trip to the adjoining chocolate shop and grabbing a few chocolatey little friends to join us on the rest of our adventure.

White Wine Steamed Clams

I grew up in New England, where summer time is synonymous with clam bakes. Even now that I have lived away for over 5 years, I still get an urge when fresh clams start showing up in the store. However when you live in a small apartment, sometimes having a steaming kettle full of fresh seafood (and the stinky trash that goes along with it) is less than appealing. That doesn't mean you have to forget those summer time memories - just scale things back to apartment size! The traditional clam boil includes clams, lobsters, steamers, mussels, corn and potatoes boiled up in a beer and water mix (cooked in a giant sand pit if you have one but more often just in a big pot on a gas burner). But for us, since clams were on sale at the market, it was an easy decision to just grab a few dozen little necks and get cooking.

For our clam bake we are going to do things a little different though.... no surprise for those who read this blog often. I do enjoy a nice beer I was thinking more along the lines of white wine and garlic flavors. This recipe is a bit more of a French style than a New England one but I suppose when you have deliciously fresh clams on hand, its hard to go wrong! Instead of using a large stock pot to steam my clams I used a large saute pan with under an inch of brother in the bottom - just enough to steam but not boil.

Girl's Night Lobster Boil!

Sometimes it amazes me the things that some of my friends have never eaten. Lobster Rolls are so quintessentially New England in the Summer that I forget that people from the other side of the country are as unfamiliar with our past times as I am of palm trees and surfing. A California native friend recently disclosed she had never eaten a lobster roll! Of course, I promised to make her one immediately but at the last minute went for old fashioned lobster boil instead.

She brought the corn and a crusty french loaf courtesy of the farmer's market at the Grove Street PATH station... so conveniently located for a stop on the way home. I added the lobsters and some roasted potatoes. Lobster Boils are so fast that all I needed to do was have the veggies chopped and ready to go into the pot when she arrived. As we sipped on a nice cold glass of white wine....the lobster's took a soak in the very hot tub!