A Long Island Farm Day....

Today was a "farm filled" day. I definitely got to enjoy some fresh air, crisp breezes, and sunny skies. We left Queens and headed for Long Island early this morning. Our first stop was Finks Country Farm to check out the pumpkins and launch a few little ones in the pumpkin canon. Fun!The we passed hundreds of farms and gazillions (literally) of farm stands, pumpkin patches, and corn mazes on our way to Lewins Farm. It was at this farm that I realized that it is good that I don't drink alcohol. I say this because....if I drank alcohol like I pick vegetables....we'd ALL be in a ton of trouble. I was addicted and couldn't stop picking peppers, tomatoes, and eggplant. If you don't believe me...look at this next picture.I had already filled a bag and then I just "stopped to grab a couple more." This is what a couple more looked like. My hair even got all crazy because I was stooped down in the fields in search of the perfect pepper....ha!I wasn't as crazy as these people though. Honestly, what are they going to do with some many peppers?Here is Jose taking off the eggplant stems. I cant wait to cook those babies up with some garlic. After picking our veggies.....we went to the farm house for some roasted corn and fire baked potatoes. They were out of this world! I really don't think that I have ever had sweet corn that was THAT good in my life. Scrumptious!Then we checked out all of the funky pumpkins, gourds, and squash.

We left Lewins Farm and headed off for the Long Island Garlic Festival. We passed an enormous vineyard on the way and saw lots of vines and grapes.We even saw some deer ( I think they were deer ??) running through a sunny field. Beautiful!We had fun at the garlic festival but I think that the best part of the day was when we went to pick our veggies. Oh....and when we stuffed ourselves with roasted corn and potatoes. Here are just a few of my favorite veggies from today.

An A-MAZING escape....

What a fun day! I wanted to "escape" the city over Labor Day weekend. I got online and found a fun place to explore.....Lyman Orchards in Middlefield, CT. We drove about 90 miles into Connecticut and passed amazing farms and lakes. Once we got to the orchards.....we stopped off at The Apple Barrel for some apple cider and apple donuts. Then we were off to the Sunflower Maze. Yup.....over 350,000 sunflowers! We had fun in a corn maze last year but the sunflowers this year were amazing!I wish all of my "forks in the road" looked this beautiful. I don't think you could go wrong choosing either way. What do you think?We finally ended up at a place called O'Rourke's Diner in Middletown, CT. We needed to refuel since we hadn't eaten since our morning apple cider. I had seen this place on Diners, Drive-in's, and Dives. We had some YUMMY afternoon omelets and then headed back to NY. It was a memorable and fun day.....just what I needed.

Do your part!

I just finished watching President Obama address the students in America. I was AGAIN extremely impressed by him and thankful to have him as a president. I thought that his message was clear and direct....."Do Your Part!" I appreciated how he challenged the students and pointed out that THEY are responsible for "making the grade" and succeeding. I love, love, loved his speech! Click HERE if you want to read it.

Happy Birthday Sarah.....

Happy Birthday to you.... Happy Birthday to you! You might not be able to hear me but I am singing in my best opera voice EVER!! I hope you have an amazing B-Day today! I was looking through the pics of us on our 30th celebration at Coney Island. We are such nerds....but cute ones. Why does my head look so much bigger than yours? Maybe because it is!? Oh, aren't these pictures of little "M" adorable? I had to post them in honor of you getting a little older today...ha! Enjoy!

Cook! Book! Worm!

I hardly ever go to Barnes and Noble. It is like a ZOO here at all of their locations in Queens....well all over NYC. Are they that popular everywhere? I don't know if people really love to read that much or they just want a place to enjoy the air conditioning in the humid summer heat. I would hope that they are really reading! Anyway....I went there yesterday and it was FUN!I browsed all of the education books and then went on to Non-Fiction and wrote down some titles that I want to check out from the Queens Library. Then I ended up in the cookbook section and browsed for a couple hours. The book above made me miss New Orleans....the Muffaletta sandwich on the front is scrumdiliumpcious!Then I about DIED laughing in the aisle when I saw is book. My friend BEAK instantly came to my mind when I saw the title....BALLS! She and I are in love with Gulab Jamun, an Indian dessert, that we refer to as simply BALLS. You can read a previous post on the "balls" if you click HERE. I have also included this picture of Beak as proof that she loves to devour these tasty little guys.Help me out on this one! I picked up this Vegan book because I thought that the girl in blue had cute hair. Then I was perplexed by the title....How it all Vegan! Then I opened the book and read the chapter head and the first line of the first paragraph. "How we both Vegan" and "We vegan in the early....." Aren't they missing some connecting words there? Maybe an "are" or "became?" I don't know....maybe it is just me. Is there some humor that I am supposed to be getting? Does this confuse anyone else as to why they would publish it this way? Maybe they just need a little meat....ha!

Summer Picnic...

I went to ANOTHER park this week and had a picnic by the water. This visit wasn't as exciting to me because I see this bridge all of the time.....it's in my backyard. Well, not in my backyard....but just about a mile away. This is the Whitestone bridge and it connects Queens to the Bronx. I think I have posted a picture of it before. Pretty sweet view for a summer afternoon picnic!

Yes, this is Queens!

I was driving to Costco the other day, after I went to the Gantry State Park, and I had to stop and take a couple of pictures for my mom. She recently saw the movie Julie and Julia (wasn't it cute!?) and was curious about some of the outdoor scenes that were supposedly taken in Queens. I remembered these smoke towers being shown a few times and so I stopped and snapped this pic as proof that they REALLY do exist in Queens. Ha! Oh, here are some pretty nice shots of the Queensboro Bridge that I snapped at a traffic light. Nice!