Micro-Vacation: New Hampshire

Okay, not really that much of a micro-vacation--just Friday evening through Saturday night. I bailed out of work at a reasonable time on Friday, and hopped the Amtrak Downeaster up to Dover to visit Bird & Jen; I haven't visited them in a while, and getting out of town for a day seemed like a fine idea.


They recently got a pasta maker attachment to their Kitchen Aid mixer, so Jen tried it out. It's one of those extrusion dies that goes on the front of the meat grinder auger.


She made a recipe of pasta dough right from the Kitchen Aid instructions... they tell you to feed "walnut size" lumps of dough down the chute. It started out sounding strong (whir-whir-whir-whir) but then started to slow down (whoor-whoor-whoor-whoor) and then totally slog, as it was trying to push out the dough (whuuuuuur-whuuuuuur-whuuuuuur). The machine sounded seriously unhappy at that point ("Ease off on the throttle, Ripley. We've blown the trans-axle, you're just grinding metal.")

Jen disassembled the machine, and found the warm-to-the-touch-partially-cooked slug of pasta dough. Huh. Tried recipe iteration two... behaved about the same.


Yeah, it was pretty tough dough (also, for those noting how broken-ass English is as a language, examine the spelling/pronunciation of the last two words). High strength, though...


Anyway, in parallel, I was trying to make noodles out of dough the hard way--rolling pin plus pizza cutter. I made basically noddle-shaped items... but I decided a name that reflected the by-product nature of the pasta was appropriate.


Thus a dinner menu of salad, and slagliettele with cream sauce, peas, and ham. Turned out pretty yummy. An evening of apple pie, Port, lounging, laughing, and conversation followed (including discussions on how GM, of the Big Three, deserves to collapse).

The next day, all three of us lounged around, and wandered into Dover for an afternoon snack at the local coffee shop. I got to catch up with Tuxedo--the cat that Bird and I owned going back to... wow... the apartment near Central Square around 1995.


Dinner was at Black Trumpet in Portsmouth--a fun foodie evening, and a definite recommendation as a place to go if you're in the area.


I had their Celeriac and Lobster Bisque, and we split a great blue goat cheese plate (Verde Capra – Arnoldi, Valtaleggio, Italy – Blue-veined goat; tangy and gooey. Paired with persimmon-pumpkin chutney), served up on a blackboard.


I also had their "Pan-fried Sweetbreads with garlicky Brussels sprouts, figs and bacon in a lemon-caper veloute." We are a bunch who have no problem sharing dishes... always a fun part of a dinner. Yum.


Warm, happy, and filled with thymus gland, I hopped another train home that evening. Using Amtrak instead of driving is definitely slower--the train ride was 1:30 (vs. driving at "68.9 mi – about 1 hour 19 mins")--plus, you have to add waiting and the MBTA rides on the Boston end of the train ride. But I could plug in my computer and get some PowerPoint slides done on the ride up; on the way down, I wrote postcards, listened to music, and caught up on reading.

Unfortunately, today (Sunday) is more PowerPoint slides. Ugh. At least the holidays will be here soon.