The Beginning

So, after watching the movie "Julie and Julia" obsessively for the past two weeks, my 9 year old daughter and I took a break. It's been over 36 hours since our last viewing. We had to make a conscious effort to not watch. Its a Netflix DVD, so we will have to return it at some point, but I've been waiting for the inspiration to hit me before I can give it up.

Today, Julie (my 9 year old daughter) and I took a bicycle ride downtown to check out the used clothing stores, which I knew would be closed, but we had to get out of the house. We have been sitting around during her spring break from school, watching "Julie and Julia" on almost continuous loop all week. It makes you hungry, so we have been eating along with it. We had to get out of the house.

Downtown for us is the small village of Potsdam in the North Country upstate New York. It was a chilly wind, but we bundled up to stay warm. While we were stopped, looking at the rushing water of the Racquette River going over the hydroelectric power dams, I decided I was hungry. Julie is a big fan of eating out, as am I. Well, we are big fans of eating in general and also share a laziness for preparing our own food. Being the tough economic times that they are, however, we have been trying to be very frugal. My husband, Julie's father, is the cook of the house and does a remarkable job feeding us and fixing a proper dinner nearly every night.

So we ate at "Hot Tamale" because I had never been there, and I decided to treat Julie since her sister had been to a concert the night before and was still away at a fun sleepover at her friend's house. Then it hit me. We could eat our way through the North Country THIS WEEK's Spring Restaurant Guide I had been looking through the night before... and blog about it!

Oh sure, it's not really like "The Julie/Julia Project". It's not going to make us better people. It's not going to teach us any real discipline. But it is something to do and it will be fun. Maybe it will allow us to eventually return the movie DVD to Netflix... now having our own culinary obsession to occupy us. Maybe it will force us to write something regularly, which is an accomplishment in itself.

Anyway, no rules and no goals. No time frames. It is what it is. There are 66 restaurants listed in the Guide, including places such as McDonald's and an asian food market I've never been into to know if there are even prepared foods for take-out. There are also places we have been to several times. Maybe we will go to them, maybe we won't, but we will write about every place and at least why we did not or could not go.

Some are a bit of a drive so we will try to hit those as they are along the way in other travels around the county. We must try to budget the adventure as best we can. The main goal is to write regularly, so we will write up our visits every few days... Hot Tamale and Thai Cuisine Restaurant already down and coming up soon. But now, another viewing of "Julie and Julia" is in order. Bon appetit!