First Crush

 

Ah, mid-September in Potsdam, NY and I was back at college. I am transported back to my college days in my mind as I experience my favorite season of autumn in my favorite place to experience it. But this day I was literally back at college. No, I wasn’t going back to school for a class. I was participating as an aged sorority alumna in the SUNY Potsdam Greek Summit.

 

It was lunch break for the summit, so my friend (and contemporaneous sorority sister) Charlotte and I went home and got Julie (future sorority wannabe) and headed to downtown. We would usually go to The Bagelry, but we knew it would be packed, so we went to a place I hadn’t been before, though Julie of The Project had. Coffee bar by day, wine bar by night, bistro whenever, First Crush is love at first sight.

 

At 32 Market Street, this cute business front is at the intersection with Elm Street. As we settled into the last empty table, Charlotte wondered what the location of this narrow space was at the time of our college tenure. I reminded her that it was quite literally a corner store where one could purchase, magazines, newspapers, cigarettes, sodas and beer, at greatly inflated prices than if you walked your butt further away from downtown. In the wintertime, which can be bitterly cold here in the greater St Lawrence River valley, the distance saved was well worth the higher prices.

 

They have morning, afternoon and evening menu options. Bagels, panini toast, oatmeal, rolls and quiche of special varieties are listed for breakfast. The take-out menu I have from our visit doesn’t include dinner, but I have seen the dinner options on the website. Because I am lazy and writing this four months after the fact, perhaps it’s a recent addition. Or maybe since delivery is only available for lunch hours, they don’t include the dinner on the paper, take home menu.

 

Gourmet salads, wraps, and panini sandwiches are the lunch options. The dessert list, Starbuck’s coffee drinks, and seasonal cold drinks are listed for any time of day. Julie ignored the children’s menu of simple traditional fare and went straight to the sweets! Apparently some of the morning menu is available afternoon because that is where her fruit and yogurt parfait with raspberry and blueberry is offered. She also had the Cookies ‘n Cream from the frozen, non-coffee drinks.

 

I got the Rubini, a reuben sandwich on rye panini bread and Charlotte got the Calabria sandwich of roasted chicken, mozzarella cheese, roasted red peppers, and pesto mayonnaise on rosemary focaccia. Those come with potato chips. Charlotte had water with lemon. A pint of Harpoon India Pale Ale washed down my Rubini most excellently.

 

We had to get back to the afternoon session of the Greek Summit on campus so Julie walked the short couple of blocks back to our house as we headed the opposite direction. It was a very satisfying lunch. I would like to eat here again, maybe even in the evening. Some of the dinner options look tantalizing.

McDuff's on St Pat's Day!

McDuff's Tavern, 59 Market St. in historic downtown Potsdam, NY, was a regular haunt of mine back in the ol college days of the mid to late 80's. It was originally Morgan's when I first came to town my freshman year, but changed hands by the time I had joined my sorority a couple of years later. Though it had closed its doors for a short while sometime over the past 20+ years since I moved back to town, it is still a standby for the local college scene. There are several good taps of craft beer and the pub-style menu is diverse. They do good renditions of the upstate New York regional specialty chicken wings... here served with homemade bleu cheese dressing that is so chunky its hard to call it dressing.

So it was that I was wondering how I was going to find a good "family time" situation to bring Julie here for our Project, McDuff's being listed in the North Country This Week's Restaurant Guide. I have stopped in a few times since moving back to town, but never occasions to bring a 10 year old along. I even came down St Patty's Day 2011... by myself... to get my corned beef and cabbage fix. This year I was prepared to do the same, but then I thought to invite a dear friend (sorority sister) of mine that lives a couple hours drive away. My friend Charlotte is well loved by Julie and it all fell into place that we could all go and it would be a great post for the Project!

Now in my day at college here, all the bars would open at 8 am on St Patrick's Day, whatever day of the week it was. The hard core ones would do 25 cent or even 10 cent "progressions". The first hour, draft beer was 25 cents, the next hour, 50 cents, the next hour, 75 cents, etc. I have a good story of one St Patrick's Day, 10 cent progressions, 8 am bar opening, 100 cups of green beer in the middle of a table full of friends, and a political science class midterm at noon the same day... But that wasn't at McDuff's and this is a family blog!

McDuff's did open at 8 am this day. However, I had no desire to indulge in whatever beer specials they may have had going, though the breakfast specials looked tempting. Irish French Toast gets a dip in Irish Cream, 3 egg omelets with filling options including sausage, asparagus and smoked salmon are served with potato loxey, and the corned beef hash topped with two eggs is homemade. But I was only concerned with going in the afternoon for lunch. I had my own Guinness at home for breakfast. I have to say my mother is full blood Irish and my father is French decent, so the "Irish French Toast" name struck a chord with me, because that is pretty much what I am! ... the toast part being up for interpretation.

We ordered drinks first. I got a pint of Guinness on tap, Julie got a Shirley Temple that came out green and Charlotte got a glass of water that came out clear (thank goodness). There were three lunch/dinner specials and we each got one of them. Julie got the Bangers & Mash, mashed potatoes and white link sausage topped with onion gravy. Charlotte got the Corned Beef Reuben sandwich with potato chips, a tempting option for me. But I had to go with the full on traditional corned beef and cabbage. Julie has never had corned beef, or doesn't remember it, so I traded some with her for some of her bangers. Then the two of us scrounged remains of the Reuben... some bits of corned beef that had blackened on the grill... mmmmm.

While we were eating I tried to explain some of the basics of recent Irish history and culture to Julie. It turned out that the limited information on corned beef and cabbage I told her was kind of wrong, so its a good thing she really doesn't listen to me. I was just pulling up what I had heard or inferred from my Irish-American grandparents because this is very much an Irish-American tradition and not from the homeland. I was more familiar with potatoes and their relation to the homeland and subsistence and the Irish potato famine, but it was a disjointed history I shared. Better to just talk about my grandparents and the fun we used to have on St. Patrick's Day with all of our green stuff.

Julie saw the pool table in McDuff's and wanted to play, as I had occassionally played with her on the tables of my old favorite bar in Hawaii, which was also the last place I enjoyed St Patrick's Day corned beef and cabbage and Guinness in 2010 before McDuff's in 2011 and this year. I decided against it. We had come for our feast, sat in our protected booth and were done with our mission. The college crowd wasn't very much as of yet, but it was having some rowdy outbursts, spurred in part by some March Madness basketball on the TV. I finished my beer and we used the potty before we headed out on a stroll down Elm Street to my and Charlotte's old sorority house. We reminisced along the way while the college student, spring-break stragglers, decked out in green, partied in small groups in front of houses, enjoying the beautiful sunny day.

Jreck Subs

Jreck Subs is an old standby, especially for me at the location we are writing up for the Julie/MomProject at 61 Market St., Potsdam NY. It was here over twenty years ago when I was attending college and its still here, though most other business offices adjacent to it have switched hands or are unoccupied now.

This popular chain has locations listed in the North Country This Week's Spring Restaurant Guide for Canton, Massena, Ogdensburg, Gouverneur and Malone. As I see these other towns listed, I note that the Guide's listings are all in St Lawrence County (New York State's largest) but certainly is not inclusive of all restaurants in the county. This is a good thing for the Project, because we really can't go tooling off to Gouverneur all the time to eat out. Thankfully, most of the places are in reasonable distance to, or in Potsdam, where we live.

It was early in August and I had taken my girls out shopping for dresses for them to wear for the upsoming season of weddings and bridal showers. We walked the two blocks to downtown from our house to the used clothing stores, Kidz Closet and the CORC, then hit the Isle of You's summer sale. Though we passed Jreck Subs along the way, we still had to drive to Walmart as we had only found one dress, no shoes and there are no other options for clothes in town. After successfully completing our shopping, we were hungry and Jreck's was calling. It was about 7:30 PM and the long summer daylight was still with us for the pleasant stroll back downtown.

Its a pretty good place for fast food. The rolls, cold cuts, cheeses and toppings are fresh while there is still the selection for greasy fried hot food as well. MJ and Julie both got the "meal deal" that gets you a drink and side with your submarine sandwhich. Both got the curly fries side, a personal favorite of mine which they shared with me, thus reducing the overall fat and salt content of their meals.

And Julie could use some reducing... she ordered the fried chicken on a white roll with nothing else on it, no lettuce or tomato or cheese, nothing. I guess it could've been worse since she didn't have mayo either, but wow. White bread around batter fried chicken just seems like a bland, fiber-free, carbohydrate/fat calories, bludgeon of doom. She got a lemonade. MJ always gets the same thing here, ham and swiss on a white roll with lettuce and diced pickle. She got a root beer, always her beverage of choice when allowed to have a soda pop eating out. I usually force the girls to at least get their subs on a wheat roll, but I didn't think in time before they ordered.

I went with the sandwich du jour - Turkey Bacon Ranch. Oh yes. All ya gotta say is BACON to me! I had it put on the roll du mois, garlic and dill... WITH some extra Thousand Island dressing to go with the Ranch dressing. It turns out they will actually put on ALL of the dressings if you really want and I was tempted to just slap some mayo on there too, but thought better of it. My waistline has paid the worst price of a year away from the physical work I am accustomed to doing, though at this point the extra mayo could hardly make that much of a difference. Especially since I was helping to reduce Julie's fat calorie load by eating most of her curly fries. I chose provolone cheese to go with the usual suspects, lettuce, onion, tomato, and hot pepper.

I was thinking there should be more toppings, like bell pepper and black olives, but I guess it is one of the those smaller versions of Jreck's. They still have the grill for all the hot sub variteies. I usually get the "Philly" steak and cheese with grilled onions and peppers... dripping greasy goodness! Julie has done the hot meatball sub, too. (MJ always gets the plain ham and cheese.) But, it was a hot August night and cold subs were the way to go. The hot bacon I got on mine quickly cooled off in the bath of cold fat dressings.

We all ordered whole subs and I wondered "what the heck was I thinking?" as we went to sit down with this massive tray of food. As it turns out, MJ and Julie ate their whole subs and I took most of one half of mine home. It was delicious the next day, Homer Simpson's voice in my head saying, "mmmmmm... saaandwiiich".

The Bagelry

Oh, The Bagelry! In the heart of downtown Potsdam, NY at 9 Market Street, this choice little specialty sandwich shop is near and dear to my heart. Back in my youth, eh hem, of college in the mid to late 80's, The Bagelry was a shining beacon of gastronomic desire. Alas, it still is. It is worthy of a food pilgrimage across a continent to indulge in a type of food that is simply not available in the USA properly west of the Mississippi River. At least not in my experience, and I have lived and traveled across the continental United States to Hawaii. You simply CANNOT get a properly made bagel outside of the northeast except in a few very rare places, which I did not live in and have only heard about from possibly suspect sources.

When I lived in Wyoming for years, I once had my visiting mother-in-law from the Potsdam area bring me garlic bagels from The Bagelry on the airplane. Though quadruple bagged, the garlic fumes of her carry-on baggage turned heads on the plane. I was sooo grateful for her sacrifice. Even three day old bagels from the Bagelry are a Godsend in the wasteland of Wyoming, where we bought bready "bagels"at the grocery store to serve as hamburger buns.

A perfect, delicate crispness to the exterior coupled with a softly dense interior is just pure culinary artistic mastery. Though I now miss many types of regional cuisine from my travels, there was nothing I missed more than being away from a proper bagel for the last twenty plus years. And now, I am back! And The Bagelry is more than just dear to my heart, it is NEAR again.

As readers of this blog know, I lost my camera. I had planned to take a picture of the lovely bins of seasoned and other variety bagels to post with this. (Edit: my friend took a picture recently and I have now added it, YAY!) There are plain, wheat, sesame, onion, garlic, cinnamon raisin, italian, salt, poppy seed, everything, oh... Then, of course, you have the toppings or sandwich selections to be made. All sorts of tuna melt, breakfast egg, Gobble (deli turkey), Nova Lox (with cream cheese, onion and capers), Fresser (piles of different deli meats with cheese), Reuben, ham-n-cheese, etc. That list is huge and I can't possibly remember them all.

Back in town, we come here often now, almost always just to get a half or baker's dozen to bring home to make up ourselves. This day in early June, Julie and I decided to have breakfast here before school as a treat. Julie had never tried the lox spread (lox mixed with cream cheese) and I had a feeling she would like it, fond as she is of cream cheese and also has a taste for fishy stuff, as do I. We were picking up a half dozen to go (wheat, cin-raisin, garlic) and then got a prepared toasted garlic bagel with lox spread to eat in, split between us. I got onion and tomato on my half and we each got a pickle slice. Nice breakfast... I sent her to school with garlic, salmon and pickle on her breath!

We sat at the outdoor tables on the sidewalk of old downtown. It was a beautiful morning, still cool at the street corner by the Raquette River. There was a light breeze and long shadows of the morning to escape into, but you could tell it was going to get hot this day. When we were finished, I sent Julie to school on her bicycle from there. It is nice to be back in Potsdam!