28 May 2012

Driving to Montreal

It was only two weeks ago that we were in Montreal — that's the Montreal in Quebec, Canada, not one of the six or seven Montreals that are villages in France. We drove up the road that they call the Northway, or the Adirondack Northway. It starts and Albany and runs in a fairly straight line north to the Canadian border.

Driving up the Adirondack Northway toward Canada

It was a beautiful day, and our plan was to stop for lunch along the way. It was to be a picnic lunch, because we had packed leftover sandwiches from an Albany restaurant, a box of cookies, and a bottle of Millbrook Pinot Noir wine from the Hudson Valley.

The Northway picnic, with New York wine

Arriving in Montreal on a beautiful Friday afternoon
meant dealing with traffic jams.


I thought we might go to Lake Placid for lunch, but it turned out to be too big a detour off the Northway and didn't make sense. Our goal was to get to Montreal as early as possible. We pulled into a rest stop on the expressway and had lunch there. It was windy but pleasant, and all the food we were carrying was good. The wine was excellent.

In New York State, towns aren't always
what you expect them to be.


We fueled up the rented Ford Focus at Betty Beaver's near
Lewis, NY. Seemed appropriate, given our weekend plans.


We also had to fuel up the car. We pulled off the highway when we saw signs for the town of Lewis and looked for a service station. There was one on the right, and then another on the left before we got to the town. The prices were high, and we thought we might find a lower price farther from the main highway. We were disappointed and ended up stopping at one of the stations we had seen on the way in as we drove back to the Northway.

5 comments:

  1. Bonjour Ken

    Made my day with the last picture :-)

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  2. Haaaaaa about both Lewis and The Beaver :))

    I love the sights in northern NY along the highway. So much more peaceful than some others, with all of the evergreen trees.

    So: back to the chicken and cream recipes from Julia Child :) Theirs was, indeed, a Suprêmes de Volaille... aux champignons. So, of course, the cooking method was quite different from yours, since the cream is only used to finish off the sauce, and it wasn't a whole chicken. It was only that cream, mushrooms, and chicken all reminded me of their making that recipe :)) (p. 269 of my book)

    I did find Fondue de Poulet à la crème (on p. 262 of my book), and read about the differences between cooking in a stew method, a sauté method, and a fricassée method... and I know now that yours would (I guess?) be considered a fricassée, since you first started the cooking of the chicken in butter, and then later added the cream for cooking, not just finishing off the sauce. I learn so much from you (and Julia), Ken!

    In her fricassée section, she has Fondue de Poulet à la crème, which is closer to what you made, except that the chicken is cut up, and it doesn't specifically call for mushrooms (as you said, the method is more of a basic recipe onto which you can add many variations). I found a guy on YouTube making this... holy cow, his pot is full to the brim with cream, and, though he refers to it as "simmering", it's definitely boiling away! Here's his post, if you're intested.

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  3. "Fuel with the Beaver"? Love it!

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  4. I love the scenery up there. Last time I bought gas in NY state, I was shocked that it was so much more expensive than just a few miles away in Massachusetts -- I think the difference is the local taxes.

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  5. Hi The Beaver, I thought you might enjoy that. For those who don't know, The Beaver and her husband invited us to lunch while we were in Montreal and cooked a great meal featuring smoked fish and then duck legs with parsnips. Sorry, no pictures.

    Judy, thanks for the references to Julia Child's recipes. I checked and the page numbers are the same in my copy of MTAOFC. I'll have a look at that YouTube video.

    Emm, yes, fuel prices were definitely higher in NY than in Mass., which surprised me too.

    Starman, :^)

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