My parents came to town for a week over Memorial Day weekend and, I have to say, it was the best. The week they were here was simply wonderful! We drank a bottle of wine, ate custard or grape pie (it’s a Finger Lakes thing), and played cards every single night. We ate Greek, Italian, German, American, and more at a bunch of fantastic local restaurants, took a long and lazy stroll through Highland Park, made lots of guacamole, did Friday night Bingo (I can hear you laughing from 600 miles away…it’s a big thing up here!), went to the market for rhubarb and fresh-cut lilacs, visited many ice cream parlors and apple markets, had a family movie night, saw a play at the theatre, spent a day on the Keuka Lake wine trail, and cruised the scenic Erie Canal on a charter boat with margaritas in hand. Clearly, I want them to come back immediately.
If you missed Part I, you can view it here.
Below is our morning at the Rochester Public Market where we ogled all the tasty, fresh, local upstate NY produce and came home with a beautifully fragrant bunch of just-cut lilacs (which only last a day or two after cutting, unfortunately) and about 12 bundles of freshly picked rhubarb (my culinary obsession, if you didn’t know) from my resident rhubarb guy. Mom took a bunch of it back home to Texas since limp rhubarb runs about $8 lb. there. When in NY, you stock up on excellent rhubarb for cheap!
Afterward, we piled in the car for our day trip to the stunning Keuka Lake Wine Trail. The trip down was nothing short of divine! Really, the views around Keuka Lake are absolutely splendid and the weather that day was mild, breezy, sunny, and generally unbeatable! The wineries are up in the hills surrounding the lake and, in addition to a wide array of truly fantastic wines, the wineries around this particular lake have the most incredible views from their tasting rooms. We visited 4 out of the dozens of wineries (Dr. Konstantin Frank, Keuka Spring Vineyards, Keuka Lake Vineyard, and Rooster Hill Vineyards), tasted somewhere between 24 and 36 wines each, had lunch at Bully Hill Vineyard’s restaurant that boasts a killer view of the lake and equally killer food (the best Texas brisket sandwich I’ve has outside of Texas, ever!), did a wine and gourmet chocolate tasting at Keuka Lake Vineyard (highly recommended!), and collectively took home about 15 bottles of wine that day alone. There are many more wineries around this lake we wanted to try…but that just means we’ll have to return for round 2 this summer…and my parents will just have to come back for another visit!
{I don’t remember what size bottle this is, but it’s about 4x the size of a standard wine bottle…and I think I need it}
{It may not look like much, but it was remarkably delicious. A tender, flavorful brisket is an art!}
{This tasting room view at Keuka Spring is so fabulous I can hardly stand it!}
{I hope you noticed the cat I captured strolling right through this field of cows. I took this picture from the passenger seat of our car going 60 mph. I wanted a picture of the sweet cows grazing in the field and was later surprised to see this picture had been photobombed by a cat! Love it!}
{9 of the 15 bottles of wine my parents bought. They took home 10 of them in their 2 carry-on sized suitcases and managed to make sure both bags weighed in under 46 lbs each and none of the bottles broke on the flight home. That’s true skill! We drank the other 5 bottles. They were delicious}
More to come tomorrow; stay tuned!
