Winterfell, Vermont

So it turns out Winterfell is not in Westeros, but really in Stowe, Vermont. I was driving up the mountain road on my way to work for a night of catering to Stowe's "finest" and noticed a small sign on the side of the road in the Edgewise building. Instantly I was overcome with excitement at seeing our small ski town embracing its inner nerd, something it rarely ever does. I asked around if anyone knew about the sign or what sort of business was in the building besides the ski shop. No one had an answer and only one other person knew what Winterfell was or about Game of Thrones. I stopped by the building on my way home and then again today to investigate, but being off-season the ski shop was closed and there were no other clues about the sign's meaning or origin. I'm going to have see what develops over the course of the summer.

Besides finding out more about the Winterfell sign, today was also a day for Israeli salad. I've been missing brunch with the Hebro and Kyle when he used to come and so I decided to make some Israeli salad for dinner tonight. Usually the dish is served at breakfast, but since I slept in today and didn't think of it until this afternoon when I was at the Agway buying seeds for the summer vegetable garden. It's a simple dish that only takes about fifteen minutes to prepare once you have all the ingredients. To make the salad all you need is a couple of large tomatoes, a couple of peeled cucumbers, a large red bell pepper, and a mall bunch of scallions. Dice all of the ingredients and place them in a large bowl. Add lemon juice, olive oil, and spices to taste and then mix everything together. Some people like to serve the dish right away, but I found that it tastes best when it sits a little while before being served. The flavors get a chance to seep together and infuse the vegetables.

I sampled some of the salad before putting it in the fridge and I think it tastes pretty good, almost as good as the Hebrew Friend's. 

Martin feels pregnant.

Crazy weekend. I'm not even sure how I managed to fit everything in that I did or that I even made it to Monday, but it happened and now it's Monday. After Thursday's adventures in eating which led to a very slow Friday morning breakfast at Yonni's with Cynthia! It was Israeli themed, very delightful assortment of foods especially the vegetable salad. Anyways after work I had double work and then went out. My night was extremely slow and I only pulled about $60 and was going to go home when Yonni asked if I wanted to go out with him and some of his friends. He caught me at just the right moment going out the door because I was all set to go home and take a shower and just go to bed, but instead I dug my other set of work clothes and drove out to meet them. While I was routing around in my car I had a nice conversation about how I'm from Vermont with our sous chef T. I don't actually know what T's real name is because it's just what everyone calls him. I should also start carrying around eyeliner with me because I didn't have a lot of makeup on at work and no one else had any with them before I left for the bar. It happened again Saturday night too when I went out again. Friday was a good night: Yonni did karaoke to Lady Gaga. I also got a chance to meet a couple of his friends. Very nice people, I particularly enjoyed his friend's girlfriend. She had a lovely personality and was incredibly funny. She also introduced Yon to Jerseylicious. He already does his own version of GTL, maybe a little Hebrew with a Jersey accent now.

Saturday I woke up early and drove out to Lancaster to see my mom who was down visiting my grandfather. It was a nice visit. We went out to breakfast at some kitschy country place. The food was good but it had a very religiously oppressed feeling to it, but you get that feeling anyways when you're in Lancaster County. There was a book rack with books for sale to keep waiting guests entertained. My two personal favorites were 52 Lies Heard in Church Every Sunday and The Big Book of Church Jokes.

There were a couple other Amish romance stories but I had to stop to eat. After breakfast we drove out to Palmyra to get Lebanon bologna for my dad. Lance only likes a very specific hard, extra dry bologna that comes in a cloth sack from a small specialty meat store with a German name where he grew up. Every time my mom goes without him she picks up the wrong one and there are only two to choose from. This time we made sure to call Lance before purchasing. She also kept picking things up and offering to buy them for me and my friends. I personally don't care for shoefly pie but if Yonni or Marg do I can give them directions to the place. After Palmyra was Lititz. Lititz is a smaller quainter version of Hershey that always smells of a better tasting chocolate due to the small factory that melts and molds chocolate almost every day of the week. We had lunch at a really charming cafe where the waitresses are dressed up as Victorian newsboys. The food was really really good and I may even drive back to visit again even though I've had more than my fair share of small yuppy towns. After lunch my mom had a strong desire to get her eyebrows waxed so she took me to get my nails done and then we did a little shopping. I've developed an obsession with the Lacie collection from Victoria's Secret and I've been trying to collect something in every color available, except for the ones with glitter. The still look a little tacky for me. I came home afterwards and then went over to Yonni's for more Israeli food.It was a nice time with Yonni, Cynthia! and Harry. Later I did the Cricket circuit with him and his sister. I didn't drink much, but when we left I got really really warm almost to the point that I thought I was going to pass out on his kitchen floor. I don't know what's going on but that's the second time that that's happened to me this summer and I'm starting to think that it's hormones from my birth control. I'm not thrilled if that's the case because the other forms out there don't look very appealing to me unless I've had three kids or want to gain three hundred pounds. I eventually fell asleep though and woke up Sunday feeling well rested and a little paranoid that I was getting sick. Summer colds are no fun.

Work was super slow Sunday morning. I made about fifty bucks for lunch and then got cut. I would have been made but there were absolutely no reservations on the books and with eleven servers on I thought it would be fair to let someone else try and make some money. I'm really excited that we have one of our old bartenders back. He's crazy but he does good bar business. After work I was maybe going to see a  movie but then when my plans got postponed I passed out. I wasn't even aware that I was tired until I laid down and then was completely shocked to wake up around 10:30pm. I only nap like that when I'm sick and my body needs extra rest so I think that I just needed some extra rest time to kick whatever I had going on. I only woke up too because I had a billion texts from my mom, Yonni and Neil. My mom just had to tell me she made it home before she went to bed and Neil wanted me to go to the bar with him and some people from work. If I hadn't already been in bed I would have considered it, but I told him that we would go out tomorrow night and play quizzo and have Ryan serve us kitchen messups. Sasha can come too! Yonni texted to tell me to blog and how he's really into Jerseylicious. I was going to write after that but then when I laid my head down again I didn't wake up until this morning.  I really needed the sleep I guess because I feel completely fine today and ready for running after work and maybe a showing of X-Men. I also need to get contact with Marg and see if she wants to go to Zavah before I head up to Vermont this weekend.