The Great Camps & the Vermont Problem — a Northeast Roadtrip Postscript

I’m always intrigued when I travel by the different names people in the different regions use for the same things. In Ireland, for example, they call gravel along the road “loose chippings”.

In the Northeast, we discovered that the bumpy line in the middle of the road is called a “rumblestrip”, what appears for all practical purposes to the Californian eye to be a lake is actually called a “pond,” and a small structure for camping is called a “lean to.”

Sagamore

Sagamore

All the large lakeside houses in the Adirondacks are called “camps”. We arrived at Big Wolf and followed the big directional sign pointing the way to the thirty or so camps on the lake. Pulling into the Buck Summerhill Camp, we were still puzzled. It looked to us a like a house.

“Why is it called a ‘camp’?” we asked. More

Let it Roll, Baby, Roll

It was Nat’s idea, and a good one at that.

“Let’s make lobster rolls on Sunday,” he said on Wednesday over margaritas at our house. “Let’s invite ourselves over to the Glynn’s house and go swimming and do it there.” This was my kind of spontaneous inspiration!

Nat would buy the lobsters, I would do the cooking, and they would host. (Coincidentally, as it turned out, our friends, “the Glynn’s” — Aaron and Britt — had been planning on inviting us all over that very day, so they were amenable to the announcement that they would be hosting a party.)

IMG_4185

Nat got online to order the crustaceans, and I leapt from my chair. “Hold on, hot dog!” I said, “That’ll cost you $75 in shipping! Have you tried the 99 Ranch Market?” More

Cape Cod Clam Chowder

I was wandering the fresh fish aisle of my favorite Japanese market, contemplating what to buy for a sushi dinner, when some particularly beautiful clams caught my eye.

Manila clams

I love clams. My family does not. My kids mistrust small chewy dark things, and my wife is generally squeamish about bivalves. More