Day Two In Darien

Produce at Fairway

Marisa and Kathryn

Cookies

A Pensive Tyler

Up at 6:30, and both Rami and Tyler are up as well.  Tyler has SAT's this morning, so he is getting organized, or trying to, as he realized he had the wrong entry ticket, and Rami is going for a bike ride though he found he has a flat tire.  Life is trouble early morning.  It looks like it could be a nice day, clear right now, about 54 degrees, much warmer than the lake where it's 46.  Beth and Rami go off to NYC for the day and night, Mitch has an all day long board excursion, so it looks like we are stuck with Marisa, not a bad deal.

Yesterday was relaxing, as everyone was busy most of the day, the kids in school and Beth had her art class in the morning.  Evie and I decided to go to Fairway, one of our two favorite grocery stores, in Stanford, about five miles from their house.  I guess it was famous in the city, at first for it's vegetables, especially their freshness, but they later expanded to include everything.  We love the cheeses, always sample the various olive oils, and end up buying a couple of pounds of their coffee.

I wanted to try some Spanish Serrano ham, and as I was waiting in line, the man in front of me was also buying some.  He had lived in Madrid for four years so he got addicted to it.  He pointed out another version of Serrano, but this one was a hundred dollars a pound, compared to the one we were buying which was twenty eight dollars a pound.  We both were able to taste both hams, the expensive one more salty and drier but good.  We then bought a baguette, went to the cheese counter, talked with the purveyor, tried a couple and came home with four, a reggio Parmesan, a Spanish manchego, and two we have never had, the top two selling at Fairways, Midnight Moon, a goat cheese from Cypress Farms California, and Honey Bee Goat cheese, from Holland.  Late afternoon, we had them as an appetizer around 5:30, with Beth's friend Nancy.  We all loved the three cheeses, and along with the fig jam, which we also bought, we had a feast of flavors, salty, sweet, buttery, and then the baguette. What a great way to eat.

Before our appetizers, Marisa invited her friend Kathryn over and together with Evie, they spent an hour decorating mostly Halloween themed cookies, something the girls love to do.  Evie makes the sugar cookies in Chautauqua, so all that needs to be done is decorate them.  Evie even brings a huge bin of sprinkles along, so it's easy.

Unfortunately, we  also had four racks of ribs, cole slaw, and baked beans for dinner!  So we waited till 7:45 when Rami returned, to devour two racks, but we have two left over.  After dinner, Tyler and I watched the Hitchcock film, North by Northwest, as he had watched Psycho the night before.  We all went to bed around 10:30, with a big Saturday ahead of us.