Haddock and Reuben

July 29-30

From Batavia we were supposed to go almost due east to Baldwinsville to visit some friends.

One of them, Pat, was the lady who spotted me walking my bicycle across the Charles Bridge in Prague and pointed me out to Joanna. Being that easy to identify at a distance is one of the reasons that I had to give up robbing banks.

We last saw Pat and her husband, Bob, more than two years ago, when we stopped at their winter quarters in Hilton Head during our long ride across the South.

Google showed us the way to their home in Baldwinsville, and the route worked until the home stretch. A few miles from the final turn, the road was torn up. We turned right according to the detour sign.

We came around a curve to encounter a line of semis pulled over at the edge of the road.

I had no idea what was going on. Was this a strike by long-haul drivers? An impromptu get-together of mutual CBers? Or a tie-up caused by the detour?

I started to pass the trucks idling on the right until I saw others sitting in the oncoming direction and still others waiting in a line around a bend. I pulled in between two trucks and hoped my higher powers would send me a clue.

A pickup truck came up behind me, passed, and kept going. He looked local. I followed him.

Turns out the trucks at the bend were on a driveway leading some kind of gate. They were waiting to enter a depot of some sort.

We didn’t see any more detour signs, so as we were the day before, we were on our own.

We tried to follow signs to the Baldwinsville visitor center, but they disappeared too.

We wound up by accident at the Baldwinsville town hall. The door was locked, so Joanna rang the buzzer. 

A lady’s voice asked what we wanted.

“We’re lost and thought you might be able to help,” Joanna said.

They rang us in.

Being careful to explain every detail, the lady laid out the new instructions.

They worked just fine.

It was a treat to see Pat and Bob again, and we sat around for the afternoon to catch up.  

Joanna wanted to take them to dinner, and had asked them to choose where. We went a few miles away to Liverpool to a restaurant called The Retreat. 

Joanna and I have been eating a lot of red meat, so we focused on the seafood options. 

Haddock is a big favorite in this part of New York, Bob told us. So we both had versions of that.

Joanna’s came with a pink sauce that may have included honey.

I couldn’t make up my mind, so I opted for a sampler platter of haddock, scallops, and shrimp, all broiled in a lemon-butter sauce. Nothing goes with that better than a baked potato.

The meals were delicious. The only tastier filet I’ve ever eaten is catfish.

The beer selection wasn’t broad, but there was Syracuse Pale Ale, which Bob and I tried.  It was a bit on the watery side of the pale ales I’ve known. 

The next morning, we struck out for Oneida. Joanna wanted to see the Colgate campus, which she hadn’t seen since her son Patrick graduated from the university.

 

Oneida was the closest we could get to the school at a reasonable rent. It wasn’t a long drive, and the route was easy to follow.

We got to the hotel too early to check in and went on to the university. We drove around and photographed some of the grand buildings in an effort to capture the gravitas.

We stopped at the Colgate bookstore in Hamilton, a few blocks from the campus. Joanna bought a card with a photo of an administration building. She sent it to Patrick to tell him, “We were here. So were you.”

The photo of the day, the Amish guy taking his buggy through the five-points intersection in Hamilton, happened just after we stepped out of the store.

Three Pines, a tavern not far from the hotel, showed up on Tripadvisor.com among the top third of restaurants in Oneida. More specifically, fifth among 16.

It’s a neighborhood place that, when we got there, had a crowded bar and an empty dining room, which is where we sat.

The young lady who waited on us was new to the job. But I didn’t catch on to that at first. The last thing you want when you’re starting to wait tables in a bar is to run into a beer snob.

She asked if we had a drink order. I asked what they had to offer. “Anything on tap?”

She mentioned Coke and Pepsi. 

No draft beer? I remembered Shawbucks without taps in Jamestown.

She admitted she didn’t know, but added, much to her credit, that she could find out.

Joanna, catching on quicker than I could, suggested that I go look at the taps myself.

So far, so good. When I came back and told her I wanted “Southern Tier Hazy IPA,” she did a kind of double-take. It was a case of too much information all at once.  

To me, I was just talking about a basic food group. But spoken in one stream to a nervous youngster who doesn’t know beer, it’s gibberish.

“Southern Tier” by itself is a common term around here that refers to roughly the bottom third of the state. “Hazy IPA” really didn’t need an explanation either.  It just needed to be said more slowly and by itself.

And what a delicious pint it was, too.

Joanna had more haddock, done without glaze or sauce this time. For some reason, I was in the mood for a Reuben.

A good time was had by all.

This doesn’t quite bring me up to date, gang, but I’m getting tired. Besides, I mainly wanted to let everybody know that I’m alive and striving to keep the nation’s craft breweries alive too.

Good night, all. Stay well and remember to eat your haddock.

Harry