Elmer’s will be serving sit-down Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner on Saturday, and Breakfast and Lunch on Sunday.

______________________________

Now here’s something new:

Remember how we’ve asked before for your old ink-pens (as they call them in some places) and your old coffee mugs, and the return of our Bag-Share bags (oh yeah!  Those!)

Well now I have something new I want your old of: 

Silverware

Not the good stuff of your grandmother’s (although I certainly wouldn’t turn that away) –no, what I need is your regular old mis-matched, how-did-that-get-in-my-silverware-drawer silverware.  (Or, as they say in Mississippi, Civilware.)  Knives (butter and steak), Forks and Spoons.  Don’t need so many soup or iced tea spoons,  just regular old ones.  One at a time, 7 at a time, a whole set that you wish you didn’t have to worry about – whatever.  We go through a lot of silverware here (where do it go????)  And so, that seemed like a good idea for all the stuff you don’t know what to do with.  Maybe you even have some of ours that you took home by accident!  If so, we could use it!

You know that Friday night is our regular dinner, and I forgot to put in the last e-mail that we will have all of the regular items, too.  Here’s the full menu for Friday night:

Appetizer:

Stuffed Mushrooms with parmesan, butter, breadcrumbs, thyme   $6

The Big Salad:

Spinach Salad with apples, bacon, hard boiled egg, red onion, dijon vinaigrette   $9

The Bread Plate:

Bread Plate pickled beets, mandarin oranges, nuts, cheeses, olives, AnnaBread   $10

The Special Special:

Spicy Peanut Tofu with Wild Rice Pilaf, Roasted Carrots   $12

or

Chicken Marsala Mushrooms, with Wild Rice Pilaf, Roasted Carrots   $13

The Mac and Cheese:

Mary’s Mac and Cheese

$3

All right!  See you this weekend!   And brang us that Civilware, y’all!

October 6, 2011

This past Sunday morning we were all standing around with nothing to do because no one was here for breakfast.  So I thought to myself in my head, we need one of them One-Call Systems like the schools and towns have so that I can call every single local person in Ashfield on a Sunday morning, wake them up and say, “Hey!  Nobody’s here!”  when nobody’s here.  Good idea, huh?  Round about 8:00 on a Sunday  morning? 

But you know, if you want me to e-mail you on a slow Saturday or Sunday morning just in case you were wondering, let me know and I’ll do that.  Then when you get up naturally and are having coffee with your e-mail you can say, “Hey Hon – wanna go to Elmer’s?  There’s nobody there this morning.”   And then you can saunter in.

And you know, there is always the Insider’s Special where you call us and, if we have a list we’ll put you on it so that by the time you get here you’re at or near the top!  (Really!  We like taking care of our people so that regardless of how many outsiders are around, you are an insider!

Fall Festival!

Here’s how we do Fall Festival:

Because it would be difficult to try and serve all those out-of-towners at once,

we only do Pancakes and Burritoes for breakfast on Saturday and Sunday. 

We serve breakfast from 7:30 am until 11:30 am.   We don’t do the regular waitress service, but we feed you well!

Then we switch over to lunch, and that is outside at our food booth (right beside Elmer’s.) 

There we do our pretty darn famous

Crawfish Pasta and Pulled Pork 

Shayne’ll be coming to make both of those for us and guess what, by the way:

Shayne’s parents Skippy and Wanda Walker were just on the Food Channel making their pulled pork!  The very same pulled pork we serve here for Fall Festival!  So, don’t just believe me, believe the people at the Food Channel who found their food worthy of putting on the TeeVee in the Best BBQ category!

We are doing dinner on Friday night, just like always:

Grilled chicken with lemon, garlic and oregano

Mashed potatoes

Sauteed greens with pine nuts

$11

Autumn vegetable lasagna

$10

Burgers, veggie burgers

Big salad (TBA)

Bread plate

Mac-n-cheese

Also, we will be featuring our fourth annual

Elmer’s Beer and Wine Garden

again this year at the back of the store!  Come in, go to the back, say the secret password (Morris Dancer) and you’re in!

(There’s not really a secret password – I just finished watching Ken Burns’ Prohibition.)

__________________________

Have you seen those gigantic Honeycrisp apples we have right now?  They’re from Clark Brothers Orchards and they’re huge!  And Eco-grown, meaning minimal spraying and lots of monitoring.  It takes me two days to eat one apple.  (I’m serious!)

Sept 23. 2011

Thank you, all of you who are still buying Indulgences!  They are selling very well despite the mathematician who wrote to me telling me my math was off when I did them and I need to make them better. 

Okay.  Everybody who bought one so far:  If you bought the one that has 10 drinks with two extra (making 12) for $27.50 – draw one extra little drink on there so that you get a total of thirteen drinks.  If you bought the $68.75 one for 24 drinks, and it already gets two extra, then draw THREE MORE on there so that you get a total of 31 hot drinks!   (The next ones I print up will have the corrected number of Indulgence on them.)

(I’m sure this doesn’t make sense at all to you non-mathematicians – like me.)  But you’ll get PLENTY of drinks for your cards because we are so appreciative!  And I’ll alert the staff at the counter to make sure you get all the drinks coming to you.) 

But regardless of how much you spent on them, EVERY card gets you into Heaven.  (I forgot to put that on there, too – but God knows who you are.) 

Rob says we should have our own game at the fair that’s exactly like Whack-a-Mole, only it’s called “Running Elmer’s.” (Watch for that next year!) 

 This week Mary’s out of town today, so I was trying to replace her when Gretchen said she could cook, but her Elmer’s oven has been broken all week, so she’s had a hard time baking and I hated to make her do dinner too.  Then Danielle called to say she couldn’t work this Friday night due to health issues, so then I thought, “Do we just cancel dinner with no cook, no waitress?”  So I thought maybe we should, but then Cassie called to say that she can waitress so Okay!  Now we have dinner on Friday night!  WAIT!  The dishwasher just now called in sick.  (This is all true.)   I always feel like I’m a gymnast in the Olympics, doing complicated stunts trying to keep it all on course and then doing a triple lutz at the end and saying, “Ta daaaa!  Dinner is served!”

This just in from the Film Festival:

The Ashfield FilmFest announces the opening of a second venue for the 5th annual gala event. It will be at the Congregational Church across the street from Town Hall. Exactly the same program will be presented including opening ceremonies. 

I’ve talked to a lot of people who saw the films at the church last year and they all told me they’d rather be at the church.  I know there are more films this year than last, so I think it’s going to be great fun!  

So we don’t have a real Rob Report this week, so I wrote this as if it were the Rob Report, but really it’s the Nan Report:

You know what’s pique-ing?  People who write you out of the blue, and then when you write them back you get an automated response back saying that they’re blocking spam and so you have to fill out a form (however short) in order to let your e-mail pass through their spam-wall.  Sometimes the first form isn’t good enough and you have to prove a second time that you’re worth hearing from.  These are people who came to me!  (This happens a lot with people who sign up for the e-mail, and with people who e-mail looking for information about the Inn or about Elmer’s.)  Hey all y’all with Earthlink – I wonder how many people you actually want to hear from don’t fill out the form?  I have AOL and, while people talk a LOT of smack about AOL, I get precious little Spam.  So maybe they’re doing something right.  (Was that Rob-like enough?)  No, if it were Rob-like it would have been funny. 

Here’s something else Rob would write about:  I was just eating a bowl of cereal that advertised itself on the front of the box as being “Honey-touched” because you can’t actually say “sweetened with” anymore, because the word “sweet” implies sugar and you can’t really say “sugar” in health-food world.  So I looked on the side to see how much honey was actually touching the cereal and the second ingredient was honey.  The third ingredient was “Evaporated Cane Juice Crystals.”  And those machinations on how to get around saying “sugar” made me laugh out loud.

Here’s the Rob Report about Rob:

I had lunch with Rob and someone who’s well-known in the music world the other day.  I know the musician, but he didn’t know Rob.  Rob was freaking hilarious and I think it really took the guy off-guard – I think he’s probably used to being the most interesting person in the room, and I mean that in a nice way.  I really like the guy a lot and he’s extremely interesting and personable.  But it was fun watching Rob interest him.  Rob is an interesting guy!  As long as you don’t try to hug him.  (Although that phenomenon is pretty interesting in itself!)

 September 8

We got busy last week.

In the space of seven days we did the Cummington Fair, had a hurricane, produced the Night of Cajun Fiddlers, and decorated and catered two weddings – and made all the food for both rehearsal dinners.  I would like to thank Elmer’s staff who just kept on a-going, running Elmer’s as if there nothing else were going on around them and also thank everyone who worked on all those events for working their butts off.  And thanks to you, the attending public who came and ate and danced and feted all the events

Dinner This Week:

Our baker Gretchen and Bill Viera are cooking this week again!  September is our hardest month in employee circulation because all the summer kids go back to college and the rest of us end up working lots of shifts and hours until we get other grown ups to come and work here for the winter.  (If you know of any grown ups who are looking for jobs, they might come in and apply.)  So Mary is cooking lots of breakfasts this week and so Gretchen and Bill are going to do dinner!

BBQ Chicken with beans, home made coleslaw with fresh, Gretchen-made dinner rolls. 

And Vegetarian Lasagna

And Cheeseburgers

And Mac and Cheese

(Just no bread plate or big salad this week.)

So come and see us.

Rob has just been too busy and tired and uninspired to write a Report again this week.  But he has worked his butt off and sometimes, when you have two weddings coming up in one weekend, that’s even more important than a Rob Report.  (Maybe not for you, but for me.) 

So no Rob Report, but here are two events coming up that we recommend to you:

and

August 24 

I know you’re asking, “What in the world is happening to the Elmer’s E-mail???  It gets later and later every week!”  Do you know we’ve been putting out this e-mail every single week since October of 2006 and we’ve never missed a week, even when the computer crashed last winter?  It’s hard work, but it’s here.  Sometimes it’s a little late, like now.  You know why?  Because there’s so much to do to get ready for the fair!  Shayne is in the kitchen right NOW spicing up the butts and putting them in the smoker to get them ready for tomorrow.  She’s only doing 12 tonight, figuring that’ll be enough for tomorrow.  And then tomorrow she’ll do more.  Overnight smoked butts.  Ohhhh so good! 

We are serving at the Fair:  BBQ Pulled Pork, My Home-made Strawberry Lemonade and Gretchen’s cookies.

Come and see us at the Cummington Fair—CRAP!  I still have to make our sign tonight.  This is why the e-mail is late. 

Wanna hear a good story?

Last year when I worked the Newport Folk Festival, there was a guy there who made wooden routed signs—just like the sign in front of the Ashfield House – carved, painted wooden signs, and he did really nice work. 

I had some time off during the festival so I looked at his work and talked to him for quite a while about the sign business, about his work, etc.  He said it was a small business that he and his wife did together.  Very nice guy with gorgeous work.

He had a sign in his display that had violets and the number “10” on it.  I needed a house number for the Inn (Number 10 Norton Hill Road) and decided to buy it.  And then I thought, “Hey!  I need a sign for the inn!” So we discussed price and design and I decided to go ahead and order a sign for the inn.

That kind of personalized work required payment up front, so I paid him for both the Number 10 sign and the inn sign;  a small sign, just to go on the front of the house beside the front door.  When I got back home I sent him the inn’s logo.  He needed it in a different format, so I re-sent it and we discussed size and location and all.  He reminded me that I had forgotten to pick up my “10” sign when I left, but said he would send it to me with the Inn’s sign in a few weeks.  Very, very nice guy.

The sign was to take 8 weeks, so I waited and after about 10 weeks I e-mailed to ask about the sign.  Never heard back, so I called.  Never heard back so I wrote and called and left messages and never heard back.  Finally I just decided I’d wait until I returned to Newport again this year.  Since most of the vendors there come back every year, I thought I’d just wait and confront him about it then.

I asked Tim, the guy who is in charge of all vendors if the sign guy was going to be there this year and Tim shook his head.  “No – turns out that he’s a con artist.  He just takes orders, takes money and you never hear from him again.  He even called me right after the festival, told me that I had given him a bad spot and that he hadn’t made any money  and he stopped payment on his check for his booth!”

I Googled the guy and found that indeed, there are (and I’m not making this up) about 900 complaints against him for doing exactly that.  Taking the money and running.  According to some of the complaints I read on line,  if you get the NY state attorney’s office involved, he will sometimes do the sign after all.  So he apparently can do the work if he gets nervous.

So, I need a sign for the inn.  He’s got my $250 and so I’m thinking, what if he suddenly got a whole lot of e-mails telling him to do my sign?  I write him often, but wouldn’t it scare him if he suddenly got hundreds of e-mails saying that he can’t do that, and that I need my signs?

If you’re in it, write to him!  His name is George Kise and his e-mail address is Geokise@verizon.net.  I’m sure he’d love to hear from you!  And he might even think it’s weird enough that he’d do my signs!  After all, if I got 700 of my closest friends to write, what else might I do?  (Though I would never actually threaten him.   I’m always nice when I call and write.)  Tell him he doesn’t even have to paint it.  I’ll paint it if he’ll just route it.

_______________________________________

So the Fair is this week and:

Cajun Fiddlers

Joel Savoy and David Greenly

here at Elmer’s.

If you don’t believe all I’ve been telling you about them, go to

SavoyMusicCenter.com to read about Joel and his family.  Here’s some quotes about Joel and his music:
“Joel Savoy is one of my favorite musicians on just about any instrument, but on guitar and Cajun Fiddle he is truly outstanding.”-Linda Ronstadt

“Everything Joel Savoy touches turns to music.”-T-Bone Burnett

(I actually have a photo of Joel’s parents, Marc and Ann Savoy, taken at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, probably before he was born.)

David Greely was the founding fiddler for Steve Riley and the Mamou Playboys and his heritage ain’t slouching either.  Read about him at DavidGreely.com.  –And I like that you can read his website in either English or French, if you prefer.  That’s a real Cajun.

You can find David and Joel playing together on YouTube – just put in “Greely Savoy Duo.”    

So they will be here at Elmer’s on Thursday night, September 1^st.  We’ll have dinner that night;  Shayne’s coming back to make us some more of her pulled pork just because you want to eat that while you’re listening to them boys play.  We will have a vegetarian entrée as well that night, but Mary’s out of town and I’m not sure yet what we’ll be making.  Something good.

Dinner is $9 and begins at 5pm.  The concert is $10 and begins at 7pm.  Come for both!  Make it a real Louisiana night!

Dinner on Friday of this week: 

The Vegetarian:

(Vegetarian) Stuffed Peppers 

lemon dilled rice, feta cheese, tomatoes, olives garlic

served with roasted sweet potatoes

The Special Special:

Chicken ‘n Herb Dumplings

pretty darn traditional with carrots, celery, herbs

The Big Salad:

Lentil Salad w/ Mixed Greens

toasted walnuts, celery, red onion spices, red wine vinagrette

As well as our traditional  Bread Plate and Cheeseburgers.  I’m not sure about the mac and cheese.  Mary’s out of town and she’s the one who makes that. 

So Rob is waaaay too busy this week to write a report.  I believe he’ll be back next week.  And I got to go make our Fair sign!

Oh by the way, about this hurricane:

I have evacuated many, many times for on-target, no-escaping-this-one hurricanes that went somewhere else instead.  That’s what they do.  Sometimes they show up!  But lots of times they don’t.  And those guys who get you all worked up on the Weather Channel?  That’s their job so we’ll watch them.  I ain’t saying it’s not coming, but the National Weather Service isn’t nearly as whooped up over Irene as the Weather Channel is, and so, I’m just saying.  (Hurricane Katrina didn’t even hit New Orleans, by the way.  It went to the Gulf Coast, after they were sure it was going to New Orleans.  It was the levee breaking that took out New Orleans, not the hurricane.) 

So that’s the Hurricane Report.  Brought to you by the Rob Report.

August 9th

I have a question:

What is the story with street signs in a town?  Why can’t they put them up?  I’m not talking about Ashfield; I’m talking about Springfield, Newport, RI and Amherst.  And lots of other places.  After driving around for an hour in Newport a couple of weeks ago looking for the place I was supposed to be staying, I finally found a policeguy and asked him where the street was. 

“If you’re ever mayor of Newport,” I said, “Would you put street signs up?”

He said,  (and I’m not making this up)

“I went to Modesto, California once back when I was in college and they had street signs everywhere!  On all the corners!  I thought that was a real good idea.  But no, they don’t do that here.  It’s a good idea, though!”

In Amherst, it appears they have the corner of Pleasant Street and Pleasant Street, but they don’t have signs anywhere saying even that.  Trying to come back from there going a back way last week I ended up in Leverett and it was because I kept looking for signs that said “North Pleasant St.”  I saw signs that said, “East Pleasant Street”—-but only on the UMass Signs, not actual street signs.  And I thought, “Surely they don’t have two Pleasant Streets, but apparently they do—-but maybe through embarrassment thereof, they don’t want to tell anyone by way of a street sign that they have two intersecting streets with the same name, downtown.

It’s probably because I make so many signs for so many events that I think there should be more signs when people need them.  My job at festivals is to make it so that people who know nothing about where they’re going or what they’re supposed to do when they get there can actually figure it out.  I think that everyone should be so kind as to hire a me for strangers.

I also need to correct and error I made in my column in the Ashfield News when I said that Cheerwine was our fastest selling grocery product.  I was wrong!  We only sell about 24 bottles a week or so of Cheerwine, whereas we now sell an average of 219 loaves of Annabread a week!

The Rob Report

Last year was the last year I was going to be detached from my birthday and not tell anyone. I went through the whole day and not one person said “happy birthday”, which deprived me of being able to say “yeah, whatever”. By the end of the day I felt miserable, and had to casually mention it in conversation: “yeah, I gotta get the oil changed on the van it’s my birthday and have them look at the brakes”. “OH MY GOD IT’S YOUR BIRTHDAY! WHY DIDN’T YOU TELL US?” And by the time everyone finished the song I was crying tears of self-pity. 

So this year I told everyone, five days in advance, just to give them enough preparation time. Folks, you have to celebrate your birthday. It’s the only holiday of the year set aside just for you, and you need to remind your friends and family early and often so you can get the maximum benefit out of it. Make it a big deal. Wear a shiny pointy hat all day and toot your horn if anyone doesn’t acknowledge you with special deference. And by all means, stuff your face with as much free food and booze you can.

I would like to thank everyone who sang “Happy Birthday” on my voicemail. My sister Nancy was first (as usual), but she sings a song only Minnesotans of a certain age know. It was from “Lunch with Casey”, our train-themed local kid’s show. Let me find a picture…

Casey and his sidekick Roundhouse. After decades of secrecy, they recently wed in New York.

The Minnesota birthday song is better because it’s just so much more happy sounding. It

makes the regular song sound rather laborious, which it is, because it never ends on the same key it’s started. It even has a vastly different title: “Happy, Happy Birthday”. This year Nancy attempted to accompany herself on piano, but I’m not sure she put too much thought into her choice of chords. The whole thing had a dissonant ending-credits-of-a-Satanic-horror-movie vibe to it. I immediately contacted Verizon and had her put on my No Call list.

But I also got a rendition that made me break out in a cold sweat (think Marilyn Monroe singing to JFK and you get the idea). That message will be saved for…29 days.

Take care,

Rob (toot!)

Ed note:  Faithful readers may remember that a few weeks ago Rob mentioned something in the Report about not liking to be hugged by random people.  I believe he said something along the lines of, “I’ll jump through a plate glass window to avoid a hug.”  So what did we ALL do on his birthday?

You should see his scars.  All that glass . . .

Ed. Note to my Brother who Works for Microsoft:  He was just kidding.

June 28th

I would have sent this out earlier, but I was sitting on Mike Skalski’s front porch this evening eating home made banana bread with ice cream and I thought, “Some things are more important than others.”

You want to hear a good story?

So I had been thinking about little towels and the feasibility thereof, when today, and I’m not making this up, a package arrived from Minnetonka, Minnesota, from someone I do not know, and it was a box full of little white hand towels—lots of them.  No note, no explanation, just little white hand-towels with which to wipe one’s hands. 

Now isn’t that weird?  They are exactly twice the size I need, each one is, so I’m going to cut them in half and hem the one edge so that I’ll have twice as many!  And one less bag of trash a day!

Speaking of AnnaBread, she’ll be baking on Monday this week because of the holiday.

My old friend (since 1978) Juergen Franz has a little guesthouse that he rents out in Witzenhausen, Germany, and he told me to advertise it to Americans who might want to take a trip to Germany and vacation there. 

It is good for two peopble, travelling in europe Igt`s good to rest for a while and it is good for those who like gardening and nature and wine and good music and sunset and good food.  Flat with two rooms (sleeping (small), living (big), a small kitchen, bathroom, Floor, and small veranda. Also a part of garden with fruits of the season, good for two, very ökological constructed, good for allergicers. Not good for freaks, smokers or drinkers (non – smoking is a must!). Per day: 60.- € inclusiv free fruits or vegetables.

Das schöne Häuschen liegt in der small town of Witzenhausen, zwischen Göttingen und Kassel. Witzenhausen is the smallest University-town of germany (5000 inhabitans) and the cherrytree-lodge is at the end of a small street right in front of cherrytree.plantages and next to the forest. Last house in the street and a fantastic view just in the green nature. It is a modern house with a mediterran ambiente. We have four cheeps and about 4500 qm ground. It`s near to the town but also very direkt in nature – small and beautifull. Good for walkers and bikers and best for winedrinkers. I also have a wineroof above the veranda. Visitors live with us or better next door to us, but have an own intrancedoor, , that means – separat, if they want to be seperat. We can help them to find interesting tourist attractions of the region, all small, all not spectaciular, but – as you know .- very typicall german. We speek english and can help them to come around.

So if you are interested, contact me and I’ll put you in contact with him.

(You may think I’m somehow making fun of Juergen’s English and I am not at all.  I adore Jurgen, have adored him for 33 years and am impressed at how much better his English has gotten.  I especially like this because of the “We speek English and can help them to come around.”)  It also proves he can speak English and can help you to come around if you go stay at his house!  (I’m just trying to figure out what cheeps are.  Chickens, maybe?)

 But I don’t have a Rob Report.  Sometimes the columns write themselves, and sometimes you’re just too busy to come up with them, and that was where Rob was today.  But next week.

February 1st

Well sir, I got rid of my Christmas tree today.  Thought it was about time.  See under: New Year’s Eve, Chris Smither weekend and Concert, Boxcar Lillies Concert and another weekend event we had at the Inn this past weekend.  That’s why the tree has been here so long.  And the good-smelling tree has kept me company, even if he had blocked a good deal of light from the window.  He looked kind of bewildered out there getting snowed on all of a sudden after I tossed him out (I think he had grown pretty happy in here by the gas stove.)  I told him, “I think you’ll be happier out there—you are a tree, after all.”  And then I shut the door.  He’s got to learn to suck it up.

In New Orleans they sometimes keep their trees around and decorate them with Mardi Gras festoons in purple, green and gold.  I thought about doing that, but Mardi Gras comes so late this year.

Note to people reading this in Louisiana:  Hey, you know what I was doing all yesterday afternoon?  Shoveling snow off my roof—at my house and at the inn.  We already had 2 feet of snow up there and we’re supposed to get another 2 feet by tomorrow with some ice, and you see, it’s the ice that makes the roof cave in.  What I really like are the people who say, “Well, if that roof caves in there’s not that much that’ll get hurt, so I’m not going to worry about that one;  I’ll concentrate on this one over my living room.” 

This note just in from Gretchen the Baker:  The best necessity when you’re snowed in your house is dessert.  And she should know—she’s from upstate New York.

I think it would be kind of hard to go from a Big-Snow State to a No-Snow State, as here you get a good number of days in the winter when you are just snowed in and you can’t do anything.  (I’m going to hear about this from The Association of People Who Get Stuck Plowing on Snow Days”, but even they get to sit by the fire and be warm at night.)   But in No-Snow States you’re on every day!  Unless there’s a hurricane, then you’re spending the whole day not only shopping (like people do here for big snow storms) but boarding up your house and sitting on the Causeway in your car in a line of traffic trying to get out of town, too.  As long as you have heat, there’s a lot less terror in snowstorms than in hurricanes.

While writing this I heard on the roof such a clatter, went to investigate, and found a squirrel holding onto the window screens of my “sun” room for dear life.  He kept trying to find a foothold to cling to, but finally fell off into the snow.  I’m glad he didn’t find the one missing-pane hole that I discovered yesterday;  he would have come in and taken up residence as I would not have known how to persuade him to leave.  But he could have filled the hole in my life where Mr. Christmas Tree was a few minutes ago.  In retrospect, it could have been nice. 

Hey!  It’s Super Bowl this Sunday.  The Saints aren’t playing this year, so I’m not sure why anyone cares, but apparently they do, so okay. 

Want some food for it?  Since we don’t care about who’s playing, we’ll make the food!  And you can concentrate on watching the game!  This could work out. 

Here’s what we’re thinking about:

Curried Chicken Salad with AnnaBread Baguettes 

Chili – either meaty or vegetar

Chicken Stew with Biscuits.   

An appetizer platter with artichoke dip, guacamole, hummus, assorted breads and crackers. 

E-Mail Mary at  Mary@elmersstore.com for prices and she will tailor-make your food for the size group you’ve got coming to watch the game!

AND, we’ll do desserts for your party, too!  Gretchen will, of course, make whatever it is you’d like because that’s how that girl is, but here are some ideas in case you can’t think of anything:

Pies -$18

Apple

Blueberry Cream

Raspberry Cream

Pecan

Coconut Cream

Chocolate Cream

Lemon Coconut

German Chocolate

Custard

Lemon Meringue

Shoofly

Quickbreads   – $12

Banana

Chocolate Zucchini

Cranberry Orange

Coffee Cakes – $16

Pound Cake

Blueberry Buckle

Cinnamon

Cream Cheese

Muffins and Scones – $19.95

You pick!  Name what you like

   and Gretchen will make them!

Cheese Cakes  – $24

NY Style

Fruit-Filled

Chocolate

Decorated 8” Cakes – $28

(depending on the level of decoration desired)

Vanilla

Chocolate

Marble

Carrot

Then you can get assorted desserts:  Cream Puffs, Napoleons, Five-Layer Lemon Happiness, Chocolate Marble Cake—Call us for prices on those. 

To reserve all of this, just e-mail Mary at Mary@Elmersstore.com and she will take care of you! 

Second Annual

Night of Love and Chocolate!

We’re making it less instructional this year and more like Free-Choice Sin!  We will have it at the Inn, and we will take our big table in the dining room and laden it full up with all kinds of dinner food and chocolate.  We will have dinner food in hors dhouvres-sized portions so that you can mix and match and eat whatever little gourmet bits you’d like for dinner, and then Chef Alan Crofut will have his chocolates and you can just stay and eat and mingle and enjoy yourselves until the cows come home!  Eat your dinner, eat your dessert, go back and forth, just live it up for the night! 

The cost of the evening is $25 per person, not including alcohol.  It does include coffee and tea and other drinks.  And you will go home happier and more in love than you have ever been since last year at this time.  I just looked up last year’s even and it was $37 per person, $30 if you were getting the vegetarian offering!  So if I were you, I’d come this year! 

Here’s what Chef Alan Crofut is offering in Chocolate World that night:

Assortment of chocolates,

hand rolled dessert truffles,

ganache torts in three flavors, and

mousse roulade cake

sauces & syrups and more.

I’m going to ask him to expound on the “more” part.

We’re taking reservations for this, but you don’t have to come at a specific time.  We just need to know how many people are coming.  We’ll start at 5 and you just come when you want to!  But call us to make your reservation at 628-4003.

Okay, I’m all talked out.  So let’s hear what Mr. Rob has to say after a long day of snow-blowing: 

The Rob Report

Due to snow removal duties, this will be short.

Last summer, I kindly requested that If you are driving down Main Street and see me on a ladder 30 feet off the ground and I’m extending my arm as far as it will go to paint some trim, please do not honk your horn.

Now that it’s winter, and we’re getting dumped on pretty heavy, I have a new and even kinder request: If your walking past me as I’m shoveling the front steps for the eight hundredth time this month, please keep your comments limited to “hi Rob”, and “how’s it going

Please do not say “snowin’ enough for ya?” because there is really no correct answer other than to tell the questioner to perform an activity that is anatomically impossible. Likewise asking if I’m “havin’ fun yet?” gets a positive response only after I hit the questioner in the face with a shovel, which I don’t want to have to do.

Many of you want to know if all this snow makes me feel at home, because I’m from Minnesota where, apparently, they get a foot of snow every day of the year. The answer is NO. If I’m in a hammock strung between two palm trees on a white sandy beach and sipping a pina colada, then I’ll feel at home.

On a more practical note, pray for everyone’s roofs. I didn’t realize it, but most roofs around here are already covered in over two feet of snow. If we get another foot or so of wet heavy stuff, it could be trouble so have a care. I discovered a second roof rake in our barn. It has about a 20 foot handle. Please let me know if you need to borrow it.

And just remember how quickly summer will be here. Amen.

Take care,

Rob

Ed. Note:  And that’s EXACTLY what he thinks after a day of snow removal!  (I never read the Rob Report until it’s time to glue it at the end of the Nan Report.)  So be careful out there, both on the ice and around Rob when he’s shoveling.  Poor Rob.   

January 25

Overheard yesterday at Elmer’s:

A friend of mine who just turned 70 was sitting in Elmer’s with her 22 year-old godson.  My friend said to me,
“Chris Smither was amazing!  I haven’t seen guitar playing like that since I saw Eric Clapton play!  I enjoyed Chris’ concert so m—“

Her godson interrupted her,  “Wait!  You like Eric Clapton???”                                                                             

She later told me that she doesn’t identify with her new chronological age, at all.

Beware the Last of January, my friends!  I read somewhere that the last week of January is the low point of the whole year, and more people are grouchy the last week of January than any other week of the year.  They’ve actually narrowed it down to a certain day in the last week of January, but I’m going with the whole season of the week.  Last year I got yelled at by SEVEN people in one week— all in the last week in January!  And the things they were yelling about were completely legitimate the whole rest of the year, but it all came together the Last Week in January!  So WATCH OUT!  (That’s kind of like yelling, right there!)

Private aside to the people in Louisiana:

Okay, so two nights ago it got down into the minus twenties and thirties here.  I’m absolutely serious, it really did.  And the weird thing was that people weren’t scared of their pipes breaking!  I understood that some did break, but not at all what you get when the temperature gets down to like, 45 degrees in New Orleans!  Of course, there is a lot more earth between houses and the ocean here, so they have these big holes under the houses called, “basements” and they put the pipes in there!  Apparently it works well to keep all the water inside the pipes and the next day people just keep on going like nothing ever happened!

Dinner this week:

Spiced pork stew over polenta

Or Eggplant Ratatouille over polenta

Roasted Root Vegetables

Green Salad

$10

We boosted up our internet! We boosted it up so well you can probably get it all over Franklin County.  The boosting came with a password, however, so here’s the deal.  Look for Elmer’s (not Elmer’s Guest or Elmer’s XTD.)  Elmer’s shouldn’t require a password, but if anything asks you for a password, then it is nortonhill (all lowercase.) 

In case you were wondering, we are indeed going to have our second annual

Night of Love and Chocolate,

where you get all the chocolate you can eat;  once again with our friend Alan Crofut.  It will be on

Friday, Feb 11^th

and will be by reservation.  More details as I get them together. 

We’ve calmed down a little this week with the activities, which is a good thing, but here again, is the Rob Report:

The Rob Report

Maybe I just need a jumpsuit

Jack Lalanne has allegedly died at the age of 96. They better check twice before putting him in the coffin, because he might just be resting a bit before getting back to the gym. I gotta admit I’m a little disappointed in Jack. 96 is a good long time, but Jack was kind of an ongoing human experiment, to see how long you could live by having the healthiest lifestyle imaginable. I didn’t think 120 was out of the question. Heck, he only beat my dad by 18 years.

And I think that’s one of the most amazing things about Jack. You could say he never grew old, but I don’t think he was ever young either. In the early fifties, a young twenty-something housewife would kiss hubby goodbye at the front door, wheel the television into the kitchen and turn on Jack. Jack, I imagine, returned the favor. Don’t let the jumpsuit and the cheesy organ music fool you. The neighbors always wondered why Connie next door always closed the kitchen drapes at eight in the morning.

And those young housewives weren’t watching some young stud. The guy was well into his thirties, which was much older then than it is today. Most guys that age had been through the depression and WWII and were well into their careers and raising families. 35 was considered pretty mature. But not to Jack.

In the past few years Jack’s been on infomercials hawking his Power-Juicer. He seemed a little, well, old. But I have no doubt the guy was still capable of amazing feats of strength. If Jack says you should drink juice, you should drink juice.

Maybe he would have lived to 120, but God was having trouble opening a can of olives or something and decided maybe it was finally time to give Jack a call.

Take care and DRINK YOUR JUICE

ROB

January 19, 2011

Hey!   I figured out something that Facebook was good for!  It’s helping me find out the correct names of the people I’ve been calling by the wrong name all this time!  (Sorry about that!)  And I finally figured out tonight how to . . . wait . . . accept Friend Requests.  I think that’s what that’s called.  I wasn’t being unfriendly (or, unFriendly) I just didn’t know where to find them.)  But now I have four friends.  Isn’t that nice?  143 people Like us—which is apparently different from being our Friends.  Remember in sixth grade when you would say to your best friend, “Amy says that Chuck likes you!”  (This was probably just a girl thing.)  “No, I mean he LIKES you!  Not just Likes you, but LIKES you!” 

Being on Facebook kind of reminds me of that.

__________________________________________________________

Aside to the people reading this in Louisiana:You know how after a hurricane the weather always gets beautiful?  Well, it seems that after a big ice storm, the temperature goes up to the 30s, which feels positively balmy after the havoc of the days before.  Today I saw a guy in shorts and right after that I saw a girl eating an ice cream cone, who cited the warm weather as the inspiration for it.  I would like to mention that, despite the alleged warm temps, there were still mountains of snow drifted around them in their summertime glory.   

 ______________________________________________________________

Pieapalooza!

When you throw a party or a Chris Smither concert with a potential attendance of over 400 people, it’s hard to know exactly how many desserts to make.  Gretchen made 358 servings of cakes, pies, cannolli, cream puffs and cookies, and we had 360 people come to the concert.  So we have some pies left over.  And we’re having a big pie sale! 

Whole and individual slices of Pecan, Pumpkin, Blueberry Cream and Raspberry Cream.  Whole pies $14 (regularly $18), and individual slices $1, (regularly more, depending on the pie.)

Porkapalooza

We also have some of the Walkers’ Authentic New Orleans Pulled Pork plates in our to-go cooler, $6.95 a plate.  The Pork and Cole Slaw in on the plate, the bread for it is wrapped in foil beside it in a basket—we didn’t put them together because we didn’t want the bread to get soggy.  But here’s what you do: 

Heat up the bread and the pork

Slice open the bread. 

Put the SLAW in first

Put the Pork on top of the slaw.

Pretend like you’re in New Orleans wearing flip flops right now.

___________________________________________________________

Dinner this week:We decided it was a good idea to have our hamburgers on the menu every week to go along with our ever-changing-weekly menu.  So read the following menu and then think, “or, I could get one of those great hamburgers!”  I’M a-GOIN’!’  (I like how you all become southerners in my mind.) 

And besides Hamburgers (with a number of different cheeses to choose from) we have

Shepherd’s Pie or Vegetable Pie

Garlic Toast

Green Salad

$10

Now that’s on Friday.  On Saturday we have

Boxcar Lillies

January 22nd

At Elmer’s

Dinner at 5pm, Concert at 7pm

Dinner:  Shrimp and Corn Chowder, or Corn Chowder no Shrimp, big ole salad and AnnaBread

After dating on and off for much of 2009, singer-songwriters Jenny Goodspeed, Stephanie Marshall, and Katie Clarke decided to make it official. Over a few beers and a yummy plate of nachos at a local tavern, The Boxcar Lilies were wed. Yes it was a shotgun wedding. They married their love (read: obsession) for great songwriting and sweet harmonies and set out to arrange originals and some of their favorite cover songs by the likes of Fred Eaglesmith, Neil Young, and Gillian Welch. Each an accomplished singer and songwriter in her own right, together as The Boxcar Lilies they are a high energy and engaging Americana trio with a knack for heavenly three-part harmony and exceptional songwriting.

And opening for the Lillies that night will be Jeanne Rohe and Elusha

 “Ms. Rohe is a confident young singer whose compositions tend toward a literate and imploring tone.”

- Nate Chinen, New York Times

Celebrating her debut album, Lead Me Home, Jean Rohe is quickly becoming a gem of New York City’s jazz and Brazilian music scene. After winning both the audience favorite and second place award at the Montreux Jazz Festival in 2006, Jean assembled an unusual sextet, featuring accordion, clarinet, and South American percussion. The resulting project involves the full breadth of Jean’s stylistic attractions, challenging traditional boundaries around musical genres. Her original compositions and fresh arrangements of songs from Latin America explore the intersections of jazz, North American folk music, Brazilian and Afro-Peruvian traditions. Hersinging and compositions have now filled venues from the Birdland to Havana’s Teatro Nacional. What sets Jean’s performance apart is that it invites the listener to engage with body, heart, and mind, through captivating storytelling, astute, socially conscious lyrics, and lively rhythms and melodies, in a participatory experience that involves singing, clapping, or dancing along. “The act of singing together is uniquely subversive,” Jean says. “It breaks us out of our individual isolation and carries us into a new space of community with our fellow human beings.”

And on Sunday we have:

It’s January!  Time to get yo’self together!

You might know Alan Young, the man who makes wooden spoons and wooden pie servers and things.  He’s always at Fall Festival and we always have his work in our gallery.  Now you might be thinking, “Alan Young!  I haven’t seen him in a couple of years!”  And more likely, you have seen him, you just didn’t know it was him.  (And I ain’t kidding.  Every time I see him I think, ‘That guys looks so familiar . . . oh yes!  It’s Alan!”
Alan has left half of himself off this past couple of years, having lost over 120 pounds on purpose, and having kept it off in relative comfort.  It didn’t start out comfortably—one day while minding his business at work he suddenly found himself about to die—blood clots had broken loose in his leg and were working their ways toward his death.  He didn’t die—-and the a big reason he didn’t is an amazing story that you have to hear him tell—but at the end of it, his two choices were: 

Option 1:  Lose a whole lot of weight

Option 2;  Die soon

He decided to go with number 1.  You are saying,  “Well yeah, he was in the hospital.  He had no choice.”

Oh no indeed, he did have a choice!  He was released from the hospital and went home.  That was where he got to make his decision and he went with a determined plan to stay alive. 

120 pounds later he is very healthy—healthier than he’s ever been in his life.  He was always “big boned”—always a great reason to be big.  But now he’s 120 pounds lighter, eat what he wants to and has a real and working system that maintains his weight.

Alan and I talked about this idea and he is willing to do a seminar on his weight loss program at Elmer’s Sunday, January 23^rd from 3 – 5 pm.

None of his stuff is a gimmick, none of it, not even this seminar costs money,—it’s all just what he has learned that has helped him be this new, lean person for two years now.  So if you have ever been serious about losing weight, any amount of weight, come on!  You have only to learn.  Nothing to pay. 

__________________________________________________________

And then we have The Rob Report!  I would write more, but I am still very tired after the weekend.  By the way, Chris had a really good time, too!

The Rob Report

It was supposed to be so easy

If you were in attendance for the Chris Smither show on Saturday, that was me manning the stage lights. There wasn’t a whole lot to do, really, except bring them up when he came out and bring them down when he finished the set. But I wasn’t going to let those simple guidelines hamper my creativity. Even though you came to see Chris, I was positive that a tasteful light display would enhance the experience exponentially, therefore making me a co-star of sorts. In other words, I was ready to be called out on stage for a standing ovation.

For the start of the show, my plan was for him to walk out and take his seat while bathed in blue light, and when he started playing, I would slooooowly introduce brighter and warmer colors to the mix and fade the blue. Pretty cool, huh? Too bad he didn’t know about it. He walked out, sat down, and said something about how dark it was. Okay, okay, up go the bright lights. Except the faders on the light controller thing were, let’s say, not as linear as I had expected. So as I was slooooowly pushing them up, nothing happened until the end and then wham, they all came on as if I’d pressed a big button. It had the same effect as someone feeling around for a light switch in a dark room.

You think that would have discouraged me from attempting any further creativity, but if you set a bunch of sliders and knobs and buttons in front of me, I’m sorry but I’m going to play with them. Besides, I’m the light guy and that’s what we do. So like an idiot, I began futzing with the faders, thinking I could change the hue of the stage without the audience even being aware of it. Yep. I handled those controls with all the deftness of a toddler who had just discovered the joy of banging on piano keys. Cans were firing indiscriminately, throwing light everywhere it was not needed, totally out of sync with the music. It just sucked. Eventually I got things back under control and, having learned my lesson, backed away from the board and didn’t touch it until I had to fade to black at the end of the first set.

After intermission, all I had to do was take that same damn “master” slider and slowly push it up as Chris walked on stage. Which he did, and I did, only nothing happened. At this point, the only light in the entire hall was coming from the exit signs. By now I’m in full panic mode, jabbing at the controls like the Great Wizard with the curtain pulled back. If there was a button labeled “release clown car”, I would have pressed it. After what seemed like an eternity, I decided to turn on the sixty watt bulb over my table which threw a dull shaft of light onto the stage but really just illuminated me, the hapless light guy. I noticed a glowing LED above a button called “blackout” or something and gave it a jab. All the lights turned on and the audience cheered, probably for him. So, my only job was to turn the lights on, then off, then on, then off, and I failed half of it. I’m not sure, but I think they were expecting a little more, let’s say, proficiency from me. Fortunately the rest of the show went off without a hitch.

Until the clown car showed up.

Take care,

Rob

_____________________________________________________________

November 23, 2010

Hey!

Guess what I just spent a long time doing?  Re-typing in the second batch of the 1400 names we had on our Elmer’s E-mail list.  If you’re reading it, you one of the first. 

Last Monday our Elmer’s computer gave us the Blue Screen of Death That Cannot Be Repaired.  Ironically, I was just in the process of trying to install a back-up storage drive when it happened.  We took it to the Repair Guys who were able to get everything off of it, including the 1400 name e-mail list, but after several days of Getting Nothing Done, it appears that the form of the e-mail addresses that they recovered will not speak or play with the form that THE VERY SAME PROGRAM OFF THE VERY SAME DISC recognizes.

I’ve written to my little brother who is a software design engineer at Microsoft about this, and have threatened him the way any real big sister does if he doesn’t help those two Microsoft files and programs link up in space, but in the meantime, I picked up my bag and my hoe and I started walking from the beginning of the road all over again. 

Because of the way Verizon does things, I had 14 lists with 100 names and addresses each.  What I just now did was to begin again with List Number One, so that’s as far as I got.  The lists are a little random, so there’s no real sense as to who got an e-mail right now, so forward it please to your friends, as we have three really great events this week.  (Sigh.)  I’ll work on it a little each day until I get all back in there again.

Equally in the irony department, we JUST FINALLY got our new website up and running—it’s not bee-you-ti-ful yet, it’s just kind of there, but at least you can look at it and see what it is we’re doing around here with all the free time we have.  AND we’re keeping it updated!  So if you don’t get the e-mail again, you can see what it is you’re missing at Elmersstore.com.  The ironic thing is that we had a plan for last Friday to import the entire list into the new website’s address book so that I would never have to deal with Verizon again!  But, no, I still have to go through Verizon for now until I get it all re-typed in and David the Website Guy has time to come and help import it. 

We had a great event last week that most of you missed because I couldn’t send out the e-mail.  It was our annual Local Thanksgiving Dinner that Chef Jim came back and cooked for us.  It was really, really good and got highlighted by the arrival of about 25 singers who came for dinner and all sang sea shanties in gorgeous harmony while they ate!  One just never knows what one is going to find at Elmer’s!  Nor, do I!

We have a new baker!

While we loved Baker-Anna (not to be confused with AnnaBreadAnna,) she found that trying to be a mother to two small boys as well as a full-time baker was just too difficult.  She stayed with us as long as we needed her to, but cut her time down to just making muffins and scones so that we would at least have those.  Lisa Newman, Brenda McGovern and our own Danielle Curtis graciously stepped in when they could to help us out with cookies and desserts and thank you very much to them! 

But now we have a new Baker!  Her name is Gretchen Gerstner and she used to own her own bakery/restaurant in New York!  And she is GREAT!  And she makes a LOT OF STUFF!   

She is a baking fool (and I mean that in the best possible way—but the girl just bakes and bakes and bakes!) and so

We are taking special orders for Thanksgiving.

The cut-off date is Monday, November 22^nd.  She’ll have everything ready for Wednesday, November 24^th. 

Call us at 628-4003 to place your order!

Pies!

Pumpkin

Sugarless Pumpkin

Apple

Pecan

Chocolate Cream

Lemon Meringue

Quickbreads!

Chocolate Zucchini

Pumpkin

Coffee Cakes!

Cinnamon

Pumpkin Cream Cheese

Muffins and Scones

You pick!  Name what you like

   and Gretchen will make them!

Cheese Cakes!

Chocolate

Pumpkin

Decorated Cakes

Vanilla

Chocolate

Marble

Pumpkin

Carrot

Desserts

Bread Pudding

ANNABREAD for Thanksgiving!

On the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, Anna will be making tons of

• Daily
• Country White
• Whole Wheat
• Rye 

The first batches will arrive 7:30 and will go on every hour until the final delivery at 2:15. but you can call us and ask us to hold certain breads for you for that day and we will! 

Due to the overwhelmance of how much bread she’s baking, she isn’t taking special orders,

We are going to close at 3pm that day, so try and get here before then.

But here are our events this week:

That is on Thursday.  On Saturday—wait! Here’s a good story to lead up to the next one:

I have a friend named Dave Taylor who I worked with in New Orleans.

Dave now lives in New York.  His best friend is named Seth Bernard.

Seth lives in Michigan and his girlfriend is named May Erlewine.

Dave Taylor’s mom was in the hospital having surgery in Florida.

While she was recovering from surgery, a young woman came in to sing to her as part of the hospital’s new recovery through music program.

The young woman sang a gorgeous and uplifting song that she said was written by a friend of hers named May.

Dave’s grandmother, who was there visiting her daughter said, “I know a May.  She lives in Michigan.  Her name is May Erlewine.”

The young woman said, “That’s the same May who wrote the song!”

And the young singing woman?  That was Rani Arbo of Ashfield!

The only part of the story I don’t know is why Rani was singing in a hospital in Florida.  But I don’t really care—I love the story!

Not this last summer, but the previous August we had a concert by May and Seth across the street in the backyard of the inn and it was beautiful!  May wrote the Rani Arbo and Daisy Mayhem favorites, “Shine On” and “Rise up Singing.” (Remember that concert?  It rained all the way through it, but it was such beautiful music that no one left!) 

This Saturday we’re going to bring them back and inside as part of our

Big Name in a Small Room

Concert Series

continues with

May Erlewine and Seth Bernard!

This Saturday, November 20^th,   

Dinner will begin at 5pm and the concert begins at 7:00.

We will be serving Lasagna,

either meat or vegetarian

a Field Greens Salad and Annabread baguettes 

Dinner is $8, the concert is $10

Tickets for this are required so that we don’t go over room capacity.  Git ‘em now!

(413) 628-4003

And then on SUNDAY we have

Emergency Preparedness Talk

Are you prepared for an emergency?

What do you have ready right now?

What's your list of top 10 things to have available?

Come learn what you need to do

Sunday, Nov. 21,

3:00-4:30 p.m. 

Learn what to do when there's an emergency situation:

extreme weather 

power outage 

being stranded in a car 

lost in the wilderness. 

We will talk about 

shelter

water 

fire 

food

Registration is required and the program is free (donations accepted)

Register online at Earthworkprograms.com/?page

or for more information contact Frank Grindrod at 413-522-0338.

I think this is going to be pretty darned interesting ---and useful.  I asked Frank to do this talk after the big ice storm of aught eight and he gave it last year for a small group and so we decided to do it again.  

By the way, I’m sorry I can’t embed actual links into our e-mails—that’s one of the things that made Verizon mark us as spam. 

SOON COME!  No more Verizon!  Yee haa!

I thought of some good e-mail addreses:

I Hate Doing Business @ Verizon.net

Life sucks @ Verizon.net

I wonder If They’re Reading This @ Verizon.net

I Bet They Aren’t Because They Don’t Care About Their Customers @ Verizon.net

So, you don’t get a Rob Report with this e-mail.  But at least you get an e-mail and you know what’s going on, in case you’re interested.  

I’m hoping by next week all is peaceable in the computer kingdom again.  

Okay—now I have to go re-create a bunch of other stuff that was lost!

You know where to find me if you need me!