Road Trip to King Arthur Flour and Refrigerator Boxes

I've had a couple of nice summer days in a row.  Yesterday I joined "Eddy women" Kathryn, Lynn, and Carolyn on a day trip to Norwich, Vermont, where we visited the King Arthur Bakery and gift shop.  We allowed Lynn's Magellan GPS system, which she nick-named "Maggie" to guide us (in her beautiful new car) from Saratoga Springs north toward Lake George and eastward through the beautiful Vermont landscape to Norwich.  It seemed about a three hour ride, but it is hard to say because we never stopped talking the entire time!  Once at King Arthur, we  had a lot of fun checking out all the merchandise, from cook books to their own mixes to baking supplies.  KA has a wide range of products for the occasional baker/cook to someone who is always in the kitchen (me!).  I bought a few things, including Madagascar vanilla bean paste, and a nifty cooling rack.  It's tiered and holds four baking sheets at once.  That'll free up a lot of counter space on busy baking days.  The shop is home to KA's test kitchen as well as a small cafe where sandwiches, soups, pizza, and baked goods are available.  We all chose a slice of pizza for our lunches, and the roasted red pepper slice was delicious!  After lunch we browsed some more and then headed home, stopping at garden shops along the way.  I really love a day like that.  There's nothing like spending time with good women friends and talking, laughing, and solving the world's problems, enjoying each other's company.

This morning started with a visit to an antique show at the Washington County Fairgrounds.  I'm on the lookout for old-fashioned refrigerator boxes, the precursors to Tupperware and Rubbermaid.  There are a lot of reasons why I prefer these old kitchen relics, but mainly it is because I don't like reheating food in plastic in the microwave.  Glass is a much better alternative.  It doesn't stain and you know it's clean.  Besides, these are prettier and food is easily identified through the glass.  No more chemistry experiments under those plastic lids!  Once I found my refrigerator box (limited myself to one this time) we had a good time exploring the fair grounds for little treasures.  Katie and Bill bought Henry a kid-sized rocking chair, in great shape.  It looks like maple and it has a Windsor back.  My big find on the way out of the show was two Welch's grape jelly jar glasses with Winnie the Pooh images on the outside. We had those glasses when my kids were little -- ours had Flintstones characters.  I just loved those and still have two that are perfect for a small serving of orange juice.

My Saturday evening will be spent dog-sitting Hayden the bloodhound, and later I'll do some baking (of course).  Hope your weekend is off to a good start and that you have a chance to relax and enjoy the end of July and the beginning of August!

Photo image: http://images.containerstore.com/images/catalog/90575/GlassRefrigeratorStorge_xl.jpg