Our Wedding: Lunches at Dancing Blueberries and St. Veronus

Tim and I both wanted to make it a priority to have time for lunch with our respective wedding parties before heading over to the barn for photos and the ceremony. All of the wedding tips I read said to be sure to eat regularly and drink WATER throughout the day. Given how long the day was, I'm really glad I followed that advice! 

I wanted to go somewhere girly that we could get cute pictures at, but the options for that in Peterborough are more limited than you'd expect. My first choice was the The Magic Rolling Pin Tea Room, but I was extremely disappointed to hear that their summer hours don't include Saturdays. We went to Dancing Blueberries instead. The food was delicious and really reasonably priced, plus the service was very quick. 

More photos after the jump!

Date night! at Le Petit Bar

Last Wednesday Tim surprised me by taking me out to dinner at my favourite restaurant in Peterborough, Le Petit Bar. Every couple of months I get a really big craving for a sophisticated cocktail and cheese tasting and this is the best place (perhaps the only place) in Peterborough to get both. Besides at home, given that I visit Chasing the Cheese at least every couple of weeks and there's always cheese in our fridge and lots of alcohol in our home bar. Chasing the Cheese supplies the cheese that is used at Le Petit Bar. I need to be better about making simple syrups so that I can make actual cocktails. I've already started accumulating bitters (none of which have ever been opened). 

My handsome husband with our dinner.

Tim brought one of his Rustic Woods cheese boards to give to Shannon (the owner) as a trial for the restaurant. Currently they use dollar store style bamboo boards. It's due to cost and how easy they are to clean, but it looks so sad when they arrange all of these amazing cheeses, meats, and housemade condiments on a made-in-China piece of cr*p! I hope Tim and Shannon can work out something - it would be great to have Tim's boards being used there. We love it there and Tim takes so much pride in his woodworking. It would be great to see them move to a product made with local, sustainable materials. Fingers crossed! She brought out our cheese and charcuterie mix on it and we quickly noted some necessary changes that would make it more functional. Plus I'm looking forward to going back and checking in on how it's going - like I need an excuse!

  

Curried Oeufs Mayonnaise - $5

Tim is a huge fan of deviled eggs (eggs in any format, really), so we knew right away we needed to get this for an appetizer. We were not disappointed. These were easily the most complex and delicious deviled eggs I have ever had. They had a syrup on them and were topped with crispy onions. The red sauce on the plate is sriracha. Tim compared the flavour profile to Caribbean roti. I'm not sure what spices were used in the syrup, but it definitely had a beautiful savoury/sweet balance. When you added the heat from the sriracha, it made for a really incredible bite. 

Two meat charcuterie and four cheese board - $10 for the meat and $16 for the cheese

The two salamis are both from Niagara Food Specialties - one is the abbruzzesse and the other is the nostrana. The cheeses from top to bottom are the Chateau de Bourgogne, a goat beemster, an applewood smoked cheddar, and the Tomme de Gross Iles. The sauces from top to bottom are honey, a ginger chutney, a spicy mustard, and a sweet cherry mustard. 

I love mixing and matching the cheeses, meats, and condiments! The Chateau de Bourgogne is one of Tim and my favourites. It's very mild and buttery. It's perfect to try with the different condiments and a little bit of apple. Tim loves smoked cheeses, but I didn't love the applewood smoked as much as the Bothwell smoked cheddar or the smoked gouda that Chasing the Cheese regularly carries. It was a little too smoke prominent for me - more than a little bitter. The Tommes de Gross Iles also wasn't my favourite cheese we've ever tried there, I found it almost non-existent on the palate. Notably, I am a fan of really funky cheeses. I like my cheese to have taste to it! This was just too mild. The surprise winner of the evening was the goat beemster. It has a beautifully smooth texture with a nice, sweet barnyard finish. I generally love goat cheeses, but even Tim said this was his favourite. He usually does not love goat or sheep cheeses. It was especially good with the chutney. I loved both of the salamis as well, although I don't think I could tell you the difference between them. They were both sweet and not too hard (I don't like really tough charcuterie). I thought they both tasted very strongly of honey. One was more peppery than the other, but I don't know which. 

For drinks, Tim just got a beer (I don't remember which one). I had a maple bourbon sour ($8.50). It was a little more sour than I was expecting. A bit of a duh moment for me, considering the name, but I think I just saw maple and bourbon and thought sweet. It was good, though, and grew on me the more I had. Ha - one could say that about most types of alcohol. Shannon was also a real sweetheart and let us try the 2008 Lillypilly Noble Blend. Shannon is really well-informed about the wines she carries and it was so neat to hear about this particular wine. It was very similar to an ice wine, only the concentration in sweetness is caused by a fungus that only occurs in very specific conditions. While I'm not a huge wine drinker, I do appreciate a good sweet wine and this one was lovely.

Afterwards we went home and cuddled on the couch while watching Pan Am. Perfect date night!

Mini Honeymoon Pt. 2 - The Old Station

All day on Monday as we were hoping for the weather to subside, we were hearing radio reports on the cottage traffic. 

          "It's a parking lot on 35 from Lindsay." 
          "Traffic isn't moving on the 400 south of 89."
          "It's bumper to bumper on 11 from Gravenhurst all the way to Barrie."

Needless to say, neither Tim and I nor Matt and Teri were looking forward to the drives back to Peterborough and Mississauga. We knew we could backroad into Bracebridge, so we decided to do that and then find a place to stop for dinner to kill a little more time. We drove in circles in Bracebridge for a little bit looking for the top-rated restaurant, which is a little place called the Griffin Gastropub. Unfortunately, once we did find it, it was only to learn that it is closed on Mondays. We had passed another place that was definitely open, so we went to the Old Station instead. 

Interior shot courtesy of www.oldstation.ca

I had assumed this place was brand new. It was super clean and looked like it had been styled to be the perfect cottage restaurant. I was quickly informed by the server and Tim, who had read the plaque, that it was actually started in 1985. It's aged well! The exposed brick and gigantic tree trunk pillar are very on trend for design these days. The clientele was a good mix. A few older couples, a group of young friends, a family. The menu was big, but absolutely full of things I wanted to try. I usually find the opposite - a large menu full of mediocre items, or a small menu full of crazy things that you get really excited about eating. I had difficulty picking between the Oven Roasted Pepper Squash, the market pasta of the day, the Crackling Skin Chicken Supreme, the Chicken Curry Masala, and the Fish & Chips. Tim wound up ordering the Chicken Curry Masala ($18), so I ordered the Crackling Skin Chicken Supreme ($18). We also ordered the Deep Fried Dill Pickles ($9) to start. 

Hot apple cider at the Old Station in Bracebridge

I was so happy to see hot apple cider on the drinks menu. We ordered a full round of these, and it was a great way to warm up after the rain. If we hadn't been at the end of the long weekend, I would have ordered mine with a shot of spiced rum! The deep fried dill pickles were really neat - I had never had anything like this before. They were SUPER hot on the inside, though. I'm glad the guys warned me about that. But the coating was crispy and the pickles were soft. Really, really yummy. 

Chicken curry masala at the Old Station in Bracebridge.

Tim's chicken curry masala was alright. Nothing really spectacular, but it hit the spot. I thought their spice blend had too much cumin in it. It made it taste a little more Mexican than Indian. Not a bad plate of food, though.

My chicken was easily the best dish. (Matt and Tim helped me polish it off, they thought so too.) The chicken was moist, the skin was crispy, the toasted pecan sauce was delicious. The mashed potatoes didn't blow my mind, but the rest of the plate was spot on. I loved it! I would go here again in a heartbeat the next time we head up to the cottage!

Mini Honeymoon Pt. 1 - Old Ormsby Schoolhouse

After going canoeing last Monday at the Hastings Resort, we decided to do a bit of exploring around the area before dinner. We drove through Orsmby into Coe Hill, where basically nothing was open (not that there is too much there to begin with). We did see signs for a flea market store that was open on Clayton Cove Rd. Tim really loves antiquing and flea markets, so we drove out. It was a bit like a scene from a psychologically terrifying horror movie. It was at the lady's house. It was mostly glassware and ceramics - some of which were really nice. Tim admired their tankard collection while I was coveting a cobalt blue glass pitcher. However, the woman followed us around this small, crammed old house, giving us unwanted marriage advice, as well as advice on where we should have held our wedding. She kept pressing pamphlets on us, both for her own store and various stores around the area. When she started to give us duplicate copies, I told her I already had some, but she said that she wanted us to have them anyways so that we could give them out to our friends. We left without buying anything, mostly because I was so uncomfortable with the whole situation - otherwise I really would have bought some of the cobalt glassware. When we tried to get out, she had locked us in with her! Tim even commented on it and she responded back that it let her keep people longer so that she had someone to talk to . . . *crickets* So. Creepy.

She did, however, in her reams of suggestions, point out that the Old Ormsby Schoolhouse was a great place to have lunch close by. She even gave us a brochure for them. It caught Tim's interest and was right beside the Old Hastings Mercantile & Gallery, which Tim and I had seen on our way into Coe Hill and had wanted to check out anyways. We went to the Old Hastings Gallery first and I'm so glad we did! It was the most amazing little gift shop, full of great old candy and neat products. We were drawn in right away by the incredible wood sculptures out front. If I had had an extra $350 in my pocket, the heron out front would have been coming home with me! I did buy hard taffy and a maple syrup candle (getting ready for fall!). The owners, Lillian and Gary, were so helpful and sweet - Lillian even gave us a sweet little gift after we told her we had just gotten married. We also bought our first Christmas present of the season here and I'm SO excited for Dean and Wendy to open it! I feel like we need to go back, though - there were a few other things we saw here that would make excellent gifts.

Exterior of the Old Ormsby Schoolhouse, located just off of Highway 620 east of Ormsby on Old Hastings Rd

The Old Orsmby Schoolhouse was just as great of a find/creepy suggestion. It was PACKED when we went in. We actually got the last available table. Their slogan is "'Educated Dining' and Tea House" and it was a perfect place to have lunch. The owners, Ernie and Debbie Pattison, restored a century schoolhouse for their wedding reception and then turned it into the restaurant. The open layout really encourages conversation. Tim and I got to talking with two separate tables, one about cottage country in Ontario (they were from Pennsylvania) and the other about how teaching in Ontario has evolved over the last fifty years or so. It's such a friendly place! The decor is adorable, too - lots of antique things to look at. The food was delicious and exactly what we needed on a cold, wet day. Tim had the Swingin' Shepherd's Pie and I had the  Scottish Pasta - MacRowknee and Cheese. Both came with the tea room's amazing scones, piping hot and heavily scented with nutmeg. We also both chose to have the spinach salad with strawberries and almonds on the side. I don't know why I don't buy poppyseed dressing more often. That salad was so amazing - I finished it before I even touched my mac and cheese. We coerced ourselves into sharing a piece of carrot cake for dessert and it was easily big enough for two. I'll risk not being allowed back, but the carrot cake was just a little on the dry side. Lots of cream cheese icing more than made up for that, though. I would definitely go back and would love to try the high tea. It comes on a three-layered cake plate and has fruit, scones with preserves and fresh whipped cream, tea sandwiches, and desserts. Tea is also available with every meal and they had a good list. Tim should drink tea more often, given how he was moaning over his. I also liked that they had more than a couple varieties of green tea. 

The quaintly beautiful inside of the Old Ormsby Schoolhouse and Tea Room

Mini Honeymoon Pt. 1 - Hastings Resort

As a bridal shower gift, my Mom bought Tim and I a two-night stay at the Hastings Resort outside of Coe Hill for the Sunday and Monday just after the wedding. She thought we'd need a little break away from everything after the chaos of the move and the wedding day and she was very right.

Main lodge photo from www.hastingsresort.com

Rosy skies at the Hastings Resort after a rainy day.

I believe Mom originally got the deal as part of a Wagjag promotion. The room was really nice, but very small. Just big enough for the bed, but it's not like we needed more space than that. The Sunday night I slept for twelve hours straight - all the sleep deprivation prior to the wedding catching up to me! Tim did not like that there wasn't coffee available in the rooms, or in the resort at all when we got up at 8:00 a.m. He had to go on a search to the restaurant to ask them to bring the coffee maker to the resort. It was just a small setback to the day.

Room photo courtesy of www.hastingsresort.com 

Steakhouse photo courtesy of www.hastingsresort.com

Meals there are all taken at the Steakhouse, which is not cheap. The food is really good, though, and our server for both dinners was really great. Our server's name was Erica-Lyn and she was really funny. I'd love to go back just to hang out with her. On Sunday night Tim and I both had steaks. Tim had the ribeye with mashed potatoes and a brandy mushroom cream for $32.95. He ordered rare, but it was closer to medium. I had the King of Hastings, which is a striploin with a pave potato for $30.95. I ordered medium-rare and my steak was almost perfectly done. The pave potato was yummy - a potato, very thinly sliced on a mandolin, then cooked like scalloped potatoes, but still in the shape of the original potato. Monday during the day we went out for lunch, but were back at the Steakhouse for a late dinner. We decided just to do appetizers so that we could have dessert, but almost didn't make it even then. We had the scallops and brie with vanilla cracker, pineapple jam and Sambuca glaze for $12.95. The vanilla cracker didn't make sense. There wasn't enough savoury to balance it out and it just came off dessert-like. It's too bad, because the rest of the components were all really good. We also had the chef's mussels for $11.95, which were just amazing. They were so tender and flavourful - but definitely ask for extra bread to sop up the broth! There wasn't any grit in any of our mussels. There were three that weren't opened, but I'd rather risk that than have overcooked mussels. Tim ordered the gravlax - cured salmon with herbed cream cheese, capers, red onion, and caviar on crostini for $12.95. I expected not to like it because I'm not a cured/smoked/preserved salmon fan, but it was really good, especially with the capers and shaved red onion. Erica-Lyn pushed us into the dessert we had originally wanted, even though I was close to needing to be rolled out of there. The portion on the drunken brownie with Kawartha Dairy ice cream is VERY generous for $7.50. I didn't really taste any of the kahlua, triple sec, or bourbon that was supposed to be in this dessert, but the brownie was fudgy and the caramel sauce was delicious. Even though we were told that the kitchen was having a few problems with service due to a broken oven, you could not tell in the food or in the dinner service. 

Gravlax photo courtesy of www.hastingsresort.com

Steakhouse interior photo courtesy of www.hastingsresort.com

Drinking part of our wedding gift from Mandy and Ryan!

We didn't have the best weather while we were there. It was mostly overcast and rainy. But we did get out in the canoe on Beaver Creek for a quickish paddle. Beaver Creek is really gorgeous. Meandering and very slow-moving, it's an easy paddle and looks to be great fishing for largemouth bass. Alas, we did not have any of our fishing gear with us, but I was thinking about Mom while we were out there! All in all, we had a very rejuvenating, relaxing stay, until the morning we were supposed to leave!

Paddling Beaver Creek.

Finally relaxing after wedding craziness!

Ahoy, mateys!

We had set our alarm for 6:00 a.m. so that we could drive back to Peterborough for 7:00, since both Tim and I worked Tuesday. Tim said that he was already lying awake when the industrial fire alarm went off at 2:30 a.m. We heard that a few of the other guests were lying awake at that time - maybe the guests that had asthma or more sensitive senses could already smell the smoke. Not me. I was dead to the world until the alarm went off. Even when it did, we didn't really panic - these alarms almost always are someone smoking in their room or something equally dumb. We got dressed, but then the alarm stopped. Since Tim was already dressed and awake (he's a bit of an insomniac to begin with, so this didn't bode well on him going back to sleep), I suggested he go downstairs just to check out what was going on. I stayed in our room with the door open to the hallway. Went on Facebook. Decided to clean up and pack a bit since we had to leave in a few hours anyway. Tim still wasn't back, so I poked my head out into the hallway. A guy we had met earlier in the day was also looking out and asked what I thought was going on. I told him that Tim had gone downstairs to check it out, so he decided to go down too. A few minutes later, the woman across the hall from me came out and said that all she could smell in her room was burning. Sure enough, her room and even the hallway were starting to just reek like burning sugar. She and her mother, in another room, packed up and left the resort. Tim STILL hadn't come back. 

Tim says that when he went downstairs, the first floor was beginning to fill with smoke. The reception attendant had turned off the audible fire alarm, but the system was still showing a fire on the first floor. Tim couldn't stay in the smoke because it was causing his eyes to burn and he couldn't stop coughing. The attendant opened the door to the laundry room and smoke just billowed out. The attendant ran in, found a smouldering bag of cleaning linens, and dragged it through the hallway and out the front door of the resort. Tim and the other guy who had gone downstairs dragged the bag farther away from the resort, still sending off tons of smoke. Something about them dragging it must have exposed it to enough fresh oxygen, because it burst into full flame. The attendant went back into the building and grabbed a bucket (not a fire extinguisher) and filled it up from the sink. He made several more trips this way before they decided that the river was a better option to stay away from what was obviously toxic smoke. They got the fire extinguished, and then Tim went through the hotel opening up all the windows and doors to air things out. Our side of the resort wasn't too bad, but the opposite side was just completely full of chemical smoke.

Tim finally came back into the room about a half hour after he had left - I still had no idea that there was an actual fire - reeking of smoke, tearing out of both eyes, and coughing like a lifelong smoker. He told me what had happened and we decided to leave. It's not like Tim would have been able to sleep in there anyways. While we finished packing up, two of the hotel attendants came around telling people it was perfectly safe for them to go back into their rooms - just to open their windows to air things out. Tim collared them (they were both pretty young and he was into concerned teacher mode) and said that that was chemical smoke and that no one should still be in the hotel. They just kind of shrugged. It was obvious they didn't really know what to do. We said that we'd like to check out and left.

Even the whole way home Tim was coughing and his eyes were so red. I can't believe what a mess it was - who turns off the fire alarm where there's a fire? What hotel doesn't have fire extinguishers handy? Why didn't they call the fire department immediately? How is it that they didn't evacuate the hotel when they knew it had been a chemical fire? Why were they storing chemical soaked rags like that to begin with? My friend Cory used to work for an industrial cleaning company - they should know not to mix cleaning chemicals! When we were talking to some of the senior science teachers at a Lakefield College function the Tuesday night, it was generally thought that the sweet-smelling gas put off from those cloths would have been arsenic or cyanide!

Crazy Rollwagen honeymoon! I hope our other trips aren't quite this exciting!

Butter tart for dinner!

Knowing that I had missed him SO MUCH while he was camping, Tim brought me butter tarts when he came home yesterday! They stopped at Swiss Bear Restaurant and Bakery in Apsley for breakfast and he picked up what was probably six butter tarts. There were four left by the time they made it to me, but four is enough. I'm not greedy or anything.

These were great butter tarts. I was worried at first that they were non-raisin ones, but Tim apparently knows that all real butter tarts must have raisins. 

Look at those raisins!! They were all plumped up from baking in the butter tart filling. The filling itself wasn't too sweet and was perfectly set. Not crunchy on top, but there was no drippage at all once they were cut in half. And the pastry was light and soft, but didn't sag at all . . . Can you tell I love butter tarts? I've had quite a few in my life, some of them pretty bad. But these ones from Swiss Bear were really, really good. I thought it was such a nice touch that their bakery labels for takeout said Wandering Bear! Good branding!