I spent a weekend in Ogunquit, Maine recently. We walked along the Marginal Way, a nice pathway that wound along the rocky shore. The erratic coastline is very picturesque, with outcroppings, benches, manicured lawns, and twisted beach trees along the way.

Ogunquit's coast

Eventually, the pathway ends at Perkins Cove, which has several shops with candy, souvenirs, and coffee. We stopped at a coffee shop called Breaking New Grounds, which serves coffee, pastries, gelato, cake(!), and cookies. I opted for a generously-sized cinnamon twist. They asked if I wanted it warmed up. It hadn’t occured to me, but.. sure!

Cinnamon twist from Breaking New Grounds

As you can see, it’s as long as the fork and quite thick.

French bread or cinnamon twist?

I took all these pictures under an awning, so it was a low-light situation. As a result, they have a blue hue, but I think that is stylistically acceptable. It gives them a peaceful aura that goes well with the concept – breakfast while watching the ocean.

Dog bone or cinnamon twist?

Torn cinnamon twist next to a fork

Eventually, I stopped taking pictures of it and tore into it. It was sad but delicious. You can see from the brown patches that it had a good amount of cinnamon flavor.

I ravaged this cinnamon twist

Here is another close up. Ahh, cinnamon filling. Oh, sparkling sugar. You brighten up my day. I got to eat this beauty while looking at the ocean on a bright, 70-degree Saturday morning. It’s a good life.

Northwestern New Jersey is full of many wonders. It’s nothing like the factory-littered alleyway that the turnpike cuts through, or the dirty montage in the opening of the Sopranos. We’re called the Garden State, and this part of NJ is full of farmland, open spaces, barns, zoos, the Delaware Water Gap, the Appalachian Trail.. etc. When I go out there, I like to visit the Chatterbox, a 1950s-style restaurant that is round on the outside and filled with old movie posters on the inside.

They sell diner-like food: burgers, shakes, fries, chicken fingers, and whatnot. In the summer, they’ll even bring your food out to your car to keep the drive-in vibe going. We opted to go inside and ordered a cheesesteak. As you can see, they finely chop the meat, then add onions and peppers with a cheese of your choice on top. In this case, Lou opted for mozzarella. The fries were hot and fresh, which always makes me happy.

Cheesesteak from the Chatterbox

Staring down the barrel of a cheesesteak..

Melted cheese on a cheesesteak

I got a malted chocolate shake. I couldn’t taste the malt, but the shake was really thick, of medium chocolatiness, and topped with homemade whipped cream. The whipped cream was the best part.

Chocolate shake

They are generous with the serving, as you can see. It looks swirly like it came out of a can, but the color and taste really made it seem like it was freshly made. I ate it by the spoonful.

Tower of whipped cream

Naturally, I started off the meal with a salad. Vegetables make all dietary indiscretions go away, right?

Salad from the Chatterbox

The Chatterbox’s great vibe is helped by its frequent antique car shows. They hold them every weekend during the summer, with special evenings for Corvettes and motorcycles. These events are so popular that I’ve seen plates from New York and Pennsylvania, and they have a booth outside grilling hamburgers because the restaurant can’t keep up with feeding all the people there. The amount of vehicles is staggering; they circle the building several times, then spill out into a grassy lot behind the restaurant. I’ve seen Model-Ts, old volkswagens, cadillacs with the wings on the back, antique pickup trucks, and more. They pop the hood on them all so you can marvel at how immaculate the engines are. They make engines look beautiful – nothing like the leaf-laden, black mass beneath a modern car’s hood.

Cars at the Chatterbox

Continuing my posts about the Fort, a historic restaurant in the hills outside of Denver, we arrive at my entree, the Game Plate. It was a bison filet, an elk steak, and a teriyaki quail. I was on a quest to eat things that I would not be able to easily find in New Jersey or New York, you see. I also love good steak but never order it out for dieting reasons. Since I was on vacation, I was splurging all over the place.

Please forgive the slightly lower quality; I was seated a few feet from a window in a dark building, and the sun was going down. Out of courtesy, I never use flash in a restaurant. These low-light photos were taken with my wonderful Mark II 50mm Canon lens that is amazingly only $90.

The elk chop is the larger cut on top. It was great! This was the most meat I’ve eaten in one sitting in literally years, period, because even when we eat it at home, I limit myself to 5 oz. The flavor and texture were wonderful. Sometimes gamey meat has a bad connotation to it but there was nothing ‘off’ or ‘rancid’ or ‘vegetal’ about the flavor that I recall.

Steaks at the Fort

That bird sticking out is a quail in teriyaki sauce. It’s a wee bird for sure. I never eat non-breast chicken so this, too, was an unusual feat for me, and I wasn’t quite sure how to eat it, so I tore it apart with my fork. I think that’s a good sign, as it was very tender, but this property might have do with how small a quail is. There was never more than an inch thickness of meat at any given point. The teriyaki sauce was good but I imagined it overshadowed any unique flavors of the quail. However, I thought this was tasty, and I’d eat it again.

The photo makes me laugh because it’s like the quail is the wicked witch in the wizard of oz. An elk steak fell on it instead of a house.

Quail and Elk steak in the Fort's Game Plate

I love rare meat, as it has more flavor and juiciness to me. I prefer the meltingly soft texture of a rare cut to the stringy texture of something well-done. The bison was, as you can see, quite rare, and I was pretty pleased. It’s also a lean meat – bison is low fat and in fact does not have the same ‘marbled’ property as beef at all.

Piece of bison steak

So there I was, a young woman in a dress, sitting alone, eating two appetizers, a salad, and a plate of game, to be followed by two desserts, most of which I didn’t eat. This young woman also had a camera and a bag of lenses.

Now, it’s not unusual, in the Tristate area (NJ, PA, NY), to have a manager come over to your table once in awhile and ask how you are. I have been asked that many times when I did not have a camera on me. When my waiter and then a manager asked me how my meal was, I thought that was normal.

Then the owner came over.

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