A stopover on the way to Balticon

I usually visit here on the way back from the con, but this year, that's not possible, so I'm making my annual stop at The Inn At Little Washington a few days earlier.  I find this place restful and peaceful, a lovely location in the middle of nowhere.

I particularly like the small garden, complete with water features and carp, which sits off the dining room and is a great place for afternoon tea and contemplation.

Tomorrow, I hit the road, and then the con starts.

Dinner at The Inn At Little Washington

For quite a few years now, I've stopped on the way home from Balticon at one of my favorite inns anywhere, The Inn At Little Washington.  Chef/proprietor Patrick O'Connell's country creation is a wonderful place to get away from it all, enjoy great food, and relax.  As I wrote in a recent entry, I stopped again this year and owe you a review of the dinner in the kitchen table.

The Inn now offers only tasting menus.  The night we were there, it had three.  One featured classic dishes from its past.

Click an image to see a larger version.

We opted for that one, but with the addition of the foie gras dish from the seasonal menu.

The meal begins with a snack that's occupied this starting position for as long as I've been going there: truffled popcorn.

The truffles were early finds from Australia.  An accompanying tradition was the small set of parmesan crackers, which were exactly as they should be:  flavorful, salty, and fun.

A bit of pork belly on a spoon, a potato chip--a dream of a potato chip--stuffed with ham and cheese, and a radish fresh from their garden served as the amuse bouche.

At that point, the menu officially began!  I have tasted the chilled asparagus soup and delicate cheese puff before, but I was excited to get to try them again.  Both were as absolutely delicious as I remembered.

The tin of sin featured American Osetra caviar sitting atop some Peekytoe crab.  Spread a little on the perfect brioche slices, and you have a heavenly combination.

Our addition appeared next.  The hot foie was perfectly seared and melded beautifully with the gastrique.  The cold foie was differently wonderful, and the cherries blended well with it.

The baby lamb carpaccio proved to be perfectly seared and flavorful, though I think we would have done better with a single small scoop of the Caesar salad ice cream.  (Yes, regardless of how it sounds, it tasted great.)

The Inn had just that day received its first shipment of soft-shell crabs, and Executive Chef Evan Pope, who was running the kitchen that night, surprised us with a special dish featuring them.  The peanuts on top were a surprising addition I quite enjoyed.

I'm not a fan of sea bass.  I have nothing against it, but I've felt for some time that too many restaurants were overusing it.  This perfectly prepared dish changed my mind.  The fish could not have been better, and the shrimp and pork dumpling was a delight.

The squab breast with hackleberries took no prisoners with a very strong flavor and a nice combination of meat and fruit.  If you like squab, as I do, you will love this dish.  (If you don't care for squab, though, this is definitely not the plate for you.)

The final savory course, the prosciutto-wrapped veal with country ham and fontina ravioli, was another set of strong flavors that worked very well for me.

When faced with a cheese cart as strong as The Inn's,

you have only one choice:  add a cheese course.  So I did.  I failed to photograph it before I was partway through it, but this picture should serve to indicate the delicious variety of cheeses I sampled.

Dessert was up next, but at The Inn, nothing succeeds like excess, so first you get a pre-dessert, in this case a wonderful little creamsicle.

I'm not a creamsicle fan in general, but I would eat one of these every day if I had the chance.  (I am very thankful I do not.)

For dessert, I chose the only option I could not resist:  the Seven Deadly Sins, a selection of miniature versions of many of their desserts.

I'll leave to your imagination (or your Goggle research) exactly what each of these is, but every single one was delicious.

I have strongly recommended a meal at The Inn At Little Washington since the first time I ate there, and I do so again now.  The food is wonderful, the setting beautiful, and the only drawbacks are cost--nothing this good is cheap--and your need to exercise afterward.

On the road again: Balticon, day 5

Morning went to sleep, afternoon to driving, evening to catching up, settling in at home, and work.  I'm behind on many fronts, so I have to buckle down now on several to catch up.

Lunch featured this oddity from a Sonic Drive-In along the highway:

Click the image to see a larger version.

For those of you who have never seen this concoction before--and I had not--this is a Cheesy Bacon Pretzel Dog.  I'm not at all sure that this thing should exist, but given that it does, I had to try it.

The verdict?  Not bad, not bad at all.  Weird, and definitely not good for any human, but also tasty enough.

And now, more work, as normal life resumes for me.

On the road again: Balticon, day 4

After a reasonable amount of sleep--I am still exhausted and catching up--I headed down the road to The Inn At Little Washington, one of my favorite places to spend an evening.  (I've never stayed more than one night.)  There is nothing to do in this small town except relax and enjoy the resplendent Inn.  That's perfect for me and makes this a wonderful place to relax.

Because I knew dinner would be so large, my only food during the day was a small tea in the Inn's garden.

Dinner, as I always make it here, was in the kitchen table, where you get to enjoy both watching a world-class kitchen in action and consuming the amazing food they are creating for you.  Chef/proprietor Patrick O'Connell was in Ireland chairing a Relais & Chateaux meeting, but his Executive Chef, Evan Pope, was running the show and doing an excellent job.  I hope to provide a full review later.

Now, to chill a bit and then, I hope, sleep a ton.

Travel and work, work and travel

A day that starts at The Inn At Little Washington and includes a wonderful lunch from them is hard to complain about, so I won't.  I will, though, note that the rest of the day went to driving and work, lots and lots of work. 

I'm home now but beat, so this is all I have to offer.  Sorry about that.

Tomorrow, normal work life resumes!

On the road again: Balticon, day 4

Today, I drove away from the con and into the wilds of Virgina, all the way to The Inn At Little Washington.  Chef/Proprietor Patrick O'Connell has relentlessly pursued his singular vision here, and the result is a wonderful experience in a delightful setting with fantastic food.  As with each year's trip here, dinner was at one of the two tables in the kitchen and featured a lovely tasting menu. 

If I were richer than I will ever be, this is one of the places to which I'd love to retreat for a month to finish a novel in a quiet setting that would lend itself well to writing and walking. 

Tomorrow, I head home. 

On the road again: Balticon, day 6

The drive home from the Inn at Little Washington is a long one that starts out as a beautiful ride through gorgeous Virginia mountains and becomes the usual nasty death race down I-95.  I spent it either driving or working in the car, though work became so intense that I had to pull over and hack away at my laptop in a McDonald's (for its free bandwidth) for over an hour.

Huddling over your laptop working in the corner of a McDonald's while Dr. Oz plays loudly on a TV directly over your head is a seriously sad way to spend an hour. 

Now, though, I'm home--until Saturday.  Then I fly off to do something odd.  More on that in another post.

For now, add to the list of must-see summer movies this awesome beast.



Oh, yeah.

On the road again: Balticon, day 5

The alarm rang far earlier than I wanted today (when does it not?), but that proved to be a very good thing, because the drive out of Baltimore was the easiest in years.  A few hours later, I was at one of the places I find most relaxing, The Inn at Little Washington.  The small town is delightful, the Inn itself wonderful, and the food of Chef and Owner Patrick O'Connell absolutely scrumptious.  Sitting in the kitchen table, watching the chefs work and enjoying the results of their labors, is a treat every year. 

Each Memorial Day, I think about the people I know and have known who serve or served in the military, giving their precious time and work to that service, sometimes giving their lives.  I have never been in the military, so I have no firsthand knowledge of what they've experienced, but from talking with them, I know the costs have been high.  Very high.

So on this day, I want to thank them, and the many more people I have never met, for all that they have given for the rest of us.  We will never understand all that it has cost them.

On the road again: Balticon, day 5

The morning went to sleep, work, and packing, as well as a few good-byes to folks who passed by.

Then, we headed into the country--specifically, to Patrick O'Connell's wonderful Inn at Little Washington. Along the way, we stopped at a wonderful ice cream shop so new its name was not yet over its door, so I cannot report it here. (I am trying to get it.) The owner makes all his own ice cream and frozen yogurt entirely from local ingredients, and every flavor I tasted was intense and wonderful. I wish him the best.

The Inn is related to a project I'm not yet ready to announce, but it is also simply an exemplar of hospitality and service. The dinner at the kitchen table was as reliably amazing as always. If I ever become an insanely rich bestselling multimillionaire writer, I will go to the Inn to hide away and write.

Work beckons now, so I must go to it.

Tomorrow, the drive home.

On the road again: Balticon, day 6

A very late work night led to an all too early awakening, but that seems to be rather common for me these days. The drive home was fortunately uneventful, for which I am always grateful. When I wasn't driving, I was able to catch up on email, so I didn't slow others at work too much.

The evening went to family time, unpacking, catching up on the work that had piled up, and so on--pretty much as usual.

Tomorrow, Dr. Efficient's debut advice column!

In the meantime, for no reason I can pinpoint, this old Randy Newman song has been rattling around in my head for some time, so now I'll stick it in yours, too.

On the road again: Balticon, day 5

Too much good food and too much residual energy from all the performing resulted in a very restless night, but I still managed to spend more of it in bed than I do on most nights.

First up in the morning was a panel on violence in SF and fantasy. I wasn't satisfied with how it went, but the audience seemed engaged, so perhaps I should be happy.

After saying goodbye to friends, a three-hour drive deposited me at the doorstep of the wonderful Inn at Little Washington, Chef and Owner Patrick O'Connell's amazing creation. The Inn leaches away tension and replaces it with relaxation, so I was very happy to arrive. Dinner was, as always, amazing.

In a brief late-evening check of personal email before I turned to work, I learned that Children No More had won the Fourth-Day Universe Best Military SF award. What Distant Deeps, the most recent RCN series novel of my friend, David Drake, won the Best Space Opera award. I was happy to learn of both. My congratulations to all the winners and nominees in all the categories. I do have to also thank my friend, Lynn, who took it upon herself to draw my book to the attention of a lot of students; I sincerely doubt CNM would have done as well without all her efforts.

Even on a day that contains several hours of break time, work awaits, so I now return to it.

On the road again: Balticon, day 6

This morning vanished in a blur of sleep, work, packing, and goodbyes. I then drove to the middle of nowhere, where I am now.

Well, to be more precise, I'm in Washington, VA, at The Inn at Little Washington, where I am recharging a bit, writing a bit, and soon heading to enjoy an amazing dinner in its Kitchen Table. I love this place, in large part because there is nothing to do here. (No cell phones work, though the Internet bandwidth is quite good--and comes with the room, of course.) Chef and Proprietor, Patrick O'Connell, has created here a certain kind of perfection. It's not my normal taste, nor at all how I would have done it, but I admire his dedication to his vision, and there is no place quite like it.

I'm heading offline now to prepare for dinner and then to eat a large number of what I expect to be exquisite courses. More on the meal in an update later.

UPDATE: After consuming an enormous tasting menu full of delicious tidbits, I can say with complete confidence that Chef O'Connell and the team here at the Inn have not lost a single step. This is definitely a great place to come if you want a world-class meal.

I can also confidently declare that I am in the grips of a food coma and so will now head offline for the night. Perhaps it was the sixth cheese, or maybe the second dessert course, that did me in.

On the road again: Balticon, day 6

I'm home after a long drive made longer by the rain and the traffic and the frequent appearances of drivers with road IQs below the air pressure ratings of their vehicles' tires.

Dinner last night was an amazing tasting menu at the kitchen table in The Inn at Little Washington, a most wonderful place indeed.

The best sign of the drive was this one, a handwritten masterpiece on the side of the road sitting just below an old but more formal FOR SALE sign:

TURKEYS
CHICKENS
* BABIES *

I wonder why they listed the babies last, but I was pleased to see they were the only offering to rate asterisks.

I must now resume normal life. Much to do, so to it, I go.

On the road again: Balticon, day 5

I ended up working very late again last night and so did not get enough sleep; so it goes. Much of the day went to the logistics of travel, from shower to packing to lunch to driving to unpacking. I'm overnighting at The Inn at Little Washington, which as I mentioned in last year's report of my first visit here is simply one of the best places I've ever stayed.

An amazing meal at one of the two kitchen tables ended with a very nice conversation with Chef and Proprietor Patrick O'Connell. Though it began as a social obligation on his part, he lingered far longer than last time because we became absorbed in a discussion first of politics and then of the joys of having total control over certain experiences, him in work he does with the Inn and its various facilities, me in novels. Creative control freaks connecting, I suppose, but I enjoyed the talk very much.

An oddity of the modern world is that I can write this entry, do email, and browse the Web in the comfort of my lovely room in a very rural section of Virginia, but I cannot use my cell phone, because there's no signal for approximately 23 square miles around us (that figure courtesy of the information book in the room).

I must write now and hope for more sleep tonight, so I will attend to that. The book grows--too slowly, but it grows.

Balticon, day 4: The Inn at Little Washington

Between sleep and morning work, I ended up not spending any time at the con. We had lunch with Kyle and hit the road. Late afternoon and evening was The Inn at Little Washington, which is every bit as amazing as all the reviews say and one of the nicest, most luxurious places I've ever stayed. We had dinner at the kitchen table in the restaurant and had the privilege of meeting Chef and Proprietor Patrick O'Connell, who was a gracious host as well as being, of course, a world-class chef. The meal was one of the best I've ever eaten, and I've eaten some very wonderful meals.

Chefs of this caliber create art. Just as there is always room for another great novel, painting, or piece of music, there is always room for another great meal.

I will, though, have to diet and exercise like a demon when my travels end.

Back to writing Slanted Jack. Jon's about to make some noise....