Writing to you from Upstate NY

We arrived in upstate NY late Wednesday night, and we got to our rental house Thursday around lunch time.  There are lots of knickknacks, antiques, treasures, and art pieces very low to the ground that are quite intriguing to an 11 month old. Our first order of business was to baby proof one room. That is mostly done, but we are still working to find nooks and crannies to fit all of the stuff we brought with us.

Yesterday we took a break from the child proofing and unpacking to visit the Oneida County Public Market. It was so cold!! I thought maybe we were just wimpy because we were fresh off a plane from Phoenix, AZ, but my sister-in-law visiting from VT also thought it was cold.  It's a great market with 30-35 vendors with lots of choices for meat and vegetables. The vegetable farmers were mostly selling greens because it is so early in the growing season here. It really drove home that we crossed the country and ended up somewhere in a totally different climate. It was 108 the day before we left Phoenix, and yesterday in Utica it was in the 50s. Phoenix is just wrapping up their Spring growing season, and then a new growing season will start in the fall after the worst of the high temps are over (two short growing seasons each year). Around here corn plants are only 4-6 inches tall and the only vegetables that are available are various greens, baby carrots, and baby radishes.

Last night we needed a nice hot dinner to help warm us up, and chose to roast a chicken with herbes de provence and served it with garlicky greens. What a change from the salads we were eating on a regular basis in the Phoenix heat.

Roasted Chicken seasoned with sea salt and herbes de provence. It's a perfect comforting meal for a cold early summer night.

Oven Roasted Chicken with Vegetables

I had an interesting walk from the subway to home. A cute new chocolate shop opened, and they were handing out samples. I tried a lemon caramel chocolate, which was good. A lot going on with the flavors, but I did choose lemon caramel chocolate. There were signs up and down the street warning drivers that parking was off limits because Happy Hour was filming. We see these signs a lot - last week they were filming White Collar. But this time they shut down Eight Mile Creek to film. I wonder what Happy Hour is? Next I saw a bike tour peddling toward me, and then lots of paparazzi and people taking cell phone photos of an Evian event. I admit that I had to take a peek through the window to see what all the fuss was about, and I saw a blond young woman. I just assumed she was a model and kept walking, but I just googled "Evian event NYC" to find out that it was Maria Sharapova. Google is amazing - it knows which celebrity I saw on my way home from work. Mind boggling! Last but not least, I noticed that the decorations for the Feast of San Gennaro are starting to go up. Soon we will have the equivalent of a county fair right outside our front door.

Once I got home, I found out my blog won an award from a fellow blogger, Cooking in Kenzo. I will write more about it in my next post, and get to pass it along to other blogs that I love.


It has finally cooled off this week in NYC, and we are getting some long overdue rain. On my way home from work yesterday, I decided that I wanted to have oven roasted chicken. It was finally cool enough to turn on the oven. Mmmm, it hit the spot. We cooked the chicken and vegetables all in the Dutch oven which made it a no fuss meal. All of the vegetables took on a great chickeny flavor.

Oven Roasted Chicken with Vegetables
1 medium chicken
1 onion, cut into good size chunks
1 small cabbage, sliced
2 carrots, cut into 1 inch chunks
salt and pepper

Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees.

Rinse and dry the chicken. Add vegetables to the Dutch Oven, and place chicken on top. Cover it and cook for 30 minutes. Remove the cover and turn up the heat to 425, and cook until the juices run clear (about 30 more minutes).

Oven roasted chicken is a gift that just keeps giving. We had salads with leftover chicken for dinner tonight, and now I have the bones in the crock pot making chicken stock.