Springwater Music Fair 2016

September 26, 20161amanda412 1 Comment

This two weekends ago Luke and I went on a date. The first date in months that did not include errands or trips to Lowes. It was just because we wanted to, which was nice.

There are things we will miss about upstate New York, the fall leaves, the dairy farms along the hill sides, the maple syrup, the homes decorated for each season, and summer and fall festivals.

One festival we will miss dearly is the Springwater Music Fair . Last year we found posters for this fair when we toured a local maple syrup producer in March.

For more read:

https://agreenesadventures.org/2015/04/22/flashback-march-maple-season/

We thought we would check out this very local festival less than a half hour from our house. We found ourselves at Punky Hollow, a tree farm and property outside of Springwater. For $10 each we enjoyed the beautifully landscaped property in the fall air, looked at local craft vendors, listened to music, and enjoyed local food and treats.

For more on last year’s festival read:

https://agreenesadventures.org/2015/09/28/springwater-fiddlers-fair/

It was so much fun we decided to come again this year. This year the name has changed to Music Fair. The genre of musicians has broadened and so have the festivals hours, open both Saturday and Sunday.

When we arrived on Saturday afternoon we saw new signs designating the festivals event spaces. After getting our wristbands we walked around to see what this year’s festival included.

The music tent was moved to the center of the field, with more seating available. We personally enjoy fiddling music: Irish, folk, American Blue grass, Cajun etc. So although we appreciate the festival has more variety we were disappointed to miss some fiddle-featured bands earlier in the day.

Instead we waited through some minor bands not in our genre preference. But we did discover one local featured band we bought a CD from: The Brother’s Blue. They had great American folk mandolin, banjo, and fiddle music.

In the past, the festival had white fiddles pointing to spots along property trails where fiddlers could play and join other amateurs. We did not see any white fiddles this year, which again was disappointing.

On the positive side, there were more local crafts and food vendors. We picked up honey from a Wayland producer. Also this year two local food trucks added to the food choices. During a lull in our preferred music we got lunch at Milliners Southern Smoke. and for the price we got a great deal on delicious BBQ.

Near the end of the day, like last year, we enjoyed Spotted Duck Creamery Custard a local organic duck egg custard producer. This year I got Salted Carmel and Luke got Strawberry Rhubarb. I will be honest, I looked forward to this dessert all summer. We are happy to see they returned to the festival and that their business is expanding.

Overall we enjoyed the Music Festival just a much as the year before. It is sad this will be our last time attending, but we are glad we were able to enjoy it for two fall seasons.

How do you celebrate the fall season?

Fall Festival and Wine

October 14, 20151amanda412 1 Comment

Two weeks ago we decided to use our Groupon to check out a local winery: Inspire Moore Winery in Naples. We drove by the bright purple winery building back in August when we joined the Springwater hiking group for a hike in Naples. We thought it may be worth returning to. So we found a groupon for wine tasting and cheese board and came back to check out our local grapes.

As we drove through Naples we saw covered stands set up from the past week’s grape festival (we sadly had missed) with people trying to sell of their grape pies and grapes (a local treat we are hoping to try soon).

Even though it was raining the tasting room and restaurant at Inspire Moore were both crowded. Fortunately we did not have to wait long. The sommelier who served us and explained the wines was very helpful. We found we enjoy their drier red wines.

After some tasting we went upstairs to enjoy the cheese board filled with cheeses from Fancy Yancey a cheese company we have encountered when we went to the Cuba cheese factory. (for more on this see Wine and cheese tasting Ellicottville)

Our favorite was the cheddar with candied maple bacon in it, perfect with red wine. We left with a few bottles and souvenir wine glasses then prepared to be out in the rain.

I love the fall, but one thing that is hard is to say goodbye to is the wonderful summer season of festivals. One festival left is the fall foliage festival in Cohocton. We stumbled upon this event last year. New to the area we were driving around to get acquainted and saw a sign for the festival.

For where we live it always has a great turn out of food vendors, craftsmen, local maple syrup and honey, and produce. This year sadly it was very rainy so my pictures do not aptly reflect how busy this festival usually is.

We were hungry so we decided to stop and get a roast beef sundae, sold by the historical society. With a mountain of mash potatoes and beef gravy with a cherry tomatoes on top it was a great warm snack to share in the cold.

After we walked around in the mud and rain, bought a few winter scarves, and went off to find our fall treat: cider doughnuts, cider, and apples. Just like last year we found a stand selling pies, apples, cider and baked goods. We got a half bushel of fall crisp apples for 8 bucks!

Now we are overflowing with apples. Fortunately we can dry some, use some for apple pie and we have discovered Kira enjoys them too. They have become a great healthy training snack.

What are some of your favorite fall activities or treats?

Springwater Fiddler’s Fair

September 28, 20151amanda412 1 Comment

Well it’s been busy past month adjusting to a new job, driving to Rochester everyday, and adding a puppy to our lives. We were ready for a weekend outing.

A few weekends ago went to the Springwater 7th annual Fiddler’s Fair. We heard about this fair from two sources: first from the maple farm we toured for maple week this past spring (see maple season) and from the Springwater trails group we hiked with this summer.

The fair takes places at a tree farm on the boarder between Cohocton and Wayland (so not far from our house) and hosts fiddlers from all over upstate New York for one day of performances, workshops, and jam sessions.

We arrived in the mid afternoon and explored the grounds. A barn was set up at the front of the property with crafts artists inside. We payed a five dollar donation and were given wrist bands and brochures before exploring. Around the corner form the barn was the main stage where fiddling performances occurred every half hour from 10-6pm all day.

Deciding to walk around the craft stalls outside, we walked around the found the inner loop trail to explore the jam sessions in the woods. At each location where a jam session could occur along the festival had set up haybails and a white fiddle sign.

We came late enough in the day that there were not any jam sessions in the forest, but we enjoyed the walk. The spring water hiking club blazes the trails for all of the events on the farm, and for most of the day supported guided hikes along the trails.

We came back to the main field and listened in on a few of the larger workshops and jam tents further out in the field. Some of the workshops included Penny whistle, woodworking, Cajun fiddling, and basic fiddling skills.

We also noticed they had nature crafts for children and a sing along stage where children could dress up, pick up instruments, and dance along to a guitarist singing children’s songs.

After walking around we decided to get dessert first settling on organic custard made locally from duck eggs. I got black raspberry and Luke had the mint chip, it was very good creamy and sweet.

We sat with our frozen treats and listened at the main stage to several performers including a group of children performers from a string school in Buffalo who were very good.

We then decided to get dinner and had many options to choose from everything from taco salad, to BBQ, to hamburgers and hot dogs, to vegetarian stew and lamb burritos. Sadly the lamb burritos were sold out by the time we decided to eat ,so Luke and I shared some BBQ and mac and cheese. All of the food stands were local bakeries, restaurants, and catering companies.

We enjoyed seeing that this fair was put on by volunteers and locals and the cost to get into the festival goes to run the festival next year and to support the community. It was also great to hear a variety of fiddling styles including Americana, Irish, and even Macedonian.

It was the perfect event to welcome the fall season.

Flashback: March Maple Season

April 22, 20151amanda412 2 Comments

I know it’s April but as I wrote before I”m trying to catch up on our March events.

When we moved to our house in October. For more see https://agreenesadventures.wordpress.com/2014/11/26/im-back/. My sister in law Stina who was helping us move said she thought most of the trees behind our house were maple. By the time we moved their bright yellow leaves covered the ground.

We had seen signs along roads with a tree tapped with a bucket next to it and been to farmers markets were local maple syrup was sold.But we had never toured a local maple syrup farm, until this past March.

All across Upstate New York during March or April is a Maple Weekend. For more see http://www.nysmaple.com/nys-maple-weekend/ when local maple syrup producers open up their doors for tours of their facilities, hikes through their maple trees, children events, sales on their maple products and pancake breakfasts served with their maple syrup.

This year we chose to go to Wohlschegels sugaring facility near Naples NY. For more on this local maple producer click here: http://www.fingerlakesbulkmaplesyrup.com/

By the time we got to the sugaring facility they had opened up the back end of their syrup/sugar processing building and filed it with tables and chairs for a pancake breakfast. We payed a small prices for all you can eat pancakes and were given generous portions of pancakes and sausage.

We got coffee (they had maple flavored coffee as well) and enjoyed looking around and at the menu which advertised all the local maple weekend events in the area.

After breakfast we sampled some of their products: maple mustard, syrup, creams and enjoyed an indoor tour on how they process sap and turn it into syrup.

Luke enjoyed the chemistry lesson and told me later that from what he heard much of the new technology for processing the sap to syrup adapted from the brewing process for beer.

We decided not to do the hike through the snow to the maple trees, maybe next year.

After going to this local maple events I decided for a spring break treat to make maple cream sandwich cookies with local maple syrup and a light cinnamon vanilla buttercream. For the recipe and more on this go to:

Do you like pancakes? Do you dip them in syrup or pour the syrup over?

Maple Cookies with Cinnamon Vanilla Buttercream

April 22, 20151amanda412 3 Comments

In one of my flashback to March posts I wrote about how this past month we enjoyed an all you can eat pancake breakfast at a local maple syrup producer during upstate new york maple weekend.

We bought local amber maple syrup that I was excited to use to make maple cookies. These cookies similar to a snikerdoodle have a hint of spice, perfect maple flavor, scented with vanilla, and a soft chewy texture.

So here’s my recipe for maple cookies with cinnamon vanilla buttercream.

Ingredients

1 cup butter, softened

1 cup packed brown sugar (3/4 C if using dark)

1 egg

1 1/2 cup real maple syrup (I used amber)

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

3 teaspoons baking soda

1 1/2 teaspoon salt

4 cups all-purpose flour

2 tablespoons vanilla pudding mix

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease cookie sheets.
In a large bowl, cream the butter and brown sugar.
Add the egg, syrup and vanilla. Mix until well blended.
Sift together the flour, salt, dry pudding mix, and baking soda.
Stir the flour mix into wet mixture until well blended.
Shape into 1/2 inch balls. Note: I hand roll them and because the dough is sticky I used flour on my hands to keep the dough from sticking.
Place on cookie sheets about 2 inches apart.

Bake 9-10 minutes in the preheated oven. Let cool on wire rack. They will deflate a little after coming out of the oven.

I made these cookies small so they would work as mini cookie sandwiches. You can make them into 1 inch balls if you do not plan on making sandwiches out of them. They will probably need 10-11 minutes in the oven.

Once cookies have cooled you can make the Cinnamon Vanilla Buttercream. These cookies are great on their own but I thought a light butter cream would help balance out the sweet of the cookie.

Ingredients:

2 C powdered sugar

3 TBS vanilla

2 tsp cinnamon

1 C salted butter softened

Note: you can choose not to use salted butter I thought it balanced out the sweet of the maple cookies

Directions

combine all ingredients
start mixer on slow then slowly increase speed
let the mixer get to its highest setting for 30 seconds.
put a lid on it and let it stiffen up in the fridge
spoon out a tablespoon or two of frosting onto a cookie and place the other on top to make a sandwich.

Note: I would keep these cookies in the fridge or cooled until they are ready to be eaten so the icing does not melt.

Drink It In: 2300 revisited

January 20, 20141amanda412 1 Comment

For those of you who are newer to my blog my first “real” post of A. Greene’s Adventures was last year at this time about a local event at the Corning Glass Museum called 2300 (see 2300 degrees ).

2300 degrees is a free event sponsored by the Corning Glass museum every third Thursday night from November to May. Each month the museum chooses one night to close the galleries and transform this tourist attraction into a site for a night on the town.

Corning Glass Co. launched 2013’s 2300 degrees with a “Finger Lakes Finest” themed event which meant free wine tasting. The Finger Lakes Region, as our area of upstate New York is called, is home to many local wineries and wine trails nestled in the hills surrounding the local lakes.

To start off 2014 the museum hosted a similar 2300 night called “Drink It In” which like last year featured free wine tasting. This year there were three less local lake wineries than last year and a little change-up in the variety of the wineries present. But this did not change the enthusiasm and crowd drawn to this event. There were still 26 wineries present offering their seasonal best reds to whites, drys to sweets, and everything in between. And a local artist Jeff Mack made amazing goblets in the Hot Glass Show.

This year we met up with two other couples and took our time wandering. Now that we are familiar with the museum and some of the local wineries we felt there was no rush in trying them all. We caught up with good friends after the holiday-craze, enjoyed snacks, and tried a few wineries. Near the end of the night we enjoyed the big band sound of: Big Mean Sound Machine from Ithaca in the Auditorium.

One feature of these 2300 events I did not mention last year is the glass museum sale. Although I am not one for modern art or large expensive (and also breakable) glass pieces, the museum does offer great sales deals on this once a month event night. Those items not already on sale are all 23% off and that includes the non- or less- breakable items like toys, ornaments, jewelry, books, lamps, glassware, chess sets etc.

January’s 2300 launch was just as fun and entertaining and the previous years. Maybe this year we will make and effort to attend another month’s 2300 events.

Strawberry Festival: an up and down outing

June 18, 20131amanda412 1 Comment

This past Saturday, Luke and I decided to go for a drive to a little town called Owego NY for their 33rd Annual Strawberry Festival. We took a scenic northern route to get there driving through small towns and farmland. Once we arrived downtown we struggled to find any form of parking and decided finally to support the local boy scouts for $5 parking. Eager to stretch our legs and explore, we got out and began walking the blocked off streets of downtown Owego.

Looking around we saw the typical festival food everything dipped, fried, and covered in powdered sugar or syrup possible. There were also BBQ, Gyro, Philly Cheesesteak, Italian sausage, and hamburger and french fry trucks parked all along the sidewalks. Among the many vendors we saw local artists paintings and pottery, antiques, tupperware, tie dyed outfits for all ages, face painting, sunglasses stands, jewelry, toys all similar to the many flee markets I’m used to in SoCal.

Turning a corner, we ran into one of the Saturday events: fireman’s hose race. Two teams at a time compete to set up the hose line, filling it with water, and be the first team to knock down the sign at the end of the raceway with their steady stream of water. We watched one race and at the end in celebration the winning team turned the hose to the sky spraying the crowd with water.

Since this was a strawberry festival, there were plenty of strawberry flavored novelties: lemonade, icees, strawberry flavored kettle corn, smoothies, shortcake and more. Luke and I decided to pick up a strawberry daiquiri from Elk’s Lodge to share as we walked around.

Following a path around one of the three music stages we found the waterfront to the Susquehanna river. Walking along the path following the river, we watched cars crossing over the river on the bridge leading into old town. Passing a children’s play area including bounce houses, we found a local jam and butter stand and bought some strawberry rhubarb butter.

Walking further down the street we found the wine tasting tent. We only bought one ticket: $5 for 10 tastes to share since there were only a few vendors. Disappointed by most of the wineries, Luke headed to the brewery. Eager to try their beers Luke sampled them all. The result was good and bad new. Bad news for the brewery he wasn’t impressed by. Good news? He thought his first homemade brew was actually better than what he tasted and has more faith in his ability to make some great homemade beer!!

After a little more walking around, we decided to stop to eat. Craving mexican we decided to stop into their local mexican restaurant with seating over looking the river. Luke ordered a build your own burrito and I did the same but in a bowl form. Hungry we were happy when our food arrived. Sadly that happiness did not last long. Barely into my meal I found the chicken in my burrito bowl to be tasteless. Luke found his meat to be similarly bland. We left disappointed realizing we have still yet to have found a decent Mexican restaurant any better than Taco Bell here on the East Coast.

As we left the festival we found another local vendor for honey. Luke has been wanting to get local honey for awhile, hoping it will help us adjust to the pollen and allergens in the area. Knowing that I use quite a bit of honey and wanting to support a local business we got the 2lb. container and a few honey sticks for the road.

The goodies from our outing

The Strawberry Festival had it’s ups and downs. Another down moment was that we saw only one actual strawberry stand out of the hundreds of vendors, selling small containers of strawberries for 4.50 each!!!! Still it was a worth while to explore a thriving small downtown area only an hour from home. Plus we found a new river to explore and hopefully kayak on.

How was your weekend?

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Springwater Music Fair 2016

Fall Festival and Wine

Springwater Fiddler’s Fair

Flashback: March Maple Season

Drink It In: 2300 revisited

Strawberry Festival: an up and down outing

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