On Friday when I was done with work Dave and I drove to State College for the night. My mother's parents live there and my grandfather had had emergency surgery that day. I knew he was alright, and has a much more major surgery already scheduled in another month, but I wanted to see them. Yet another of the many benefits of living in Allentown is the proximity to our families. We have the ability to simply hop in the car and go see our grandparents when we want. State College has been my grandparents' home for almost 50 years, and many of my childhood memories are of their house. They will be moving out of that house in the spring, the house my mother and aunt grew up in, and I know it breaks all of our hearts to see the place go. We will be spending Thanksgiving there this year, and it will be nice to have one last big family holiday there.
Enough of the sad stuff. What I really want to talk about (as always) is food. Pictured above is one of my favorite restaurants in the world, the Corner Room, or the Allen Street Grill. We did not get to eat there this trip, but we will definitely go the next time. They have grilled sticky buns that are truly to die for. Some Wegmans in Pennsylvania are now selling them, and this is dangerous.
Instead of the Corner Room we went to the Philly Soft Pretzel Factory on Allen Street. We went there originally because they had Creamery ice cream advertised and we weren't sure that we wanted to go through the trouble of finding the actual creamery. Instead we ended up getting a couple pretzel dogs - hot dogs in pretzel dough rather than a bun, amazing - and some rivets, like pretzel doughnut holes. All together it was about $8 and totally filling for both of us.
Instead of the Corner Room we went to the Philly Soft Pretzel Factory on Allen Street. We went there originally because they had Creamery ice cream advertised and we weren't sure that we wanted to go through the trouble of finding the actual creamery. Instead we ended up getting a couple pretzel dogs - hot dogs in pretzel dough rather than a bun, amazing - and some rivets, like pretzel doughnut holes. All together it was about $8 and totally filling for both of us.
After that we did end up going to the Berkey Creamery. Run by the Penn State's agricultural school, it has some of the best ice cream I have ever had. It is also, according to the website, the country's largest university creamery. I can believe it, the line we were in had easily 35 people ahead of us, and it was pouring rain outside.
See? He approves.
You spent many Saturday mornings on a Corner Room table in a bed-like thing, the name of which I've forgotten. And when you got older you always picked your latest favorite place mat. You were with us when we signed the condolence card for the SU students who died on Flight 103.
ReplyDeleteI remember the place mats, those were awesome. I seem to think that there was a train one with little plastic trains that you could push around the edge.
ReplyDeleteI definitely don't remember the card though - I was what, a year and a half old? Ironic that we all ended up going to school there.
We bought some of your favorites. (NB Yank spelling) I still have three place mats. The one you recall and two farm scenes. The water that floated the sparkle bits, trains, and geese has long since evaporated.
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