l'oeuf

We crossed the border last night for a big birthday dinner. We do it every summer and have done the last two years at Hen of the Wood in Burlington - a fantastic place that makes a mushroom toast you dream of. This year there was a request to find a French place somewhere nearby (Quebec, as it turns out) for the festivities. X sleuth-ed out L'Oeuf in Mystic, Quebec, a short 25-minute drive from our summer locale. (As an aside, we ended up crossing into Quebec via the the same border patrol agent who'd seen the boys earlier in the week.). Southern Quebec is very Midwestern in layout: corn, soy beans, flat, barns. Mystic is a very small village hidden in the trees and made up of 30-40 fabulously maintained Quebecoise homes; and. L'Oeuf. The shop, inn, and restaurant are run by a couple who've somehow put together the best little place in the World. The shop is full of chocolate (that they make), mustards (some of which they make), marmalades, and assorted French stuff that sucks me in like me wandering into a high-end NYC papier. Before dinner we were three digits of money into our stash of chocolate, mustard, chestnut paste, and Opinel knives.

Dinner on a lovely screened in porch near the garden was a chef's selection for two of us and some a la carte on the other half. Everything was perfectly done with the beaujolais, confit de canard, terrine, and desserts. The terrine gave us insight into the handmade mustard half Canadian, half French seeds) that was a perfect piquant. On the way out we grabbed yet another jar that the waiter told us came with the terrine, but we were stopped short by the owner/mustardeer who directed to his unlabel home cache of jars - of which he gave us one free. It's gold. You'll never taste it because it's too precious. There was nothing in the entire event that wasn't perfect. Seriously. One of the best meals, ever. If you're up that way, and you never know, get a reservation.

Maybe we need a cross-border home.

halt, who goes there?

We are spending the week on the shores of Lake Champlain, very near (.5 miles) to the Canada border on the Vermont side. There is I-87 exit 22*, where we're staying, immediately followed by the border. If you happen to miss the exit you are rewarded by sitting in line to cross into Canada. If you are two young lads on their way back to the lake house from a day/dinner in Burlington, Vermont, sans passports, and slip by the exit you get a free hour long 'mini-vacation' having a long, interesting discussion with Canadian border guards: Where do you live? Where are you staying? Where were you born? What is your business? Hand me your passports. Answers to these questions were along the lines of America, on the lake in a house, I think Vermont, no idea, we don't have any. They had their car searched by the great northerners and then told to take the quick u-turn, no doubt in place for just these more-than-often events, and pointed back to the US border shack on the southbound side. Whatever the procedure at the border, and I'm sure it's well worn for accidental tourists, the Americans weren't so much interested as they watch them come down the "lane of shame" heading back to their homeland. We are thinking that if they go out alone again we'll pin a big note on each of them with their names, place of birth, lake cabin address, and their mother's phone number.

*Vermont must be the only state in the Union where the interstate highways don't have exits numbered by mile marker. You might come into Vermont from the south thinking, "We are getting off at exit 10 which is in about ten miles." Funny that. Exit 10 could be 112, or 5, miles away - there is no math or knowledge that can help you.