Travel Day 1 and a giveaway win (picture heavy long post)

Hubby and I took a quick trip to Hyde Park in upstate New York last weekend. We planned to sightsee and have dinner at the Culinary Institute of America. 

We had tickets for the Vanderbilt mansion midday on Friday. It was mostly past leaf peeping season up there, but we did see a few pretty trees on the property.

This is a ginko tree that is famed at the mansion. Its unique fan shaped leaves were a beautiful bright yellow.

I did say that we visited the mansion. It is more than a little bit impressive.

The entrance hall has a gorgeous skylight up above.

Below is the room that would be a guest's first impression. Sadly the tapestry above the gorgeous mantle has faded due to the skylight. This mansion is exactly as it was when Frederick Vanderbilt died in 1938, twelve years after his wife Louise died. This was their summer estate. Frederick left the estate to his niece who wanted to sell it, but couldn't during the depression.  She was persuaded by Franklin Delano Roosevelt to leave it to the National Park Service as an example of the Gilded Age. It is the only Gilded Age property that is part of the National Park Service. All others are run by historical societies. 

Here is the ceiling on one of the parlor rooms just off of the entry way. 

Below is the room where Frederick and his male guests would retire to after dinner. Frederick was not a hunter, but hunting trophies such as the stag head were expected to impress your guests.

I have always been impressed and awed by beautiful coffered ceilings.

The dining table was being set for Thanksgiving dinner.

If you zoom in on that piano, you will see that there are portraits of famous people on it. Don't ask me who they are.

This bust is in an alcolve of the stairway to the second floor.

There is a tapestry and statue when you reach the top of the stairs.

I believe this was a guest bedroom.

This is Louise's bedroom. Wealthy couples didn't share a room in those days.

It certainly is quite grand.

 Notice the railing around the antique bed in the first photo. When the bed was made years before Louise acquired it, these railings were installed so that the necessary important people could watch and verify the birth of an heir. How horrifying. Maybe that is why Frederick and Louise had no children. Another view below.

I found the patterns on this balustrade that surrounded the second floor to be fascinating and beautiful.

You can get a perspective of the height of the mansion looking up from the bottom of the servant's staircase.

In the basement was a gathering room for the servants ala Downtown Abbey.

We walked around the grounds, but except for a few stray roses, the gardens were ready for winter.

There was a small sculpture exhibit.

One of the last of the roses.

Our next stop was the Deer Hill Farm Cross-stitch shop. I grabbed this photo from the internet.

This is a small shop run by a lady in her 80s who was away at the time. It is packed full of all things cross stitch in several tiny rooms. Hubby stayed in the car while I browsed. I could have spent hours.

Look at all those drawers full of floss.

There was another whole room of floss through that first doorway and off to the left was even more.

I was a little overwhelmed by all of it. I wasn't looking for anything in particular. I did buy two charts. I love Little House Needleworks and I haven't stitched many fall pieces. The Pumpkin House pillow caught my eye.  I am looking forward to stitching these.

I would have bought the fabrics for them, but they didn't have what was called for and I wasn't in the mood to make possibly expensive decisions. 

Since our mansion tour was around lunchtime and then we stopped at the LNS, we were hungry mid-afternoon. On our way to our hotel we found Nana's Ice Cream and Grill.

It is just a small roadside take-out place where you can get ice cream, burgers, franks, etc.

Hubby got a hot dog (his go-to quick lunch), but I just couldn't pass up the toasted coconut ice cream.

Oh this was delicious. The toasted coconut was covered in chocolate. It was heavenly.

After checking in to our hotel it was still late afternoon and we had nothing to do until our 7:15 dinner reservation so we decided to go to one of the local vineyards for a glass of wine. We found Nostrano Vineyards.

I must tell you that we were enjoying a beautiful, unseasonably warm day. It was in the 70s in upstate New York in November! We each enjoyed a glass of Reisling (mine was sweet, Hubby's was not) as we sat outside basking in the sun and the view of an apple orchard and grape vines.

Our final stop of the day was dinner at the American Bounty restaurant at the Culinary Institute of America. This was the catalyst of this two day trip. The restaurant was inside this beautiful campus building.

Inside there was a hallway dedicated to Anthony Bourdain and honoring other famous chefs.

There are lecture rooms all down this hall, some with working kitchens at the front of the room.

The displays were very interesting.

This is a nod to Harry Potter. It made us smile.

Of course I had to find a quilt in the hallway leading to our restaurant.

I didn't take photos of our meals. Hubby and I just wanted to enjoy the experience. We had a table near the glass enclosed kitchen where we could see the students working under the supervision of their teaching chefs. Also, all the servers and bussers are students at the CIA. They must work both in the kitchen and out front as part of their coursework. 

You can see the menu that we chose from here. The server brought to the table parsnip and truffle bruschetta. I ordered a French martini and Hubby had his usual vodka. We started with salads....Hubby had a Caesar salad and I had the Spinach Salad. A pan of 6 Parker House rolls was also brought to the table. Oh my, were they delightful. I ordered the Steak Frites for my entree and Hubby had the Cioppino. Both were quite delicious, though I was a little disappointed in the steak as it was a little tough. Usually, Hubby and I share a dessert, but not this night. You can see that menu here. Hubby had the Profiteroles and I had the S'mores Chocolate Tart. Both of these were heavenly. To say we were stuffed at the end of the meal is an understatement. We returned to our hotel room and soon went to sleep after a long day. Day 2 will be another post.

Now to finish this very long post, I want to show you the cookbook that I won from the Autumn Jublilee run by Carole at From My Carolina Home whose blog I frequent.

I enjoy watching the PBS Milkstreet television show and look forward to trying some of the recipes in this book.

Thanks for stopping by!