One for the hunters

Look, I know not everybody is into hunting, if you're not just pass on by this one. I don't do many hunting posts or talk about hunting very often. This is the first of a two part series so if you're anti-hunt you should probably skip tomorrow too.


I've hunted, off and on, for 30+ years now. I got my first hunting license when I was 13 which would have been 1989. My very first hunt I shot a rabbit which was the biggest accomplishment I'd have hunting for the next 10 years.

In 1999 I shot a moose but other than that I'd shot mostly squirrels and a few partridge. I'd started shooting squirrels a few years back because of spending a lot of hunting seasons shooting nothing and because the little pine squirrels (called red squirrels in Maine these are not the same big red squirrels you see outside of the northeast.) can be very destructive if they get into the camp.

2019 was the year I started to get serious about hunting, its the year that I realized a lot of what I thought I knew about hunting was wrong and the year I started to pay attention better. My success started at camp in October when I got my first duck. I won't show the picture, its too gross, I didn't get a clean kill and didn't know how to wring the duck's neck. My follow up shot made a mess of him but I still got the duck and we did eat it.

Mergansers are often called "fish ducks" because they eat fish and are reputed to taste like fish. I marinaded this one in Italian dressing for 3 days before grilling it. I probably should have pounded the meat to tenderize it a little but other than being a little tough it tasted fine.

Ben and I started hunting ducks together a few years ago before I had my gun license and I had no luck but 2019 was way better.

These are wood ducks, I shot the drake at the top, Ben got the other two. The two drakes and another hen he shot a different day are getting mounted. Wood ducks, often called "The gentleman of the marsh" are really beautiful and pretty delicious.
Interestingly wood ducks are named for what they eat.

Those acorns taken from the gullet of a wood duck.

My final score for waterfowl season was 2 ducks, the woodie and a mallard hen.

Other than the ducks we're having mounted the meat got slow cooked in the dutch oven.
I also scored 2 Canada geese. Geese are much tougher birds than ducks and require heavier shot. Both of the ones I shot needed to be shot twice because I'd had the gun loaded for ducks when I fired. I'll be more careful about that next season. The geese I shot are both at Ben's house waiting to be made into jerky.

I mentioned I learned a lot this year, one of my big lessons that I need to improve my sneak. I started learning this with the merganser. I found that if I could stay behind some weeds I could sneak up on them pretty easily. I also learned that I'm not a very good shot with the shotgun. This is a practice thing and I just need to spend a bunch more time shooting.

Up next: Deer season and more lessons learned.

ChowdaQ XII

Have I talked about ChowdaQ here? I don't see that I have, at least not in the last few years.

I started driving a diesel Mercedes full time back in the winter of 2003, that was my '83 240D "Hammie" that I bought in New Jersey and drove home. Thats a story in itself. Anyway to keep that car on the road I joined the email discussion list on MBZ.org. Back then our main parts supplier was Rusty and at some point Rusty held a customer appreciation BBQ that got nicknamed the RustyQ. Its worth noting that we often referred to Rusty as "Q" in homage to the character in the 007 films as Rusty was the man with the stuff. There were then a bunch of other BBQs, IowaQ, the OkieQ and probably some more I don't recall.

All that was far away from me in New England so I decided we should hold a Q. After much discussion it got nicknamed ChowdaQ. The first ChowdaQ was set for the fall of 2005 or so, I don't recall exactly. The plan was to get together in a park near my apartment and have burgers and whatnot. As is typical for me I really hadn't prepared and the day dawned rainy and gross so I shot of a quick note to cancel and we headed out for breakfast. I didn't spare it another thought but 2 guys did, separately and without seeing each other, show up. Fred, who ended up being a great friend, drove out from near Boston and another guy who never forgave me, came from Connecticut.

Anyway the idea of ChowdaQ then languished for a few years until I met Dwight. I'd taken a welding class in RI and he came out and took my friend and I to lunch. I think it was then that we rehashed the idea of ChowdaQ and without Dwight it certainly wouldn't happen. The first "modern" ChowdaQ was in 2008 and I've always referred to it as ChowdaQ I. The original abortive attempt gets the title of ChowdaQ 0, "the ChowdaQ that wasn't".

The MBZ email list is long gone, with Okiebenz taking over but the ChowdaQ lives on, "The last of the MBZ Qs."
September 2019 was our twelfth annual ChowdaQ. These days we've got a pattern pretty well established and a pretty good attendee list with some really cool cars. The site is Goddard State park in Warwick, RI. Robert Goddard was the father of modern rocketry, the park is the old family estate. Its a great place for a picnic.

I haven't had a Mercedes since we got Angie's Golf. This year my Jetta came incognito. Somehow I ended up with a whole bunch of MB hubcaps...

I think a lot of people come just for the food. Karen makes the Chowda. This is RI chowda, made with clear broth. I always take a picture so Wilton on the email

I cook in the dutch ovens with my old Coleman 413E, this year I did pork tenderloin, I watch the sales at the grocery store all summer for this. I aim for the meat to cook a minimum of 3 hours to ensure its nice and tender.

The last couple years we've done quahogs. If all you've ever had before at steamer clams these are so much better its crazy. These are "little neck" clams so they don't have the big neck like steamer clams do. They're buttery all by themselves and delightful when dipped in butter. 2019 was windy so Roy used his VW camp mobile as a wind break and we taught him how to cook quahogs.
Mary brings a ton of fruit and Fred brings salad so theres always something for everybody.

Kari is a potter and makes prizes that we give out.

At the end we pass around a hubcap for donations which, in the last couple years has paid for everything.

Anyway, if the good lord is willing and the creek don't rise you'll see us back in September for ChowdaQ XIII.

Back to the Philippines

Long time readers might remember that I went to the Philippines back in 2015. In August I went again. I was pleased to get the same flight schedule as last time but in the intervening years my employer has updated their policy so that flights of more than 6 hours allow us to book premium economy. I flew Japan Airlines (JAL) and, while I was impressed with them last time, the premium economy experience was even better.

Premium economy gets you lounge access but JAL doesn't have a lounge at BOS so you get entry to the British Airlines lounge which is pretty great. I had a bite to eat and a couple of glasses of wine which was lovely to relax me for the flight.

The seats in premium economy were like first class seats on domestic flights in the US. The seats weren't lay-flat but they laid out pretty good and included an eye mask and noise canceling headphones that, for being free, were pretty good. I even got a couple hours sleep which is unusual for me.

Our office is in Taguig which is part of metro Manila. We're in a big office building, the first 4 floors of which are a mall. For breakfast many of the mornings I opted for a taste of home:

If you're not from near-Canada you might not recognize Timmy's but its a Canadian staple. After a few breakfasts I actually switched to Starbucks, I did that for a couple reasons:
1. Starbucks would do coffee with no sweetener. I had a helluva time convincing the workers at Tim's that I didn't want sweetener in my iced coffee.
2. Starbucks has oatmeal. I can only eat so many egg sandwiches...

This cooky building is "SM Aura" and is actually a 6 story shopping mall. The end bit that goes up purportedly has dining facilities on top but I didn't go up there. Filipino's love their malls and I discovered that the part of the mall I was most interested was actually underground. So in this 6 story mall there are 4 stories up and 2 stories (plus the car park) underneath. There reason I like the below stories better is thats where the grocery store and the bookstore are. Its where the regular people shop. The stores up top are the same as we have in the US and just bore me to tears.

I did go to another mall I didn't get a picture of "Market Market" which is much more asian and clearly priced better because it was PACKED. They had a big outdoor section for fresh produce and then inside had market stalls. At one point I was wandering in market stalls and realized I'd gone into a bad place, there weren't many people and those that were there were staring at me. My technique in those situations is the old "Fake it until you make it", just plow on like I know what I'm doing and hope things get better on the other side. They usually do and they did this time.
I really wish I'd gotten a picture of "The American Store" which was what we would call a dollar store...

My favorite Manila restaurant is "Mary Grace" which is decorated like generic granny's house with (I guess) Filipino granny's food. This is beef tapa which is dried beef thats been rehydrated and is served with a sweet sauce. This was breakfast so it came with egg and, of course, rice. This was one of my favorite meals during my 2 week trip.

I went to several grocery stores and one of them had ice cream freezers at the beginning of the checkout lane. This one was coconut milk with chocolate in the center.

This is coffee with coffee jelly. If you've ever had boba this is similar.

The "jelly" is actually more like "jello" made with coffee.

This is gelato. I found a Gelateria which, considering our recent trip to Italy, was really nice.

Snacks! If I'm honest my favorite part of travel is buying snacks. Korean snacks are apparently really popular in the Philippines, the Pepero in the picture is Korean. Its a lot like Pocky but with a pretzel stick instead of short bread. I'm not prepared to say that I like one better than the other. :)

Speaking of snacks I ended the trip buying all the varieties of Kit-Kat I could find in the Tokyo airport. I think I ended up with 17 or 18 different kinds of Kit-Kat including:
Green tea, wasabi, hot pepper, banana, dark chocolate, melon and marscapone cheese, grape, peach, apple, and strawberry. The variety is amazing although I'll admit to liking some a lot more than others, the banana, for instance, I quite like.

Back to Rome

Our trip back to Rome really showed off how comfortable we had become traveling in Italy. First we tried to take a bus from the hotel to the pier but for reasons unexplained it never seemed to appear so we ended up in a taxi. Then a long wait for the ferry, at least the weather was nice so the ferry was very smooth.

Then an Italo rail trip from Naples to Rome. On our journeys in Italy we first rode Trenitalia, these are the green trains I mentioned before. They varied between the 1950s vintage train we took from Lamezia to Soverato, the fairly modern interurban train/trolley from Soverato to Reggio Calabria and the modern but slow and dirty Freccabianca from Reggio Calabria to Naples.

Italo rail is a whole different train company, these are the super modern red trains you'll see in most travelogs and they are vastly superior to Trenitalia. Faster, more comfortable, and they serve snacks like an airline does. 10/10, would ride again.

I don't have any pictures of the Rome subway but our second hotel in Rome (Hotel Tango) was near a subway stop so it was the easiest way to get there. The Roman subway is fantastic, easy to understand, clean, friendly. I apparently exude a "don't mess with me" vibe, as I've never ever been messed with on a subway. That was comforting as we had our bags and were obviously tourists.

Believe it or not this is the front door of our hotel. By this point we had gotten used to finding hotels by the little brass plate in the wall as an identifier. Opening this door was pretty hilarious using that big doorknob. Hotel Tango is actually a modern building inside of a much larger older building. We picked it because the rooms are all two stories which seemed cooler than it actually was. The inner building didn't have terrific sound insulation and the kids in the room next door to ours were a bit infuriating.

This is one part of the wall around Vatican City about 2 blocks from Hotel Tango which is another reason I had picked that hotel.

Look carefully in this shot and you'll find "The Godfather pigeon" who keep strolling around a restaurant we were eating in. He seemed very well behaved but the staff of the restaurant kept shooing him out in embarrassment.

I should have taken a picture of this pizza/calzone before we started eating it. As you may have heard pizzas in Italy don't come pre-cut, you end up just tearing it apart with your hands. This was half pizza, half calzone which is an idea was should totally bring to the US.

Angie scored us tickets to the Colosseum which is amazing. It starts with arriving off the subway at the Colosseo stop. As you exit the subway and your eyes adjust the Colosseum is right there across the street and its so big it amazes your eyes and it takes awhile to really sink in and for your brain to figure out what you're looking at...

 Our tickets included access inside to the underground portions. This is a reinvention of the elevator used to transport animals (like lions) from the underground portion to the floor of the Colosseum. Theres a NOVA documentary on the construction of this elevator which is worth seeing.

This is one of our guides, our tour package included a tour of the Roman Forum, a tour which we almost missed because we were busy filling our faces with more pizza. This part of the tour included the burial spot of Julius Caesar and the supposed birthplace of Romulus and Remus, the brothers who led to the founding of Rome. Having a tour guide was fantastic, both guides really added depth to our tour.

Angie in Vatican City. We didn't have time to tour the Vatican, this was the morning of our last day. We really needed another 2-3 days in Rome, probably at the outset of our trip, there is so much to see there.

Okay so looking back here are a couple pieces of advice:

1. Ignore most of the advice you see online, its ridiculous, specifically: Italians dress the same as you do, at least mostly. They wear jeans and sneakers, anybody saying otherwise hasn't spent any time in Italy or if they have they've only been in tour groups.

2. When going to a big attraction like the Coliseum get timed tickets. By that I mean get a ticket that has a specific start time. This will save you waiting through the miles long lines.

3. Naples to Sorrento has a local train but I couldn't find a way to buy tickets online. The ferry is difficult to get to in Naples traffic.

4. The Roman subway is terrific but you're limited in where it goes.

5. Not everybody in Rome speaks English but there are so many people that do that its rarely an issue. Everybody we met in Sorrento/Capri spoke excellent English.

5a. Few people in Soverato in the south spoke English but they all seemed excited to play the pantomime game. I think English speakers are fairly rare there and they were excited to see us.

In short if you're afraid of travel to Italy you shouldn't be, its easy. If we can do it you can do it too...

Little Capri

Note: I wrote this a few weeks ago but in light of current events I'd like to keep posting positive things. Know that I'm thinking about folks and hope you're doing okay.

Capri is a little island off the coast of Sorrento. There are ferries to go over but our group had chartered a 40' motor yacht. This seemed like a good idea at the time but by the time we left the weather hadn't improved any. Our trip was supposed to include lunch but the cruise company didn't think anybody would be stupid enough to want to go so they hadn't made any. No matter, the cruise was still a go, they just refunded a little of our money.

The ride over was rough:

The pictures kind of give an idea, you can see the clouds. We had a following sea which meant that the boat wallowed and the diesel fumes were pushed back into the cabin. We were all pretty much up against sea-sickness for awhile. Angie leaned over the rail at one point, fortunately she didn't throw up because I think it would have triggered the rest of us.

Fortunately that was the point where the weather cleared enough that we could move to the front of the boat. I didn't get any pictures of that part but things got a lot more pleasant and we made a loop around the island before heading in.

Capri is neat in that the island is basically all mountain. Theres a little ring of beachfront but most of what you want to see is high up. Theres a little train, the Funicolare di Capri which takes you up. A funicular railway like this is one that uses two trains connected by a cable. Since the trains weigh about the same it takes a small amount of energy to move them.

You get an idea how steep it is...

The views from the top were epic and the weather started to clear which was even better.

Capri has some cool old tunnels into the mountain which is where I found the fat man's restaurant.

And coincidentally the only gas pressure lantern of the trip.

LA Cisterna is literally the best restaurant we went to in Italy, no joke. Its hidden away in a tunnel but absolutely worth the trip. We had:

-Lemon/mozzarella toasted bread. I thought this was a weird sounding combination but the bread, cheese and lemons were all fresh, it was amazing

-Fried anchovies: "Caught fresh not two hours ago!" quoth the fat man. I wish I'd taken a picture of them, these were cooked exactly the way my grandfather cooked smelts, they were dredged in flour and fried in oil. We were nervous to order this but the fat man was so enthusiastic how could we deny him. By the way that is him on the wine bottle...

-Gnocchi, Angie still has dreams of the gnocchi.

-Pizza margarita, some of the best pizza I've ever eaten.

The fat man claimed the wine was made special for him. I don't know if thats true or if its a generic rebottling but it was really good.

We all ordered and then we all shared, it was a great way to dine. There were only 6 of us, the others had gone to eat at some place with a great view. In talking to them we definitely got the better deal, they paid much more for food that wasn't half as good. We joked that they paid the "tourist tax".

Capri is much like Sorrento in the shopping mall vibe. The "streets" are really just pedestrian walkways, there are almost no cars up on the mountain because there are almost no roads. One of our party told Angie and I that we needed to check out the botanical gardens, he then gave us super sketchy directions and to our amazement we actually found the place:

The views were spectacular, the yacht actually took us around the rocks in the last picture. One of them has a hole in it just big enough to fit the yacht through. When he lined up the boat on the hole I thought "Theres no way he's going to.... Oh, he is..." and through we went, it was super cool.

The return trip to Sorrento was way better than the trip over. We all sat out on the front of the yacht, limoncello, beer and prosecco which is a bit like champagne. This was one of the highlights of the whole trip.

Up Next: Back to Rome and headed home.

Charming Sorrento

I originally started blogging as a way to tell people about good things and in Sorrento we found a very good thing.

Sorrento is a real tourist town. I realize not everybody reading this blog is from New England but I usually tell fellow New Englanders that Sorrento is like North Conway, New Hampshire, which is to say its full of outlet stores. The big difference, of course, is that Sorrento is something like 2000 years old. Wikipedia says Sorrento is known for its "small antique shops". I dunno where they were, I don't remember any antique shops.

Sorrento sits across the bay from Naples, so we took the train from Soverato to Naples but my research didn't give me a way to get from Naples to Sorrento. It turns out theres a train but you can't (or at least I couldn't figure it) book tickets online. What I could find was the ferry so we booked that.

There were two things I hadn't counted on:
#1. Naples is bonkers. Seriously, I'm used to Boston. Compared to Boston, Rome is bonkers, the traffic is heavy, the streets are small. Compared to Rome, Naples is totally bonkers, the streets are way smaller, the traffic is way heavier. Our cab ride from the train station to the port was frantic.
#2. Italy was experiencing unusually cold weather. Later that summer they'd have a heatwave but when we were there the temperatures in Italy were pretty much the same as at home in the northeast US.

So our ferry ride to Sorrento was really bumpy. I don't get seasick but that ride was pretty scary and my stomach was not happy.

Anyway you can spend big money on one of the grand hotels in Sorrento but I've never been a fan of the big grand hotels. Instead I searched around and found "Luiselle Charming Accommodation" and booked it just on the name. Well, I did look at the reviews but lets face it, the name sold me. I was a trifle worried when I told the cab driver where we were going and he said "Theres no hotel there." but we pressed on regardless.

It turns out the Luiselle Charming Accommodation is in an old office building. When I say old I'm not kidding around, the building must be from the '20s. Check out the elevator.

I had to stand outside the elevator to take the picture because otherwise you get:

Its small, its wood. You open the outside doors, open the inside door, step inside, close the outside door, close the inside door and then select your floor.
One thing I was caught off guard by is that in Italy buildings have a 0 (zero) floor, what we in the US would call the first or ground floor. This led to us getting lost, Luiselle was on the "second" floor which is actually what I would think of as the third floor. Fortunately you don't have to "drive" the elevator, you select a floor and listen while contactors slap in relays to make your selection happen.

The accommodation is indeed charming:

As usual I wish I'd taken more pictures. The room was big and well appointed with free Netflix that we didn't use, after all we were in Italy. We went out and came back exhausted.
The first morning our host Andrea offered Angie scrambled eggs and I thought she was going to kiss him. Italians eat a lot of desert and lunch meats for breakfast and she was eager to have something savory that wasn't salty. "Scrambled eggs" turned out to be a fried egg but it didn't matter she was super happy.

I wouldn't hesitate to recommend this hotel to anyone interested in accommodations a bit off the beaten track that are a little different. Also those who are looking to save money. Although as I say it is a little off the beaten track it was only maybe a 5 minute walk to the main street where all the action was. At night I was actually happy to be somewhere quiet so we could get some rest.

Up next: Capri