The Adirondacks & Vermont

11 May 2024

An unpublicised benefit of being a BMW Motoworks client is that you qualify for an unbidden bespoke, dining itinerary for your next five days. At least I think you do, as that’s what I got, courtesy of Jordan.

After Niagara, he suggests stopping in Buffalo for wings. Now, I always thought that these were a Tex-Mex confection, attempting to evoke the spice of Mexico with the sweeping plains of the Lone-Star state, somehow captured in a chicken wing, but no…

They do actually originate from Buffalo, New York State and Duff’s have staked their claim to be the original and the best. Wings have never really been my thing, as I’m a bit of a tidy-queen and even like to eat pizza and burgers with a knife and fork but Duff’s does a boneless version.

So I go for five of these, with original sauce and a salad of raw carrot, celery and blue cheese dressing. OK, nursery school-style nuggets: go on, have a good laugh. Jesus: the sauce is like molten lava and the crispy coating is lip-smackingly delicious, but probably not entirely organic in its constitution.

It’s not my favourite lunch spot but, if you’re heading to or from Niagara, it’s a destination in its own right and worth a stop.

The rest of the day passes in a mindless trudge east, down Interstate 90. I attempt to leaven this by having a look at the ‘Finger Lakes’, a series of long, thin expanses of water in Upper New York State. Before recalibrating the trip, I’d planned to stay in Geneva and, judging by the high price for a good hotel and the absence of any budget alternatives, I sense this is an upscale area. There are a ton of wineries and vineyards on the downslopes to Seneca Lake. This is usually a reliable indication that a herd of modest wealth comes to water here.

But after the breakdown in Chicago, I need to make up miles so my overnight stop is the gritty city of Utica. Like every other gritty city I’ve come across, Utica is doing its damnedest to remain relevant. Next to a restored steam train is a series of re-purposed industrial buildings. Two of these house the Bags Square Brewing Company and the excellent, Taylor & The Cook restaurant, clearly the Saturday night destination for Le Toute Monde of Utica.

I wasn’t expecting Tuscan Pac-Rim fusion but that’s what I got: Roasted Olives with parmesan, sour cream and chive Marcona nuts to pick at with a glass of local Riesling followed by a Pork Katsu. Here, this is served whole, like a Viener Schnitzel, rather than sliced as is the norm, and arrived artfully displayed with Napa Cabbage, sesame, soy, Cilantro, local mushrooms and grilled limes.

12 May 2024

After three solid days and nearly a thousand miles of Interstate, I’d like to see a few bends rather than just being pathetically grateful for the long, graceful curve of the freeway exits.

Route 28, the Adirondack Scenic Byway is precisely that road, weaving its magic through the heavily forested park of the same name, skirting various tranquil-looking lakes. I’m surprised to learn that people ski here as there are no mountains in the truest sense of the word, just big hills. The unmarked Blue Ridge Road follows the course of the Hudson River, near the source. It’s only a few feet wide at this point, becoming the mighty waterway separating New Jersey from Manhattan, a few hundred miles downstream.

As a biking route, both roads manage the trade-off between covering distance and rider engagement perfectly. It's easy to keep up an average of a shade over 50 MPH, with only an occasional touch of the brakes to navigate the gentle variations. Only the omnipresent rain and sub 10ºC temperatures mar the day.

Exiting the region and navigating the southern end of Lake Champlain, I stop for a coffee and to warm up at a combined gas station-cum-cafe in Port Henry.

I realise this is not something you should comment on, but the locals are collectively the strangest-looking human beings I have come across.

Sir Thomas Beecham was a 2nd Baronet (whatever one of those is…) until he snuffed it in 1961. He was also an orchestra conductor and impresario, best known for his association with the London and Royal Philharmonic orchestras. He famously opined that everyone should “Try everything once, except folk dancing and incest.” I’m pleased to report that the citizens of Port Arthur seem to be paying heed to at least 50% of Sir Thomas’s sage advice as I saw no evidence of folk dancing.

My overnight stop is in Burlington, a left-leaning university town on the banks of the northern end of Lake Champlain. And rather lovely it looks too, as the free bus service tours the university neighbourhood on the way into town. The ‘Frat Houses’ are grand buildings and have their names proudly displayed.

I had wrongly assumed ‘fraternities’ to be a more clandestine concept, like Oxford’s notorious Bullingdon Club. An environment that teaches subtle skills, and nurtures the unshakeable level of misplaced self-confidence required, for alumni to fail spectacularly in a range of senior, public and private appointments, before enjoying a comfortable retirement.

The brick-paved Church Street area is buzzing with bars, some with live music playing and I sit in one, scrolling Jordan’s recommendations. I decide on Honey Road for no better reason than it’s seemingly impossible to get a table, making it all the more desirable. I bag the last seat at the bar and scan a new-wave Eastern Mediterranean menu they do a masterful job with.

The lightest pitta looks like it’s been inflated with a bicycle pump and is great for dipping in Muhammara (walnut and red pepper puree) topped with toasted walnuts. An over-generous bowl of Feta cheese, kale, apple, Tahini & crunchy quinoa is the other end of the health spectrum to Dunn’s Wings and no less the worse for it. Only the Lamb Kofta is bordering on the traditional, but the addition of Carrot Tzatzki, Green Olives & Walnuts takes it miles away from the post-pub, High Street kebab shop experience.

The wines are no less inventive. An ‘orange’ from Austria has enough muscle to hold its own against the bread and salad. They even have a variant of Chateau Musar, the fabled Lebanese red made from transplanted Bordeaux vines, by the glass to accompany the lamb. It’s not ‘The’ Musar as this is routinely $60 a bottle plus at shop price, but the Jeune (junior) version. Much less powerful than the real McCoy but spot on as a pairing.

I’m coming to the opinion that Moorish and Levantine are the perfect cuisine. Sharp focus on ingredients and judicious use of spice positions it perfectly between classic, European techniques and the excitement and temptation of Asia.

Closer to home, London now has a slew of them, a wave that started with the wonderful Moro in Exmouth Market a scarcely believable thirty-years ago. As a point of reference, Honey Road is very similar in vibe to one of the more recent additions, Oren in Hackney, but minus the vacuous tossers for which East London is justly famed.

Feeling thoroughly stuffed, I walk it off to another recommendation, the Olde Northender pub, a mile and a half from the swanky central area through the suburbs.

It's always the coughing that startles me. What looks like a heap of old bags as I walk briskly through the city centre hinterland has someone sleeping under it, inevitably suffering from chronic respiratory problems that living rough must cause. On the next block, it's the same. And the next.

Maybe Karl Marx was right all along and capitalism will ultimately eat itself, as wealth becomes concentrated in fewer and fewer hands. We may be some way from that point. As Forbes Magazine points out there are over 22 million people in the US with net assets (excluding their home) of more than a million bucks; 6% of the population and a success story for the free market if ever there was one.

But the same journal reports that 72% of Americans have less than $2,000 in savings. That’s 260 million people without any financial safety net, just clinging on. In every city I’ve visited, homelessness is now a given and seemingly on the increase. With so many people living on the edge, more will inevitably slip off.

One such person may well be the Uber driver who collects me from the Olde Northender as I’m now four miles from my hotel. He gets a puncture after a mile and we grind to a halt at a gas station. I take a quick look at the three tyres that still have air in them and all are down to the canvas. Whatever he is making in this line of work doesn’t run to basic maintenance, it would seem.

I try and get another Uber but the invisible hand of the market has been frotting away at itself. What was a $10 ride is now $22 even though I’m a mile closer to the destination. It’s something Uber do called ‘surge pricing’ that applies when demand outstrips supply. It all sounds terribly exciting and efficient but just looks like a rip-off to me. The circumstances I find myself in are one unintended consequence of the Uber model and not of my own making. Uber ‘should’ get me another ride at the previous price but I know there is zero chance of this happening so I walk off the rest of my kebab instead.