They'll denounce you. Or challenge you. Or in the case of encouraging souls on the order of Gardner, point out places you might want to check out. In this instance, it was the Century Cafe near the old Flower World.
Noted. And a tip o' the hat. It's on The List.
I've been saving an index card with a penciled message from the illustrator Dean Rohrer that he left on my porch one evening next to a jar of Long's hand-ground horseradish and an unlabeled bottle of pickle spears, their sweetness cut subtly with horseradish.
These wonders were procured, he said, at Lancaster's Central Market. I'm on the hunt! (Note to self: Make side trip to Hammond's, home of hand-twisted pretzels.)
Sometimes being on The List means just being on The List. This is the fourth year running that I haven't made it to a cozy fireside table at the Carversville Inn in one of the sweetest crossroads in upper Bucks County. Maybe it isn't meant to be. (It might have a hard time living up to my expectations at this point.)
Speaking of Carversville, I missed this year's October running (the 138th) of one of my favorite annual church suppers - the Carversville Christian Church's homey pork and oyster dinner, homemade and hand-served in the sprawling church basement.
Instead, at the urging of the preacher at Old Goshenhoppen Reformed United Church of Christ in Upper Salford Township, near Harleysville, my wife and I checked out its oyster picnic (est. 1877), a daylong, open-air version of the Carversville affair, with country music thrown in.
It was right up there, folks: Maybe I'll try to squeeze in both Carversville and Goshenhoppen this year, though I might have to attend one of them unaccompanied.
