Delaware River Food and Wine Festival "Foodie Fare"

This has been an exciting and busy week for us. Peter is teaching 2 days a week, Gabby has school everyday and I work another job 2 days a week. When you add a "Foodie Fare" to all that, things can get really hectic. Long days and long nights just trying to prepare and take care of business as usual. Even though this is slower time for us at the Restaurant, preparation and daily issues do not seem to wane.

The Delaware River Food and Wine Festival was an event put together by "The Weiler Foundation" to benefit Monroe County Meals on Wheels. We were invited to participate at its inception in February of 2008. This is the first annual event and we thought it would be a wonderful thing to be a part of. It was held on Saturday September 20, 2008 @ the Shawnee Golf Resort in Stroudsburg Pennsylvania from 12:00pm to 5:00pm. It was held on the lawn and we could not have asked for any more perfect weather. It was a wonderful event and Chef Peter won some awards for his, Socca Pancake, with late summer Ratatouille and goat Cheese.

My sister-n-law Jen and I worked on marketing literature for many nights trying to get it all done. I could not have gotten it done without her and the end product was perfection. Peter worked on preparing his dish, in between cooking for customers , and it was also perfection. Things were packed up and we were off to Shawnee @ 8:00am Saturday morning. Because Peter is so organized, the setup of our cooking and serving area took only about 20 minutes. We plated for pictures, we plated for participants and we plated for judges.
Peter had to leave around 3:00 to get back to the restaurant for dinner so Caitlin took over the grill and she did a great job.

At the restaurant Patty was overseeing Bonnie & Kristen prep (until Peter got there) and they did a fabulous job. Denise & Tish (our waitresses), get the dining room set for dinner. They could do the job with their eyes closed since they have been there from day we opened, and we are so happy to have them both. So even though we were in Stroudsburg all day dinner still happens and Peter does it well.

This sort of event is what I love about being in the restaurant business. Talking with other foodies, whether it is owner, chef or wine purveyor, it is always interesting. To see other dishes and what other restaurants are doing. Winning the awards validates us and reminds us why we are doing what we are doing.

We would like to thank Fallsdale Farm for donating the goat cheese, everyone loved it. We would also like to thank The Weiler Foundation for allowing us to participate in such a wonderful event. I hope that we will be at the event next year and that all of our fans will join us.