blog @ stone lion cape cod » Out and About

Twelve Years too Late

Janet Loewenstein — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 05:40:24 +0000

When I was searching for a house in Wellfleet that would become The Stone Lion Inn, I saw a couple of properties that just made me drool. One was a former windmill with views of the harbor and the other an enormous house with outbuildings in the center of town.

At the time I knew nothing of town history so I didn’t realize that both these houses were still in the families of the men who had built them in the 19th century. Later, long after I purchased the beautiful and well situated house that I did, I was content knowing that neither of these amazing properties would ever come on the open market.

I learned today that one of them has, in fact, been put up for sale by the family. It’s the larger of the two, known as Belvernon, and has amazing history. Unfortunately, a lot of that history is still in the house in the form of plumbing, wiring, heating and, I believe, a cesspool which will have to be updated to a new septic system. The renovation will be a Herculean undertaking; I do not envy the future buyer.

If anyone wants to see the listing, it’s here.

I love my house.

Notes on a Quiet Winter Weekend

Janet Loewenstein — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 21:33:37 +0000

This has been a quiet month, even by winter standards. There have even been some completely empty weekends including like this one. There is, of course, still work to do, but the pace is very different. I also get to work more on my body’s natural schedule, which notably does not include getting up before sunrise.

Last night I attended a surprise birthday party for a friend. My contribution to the dessert table was lemon bars, a recipe I hadn’t made in about ten years. I’d forgotten how good they are, and how easy. They were a hit with the guests, too. I’ll post the recipe below. It was nice to go out for the evening and not have to worry about late check-ins or prepping for the next morning’s breakfast.

Late this afternoon I was taking a bag of trash out – possibly the most mundane chore ever – when a full-grown red hawk came out of nowhere, swooped low over my back yard and perched in my neighbor’s tree. Made my day.

LEMON BARS

Shortbread Base

1 ½ sticks (3/4 cup) cold, unsalted butter, cut into pieces
2 cups all purpose flour
½ cup packed light brown sugar
½ teaspoon salt

Preheat oven to 350°F

Process all ingredients in a food processor until mixture begins to form small lumps. Sprinkle mixture into a 9 x 13 x 2 inch baking pan and with a metal spatula, press evenly onto bottom. Bake in the middle of the oven until golden, about 20 minutes.

While the shortbread is baking, prepare topping.

Lemon Topping

4 eggs
1 ½ cups sugar
Pinch of salt
1 Tablespoon + 1 teaspoon a.p. flour
1 Tablespoon grated lemon peel
½ cup fresh lemon juice

In a medium bowl, beat eggs then add remaining ingredients and blend. Pour over crust and bake until mixture is set, about 20 minutes. Cool completely before cutting.

Dust lemon squares with powdered sugar before serving.

Holiday Musings

Janet Loewenstein — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 06:11:42 +0000

Some towns go all out for the holidays with tons of decorations, a huge tree & lighting ceremony, house tours, concerts, plays, caroling and so forth. Not so much in Wellfleet. A lot of the shops and restaurants are closed. Decorations are understated: two large, living trees in front of town hall are lit with strings of white lights (LED of course) and the doorway of town hall is similarly surrounded. Green wreaths are attached to a few lamp posts on Main Street. Preservation Hall had a holiday sale one weekend and there’s an event for local kids with Santa followed by a free matinee movie at the cinema. That’s about it. Drive through the center of town after dark and there are a hand full of cars in front of The Lighthouse but the scene is utterly subdued and peaceful.

Not being a Christmas person myself, I like it this way. On the other hand, it would also be nice if there was something to attract guests here during this time. The weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas are often the quietest of the winter. I’ve been thinking of making my own event next year but it would have to be something unique. Perhaps even a NON-Christmas event; something to get away from all the holiday stuff. What do you all think about this? Any ideas for what would be a fun way to get away and forget about Christmas for a night or two? Post any and all ideas in the comments and if I use your idea in an event next year you’ll get your choice of one night free on the event weekend or $50 off your next stay at the inn.

Holy Sheet

Janet Loewenstein — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 19:50:00 +0000

The long search is finally over; I’ve found new sheets that will work for the inn and ordered them. The new sheets are just different enough to require new duvet covers as well, I ordered those two weeks ago from another source. I’ve also decided to put the duvets into storage in the summer and switch to a lighter weight coverlet; that order went in with the sheets. The final piece to the puzzle will be new bed skirts; the ones I’m using now were purchased with and matched the original sheets. They’re just enough off the color of the new sheets & duvet covers to bother me.

I wouldn’t have thought replacing sheets would be this painful, but as it turns out I have a very specific set of criteria and for various reasons it has been difficult to find what I needed. One of my primary issues is that I wanted sheets I don’t have to iron; quite frankly I haven’t the space or the time to iron sheets. That meant I needed a cotton/poly blend sheet. When I opened the inn in 2000, there were a couple of American manufacturers making nice blend sheets and that’s what I bought. Within about two years, however, all the remaining American manufacturers of sheets closed down and all sheets were being brought in from other countries. Well, guess what? Polyester is pretty cheap in the U.S., cheaper than cotton, but in most other countries like China and Pakistan, where a lot of sheets are now being produced, cotton is much cheaper than polyester. For a long time I couldn’t for the life of me figure out why blend sheets had disappeared, until someone made a comment – I’ve forgotten who and what it was – that made the answer crystal clear. If you didn’t know, polyester is a petroleum product; our government was being run by people with interests in the petroleum industry – you do the math. Ergo, 100% cotton sheets became the norm. There were still some institutional-grade blend sheets available, but those were an unacceptable quality for my purposes. It’s only in the last year or two that I’ve started to see a few blend sheets in higher thread counts come back on the market and I finally found ones that I liked.

It’s a relief to no longer have to examine the offerings in every linen/home supply/hospitality catalog that crosses my threshold looking for “the” sheet that will work. I’ve ordered enough sets to get me through 2 – 3 years if I keep an eye out for stains, in a couple of months when my cash flow is a bit better I’ll probably order a few more so I can get 4 – 5 years out of this pattern & style. Given how long I’ve been looking for these, I guess I’ll have to start the search all over again in a year. I can hardly wait.

Solstice

Janet Loewenstein — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 21:29:00 +0000

I want to wish all my readers (both of them) a happy, healthy, safe Winter Solstice and whatever other holiday you may celebrate this week. May you be warm & dry and surrounded by those you love.

Provincetown’s “famous” lobster trap Christmas Tree

Winter Light

Janet Loewenstein — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 02:04:00 +0000

The light here is different from anywhere else I’ve lived. It’s most noticable in the winter, when the angle of the sun is so much lower, and particularly near sunset. It can make for some very dramatic scenes.

Here are two photos* that illustrate that beautifully, taken by my friend and sometime-guest, Tom Baratz.

This is Mayo Beach, on the harbor, at sunset:

And this is one of our ocean-side beaches, Newcomb Hollow, also near sunset:

*THESE PHOTOS ARE NOT TO BE REPRODUCED WITHOUT PERMISSION

Want to see it for yourself? We’re open through the winter, come on down!

October Rituals

Janet Loewenstein — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 02:57:00 +0000

This weekend is the annual Wellfleet Oyster Festival. It started out tiny just eight years ago, now it attracts 20 – 30,000 people to town over the course of the weekend. That’s ten times the size of the year-round population! There will be a shucking contest*, live music, various cooking demonstrations, a tour of the oyster flats, a 5k road race and something like 100,000 Wellfleet oysters will be consumed over the course of the two days. It’s fun to see that many people in town and the organizers and volunteers do an amazing job with set-up and clean up. On Monday morning there will be no trace that anything unusual happened over the weekend.

A less fun ritual is the annual closing of the seasonal restaurants. As much as we look forward to them opening each spring, we dread them closing in the fall. We know it has to happen, the local population just can’t support that many restaurants. Also, the owners and staff are exhausted and many of the buildings that house the restaurants are unheated which makes them unsuitable for year-round use. Still, we miss having the options both for ourselves and as places to refer our guests.

Some of the restaurants closed last weekend, most of the rest that close will do so this Sunday. One or two others will hang on for another week or two, but by the beginning of November we will be down to three or four restaurants in town and that will not improve until April. On the positive side, there is the chance to socialize with some of our friends who own those restaurants and who we don’t see during the busy season unless we go out to eat.

I enjoy the rhythm of life here, it is as inevitable and predictable as the tides.

*Congratulations to Wellfleet’s own William “Chopper” Young, winner of the World Oyster Shucking Championship.

Missing Wellfleet Lighthouse Found

Janet Loewenstein — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 19:54:00 +0000

This lovely article graced the front page of the Cape Cod Times yesterday (June 5). Surprisingly, today, it was picked up by the AP. My little town has made national news. Yay!

Back and Busy

Janet Loewenstein — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 03:47:00 +0000

I had a great vacation, an unprecedented almost two weeks away from the inn. Adam, unfortunately, had to head back after less than a week to finish some projects he had to deliver. He has a custom furniture business in addition to being my partner in the B&B and he’s got quite a few projects in his shop at the moment. We also had guests coming in for the weekend, so he was going to be taking care of them as well.

While in New York we were able to see some good friends, eat great food and see a show. Our plans for dinner at Gramercy Tavern didn’t work out, it turns out that we couldn’t get a reservation for any time between 6:00 and 9:30 on a Tuesday evening! Adam even spoke to them that afternoon and they’d had no cancellations. Hard to believe. Instead we took a chance and wound up at Tabla instead. It was lovely. We spent the day on Tuesday going to museums. We started at the Transit Museum, which I’d always wanted to see, then headed uptown to the Guggenheim to see this exhibit. If you’re in New York between now and the end of May, go see it. Afterward we headed across the park to the American Museum of Natural History. Adam has done a lot of work there over the years and he knows most of the exhibit department staff. I know a few of them, in particular a guy I worked with at my first job in NYC who now works as the project manager there. Adam & I went to the Water exhibit and the Butterfly Conservatory, then we met Dean at a bar on Columbus Ave. for drinks and to catch up. Did I mention that Adam built the Butterfly exhibit ten years ago? Pretty cool, huh?

Thursday 2/28 was the final concert in a series of three at Madison Square Garden that I really, really wanted to see: Steve Winwood and Eric Clapton. I didn’t have tickets but figured what the heck, I’d go down to the Garden and see if anyone had a couple of extras they were willing to sell. I’ve done this before with Broadway shows and it works just fine. I was a bit surprised at the number and general sleaziness of the scalpers outside MSG, but New York’s Finest were doing a decent job of keeping them a good distance from the entrances. Since I don’t look anything like a scalper, I positioned myself near one entrance and quietly asked people as they went by if they had extra tickets. After about 15 minutes a gentleman turned at my question and asked “Are they for you?” I assured him they were and he handed me two tickets (a friend was meeting me there). I asked him how much and he said “I just want to give them to someone who will enjoy the concert.” I looked at the tickets, they had a $250 face value. Holy sh*t. And they were legit (yes, people sell counterfeit tickets) – my friend and I got in no problem. These seats were on the floor. Right next to the mixing board. Aside from 10th row center, this is the best place to be. The concert was just incredible. I felt like the luckiest person in the world that night.

The last few days of my vacation were spent in Maryland at The Brampton Inn, hanging out with some innkeeper friends. We ate & drank well, traded horror stories of renovations and furnace melt-downs, shopped and had a lot of laughs. Danielle and Michael, our hosts, gave us a tour of their gorgeous property, including the two new luxury rental cottages they’re building. It was wonderful and affirming to be with other people living this crazy life.

I got back on 3/6 to a busy weekend and two old friends visiting. There are still winter projects to do and paperwork to organize. I’m back to it in full force but I’ll try to post again soon.

In Which the Innkeeper Takes a Vacation

Janet Loewenstein — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 05:55:00 +0000

I returned on Sunday, 2/10, from a lovely relaxing week in Vieques and Puerto Rico with three friends. We stayed here, which I heartily recommend, had some wonderful meals, swam at some incredible beaches and in a bioluminescent bay, which was pretty amazing. The last day we flew to Fajardo and hiked in the El Yunque rain forest. Adam stayed in Wellfleet to work on some furniture projects he needed to finish and take care of the inn on the days there were guests here.

As soon as I got home I dove into tax paperwork. Nothing more fun than that! Once that was completed I did some more work on the winter projects list and we had guests to take care of for several nights.

Today we’re off to New York City for a week. We have tickets to a show on Sunday and reservations at Gramercy Tavern for my birthday. Adam returns on 2/28 but I will be staying for a couple of extra days then heading down to Maryland for a few days to meet up with some innkeeper friends. We’ll share ideas, kick back, drink a lot of wine and have some laughs. I return on 3/6. That will be the longest stretch of time I will have been away from the inn since we opened.