Local Burger & Herrell's Ice Cream & Chicks Man...

   Happy Friday! I LOVE the weekends! It's always surprising to me when I overhear people complaining about their weekends. I LOVE spending time with my family, getting things done around the house, visiting with friends, and going out for food and fun! I have no complaints about that!

   Tonight we went out to dinner at Local Burger on Main Street in downtown Northampton. Unfortunately, I didn't get any pictures of it (it was too crowded to snap pictures), but there are some pictures in the "gallery" section of their website at http://www.localnorthampton.com/. It is a local, family owned, burger and fry joint. If I had to make a Michigan comparison, I would say it is similar to the chain Five Guys...only better! Plus, you can BRING YOUR OWN BEER! How fun is that?! The fries are so crispy and the chocolate shakes are made with hand scooped ice cream, just the way I like them! They also offer veggie burgers, hot dogs, fried pickles, onion rings and chicken tenders. I strongly suggest you grab a table before you order or you might not find a seat. This place is also a great spot for a post bar bite to eat. They're open until 3am!

   After dinner we walked around downtown. I loved listening to the street musicians play music as we walked. It makes for such a fun and exciting atmosphere!

 

    We headed over to Herrell's Ice Cream on Old South Street for dessert. Although Herrell's offers a large variety of flavors and toppings, my favorite thing to order is a simple cone of chocolate ice cream. Once you have Herrell's chocolate ice cream, nothing else will ever taste as good. You will try to go other places, but you will always find yourself saying, "This isn't nearly as good as Herrell's." Go taste it for yourself and you'll see what I'm talking about. It's a little bit pricey, but totally worth it!

   On a completely unrelated note, I had an opportunity to spend some time today photographing some recently hatched chickens. How cute are these little guys? They're just in time for Spring!

    

     

Noodles Restaurant and Ben & Bill's Chocolate Emporium

   There is a restaurant called Noodles in Troy, Michigan near where I used to work and the food wasn't very good, so I when I found out about the Noodles here in Northampton I was hesitant to try it. As it turns out, this is a different Noodles restaurant and I was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed the food. I ordered the Curry Noodle Soup with Egg Noodles and I loved it! It was a nice mix of sweet and salty. The broth was delicious! My only critique would be that the portion sizes are quite large, but you could split your dish with a friend and save some money.

    After lunch we stopped in Ben & Bill's Chocolate Emporium. I purchased some of the dark chocolate almond bark and it was very tasty! I was tempted to get one of the many chocolate bunnies they had out for Easter but I restrained myself.

  

To check out Noodles visit http://www.noodlesnorthampton.com/ or Ben & Bill's at http://www.benandbills.com/.



       

Oldies but Goodies

A few shots from 2008...

Dinosaur Footprints in Holyoke

Why I Love Broadside Bookshop

   My son was about two years old when we first moved to Massachusetts. We had to live in a hotel for two weeks while we looked for a place to live and those were a very difficult and exhausting two weeks. One night, we decided to go out to eat in downtown (Northampton) for dinner. Afterwords, we walked around to check out some of the stores. We wandered into Broadside Bookshop on Main Street to browse the books. My son picked up a frog puppet book and was looking at it. He wanted to buy it, but we didn't have any money left after dinner and it was getting late and we were very tired. He kept picking up the book and we had to keep putting it back. The woman working at the counter saw this struggle and could see how exhausted we were. She came over and whispered, "Your son can have that book if he wants it." We said, "Really? But we can't buy it right now. We don't have any money." She said, "Don't worry about it. He can have it." It made our whole evening so much better. It was so unexpected and we were so grateful! I've never forgotten that evening or her act of kindness. Now, several years later, I make sure to order/purchase all of my books there. Any store that can show empathy to an exhausted mom and child deserves all of my business! Check out Broadside for yourself at http://www.broadsidebooks.com/.
  

Bare Mountain & Atkins Farms

   The weather was so nice on Saturday morning that we decided to go on a family hike. One of our favortie spots to hike is on Bare Mountain. The ground was a little slippery and muddy, but the weather was perfect for a hike! There is a section of the hike that is really rocky so you have to be careful with your little ones but once you get past the small rocks, the larger rocks are much easier to climb up. There were quite a few runners and families out hiking that morning as well. It's always nice to see families exercising and being active together. I love it!

   After the hike, we decided to stop at Atkins Farms Country Market. We picked up some avocados, apples, doughnuts, and an incredibly delicious chicken and corn soup.

For more information on Atkins Farms visit http://www.atkinsfarms.com/.

The Green Bean & Turn It Up

  
   Enjoyed my beautiful day off by hitting up The Green Bean for lunch with a friend and Turn It Up for a DVD. Going to Turn It Up brings back fond memories of hours spent at Jelly Beans (Michigan store reference) in college. I LOVE buying used music and movies!

P.S. I really need to start carrying my real camera on me!

Bread Euphoria

     I was hesitant about sharing this (I tend to be selfish with the things that I love) but this place is too good to not say anything. We’ve had pizza at every restaurant and bakery in town and most of it is very tasty, however, if you want the BEST pizza around here you need to venture out a little bit further into Haydenville to Bread Euphoria.

   Bread Euphoria is a restaurant, cafe, and bakery connected to a pottery studio. They sell bread, cakes, cookies, sandwiches, pizza, salads, coffee, and more! I read a very informative article about its history here http://www.gazettenet.com/blog/table-hopping/bread-euphoria-is-serving-up-much-more-than-bread. The owner, Mark Pollard, purchased the company in 2003 and ran it from his basement for several years before moving to a small space in Andrew Quient’s pottery studio. They later renovated the building to expand the restaurant and bakery to accommodate more guests and make better use of the space. They use organic and locally grown ingredients and pride themselves in “never compromising the quality or purity of their ingredients for price.” Everything I’ve ever eaten there has been amazing. The baguettes are crunchy and tasty, the molasses cookies melt in your mouth, the Cesar salad is crisp and delicious, but the pizza is by far the best!

   We usually pick up a pizza and bring it home but today decided to eat inside and I was super excited to take pictures. Unfortunately, I didn’t have my good camera with me so I had to use my iPod to snap the pictures (and they just don’t do the place justice). Hopefully you’ll go there to check it out for yourself!  

     

For more information on Bread Euphoria visit their website at http://www.breadeuphoria.org/index.html.