You have heard of the Dream Team? Yesterday I ate the Dream Meal. I dream about it often. This is the third year my dear wife, Carrie, and I have paid a visit to a place called The Berkshires in Western Massachusetts. Each time we have paid a visit to the Olde Forge in Lanesborough. A short drive to this place is filled with the anticipation of a kid going to bed on Christmas Eve. I meant that.
I just go in from a long walk. According to my ipod, I walked 4.75 miles and stepped just short of 10000 in doing so. The walk ended with a climb up a hill that resembles Mt. Everest without all the snow. If it were winter time, this would be covered with snow. My peak is .8 miles up from the main road. My walk would have actually been longer had I not thought as I was walking. I looked around as I was walking down Route 43. There was no one anywhere to be found. A very few cars had gone past in either direction. In front of me there a large mountain like hill folks ski down in the wintertime. To my right there was a small patch of corn trying to grow in front of woods coming down from another incline. To my left a small stream and another bluff going up into a thick woods. I looked around again. I saw nothing. No cars. No people. Nothing but me walking and listening to my ipod…ear buds firmly planted as I listened to music much louder than I probably ever should. Then I had a thought. I thought about the photos I have seen on more than one occasion this past week in The Bershire Eagle newspaper. The photos were those of black bears that have been spotted in the area. One of those photos, I remember, said it was taken on Route 43 in Hancock. Well, guess who was walking down Route 43 with no one around to care if I was being eaten by a bear? I turned around and headed back for civilization…walking a little more swiftly. I kept listening to my music. If I was going to get attacked by a bear, I didn’t want to hear it!
I did not want to be dinner. I was walking to eat dinner!
This dinner to be specific…
This is a bowl of Wild Mushroom Ravioli.
You have seen folks on TV talking about the best thing they have ever eaten. I would bring a film crew to this place on Route 7 in Lanesborough. This is the best bowl of vittles I have ever eaten and that is saying something. No offense to my mother’s biscuits. No offense to Carrie’s four-layer chocolate cake or the shrimp she lovingly fries for me in North Carolina, even though she does not eat them.
The Wild Mushroom Ravioli is in a class by its lonesome. Creamy. Pasta cooked to perfection. The filling is smooth, rich, and creamy. The ravioli is served in a sundried tomato and basil cream sauce. I would swim in this stuff if I could.
Here is the real wonder of all this meal….I sat down to this table and declared it the greatest meal ever and I did not eat so much as a single shred or morsel of meat. I love meat! I am at my glory with a grill full of burgers and chicken or a smoker full of babybacks. Not so with this meal. No meat. I call this the dream meal and there is no meat. This coming from a guy who once committed an awful personal foul in a high school football game and am still glad I did. That sounds like a carnivore to me.
That is what makes this meal remarkable. No meat…and I love it.
For starters, Carrie and I took on the skillet mushrooms. Served with garlic bread to soak up the skillet liquor like good old corn bread and pot liquor. Awesome.
The folks at Olde Forge are nice too. Always good service and a pleasant atmosphere. And that too is saying something in the Northeast. Some folks up here can’t talk softly…let alone whisper. They think a southern accent is amazing and they are smart to think so. Maybe up here they had to talk loudly over gunfire with the British and they never adapted after the cannons went quiet. Just an observation. They are still good people.
Guess where Carrie and I are heading for our last meal in The Berkshires?
Right. Olde Forge. Ravioli awaits.
Speaking the culinary rights.
Danny Johnson