Throwback Thursday - Pepe Taco

Paul started going to this restaurant, which was then called “Pepe Taco”, on Boston Road when it first opened in 1968. His Aunt Nancy was visiting and found out that there was a Mexican restaurant near them. She said she was surprised that they had one in this area, and that Mexican food was all the rage in California. They decided to try it. Paul went there a lot while he was in college at AIC and I went there with him quite a bit in the early years of our marriage. I would only eat one thing there though; I can’t really remember what it was. It was probably tacos. Paul said he always got the special, which was a tamale pie (a bowl of chili with a tamale in it) and 2 tacos.

According to MassLive dated May 7, 2018, Casa de Nana (The name of the restaurant when it closed) means "Grandma's House in tribute to its founders - and traces its roots back to 1968 when Pepe Taco opened as Springfield's first Mexican Restaurant. The name changed to Nana's Kitchen in 1970 and to Casa De Nana in 1984.  It closed in 2018 and the building is still empty and for sale.    

Egg and Olive Sandwiches

Today I made egg and olive sandwiches in honor of Dot.

Last night we went to visit her at the nursing home, and part of her dinner was either an egg salad sandwich or tuna sandwich, I couldn't tell. I was trying to get her to eat it but she just wasn't having it. It reminded Paul of the egg and olive sandwiches that she and my grandmother used to make all the time. I asked Dot if she remembered that and she gave me a smile and said yes.

I haven't made egg and olive sandwiches in a long time. Neither of my kids like olives and so whenever I made egg salad I never added the olives.

Paul always liked egg and olive sandwiches and one day at work he asked them to make him a couple for his lunch. Evidently it's not a well known thing, because what he got was egg salad with whole olives all over the top, and they were black olives! Yikes! No! They have to be green olives and you slice them and mix them in with the egg salad.

So tonight Paul and I had egg and olive sandwiches for dinner and thought of Dot and Nan.

Meatloaf sandwiches

Last night I made meatloaf for dinner.  There was a lot left over, so today I made meatloaf sandwiches to take on our ride.

We went to Greenfield and ended up at my grandparents' graves in Green River Cemetery.  I like to check on them every now and then because the cemetery has been having a problem with erosion of the hill where they are buried.

While we were there we decided that it was a good place to eat our sandwiches.  While I was outside taking pictures of the grave stone, Paul got the sandwiches out of our cooler.  All of a sudden I heard him yell out the window, "Debbie, Debbie, there's no bread on the top of the sandwich."  There were four sandwiches and I told him to check the other ones.  "Same thing," he yelled.

For some reason, this struck me so funny.  I haven't laughed that much in forever.  Every time I thought about it for the rest of the day it struck me funny.  Even now as I am typing this I could laugh out loud.

I have no idea how I could do that.  Paul said, "When you wrapped them in foil, didn't they look funny?"

Totally hysterical.

Dot's Restaurant in Wilmington, VT

On the day after Thanksgiving Paul and I took a ride to Wilmington, Vermont and went to Dot's Restaurant.

Dot's was destroyed in Hurricane Irene in August 2011.  They had to totally rebuild and finally opened again in December 2013.

This was the  first time that we had been there since their re-opening.  The food was as good as we remembered!

Red Bucket Sugar Shack

We took our annual trek to the Red Bucket Sugar Shack in Worthington today.  What a great place.  Mason is fascinated by the fact that there is a tree in the middle of the restaurant with a table around it.  The table is too small for all of us, but one year when there were only a few of us we actually sat there. 

Marley, Big Baba and Baba in March 2006



We all had a great breakfast (except Mason.  He smelled the pancakes and said he didn't like the smell and wouldn't eat any!). 

Kristen wanted me to take a few pictures of the new hat and scarf that she just finished for Marley.

Here are a few more pictures.  I love coming here; and it makes a good backdrop for pictures!

Toby is looking for mica in the rocks

The Baking Club

The Atrium, where Dot lives, has a Facebook page and posted a picture of Dot mixing batter for muffins in the Baking Club.

The caption said "Members of the Atrium's Baking Club were hard at work this morning creating scrumptious confetti cupcakes for everyone to enjoy. Dot took the lead in mixing the ingredients while telling us that baking requires exact measurements unlike cooking where you can be a bit more creative with ingredients. We are looking forward to sampling the Baking Club's latest treat."

I was so thrilled so see this. It did my heart good. I love that they are so patient and kind to the residents there. Thank God that we found The Atrium!

Shrub removal and lobstahs!

What a busy day today was!

I have been after Paul for years now to take out our front shrubs. They are HUGE and even when he trims them, he can't get them small enough. They were put in when our house was built in 1973!

One day last week I said to Paul that I wanted to take out all of the front shrubs and plant hydrangeas. Imagine my total shock when he said, "I'll give Ritchie's Tree Service (a local guy) a call and see if he can do it." Ritchie came last Tuesday to see what needed to be done and said that he could probably squeeze us in on Sunday.

They arrived at 8:30 a.m. and got right to it.







I think they had most of the shrubs out by 9:30. It was funny to watch the neighhbors walking by that early in the morning. It was a big event seeing that the Radtkes don't change things much!

Then they had to grind up the roots.



Paul also wanted them to take down a whole lot of vines and a small tree in the back corner of our yard.





They are also trimming the hemlocks.



In the midst of all that excitement, we left to go to Woburn at about 11:00. Stacia was having her yearly BBQ and lobster fest. What a fun time we had there.

We basically ate all day. We had four courses....first appetizers; then Stacia had two main servings trying to accomodate all the different likes and dislikes of hamburgs and hotdogs: then steak tips, Spanish rice, and lobsters; and finally dessert!







In between eating the different course, the kids and men played sports and we all played corn hole.







But....by far the funniest thing that we did was the group picture. Paul set the timer on the camera and had 10 seconds to....run down off the deck, across the yard, and into position for the picture. I think we had only two tries, but as you can see, it made for a good picture because all of us were laughing....except Paul, who was huffing and puffing!



What a busy, fun day.

P.S. Paul has since had Kristen change the timer default to 20 seconds - we all want him to live the next time we have a group picture!

P.P.S. Today marks 4 years of blogging. I started August 19, 2008.......and I STILL LOVE IT!

No, it can't be true! Lido's is closing!

Paul and I L.O.V.E. Lido's.

Imagine my horror when I saw this Facebook post yesterday.



We have been going to Lido's since before we were married. I think it is really our all time favorite restaurant. Kris and Toby had their first date there.

I have blogged about Lido's before here.

When we found out that it was closing today, we actually thought about going there for dinner tonight. We decided that it would just be too sad though. I found out later that there were so many people that they ran out of food.

You can read more about Lido's closing here.

This picture was taken in 2004. We went there for my birthday. Happier days!



I read online that they are going to sell their sauce at Big Y. That will help a little.

R.I.P.  Lido's. We sure did love you!

The Red Bucket Sugar Shack

It was spur of the moment, but everyone was available to go to The Red Bucket Sugar Shack this afternoon.

This is an exerpt from our visit there in March 2004 -

Marley’s first visit to The Red Bucket Sugar Shack was on Sunday, March 14, 2004. Paul and I started going there while I was working at BayState Service and Systems, sometime in the 1990’s. A fellow employee named Gerry, who lived in Huntington, said she thought it was the best sugar house around and she always took her grandchildren there. The people who own and operate it are around our age. They have a photo album there with pictures of when they first built the sugar shack back in the 1970’s. We try to go there once or twice a year. It was very crowded when we got there; we had actually never seen that many people there. Come to find out there was a birthday party with about 10 or so kids. Talk about noisy; Fred had his fingers in his ears! I think Marley enjoyed the excitement of it though. She colored “Maple Sugar” pages and Big Baba bought her a coloring book on the way out. She liked seeing them making syrup, the big fire and all the smoke. We had a great breakfast and a nice family time.

These are a few pictures from our visit there in 2004.







Marley was exactly the same age then as Mason is for his first visit here today.

We have been only a few times since then, and not at all since 2006.

We had lots of maple syrup today and everyone seemed to enjoy it.

This is a picture of the couple who started The Red Bucket Sugar Shack back in 1979. They still own and run it themselves.



Here are a few pictures from today.

















Hopefully we won't let as much time go by before we go back again!

Saturday.....

Paul wanted to try a new restaurant today. When he was telling one of our neighbors about Lenny & Joe's, he told Paul about the Maine Fish Market Restaurant in E. Windsor, CT. We tried it for lunch today. Oh my goodness, it was wonderful! We both had fried scallops again, but this was more of a whole meal; salad, bread, potato or rice, vegetable. REALLY, really good!

After that we were going to go to Mark's tennis match but we had some time to kill so we drove by Paul's old work, Combustion Engineering, aka ABB, aka Alstom. The main building was completely gone, torn down.



By the sounds of it they are still doing environmental cleanup there (they used to build nuclear boilers).



After that we met Mark, Janelle, and Mason at the Enfield Tennis Club. Mark belongs to a league and this is their home court. He had a 2-hour tennis match (that he won by the way).





On the second floor there is a long room with windows on both sides where you can watch the games going on. There is a smaller room with a kids' tennis court set up, another room with toddler toys in it. In the main room there are lots of tables and chairs, a ping pong table, crayons, games, etc. Mason really liked the little tennis court. After some members of Mark's league finished on their court there was some time left and they said that Mason could play on it. He looked so tiny out there.







P.S. Some more post offices -

E. Windsor, CT


Conway, MA (from a previous ride)