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Brooklyn - Part 2
Written by: Janet Pope
Photography by: Donald
Day Two
Our B&B, the Friendship Valley Inn, served a delicious breakfast in a screened-in room looking out over a pasture. Beverly and Rusty are terrific hosts and they are friendly enough to be approachable and respectable enough to give their guests a wide berth of privacy. They chatted with us and gave us not only directions, but recommendations of the local sights to visit.
After a relaxing late breakfast, we checked out the Sharpe Hill Vineyards for a tour and some wine tasting. The winery and the restaurant both have a 16th century French feel to them and, indeed, were modeled after the vineyards in France. The owners are internationally traveled from their business ventures and had hands-on experience to bring to this endeavor.
The gourmet restaurant grills with wood, uses only fresh ingredients - nothing frozen and utilizes the produce from their organic garden bordering the vineyard. We only had time for some serious wine tasting and will have to catch lunch or dinner at another time.
We were happy to find out that the wine we enjoyed last night at dinner - The Ballet of Angels - is made here. It’s the number-one selling wine in New England and was definitely our favorite. For those wine lovers, it’s a crisp and semi-dry white wine with a refreshing citrus flavor. Even in the morning, the winery was busy and the restaurant was booked for lunch. Sharpe Hill Vineyard is a world-class-caliber winery and a must-see stop in this section of Connecticut.
Driving around is indeed beautiful and there are a lot of little antique stores and other shops to visit, as well as in-season garage sales. Lunch, today, was at the Vanilla Bean Café, which sits in a prime location where three roads cross, at the intersection of routes 169, 440 and 97 in Pomfret. This casual eatery had a line out the door and the parking lot was filled to capacity - that’s always a good sign.
Barry, the hands-on owner and, Jesse, the manager, were both busy overseeing the kitchen, the staff and the crowd of hungry patrons. Barry has owned the establishment for the last 15 years and the menu specializes in burgers, sandwiches and salads, but there’s even peanut butter and jelly for the little ones on the dinner menu. We had sandwiches that were actually too big to finish.
Viewing the 10-minute waiting line, I asked Barry if it is always this busy and he said, "During leaf season in October or craft festivals we serve 800 meals a day."
We spent the rest of the day checking out local crafts and antique stops along the way back to the other Brooklyn. This was an area we wanted to explore more so we decided we needed to return, before we ever got home. True, "there's no place like home" and in this case, home is Brooklyn, New York, but once again, we have seen that there is a special quality to every town we visit. In Brooklyn, Connecticut, that special
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Cutting herbs at Sharpe Hill Winery | |
quality was not only their sights, but their people like - Bob and Jimmy at The Buttery and Rusty and Beverly at the B&B. Our accents may be slightly different, but our pride in our homes and our neighborhoods are the same.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
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