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Bucks County - Part 1
Antique-Land
Written by: Dominick A. Miserandino
Photography by: Margherita Miserandino
Antique shops, flea markets, more antique shops and a few covered bridges and restaurants thrown into the mix.
To understand the nature of Bucks County, one must understand why Carol Ross would move there in the first place. Carol Ross was the founder of The Press Office, a publicity firm in New York City that helped the careers of artists such as Kiss and Billy Joel. For some reason, when Carol retired from this first career to start a second one, she chose being an innkeeper in Bucks County, and loves it.
Bucks County is nestled alongside the Delaware River across from the New Jersey border, just north of Philadelphia. We stayed for the weekend at Ravenhead Inn (named after Carol), which is at the southern end of Bucks County and is easily accessible to the major highlights of the area.
At first, Ravenhead Inn looks so picturesque, it's a bit intimidating. Every room is well decorated, and every item is in a perfect place. The gardens are perfectly manicured, and every object in every room was chosen for a reason. For example, we stayed in the garden room, which, as the name implies, was decorated in the manner of a country garden.
The house is so immaculately decorated, Carol gives home decorating classes in it, using her rooms as examples. Did I mention Carol has already started on her third career?
Anyway, we arrived a tad bit later than we wanted and decided to head straight for dinner. After dropping off our bags and freshening up, we headed down the road to dinner at Sebastian's, a modern, nouveau Italian restaurant run by the cook and his wife, so it's a bit of a family affair. As an odd coincidence, they actually got married up the road right where we were staying at the Ravenhead Inn.
Anyway, Margherita had the Seafood Bouillabaisse, which I insisted she order herself, since if I attempted to say the word "bouillabaisse," it would just be an embarrassing affair and sound like an insult of some sort. She described it as very filling and could make a meal in itself, while I had the lobster ravioli -- half because I could say it, and half because it mixed my favorite seafood and my favorite pasta.
It's an amazing juxtaposition to be in Sebastian's, as it's one of the only upscale restaurants around this traditional working-class region. Some of the patrons drive 45 minutes to an hour to be there. The couple right next to us drove close to an hour and said they do it once every 2 weeks. That alone served as a good rating for me.
For dinner, I had the crab cakes, and Margherita had the mixed grill, which was lamb, veal and chicken. She didn't appreciate it when I joked, "They just slaughtered the entire farm for yours." Anyway, she said she loved it, but I think I liked my crab cakes more. Unfortunately, we were both distracted by hearing the journeys of the other couple, which I still found amazing throughout most of the patrons, who travel so far to eat here.
Well, the evening went on with laughing, discussion and being perplexed, and we headed back to Ravenhead Inn even later than we wanted to, but conked out in the garden room and went right to sleep.
Read part 2
Read part 3
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