What does a traveler do on a weekend. Well is he has no other obligations he might take a day to explore. And so The Amazing Ms. D and I took off on a recent Sunday for the destination of Morristown NJ(map), which sits about 40 miles from our home.
Morristown is now a suburban center with commuters traveling to New York City, Newark and up and down the I-287 corridor.It is a somewhat bifurcated town with an upper middle class population on one side of the town square (yes, they have an actual square in the middle of town) and a working class population of mostly Central and South American immigrants on the other.
What drew us was a quality, juried craft fair. The was run by a company called ARTRIDER. They run fairs whose vendors are much more ART than Craft. For example we met Robin McLaughlin, who owns Stonecrop Beadworks (web site). She was very friendly and makes the most beautiful bead and stone jewelry.
Shopping for something special |
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Looking for the right piece |
This is beautiful work |
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My favorite part of these fancy juried fairs are the specialty food vendors. This time I found 2 that I really liked. One was a pie maker called Dutch Desserts (web site). I highly recommend the sour cherry pie.
Kieth Beebe vending his wares. |
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I also found Surprenant’s Berry Farm (web site). They make a wide range of jams and jellies. In addition to producing many excellent fruit varieties, including a delicious blackberry mango jam they also make beer and wine jams (review). I purchased a Merlot jelly, with the recommendation to use it as the base for cooking a good piece of meat. They also make an amazing Kaluha coffee and chocolate jelly that is great as a spread for desserts.
Bruce Suprenant – master jammer |
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Morristown has many choices for lunch. We stumbled across a relatively new option – Havana Koi (web site). The food was excellent and the tapas were reasonable for lunch. Entrees run $21-28.
It was a lovely escape from our daily grind and a nice Sunday afternoon away.