For the past 70 years, the Rhodes family has been harvesting cranberries, and has made Cape Cod Select Cranberries a household name. If you’re like me, you probably only think of cranberries at Thanksgiving time, but they are great all year round. The Cape Cod Select website has a bunch of great recipes to choose from, both sweet and savory, that sound pretty darn tasty. I was most excited about these cranberry squares that we got to try when we arrived in Carver for our tour. They’re super easy to make and you can even get the kids involved. Find the recipe here.

In true New England style, it poured like crazy for the tour of the bog. Good thing we brought boots! We slipped on some waders and headed into the cranberry bog to see what it was all about. Cape Cod Select grows four types of cranberries, two that are harvested early in the season and two that are harvested late in the season. The type of cranberry depends on if they are wet or dry harvested.

They laser level the bogs so that they can efficiently reuse the water on the next bog when they flood them. When do they flood the bogs? Three times a year: to harvest, in the winter to preserve the bog (they let the water freeze and add sand on top), and occasionally for pest control (those pesky bugs can’t live under water ). They have about 800 acres of land, 200 bogs and it takes about 4 hours to harvest a whole bog. That big machine you see gently shakes the cranberries up to the surface where they are collected and packed into bins.

Cape Cod Select offers fresh and frozen cranberries and you can find them in most major retailers. If you want to find a store near you that sells Cape Cod Select Cranberries, click here.

After we got out of the rain, we toured the inside of the facility. We watched how the cranberries were sorted and separated from the stems.

This cool machine looks at the conveyor belt below it (that has cranberries on it) and can see the damaged, undersized or discolored berries. It then shoots air down at those berries and they go into a different bin – the “perfect” berries move on to packaging. Each bag is stamped with a code so that each bag can be traced to a particular bog and it can tell you when it was harvested. Pretty cool!

What is your go to cranberry recipe?

For more information, check out the Cape Cod Select website.

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Right after we went to Pumpkin Day, we headed over to Wareham to go to the Cranberry Festival. The festival was held on a Saturday and a Sunday in October, and it was rumored that they saw over 14,000 people! So what should you expect? Long lines, we probably waited 20 minutes just to get to the parking lot. Once we got to the “lot” we realized that it was a big sand pit. Make sure to wear comfortable walking shoes. They have busses to take you from the lot to the ticket tent, but it’s hard to get a stroller on. I suggest getting there first thing. Tickets are $10 for adults, $5 for children and seniors and free to kids under 7.

When you first walk in there are tons of booths for sampling and activities for the kids. We went straight to the back to catch  a bus to the bog. We probably waited in line for about 10 minutes – there was a bus every few minutes, it was very efficient. Once you arrive at your destination, you were able to see the flooded cranberry bogs and for $25 a person, you could throw on some waders and jump right into the bog! Made for some super cute photos. For $50 per person you could go up in a helicopter and see the bogs from above. They had a tractor ride that took you around the bog and a fun activity for the kids where they could make a ‘bog in a cup’.

There was live music, local artisans, paddle boat rides and food for sale. All in all, a long, but fun day.

Did you miss the festival? You can take a public tour of the bogs as well, head over to the website for more details.  Tours are about an hour and a half. There isn’t a lot of walking, but make sure to wear boots! (Soggy feet are no fun) (Note: public tours are finished for the 2017 season) If you have a group of 10 or more, you can arrange for a private tour. From the website:

AD Makepeace Company

158 Tihonet Road, Wareham, MA

http://admakepeace.com

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Trying to wrap up all things fall since December is right around the corner. Wanted to share some fun images from Pumpkin Day at Bourne Farm. It takes place every year (rain or shine) at Salt Pond Bird Sanctuary. Parking and admission is free, but you pay for tickets per activity. Not only is there a large pumpkin patch for the kids to pick out their own pumpkins, but they have crafts, a petting zoo, pony rides, hay rides, tractor hay tides (the kids went 3 times!), face painting, bounce houses and the biggest hit for us was the bubble guy.

There is lunch and baked goods available for sale under the tent and you can hang out and enjoy the scenery (the grounds are beautiful) or relax to the live music. We had a super tasty pizza from Wolf Pizza. Don’t want to wait until their next event, don’t worry, they cater too.

For more information about Bourne Farm, check out their website.

Bourne Farm

6 North Falmouth Highway, North Falmouth, MA

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I saw Louis on Food Networks 101 Chowdown Countdown. They said that the burger was invented here in 1900. They flame broil the burgers in the original vertical cast iron gas stoves. The Metropolitan Cafe also cooks burgers vertically-this allows all the fat to drip down away from the burgers.

Louis is this tiny little, no nonsense kind of place. They have either hamburgers or cheeseburgers, and the only toppings you can get are cheese (cheese whiz), tomato or onion. And don’t even think about asking for ketchup. The burgers come on two pieces of toasted white bread and it’s wrapped in wax paper. All burgers are cooked medium rare unless you ask nicely for more well done. The burgers are placed 7 or 8 at a time into a contraption that looks like a fish grill basket and placed into the oven to cook.

Expect a wait. There was a line outside of about 10 people when we rolled up at 2pm. I thought that there would be no line since it wasn’t peak lunch time, but there was. And that was the first of the lines. Once you get inside you wait in another line to order. Once you’ve ordered, you have to hover in the corner and wait for your food. From start to finish we waited about an hour. Thankfully  it was a nice day outside because we were worried that we weren’t going to be able to find a seat inside. (We ended up eating on the bench outside) There are 5 stools at the counter, a large square table that has benches for family style picnic eating, and then some singles seats reminiscent of those chairs in elementary school with the desks attached. This isn’t a place to sit and mingle, not unless you people giving you death stares. As we were waiting for our food all I could think was, “this is what sardines must feel like”. If you watch the chronicle clip below, it looks a lot more spacious than it really is, tv magic I suppose.

For you Bostonians, I would equate this place to a lesser version of Bartley’s Burger Cottage. Bartley’s always has a line as well, but here is where they are superior: Bartley’s takes your order while you are waiting in line so that when you get inside, your burger is ready and you can sit down and eat. Louis would gain so much if they just followed suit.

Some of the reviews that I read before we went talked about how poor the service was. I equate the service to what you would get a Durgin Park. And keep it in context, if I had to work in a place that size, 12 hours a day, behind a counter that two grown men can stand, arms stretched out, touching fingers, with tourists constantly snapping pictures in my face, I might not be a happy camper either. People also complained about the wait. Well if you saw this place on the Food Networks, don’t you think that hundreds or thousands of other people also saw that very same program and want to try it out? And finally, people were saying that either it was the best burger they’ve ever had or the worst. Here’s the thing, if your idea of a great burger is gourmet meat, toasted brioche buttered roll, produce from the local farmers market, yes, of course you aren’t going to think that this is a great burger. It has almost no seasoning and it’s served on toasted wonder bread. Put your review into context people.

The burger was good. It wasn’t the best burger I’ve ever had, but it was good. Having it on white bread was a new experience for me. I felt like the bread didn’t really hold the burger very well which made it a little messy to eat…so I wasn’t too big of a fan. The burger itself was juicy and moist. The meat was tasty but it was gone in six or so bites. They don’t have fries there, but you can order chips by the bag. They have these great sodas there made by Foxon Park as well as the regular suspects. When we got there, they were running out of sodas, desserts, almost everything!

So it was good to try it out, and say that I’ve been there. Will I go out of my way again to go there, probably not…but like I said before, it was fun to try it once. One more thing, make sure you bring your cash because they don’t accept credit cards!

Louis Lunch

263 Crown St New Haven, CT 06511

(203) 562-5507

www.louislunch.com

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