Life

Info about what’s going on in my life or life in general

A Great Amish Buffet

Amish BuggyA few posts ago I promised a brief review of the restaurant that I went to in Lancaster last weekend. The restaurant was an Amish buffet called The Family Cupboard. You can also order meals, but we went for the buffet. Most buffets are basically a smorgasbord of mediocre food. We were leery that this would be the same. We had picked it out randomly from the Internet.

When we walked in and saw that there was a fair number of Amish/Mennonite folks eating there, we became more confident that the food would be good. As it turns out, it was really good. I went back for three plates plus dessert. There was a delicious meatloaf, buttered noodles that were clearly homemade and definately from a PA Dutch/German recipe. These sat alongside glazed ham, stuffing and seafood, pasta lima beans and on and on. The salad bar was your usual salad bar. I was glad to see it was all fresh and crispy, but what really made it special was a delicious house dressing.

For dessert, there was Turkey Hill ice cream as well as an assortment of desserts, but but what really caught my attention was the pies. I had a piece of pecan pie (my favorite) which wasn’t so great, but I went back for another piece and selected shoo-fly pie. It was delicious!

You can view their menu and get directions at FamilyCupboard.com.

Posted by Michael in Cooking/Food, Interesting Links, Life

A Great Amish Buffet

Amish BuggyA few posts ago I promised a brief review of the restaurant that I went to in Lancaster last weekend. The restaurant was an Amish buffet called The Family Cupboard. You can also order meals, but we went for the buffet. Most buffets are basically a smorgasbord of mediocre food. We were leery that this would be the same. We had picked it out randomly from the Internet.

When we walked in and saw that there was a fair number of Amish/Mennonite folks eating there, we became more confident that the food would be good. As it turns out, it was really good. I went back for three plates plus dessert. There was a delicious meatloaf, buttered noodles that were clearly homemade and definately from a PA Dutch/German recipe. These sat alongside glazed ham, stuffing and seafood, pasta lima beans and on and on. The salad bar was your usual salad bar. I was glad to see it was all fresh and crispy, but what really made it special was a delicious house dressing.

For dessert, there was Turkey Hill ice cream as well as an assortment of desserts, but but what really caught my attention was the pies. I had a piece of pecan pie (my favorite) which wasn’t so great, but I went back for another piece and selected shoo-fly pie. It was delicious!

You can view their menu and get directions at FamilyCupboard.com.

Posted by Michael in Cooking/Food, Interesting Links, Life

Catching up on eBay

In an attempt to slowly start trying to get caught up with life, I’ve started posting stuff on eBay again. Check out what I’m selling and feel free to bid on something at members.ebay.com/aboutme/michaelgatti.

Posted by Michael in Interesting Links, Life

Jack Hanna Show Photos

You might remember that I went to a Christmas show at the American Music Theatre in Lancaster, PA at the end of last year. We went back last week to see Jack Hanna and his menagerie of wild animals. The show was fantastic. It was a lot of fun to see him in person after watching him on TV for so many years. Afterwards, we went shopping at the Tanger and Rockvale Outlets.

We had dinner at a fantastic restaurant called The Family Cupboard. I’ll mention some more about that in a future post. Maybe a little review.

The only bad part of the day is that my father couldn’t have been with us. He would have loved the show. He’s the one who taught me most everything I know about animals. Nature shows were his favorite.

The photos can be viewed right here.

Posted by Michael in Life, Photography, Site Updates

Newport RI Photos

I was in Newport Rhode Island on business recently. While I was there, the Newport Winter Festival was going on. It was the weather was beautiful for the two weeks that I was there. Of course, on the one day that I had free (the day I travelled home) there was an ice storm and the skies were gray at best. But I made the most of it and went out and did the tourist stuff and took a bunch of photos.

Check them out here.

Posted by Michael in Life, Photography, Site Updates

Lancaster Christmas Show Photos

After a very difficult few months, I’m finally trying to start getting caught up with things. That includes updating my site. I just posted some photos that I took when we took my grandfather to the annual Christmas show at the American Music Theatre in Lancaster, PA. It was a christmas gift to him from my Mom & Dad.

This particular place holds a special meaning to him and me because the threatre is on the property where there once existed The Willows Motel that he and my grandmother used to take me to when I was little. The covered bridge on their property is what started my love of covered bridges.

Check out he photos right here.

Posted by Michael in Life, Photography, Site Updates

Thank you for your kindness

Words can’t even begin to tell you how difficult the past three weeks has been for my family and me. It has only been made easier by something equally indescribable. That is the overwhelming support that we’ve received from family, friends, coworkers and even folks who never even knew my father. Cards, flowers, gifts, phone calls, e-mails, dinner invitations, visits are the tangible items that we’ve received, but what we’ve really received is kindness, love and comfort.

We’ve mailed out over 100 thank you notes, but no greeting card can truly convey how thankful we are for the outpouring of support that has been bestowed upon us.

Posted by Michael in Life

Drop your message on NYC

For the past thirty years, I’ve spent my New Year’s Eves with my grandfather watching the ball drop in Times Square. This year, however, I was able to send a message to those brave souls that will spend the evening watching the ball drop in person.

You can too. Read about it at CNN.com then go do it right here.

Posted by Michael in Interesting Links, Life

Wishing you a Merry Christmas

Here’s wishing you have a jous and healthy Christmas. Hopefully you are as lucky as I am to be able to take the week off and spend it with family and friends!

Posted by Michael in Life

Commodore 64 lives forever

Commodore LogoYou probbaly know that I’ve worked with computer’s all my life. What you might not remember is that the first computer my parents bought for me many years ago was the venerable Commodore 64. With it’s 64 bytes of RAM we played games like Choplifter, Tooth Invaders, Clowns & Bruce Lee. I also wrote my first computer programs in BASIC. And should I even mention the Datasette? Gee, loading computer software onto audio cassettes seemed like such a good idea at the time!

It’s amazing how 25 years later, all of those hours sitting with my mom and trying to fix the syntax errors in the tapes my Uncle Ott would send her actually seem like fond memories when at the time we wanted to throw the machine out the window.

Yes, the Commodore 64 is 25 years old now. I still have mine packed away. I could never get rid of it. CNN has a great article about the historic anniversary of everyone’s favorite home computer. Read CNN’s article here.

Posted by Michael in Interesting Links, Life, Technology