Historic Boone Tavern Hotel & Restaurant at Berea College -Southern Hospitality At It Finest
WWW.AMERICANPRESSTRAVELNEWS.COM – Jan 25th, Berea College, KY.-Bob & Barb “On the Road Again” and “Stopping to Smell the Roses, We dined at the Historic Boone Tavern Restaurant, a place to to enjoy traditional and modern offerings of excellent cuisine, libations and a feeling that you’ve come home to family. Don’t remember when I felt this way before on any writing assignment, needing to researching the essences of a “place in time and space.” Berea founded in 1885 started and has grown to be a college of highly respected by it’s Alumni, professors, college staff, especially students and their families and friends. We spent two nights at Historic Boone Tavern Hotel and Restaurant. We visited all their crafts departments, ate dinner at their restaurant, met and interviewed students, instructors, the 500-acre farm Director, ate and purchased the makings of what has become a century old tradition of “Spoon Bread” with all or almost all ingredients produced on their working student operated farm. I guess what really shone through throughout our stay and experiences was the deep respect for the work ethic and cooperative nature of the peoples that made up the “Berea Experience.” Today Berea is know as the “Crafts Capital of Kentucky” and for very good reason, crafts in woodworking, pottery, broom making, farm-craft among others, are taught, created and sold in the many crafts shop both in Berea, state and nationwide.
We settled in comfortably in a great King bed, bath and beyond, and were spoiled rotten at the Tavern. Our waiter (student) brought us our Fried Green Tomato Salad, out of their farm gardens, a traditional dish offered here for many decades-” Chicken Flakes in a Birds Nest”and Barb’s opted for glazed salmon. We had a Bourbon, local wine, and a real Mint Julep, all KY. style. The special Souffle’ like Spoon Bread was fantastic and has been served here for more than 70-years, an Appalachian traditional recipe.
We finished, or they finished us off with a Pecan Pie with crust steeped in chocolate and a Caramel swirl and a nice big square of bread pudding. We slowly walked out for a longer walk around the block before heading up to our room for some hot showers. Go to Berea, visit the school and all its craft programs, stay at the Historic Boone Tavern, get spoiled at lunch or dinner, talk to some of the students, stop by at the nearby Kentucky Artisan Center to make a hand-made craft of a lifetime. I promise you will come away wishing as we did, to have gone to school there yourself. www.berea.com
Hyatt Regency Offers Rockin’ Restaurant-Fiorenzo!
APtravelnews-November 24th—The Hyatt Regency Orlando-Orange County Convention Center, Orlando, FL.—We visited the Hyatt’s Fiorenzo Italian Steakhouse after our day at a Manufacturers Fishing Show, for dinner. It turned out to be a highlight of our visit to Orlando! Hopefully, you’ve been reading APtravelnews, so you would have seen that we travel by auto, air, foot, but also on our stomachs. No adventure away from home can be successfully wonderful if the cuisine isn’t. No problem here! Fiorenzo’s Chef James O. Stafford (Jim) is an artist with meats, produce, dairy and sweets! We started out with a Chocotini (Martini with a lace of chocolate) and an appetizer matched to home baked Crostini and delicious Condiments. We chose a selection of smoked Scamorza, Truffled Pecorino and Jamon Iberica( Iberian Ham). Cheeses were “off the grid” terrific and the Wild Boar Salami has a new fan! A tasting cup of Fagiole Soup created with Cannellini Beans, Sweet Italian Sausage, Escarole and Basil Pesto, plus a cup we shared of Spicy Tomato Soup with roasted eggplant, Fregola and Olive oil capped off our appetizer list. At this point It might have been enough for anyone with a smaller appetite, but oh no, not us! Next on our hit list was Yellowtail snapper, one of President G.W. Bush’s favorite fish (recipe in my Calypso Café book) it was a special this night, so we tried their fish entrée and another entrée; Colorado Lamb Chops, complimented by a spread of incredible Risotto. This combo, really brought home Chef Jims expertise. Good, really great Risotto takes a balance of great products and excellent understanding of cooking times and blends, needed for perfection. Jim has it down! From the cheese rolls, to the final assault on our wastes; the desserts, we swooned (probably a bit from the exotic flavored Martini’s too) over the hot chocolate Volcano Bomb (they don’t call it that, but WOWser- oozing chocolate, Filbert nuts, red raspberries, and, and I do mean: “and” Cinnamon Gelato! Promise; this was incredibly tasty and memorable. Barb went for her favorite: Tiramisu. I tasted it and found out once again why it’s a heavenly Italian treat. If it’s done correctly, almost nothing can beat it for an end-of dinner delight! Guess we have to go back again for Barbara’s Birthday and again for our Anniversary, and for my Birthday, the kids, the family, the extended family! We loved everything about Fiorenzo. Our waitress Laura Ardron was so attentive and informative about all of the menu items, we felt she was a great asset to Fiorenzo, probably one of the very best wait staff people we ever came across. Get in touch with Fiorenzo Steak House just inside the front door at the Hyatt Regency Orlando across from the Convention Center, at 407-345-4555
Cataloochee Guest Ranch, Maggie Valley- A Mountain Afar, But Close To So Many Hearts
American Press Travel News- June 27th,-Maggie Valley, Haywood County, North Carolina—Cataloochee Guest Ranch was opened in 1934 by Mr. Tom and Miss Judy Alexander. It was moved to its present location in 1938. The Ranch is still run by the third generation descendants of Mr. Tom and Miss Judy. As their brochure rightly proclaims “The Ranch is “where the march of time slows down to a walk.” the high mountains here really do have deep roots! Barb and I relaxed, enjoyed country buffet cookouts for dinner of steaks and taters along with all the country fixin’s you’d also love. We also sampled their country breakfast which included their wonderful homemade syrups, jams and biscuits. that you will savor in your mouth and on your mind for a very long time.
This is a wonderful place for your whole family. We watched a small boy catch his first fish in their stocked pond, which the ranch then cooked for his dinner. They have all sorts of planned activities for children as well for adults. There are so many outdoor recreational opportunities in and around this 5000 foot elevation, cool, over 1000 acre ranch. We hiked, found and identified numerous edible mushrooms, plants and trees with a professional field guide. Their garden, becomes your garden each and every meal! Every day you can take take trail rides. When you arrive you feel like you are a member of their family with their rich local heritage. Every night their local admiring neighbors, were scheduled to come and meet the guests. We listened to local musicians and were even able to pet a real friendly wolf.
Perhaps due to the history of several generations of the Tom and Judy Alexander family, there was a feeling here that we were home, really at home again! It’s really hard to say just how comfortable we were at this ranch. It was very hard to leave and we actually stayed a bit longer than usual before we left the cool mountain air, the friendliness of our hosts and the truly serene nature of this fine resort. So, I guess one way to say it was, we had a very hard time saying goodbye!
Call 1 (800) 868-1401 119 or local 828-926-1401 cataloocheeranch.com located on Ranch Road., Maggie Valley, NC 28751 Cataloochee Ranch.com
Also, we will review so many fine restaurants in the coming days on aptravelnews.com. We will be posting these and many more opportunities for visitors in the next day or so. We took part in visiting the Cataloochee Valley area full of transplanted elk. The bulls were bugling their dominancy over their herd of cows-quite a display! The people we met, the dinner with the Mayor of Waynesville and his wife, the fine other folks we learned so much about them and from them, their Agri-tourism lifestyle and businesses offerings, and their goals, as well as their already fruitful successes will be portrayed as well.
