This Week at the Herdic House
When will we learn that talking about the arrival of spring inevitably scares her off? From here on out, mum’s the word! But we’d remiss if we didn’t point out that today marks that excellent spring holiday Earth Day…and that’s it’s a day that’s best celebrated by getting out onto the surface of our planet and doing some little thing to make Mother Earth just a bit more comforrable in her own skin—whether that’s picking up trash, planting a tree, putting in a pollinator garden, setting up a rain barrel, or even just hiking out into a forest and taking a break to get to know our fellow travelers, all the birds, bees, beetles, trees, flowers, fish and other living things that also have a stake in living in central PA.
And to fortify you after your Earth Day adventures, we’ll be serving up a vegetable-forward (as the cool kids say) Blue Plate at the Herdic tonight: chickpea and spinach tagine with braised lamb, served over basmati rice. The Blue Plate, as always, is $18 at our House and $20 to go. You can reach us at 570-322-0165 to book a table! And our appetizer tonight will be a crispy confit duck leg served over arugula, roasted beet and fresh berries in an apricot vinaigrette…and P.S. our artist Simon Ward will be bringing in a few new paintings this evening for his show. If you haven’t checked it out yet, you should make sure you do before it disappears next week, to be followed by the artwork of Linda Borish.
Come join us for our Thursday happy hours at the bar, from 5-7 pm, with $1 off all beers and $2 off wines by the glass. Plus we’ll be serving another Thursday night crabcake, since last week’s was so well received: a lump crabcake sandwich with celery slaw and chipotle-lemon aioli, with Hunter’s tasty sweet potato chips. But don’t worry—next week we’ll likely switch it up again…
With the abundant sunshine in the forecast, we’re looking forward to a lovely week here at the Herdic, and all that sunshine has borne fruit…and vegetables too! Liz is headed to the Lewisburg Market this morning to look for more local asparagus, pick up armloads of various greens and perhaps even find some rhubarb too. A girl can certainly dream, right? Here at the Herd, we’ll be making the most of whatever we can lay our hands on, especially with the prospect of Earth Week looming large in our minds.
After the unusually boomerang spring we’ve had around here, and the strange amphibian breeding patterns we’ve heard about from our local scientist friends, and the frost patterns that have our farmers throwing up their hands, we’re thinking it’d be a good choice indeed to pamper our Mother this week and every week, and live lightly on the planet. (Yes, you point out accurately that we run a restaurant in a rambling Victorian with high heat bills, and wicked hot gas ranges, but hell, we’re trying to do a bit of our part.) Among other Earth Day activities we have planned for the week, we’ll be patronizing the kids’ consignment sale at the Arena across the street from us (running Thursday-Saturday), and making an appearance at the first annual Earth Day celebration in Brandon Park as well (from 11-4 on Saturday). You should come check them out!
And on Friday, we’ll be cooking up a menu that’s both largely plant-based, pretty local, and very delectable indeed. Come join us for a bite after your consignment shopping, or your hiking excursion, or maybe after just a little yardwork…
- Cherry blossom martinis with pickled blossoms
- Creamy spinach and scallion soup drizzled with fresh basil oil and finished with leek crisp
- Classic Herdic caesar salad, prepared tableside
- Pan-seared halibut with fresh asparagus, local arugula and shoestring potatoes, finished with a scallion hollandaise
- Strawberry sorbet sandwiches layered in fresh mint cookies and finished with coconut foam
P.S. Please note, in the sidebar, that we’ve postponed our annual Shad Smoke by one week this year, so that we can focus on a memorial we’ll be hosting that weekend at the Herd, and Liz can make it to her 25th college reunion at least briefly…the Shad Smoke boys are looking forward to smoking you out on May 29 this year!