This Week at the Herdic House
We’re heading to an entirely different continent for our Blue Plate tonight, folks—one with no Thanksgiving, and very little Christmas for that matter. (We were trying to stay far, far away from heavy turkey day food on Thanksgiving Eve.) So all hail Korean beef bulgogi as tonight’s Blue Plate Special: seared, marinated beef served over rice with crispy Brussels, housemade kimchi and quickled cucumber, pomegranate and carrot. It’s $18 at our House, and $20 to go, like always—but, per usual, our number of to-go orders will be very limited. And for dessert, we’ll be serving toasted gingerbread with pomegranate and whipped cream…
And now is a good time to announce that there will be no Thursday Happy Hours, this week, because there will be no Thursday hours whatsoever. As we do every year, we’ll be closing for Thanksgiving so that we and our staff can celebrate the holiday with our families. But we’ll see you bright and early on Friday (ahem: 5 pm), with another soup to benefit the Food Bank…
Because the Herdic will be continuing our thus-far-successful fundraiser this Friday (11/28), to raise money for our Central Pennsylvania Food Bank here in town—we’re running our own little pay-what-you-can soup kitchen! Stop in to pick up a quart of warm soup at our bar on Friday evening starting at 5:00 (until the soup runs out!) and make a donation to the Food Bank while you’re here, if you’re able. The soup is free until we run out, but we encourage those who can to be generous to our local Food Bank—they’ve been experiencing a huge surge in need over the past several weeks, and the money that you donate to them goes an incredibly long way: they can make 4 meals with every dollar you donate. (Liz is now feeling guilty about how much more her meals cost to produce.) This Friday’s soup will be a creamy potato, leek and Parmesan, spiced with chipotle pepper. Call ahead if you’d like to reserve a quart, or take your chances dropping in Friday evening—our suggested donation is $25…
On the topic of menu for Friday evening, we’re still (of course) figuring out all of our features. But Bob Helmrich was kind enough to find us some excellent Dover sole, so Liz is planning to feature that for certain: stuffed with oyster mushrooms and crabmeat, served in a vermouth cream over crispy potatoes anna and wilted greens. Give us a call if you’d like to book a table—reservations tend to fill up right after Thanksgiving!
Well, it was a Victorian Christmas for the books, this year: lovely weather, ample crowds, spectacular homes on display. Of course, we at the Herdic missed most of it, but we can vouch that the tea cakes were excellent! And, for those who may not have this particular sub-event on their radar for the VC weekend, let us mention that Liz’s kids’ favorite part of the weekend is, inevitably, the one-two combo of the model train show at Park Place and the Taber museum, and exploring the Taber as well: check out Daisy, above, in some slightly weathered Victorian finery, courtesy of the museum’s excellent dress-up area.
Which brings us to the topic of the things that we’re feeling particularly thankful for here at the Herdic House this year…and the first thing that comes to mind is, undoubtedly, our community. We live in this rural area, in this tiny city, and yet Williamsporters have a way of showing up for each other, with opportunities great and small for creating and maintaining an awesome community. This past weekend’s event, with hundreds of volunteer hours logged over the year and even more just over two days to bring attention to Williamsport’s gorgeous architecture is one example—but so are the folks who donated over $500 to the food bank as part of our small (and poorly publicized) fundraiser this past week.
Over and over again, this place of peace and natural abundance that we’re fortunate to call home is a respite not just for us but also for people from outside our city—and we’re thankful that that’s something we can continue to do here. We’re a community of great people here in Williamsport…and sure we struggle sometimes to mind our own business, but that’s partly so that we can better look out for one another. In the end, we’re fortunate to have each other, warts and all—so thanks, Wilpo, for being a great place to live and raise a family!