This Week at the Herdic House
A simple and satisfying Blue Plate tonight, made with ingredients from some of our favorite local vendors—organic fettuccine from Pasta by Deb tossed in a lemon cream with Fossil Springs peas, summer greens and flakes of salmon from Wild for Salmon. It’s $15 at the House and $17 to go…
And tomorrow, our Happy Hours continue! Join us from 5-7 pm on Thursday evenings at the bar for some cocktail specials—$2 off wines by the glass, $1 off beers by the bottle and a rotating $9 craft cocktail, plus we’ll be making classic Pittsburgh-style salads, with housemade ranch dressing, crisp seasonal veggies, Yukon Gold fries. grated cheddar and grilled tenderloin tips… And this week’s cocktail will be a Raspberry Fizz, with Liz’s black raspberries, gin, egg white and lemon…
Well, the days meander on, no matter how hard we try to linger in them long enough to savor their summer sweetness, and our packed weekend of Father’s Day, Jim’s birthday and the solstice drew to a close yesterday, with eating, drinking, hiking, firefly hunting, honeysuckle sipping and general merriment throughout. We hope that all the fathers and all the families out there had lovely weekends as well—certainly no one could have asked for more sunlight or lovelier weather.
And as our delightful weekend concludes, we’ve suddenly realized that we’re in the thick of summer—a mad rush when there’s not enough time to make the most of every crop (let alone do all the hiking we’d intended), and when we’re running like crazy just trying to get the berries and cherries picked, pitted, preserved—”what do we do with all these cherries anyway?!”—and it’s easy to forget how wonderfully damn good everything tastes. So this week we have black raspberries, red raspberries and sweet and sour cherries, bibb lettuce, beets and peas upon peas, and next week or maybe two we’re expecting blueberries and sweet corn to pile on as well. Then there will be field tomatoes of all sorts, and more basil than anyone can shake a stick at (or make pesto from, which is really a better use of your time), and so on, like a delicious avalanche, for months. Man, are we lucky or what? Crazy, and crazy busy, but lucky too.
But we digress—join us on Friday as we make the most of this week’s slice of harvest madness, with these awesome features…
- Roasted beet soup finished with a root vegetable salsa and drizzled with tarragon creme fraiche
- Walnut Run Farm squash blossoms stuffed with housemade ricotta and basil, fried and served with local tomato sauce and spicy microgreens
- Salade niçoise, with seared sashimi tuna, green beans, boiled farm egg, tomato, Beech Grove baby greens and garlic dijon vinaigrette
- Summer fruit parfait, layered with lemon curd and creme anglaise and served with lavender shortbread
Plus, don’t miss Zach Ritter reading the Declaration of Independence, and Luana Cleveland’s quirky animal portraits next weekend on First Friday, July 1!