Offbeat Eats

(Closed) A few weeks ago, we found ourselves driving through Hillsborough and Peterborouh in southern NH. Looking for a snack, we had recalled that several years earlier we had passed some sort of German bakery, but couldn’t recall details. This time, armed with GPS and 3G wireless, we found the place: German John’s Bakery in Hillsborough. A modest storefront in a building shared with an ice cream parlor (which appears to be run by the same folks), it’s a cozy little bakery with a several racks of baked goods, a chalkboard listing available sausages, some shelves of German groceries, and a few tables. We opted for a few classic soft pretzels, and went outside to the tables out front.

Last fall, I had dinner with a bunch of my friends down in the DC area, and during the after-dinner conversation an interesting topic came up: “What would it be like to walk from one end of Manhattan to another?” Well, I’d actually done this before (back in 2006, when I was visiting friends in NYC and had 6 hours to kill), but wanted to do it again, with some more time to kill. So did a bunch of the other folks, so we picked a date and decided to just do it. The result was the “Manhattan Death March”…

In one of the more anticipated changes in the local restaurant scene, Umpleby’s new location at 3 South Street in Hanover (approximately where the hardware store used to be before the big South Main/South Street construction happened) is now open, so Carol and I decided to head over there for Sunday breakfast before heading out for a hike. Previously located in Bridgewater, Umpleby’s has been known for several years as the go-to people for croissants and meat pies at the Norwich Farmers Market. Indeed, either the Umpleby’s line would be quite long, or they’d be sold out.