Walnut doors, windows and baseboards.

Next on the agenda is the floor. It’s a bit of a headache. The wood is in bad shape. We were told that the 1860 plantation house fell on hard times from 1890 till 1937 when it became a tenant farm and the residents of the Brampton Inn were storing all sorts of interesting products, such as meat and chickens in the parlor. Michael ran into a friend the other day who is an architectural historian and asked him if this could be true. According to him it was indeed common to use the room farthest away from the kitchen for all sorts of storage. He also told Michael that in 1860 the parlor would most likely have had wall to wall carpeting.  The Swiss “Hausfrau” in me wants to know how they kept that rug clean before vacuum cleaners??

We’ll stick to sanding and wax or varnish.

Our old parlor at the Brampton Inn that served us well for 25 years.

It is an elegant, light filled room.

For a while a strategically placed plant hid water damage that eventually had to be addressed.

Michael hard at work. There is no going back now.

It still gives us the jitters when we start a project like this one. This old house was built well yet we never know what is waiting for us under the surface. After the wallpaper came off we learned that the horsehair plaster was in bad shape. Onward, I’ll keep you posted.

On January 28, The Brampton Inn will be hosting its own, private oyster “festival” here at the inn for guests who wish to participate.   Well, it’s more like dinner than an actual festival, but you get the idea.   Oysters from the Chester River served four different ways with a winter salad and sparkling wine.  What more could you ask for in a festival??  How about having it indoors, next to a glowing, real wood fire? Yes, we’ve got that too.

It is the perfect winter evening!

I have an obsession.  It started last March when Danielle brought back some chocolates from Switzerland  that were infused with different flavors. Not just nuts, or coffee, or cinnamon.  Heavy duty flavors like lemon,  or chiles, or salt.  Yes. Salt.

I’m only slightly embarrassed that I didn’t come up with it myself,   but either way, it turns out that this combination could quite possibly be the BEST THING THAT I HAVE EVER TASTED IN MY LIFE.  It combines the best of both worlds.  I have never been the kind of person who prefers one type of snack over another; some people can eat an entire bag of potato chips in one fell swoop, but sicken at the thought of eating a pint of Ben and Jerry’s in 10 minutes.  I can do both. I have done both.  I have often mused over the question: if I could only eat one thing for the rest of my life, and actually survive, would I choose something sweet or something salty?  For me it usually comes down to the best fried chicken in the world vs. chocolate fudge brownie ice cream.  I can never decide.

Until now.  Chocolate laced with sea salt is my new best friend.

Recently I was at a party and there were brownies.  I have been trying to eat like a normal person and so I wasn’t going to have one.  But I kept hearing people talking about how good they were. So I tried one.  They were salty.  I was in love.  I asked the woman who made them, “Do these have sea salt in them?”  Her eyes twinkled a bit as she said, “Why yes, they do.  I love salty desserts.”  A comrade.

So now I am revisiting every chocolate cookie recipe  to see where I can add some good salt.  A quick internet search yielded a bunch of recipes, but because we’re only talking about 2 ingredients here -salt and chocolate-I think just a little tweaking of tried and true recipes will be just fine. We make some super rich chocolate shortbread cookies here;  I baked a few off with a sprinkling of sea salt on top.  Oh my.  They were delicious.

So, with all the chocolate that’s floating around this week, I urge you to step outside of your comfort zone a little, and try this combination.  Heck, you could simply sprinkle a little salt on a Hershey’s Kiss to see if you like it!  (Stick to good sea salt or Kosher salt, though. Table salt won’t cut it).  And who knows, if you’re ever stuck on a desert island, maybe you’ll stock up on salty chocolate too.

We are animal lovers here at the Brampton Inn.  We have our adorable Slipper the cat-concierge, well known to many guests.  Michael and Danielle have Muffin and Charlie, the Cairn terrier terrors.  Rita has her dogs Dalia and Sidney, plus 3 cats that found themselves homeless on the grounds of the inn. Carole has horses.

But beyond the typical domesticated companion animals, and the huge variety of birds and insects that we see here at Brampton, are the often overlooked, and much (wrongly) maligned creatures that are no one’s particular favorites…that we happen to sincerely enjoy:

For example,  the black vulture, a common scavenger, is often looked upon with disdain.  Most people consider them “ugly”,  with their bald heads and big hooked bill.  What a shame this is;  if you have the chance to see one up close, (as we do here at the inn; we have several residents that hang out on top of the old silo) you would see that they are magnificent creatures.  They are one of the biggest birds, and one with an important job.  If not for the vultures and other scavengers, the ground would be littered with rotting corpses! Besides this, there are many other benefits to having vultures around.

See how regal this bird looks in the window of the old barn…we think she is earning her keep!

Another critter that we enjoy seeing is the little brown bat.  Bats are animals that most people have very strong feelings about…we happen to love and appreciate them. They put on a great acrobatic flying show at dusk when they’re busy eating mosquitos, often thousands a night by just one bat!  You can sit and watch them flutter around doing what they do, though it can be a challenge to keep your eyes on one.

They are the only flying mammal (they are NOT  rodents; and “flying” squirrels merely glide), and did you know they nurse their young, which are called “pups”?

Earlier this fall, Michael found one sleeping behind a shutter, which he had removed for maintenance and painting.  I braved this ladder:

And then climbed another one on the porch roof in order to take this picture:

Just look at that beautiful silky brown fur!  I can’t explain it but I think they’re adorable.  (Notice the 2 stink bugs embedded in the wasp’s mud just to the left of the bat.  These are the non-native, invasive species that inundated the east coast this past year.  We do NOT find them adorable.  Enough said).

Bats are so important in the eco-system and eat thousands of insects-mostly mosquitos- each night. They have recently been threatened by a disease that is wiping them out at an alarming rate.  We hope that the bats here are safe from this, and continue to roost in our trees and behind the shutters!  And by the way, we are actually in the middle of the Year of the Bat, just in case you didn’t know.

Chestertown is a very arts oriented community: we have  galleries, studios, workshops, classes, lectures, a film series, an arts league, two (yes 2!) theatrical venues, and more.

We thought we would share some of our favorites with you, so we will be featuring a different artist, event or venue each month or so here in our blog.

The Brampton Bed and Breakfast Inn is honored to be the only inn in the area where Linda Hall hangs her wonderful watercolors!

These small photos obviously can’t compare to seeing them in person, so luckily, there is a retrospective of Linda’s work at Heron Point opening on January 2, 2012 and running until the end of February.  For more information, click here.

The arts community is rich in Chestertown; there is always something to see, or a class to take.  It is one more reason we feel so lucky to be here!

from Slipper and everyone else here at the Brampton Inn…

Our favorite Cranberry-Apricot-Nut Bread

We posted the recipe for this quick bread 2 years ago, but when I searched the archives, it didn’t appear to be there…ah well, the mysteries of the inter-web!  This is sooo good, it deserves a second chance at posterity.  It might look like fruit cake, but you won’t want to re-gift it!  It is particularly good at the holidays because it’s pretty and festive and it travels very well: perfect for gift giving.  We hope you enjoy it!

4 cups flour

1 ¾ cups sugar

1 tablespoon and 2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon nutmeg, freshly ground if possible

Scant 1 teaspoon salt

2 cups fresh cranberries, roughly chopped

1 ½ cups dried apricots, roughly chopped

2 cups walnuts, finely chopped

4 eggs

½ pound butter, melted and cooled a bit

1 cup orange juice

2 tablespoons fresh orange zest

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.

Spray loaf pans generously with non stick cooking spray.

In a large bowl, whisk together first 5 ingredients.  Add fruit and nuts and mix together well to break up any lumps of apricots and distribute fruit evenly through the flour. (It’s easiest to do this with your hands).

In a smaller bowl, whisk the eggs, butter, orange juice and zest together until combined.   Make a well in the center of the flour mixture and pour wet ingredients inside.  Using a large spatula, combine wet and dry until no flour is visible.  Divide batter between loaf pans and place in hot oven.  Large loaves may take over an hour to cook through.  Smaller loaves usually take 50 to 60 minutes.  Be sure to test for doneness by inserting a toothpick in the center.  When it comes out clean, it’s ready.  Cool completely on wire rack before unmolding.

Yield=2 large loaves or 4 small

This coming Sunday, December 18th, the Kent County Bird Club takes part in what is known as the largest on-going research project in the world: the Christmas Bird Count! Every year in December, thousands of volunteers – or “citizen scientists” – from all over the world go out to assigned areas and count birds over a 24 hour period.  The results are compiled and posted on the internet and are used by scientists and conservationists whose specialty is ornithology.

The Lower Kent County Christmas Bird Count takes place at Eastern Neck National Wildlife Refuge.   It is a chance for novice birders to get in on the action and perhaps see a new bird or two.    We love birds here at the Brampton, and are lucky to have great habitats for many species here on the property.  As we’ve mentioned before, we have some plans in the works for birding opportunities for our guests coming up next spring.  Stay tuned!

This weekend marks Chestertown’s 26th annual Holiday House Tour.  Tickets are $15 ahead of time or $20 the day of the event.  Light refreshments are served along the way.

All homes on the tour are within walking distance of each other and downtown, and less than 2 miles from the Brampton.  Let’s hope the weather cools down enough for it to feel like Christmas, but not so much to keep everyone inside: after all,  the proceeds benefit the students of Chestertown’s Kent County Middle School.