Pickity Place

A couple weeks ago I had the chance to go to Pickity Place in Mason N.H.  IT was INCREDIBLE! It was fun to read and hear about the history of Pickity place. This little cottage was the inspiration for Elizabeth Orton Jones when she illustrated her version of Little Red Riding Hood. (Little Golden Books 1948).  The little cottage was just adorable and just what you would expect when thinking about Little Red Riding Hood!

This little cottage is nestled deep in the woods on a dirt road, not a neighbor could be seen! The gardens are amazing. I have never seen such a large herb garden. Every herb imaginable could be found.  As you walk through the gardens there are the cutest little sitting areas that you would not expect to see. They have a garden store with the most precious cat that makes his home there. There is also a “drying” shed where they dry all of their herbs, as well as their flowers. They also have this quaint little shop where they sell all of their dried herb dips, salts, oils, vinegar and lots of other specialty food and gift items. Needless to say I made a few purchases!  After touring the grounds, we had lunch reservations for 11:30, so we waited patiently with several other visitors until they rang the lunch bell, then we are all seated with the first course on the table awaiting us!

When you are seated they already have crackers and dip waiting for you. Today the dip was Garden Patch Dunk. IT was very good… full of vegetable flavor. Then our waitress came over and gave us our drink choices as well as our entree choices. The menu is VERY limited but the best food I have eaten all summer! I had the raspberry orange ice tea to drink and my dear friend, Rosalie had the Lavender Lemonade. We both really enjoyed our beverages. Both drinks were very light and fresh.

The soup course arrived very quickly, and today the soup was a chilled melon soup with crispy prosciutto. The soup was very light with a crunchy texture of the prosciutto. My lunch companion did not like the crispy bits but I liked the change of texture.

Next was the Caprese salad over Farro with a sun dried tomato vinaigrette. This salad was like no other! I am not kidding it was to die for, it had the freshest lightest dressing with herbs, fresh greens and a marinated buffalo mozzarella cheese slice along with an edible flower to top it all off! We talked about how good that salad was all afternoon!

We also received a basket of potato chive focaccia with dipping oil. The bread was so fresh and the chive really came through, all of this before the main course!

For my entree I chose the sweet and sour pork over a plum slaw, served with glazed carrots with ripe peaches.

Rosalie had the roasted vegetables on rosemary skewers served over a Parmesan polenta. Both dishes were very tasty. The rosemary really shined through on the vegetable dish and my pork dish was cooked perfectly with a crunchy coating on the outside!

We were both so full but there was no way we were passing up dessert. as everything we had so far was just delicious!

Dessert was a blueberry tart with pistachio Gelato! The dessert was just as you would expect …absolutely AMAZING! The fresh tart was filled with gorgeous blueberries in a homemade tart shell then the pistachio Gelato…oh my…that was so creamy and rich and oh did I mention there was a caramel drizzle on the plate ? ! YUP! OH SO GOOD!

Pickity Place is an amazing place to go for lunch. This would be a great place to take your daughter or maybe go with a book group or just with your favorite friend or significant other ! You really need reservations as this is a very small cottage and seating is tight! They have three lunch seating per day (11:30, 12;45, and 2:00). They also have a website. www.pickityplace.com    Stay tuned for Monday, I will have a very special recipe for you!

Enjoy,