We were honored at Hamanassett Bed and Breakfast to take part in the Bed and Breakfasts for Veterans program. Started last year in West Virginia, the program is now part of the Better Way to Stay program at the Professional Association of International Innkeepers. As a result, hundreds of bed and breakfasts across the United States offered free rooms to our veterans on 11-10-11 to thank them for their service to our country. This year we had the Army, Navy, and Air Force represented.
In addition to the rooms offered by Hamanassett, the good people at the Delaware County’s Brandywine Valley Conference and Visitor’s Bureau secured donations from many of the attractions and local businesses in the area. Included were items like a WALK FOR THE WOUNDED T-shirt (a major fundraising event that draws thousands of people to Delaware County each year to honor soldiers who have been wounded overseas), plus a bottle of Chadds Ford wine, a box of Fudge made by a local candymaker – and a variety of free admission passes to places like Longwood Gardens, the Simeone Car Museum, the American Helicopter Museum, the Brandywine River Museum and more! There was also a $20-25 gift certificate to a local restaurant in each bag.
If you are planning on visiting Longwood Gardens this holiday season it is important that you purchase your tickets in advance. This year there will be no admittance unless you have a pre purchased timed ticket. Tickets are issued for a specific date and time and tickets are available for advance purchase on their website now. There is no admittance to the Gardens without a timed admission ticket if you are not a Garden Pass Member. For more information or to purchase your tickets, click here.
pen House at t Wineries December 3 & 4
The 7 wineries of the Brandywine Valley Wine Trail will be hosting a holiday open house the first weekend in December. In addition, they offer special events all through the fall. For more information click here
Brandywine Prime is looking for a butcher or butchers! No, not a butcher of meat, but a butcher (carver) of pumpkins. This job is one night only, Thursday, October 27th, beginning at 5pm. You (and your team) will check in at Brandywine Prime before 5 and then head down to the Chadds Ford Historical Society to carve their sponsored pumpkin. After the carving is complete, hang around to see the judges decision or head back to Brandywine Prime and join them for the after-carve party.
Those wishing to apply for the job must meet the following criteria; at least 21 years old, possess carving tools and be able to use creatively, friendly, don’t mind having a beer or two after a hard day’s carve, must use the term CHOP! CHOP! when speaking to your team.
Please respond to Michael@brandywineprime.com, if you are interested. Include your idea of how the pumpkin will look. Compensation $100 gift certificate to Brandywine Prime for you; $50 for each of your teammates; snacks and drinks at the after carve party for you and your team; hopefully lots of fun.
Carver, assuming there is more than one person interested, will be picked at random.
Brandywine Prime is one of our favorite restaurants. Both the restaurant and the Chadds Ford Historical Society where the contest will take place are 10 minutes from Hamanassett Bed and Breakfast. If you can’t carve come out and enjoy the fun@
Looking for spooks and things that go bump in the night? Is getting a chill and a thrill your idea of fun for Halloween? I just learned about the PennHurst Haunted Asylum which is about a 50 minute drive from Hamanassett. If their web site is any indication, this is definitely a place to check out if you like being scared out of your wits The Assylum was a state school that only closed down in 1986 after many allegations of abuse. The new attraction there is a combination of high tech animatronices, digital sound and actors. Even if you don’t plan on going, I suggest reading their web site for interesting information. Fair warning: this web site is scary and noisy so if you are at work, turn the sound down before clicking here.
Another creepy attraction only 10 minutes from Hamanassett is the Haunted Hayride at the Bates Motel. For over 20 years this attraction has been scaring visitors with amazing props and great actors. Click here for more information
Their slogan is “Think Pink, Drink Pink”. October is Breast Cancer Awareness month and the eight wineries that make up the Brandywine Valley Wine Trail are doing their part to be supportive by donating $1.00 of every sale of specially designated pink wines from October 1 through October 31. Your purchase will help support one of two organizations, The Delaware Breast Cancer Coalition and Living Beyond Breast Cancer. Come out and lend your support to these very worthy organizations. You can purchase a Wine Passport for only $20.00 at Hamanassett Bed and Breakfast and visit all eight of the participating wineries. Your passport is good through the end of the year. The wineries that are members of the Brandywine Wine Trail include Black Walnut Winery, Chadds Ford Winery, Kreutz Creek Vineyard, Paradocx Vineyard, Patone Cellars, Penns Woods Winery, and Twin Brook Winery. All of the wineries are within a 10-20 minute drive of each other as well as major Brandywine Valley attractions such as Longwood Gardens and Brandywine River Museum. I hope you’ll come out and add your support to this very worthy cause.
The final fireworks and fountains light and sound show for this season will be Labor Day weekend, Saturday September 3. If you don’t catch this show you’ll have to wait until the Christmas season for their spectacular shows. The annual multi-sensory evening series is an absolutely-can’t-miss summer event. And you’ve got one last chance to enjoy it:
Enjoy the fountains and fireworks at Longwood Gardens
• Summer Pops (September 3): A night featuring American composer Leroy Anderson’s best known works, including “Blue Tango,” “The Syncopated Clock,” and “Home Stretch.” Bring or rent a folding chair for a front-row experience of the gardens’ lights and sounds! Tickets are $38.00 per person and can be purchased online at www.longwoodgardens.org or by calling 610-388-1000.
Hamanassett only has one room left for that weekend plus the two cottages which are each 2 bedrooms with 2 baths so grab your friends and family and don’t delay in making your plans.
Looking for something different to do Labor Day weekend? Now you can not only learn about how wines get bottled but help Kreutz Creek Winery bottle their new vintage. On Monday, September 5 you can join them from 9-5 as a volunteer wine bottler. They have only a few spots left so if you are interested call 610-869-4412 to reserve a spot.
Their last evening concert is this coming Saturday, August 20. The Red Alert Band will be entertaining guests with their motown and funk! It’s 6-9, you can bring a picnic and lawnchair. Hamanassett has a couple of nice lawn chairs you may borrow. Your well behaved pooch is welcome too! The fee is $10 for adults. Steuben and Port slushies will be available at the concert! Kreutz Creek is approximately 40 minutes from Hamanassett Bed and Breakfast. Lots of other neat things going on in the Brandywine Valley so book your room soon. We still have a few available.
Get ready for some foot tapping, head shaking music headed our way. The Philadelphia Folk Festival is actually in the little town of Schwenksville, Pa. which is a 45 minute drive from Hamanassett Bed and Breakfast. The festival includes bluegrass, rock and roll, and traditional American Music. Some of the performers include Tom Rush, The Wood Brothers, The Levon Helm Band and, of course, Arlo Guthrie. There is even a band from Canada, The Wilderness of Manitoba. For more information and show schedule click on www.pfs.org/folk-festival/schedule.
Ariano is an authentic pizzeria Napolatana featuring traditional rustica style pizzza pie that is typical to the town of Ariano Irpino, Italy, where the owners’ family came from. The pizzas start with fresh dough that is made daily and baked directly on the hot stone surface of their hand crafted clay oven. To achieve the desired flavor, the pizzas are seared to perfection in temperatures ranging from 800 to 1000 degrees.
We were blown away by this restaurant’s ambiance, service, and food. The restaurant, which been open less than a year, took the owners three years to build. It was worth the wait. It is decorated in muted tones of tans and coppers with beautiful wood around the windows and decorative antique wood furniture used in new and interesting methods. The first floor has about 6-7 tables in addition to the service bar and a gelatto bar (more about that later.) The second floor has both indoor seating and seating on a balcony and a high domed ceiling. Again, decorating is understated — none of that typical kitchy decorating you see in most Italian restaurants. I didn’t spot a fake grape or candle wax encrusted wine bottle in the place. Around the top of the ceiling is a painted mural that gives the history of the owners and their family, starting in Italy and coming to the United States. From the second floor, there is a spiral wrought iron staircase that takes you up to another smaller dining room. Overall there is a wonderful sense of upscale intimacy in the restaurant. This isn’t your typical pizza parlor where you would show up in shorts and T-shirt.
And oh, that food! We were there for lunch and I ordered an appetizer, the Zia Rosa which is pan fried panko crusted artichoke hearts rolled in prosciutto crudo and finished with a fresh basil pesto cream. Wish my husband had ordered an appetizer but there were 3 of these in an order plus a salad so it was plenty. I grudgingly allowed my husband to have one. These were eyes roll back in your head, slap your momma this tastes so good food. I could have happily just eaten appetizers but I’m glad I didn’t once I tasted their pizza. Our food server was Amanda, who couldn’t have been nicer or more attentive. Amanda explained that the home made dough is put in the wood burning oven for a few minutes to bake and puff up and then the pizza ingredients are put on the dough and it is placed back into the oven to heat them up. She happily described each of the items we asked about and recommended to me the Nonna Guisepina pizza which has hot Italian sausage, fresh mozzarella and sun dried tomatoes drizzled with fresh basil pesto sauce. Glenn got the Cardinale pizza which had mushrooms with a sweet sausage, fresh mozzarella and tomato sauce. This was absolutely the best pizza I’ve had in my entire life. Lunch pizzas are 10 inches in size (dinner pizzas are 12 inches) and one really would have been plenty for the two of us. We each brought home half our pizzas and they were just as good heated up that night. We can hardly wait to go back. I want to try several other appetizers and Glenn next wants to order their Finalmente. This is described on the menu as “served in our homemade pizza bowl, filled with Prince Edward Island mussels, in a spicy garlic tomato sauce.”
The owner, Anthony, was kind enough to give us a tour of the restaurant and the kitchen. I don’t know about you, but when a restaurant allows a guest to see the kitchen it always makes me feel more secure about the cleanliness and safe food handling procedures. In the kitchen we watched a kitchen helper fileting fresh fish. In another room we watched the young man who was making their homemade gelatto. Anthony explained that the gelatto he was working on would not be ready until the following day. They offer about 6 different flavors of gelatto.
Although mainly a pizza restaurant, for dinner they have several specials available. And on Monday nights they have live music by Russ Ferrara. Right now it is bring your own wine but they are working on gettjng a liquor license.
How could this restaurant miss? These are the same people who also own Fellini’s Tratorria, just around the corner, which is another favorite Italian restaurant of ours.
Ariano is located at 114 South Olive Street in Media, Pa.
Wilmington Riverfront Blues Festival in Tune for August Concerts
If you love music, this is an event you just won’t want to miss! The Riverfront Blues Festival is a 3 day, outdoor music festival held on Wilmington’s Riverfront at Tubman-Garrett Park. This year’s festival is scheduled, rain or shine, for August 5 – 7, 2011. The three-day event includes local, national and international artist on two stages. The festival begins Friday evening with gates opening at 4:30 pm. Friday acts include Joanne Shaw Taylor, Smokin Joe Kubek with Bnois King, and the James Cotton Band.
Saturday gates open at 11:00 am with main stage performances that include Travis Haddix, E.C. Scott, Vasti Jackson, and the Chicago Blues Reunion featuring Barry Goldberg, Nick Gravenites, Corky Siegel, Sam Lay, Rick Reed, and Gary Mallaber. Sunday’s main stage performances start at 12:30 pm and include Jumpin Johnny Sansone, Tab Benoit, and The Lowrider Band featuring B.B. Dickerson, Harold Brown, Howard Scott, and Lee Oskar.
Although we are in Pennsylvania, Hamanassett Bed and Breakfast is less than a 30 minute drive to the riverfront.
Bed and Breakfast Directory
We were honored at Hamanassett Bed and Breakfast to take part in the Bed and Breakfasts for Veterans program. Started last year in West Virginia, the program is now part of the Better Way to Stay program at the Professional Association of International Innkeepers. As a result, hundreds of bed and breakfasts across the United States offered free rooms to our veterans on 11-10-11 to thank them for their service to our country. This year we had the Army, Navy, and Air Force represented. 
If you are planning on visiting Longwood Gardens this holiday season it is important that you purchase your tickets in advance. This year there will be no admittance unless you have a pre purchased timed ticket. Tickets are issued for a specific date and time and tickets are available for advance purchase on their website now. There is no admittance to the Gardens without a timed admission ticket if you are not a Garden Pass Member. For more information or to purchase your tickets,
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