Chocolate, Cheese and Wine Pairing

Create something to show thanks

Christmas Eve 2011, was celebrated a little differently than our previous gift giving holidays. My mother instructed the family (we're all adults) to put our energy into creating something that shows our thanks and appreciation. It was an awesome alternative to shopping for items that most of us can just buy ourselves.


This demonstration was very flexible, especially given that my Mom likes to wear rigid pants and abide by rules. For example, everyone must be on-time. As adults, my brother and I naturally (whether we intend to or not) run a little late for family functions. It's like running barefoot through puddles in the spring. It just feels good. And of course, mother doesn't approve. With these instructions, I brainstormed for the best idea. I was overwhelmed with so many options. I decided to give the gift of taste. And what better way to taste than to do a pairing of sorts. My family loves wine, cheese and chocolate so it seemed like a great way to celebrate and give thanks. 

But how to pair what with what????? 

I am not formally trained in food and wine; however, I do find myself amazed with how various foods combined accentuate flavors and excite the taste buds. I knew a little about pairing wine and cheese, but I needed to do some quick-learning on how to pair chocolate. I remembered a website a friend shared that was very informative so I used it as my main reference: Scharffenberger Chocolate Pairing Navigator I created two spreadsheets to organize the options and narrow down what I could obtain in Central PA. Even with a Wegman's grocery store some of the cheese and chocolate were not locally available so I had to seek out similar alternatives. From the spreadsheet I could come up with a shopping list to take to the stores.

Data from the site

Data compiled into a plan (of sorts)

Some quick tips and tricks:

• Start with the most robust, dry, sharp and work down to the sweet, smooth tastes.
• Have some plain crackers and water to cleanse the palate
• Add in some side flavors like Macadamia nuts and ripe strawberries
• Cocoa rating (higher = bitter; lower = sweeter)
• Grocery stores don't always carry the items you need so you might need to flex a cacao percent or find a related cheese.

The materials I presented at the tasting to inform the participants...

When tasting, my family could refer to these charts for guidance and understanding. I created these in Microsoft Publisher using screen grabs of images on the web. 

The Final Pairing (or "Tripleting")

Chocolate

Vino

The presentation...

Eyeing up the cheese is a 110# Rottweiler Husky mix named Noah decked out in a pink bow. He's very comfortable with his masculinity.

Can you spot the formerly white piece of furniture from the late 1960s?

I'll give you a hint: 

It's round, has a stereo on top, and looks like it endured a lot of cigarette smoking.

MORE TIPS:

• Start with highest cacao and work down.
• The chocolate shouldn't be sweeter than the wine.
• The darker the chocolate, the more likely it will be to taste good with red wine (partly because chocolate with a higher percentage of cacao has less sugar).
• The darker chocolates, with deep-roasted flavors, pair well with wines with dark, toasty notes themselves.
• Take cheese out of the refrigerator about an hour before serving. Present it on a flat surface--a board, slate, or a lovely tile will do--and give each cheese its own knife.
• Fancy tools, like cheese planes, are not necessary. And, if your goal is really to taste the cheese, plain baguettes or very plain crackers are perfect.

Have fun.

Photographs from a Sunday Afternoon - Location 4

LOCATION: William Black Homestead
I stumbled upon learning of this property from the National Register of Historic Places (where I look for older bridges). Since this building is near my neighborhood of New Cumberland, I decided to seek it out.

Little is known of William Black except he was a Scottish immigrant and acquired the 267 tract of Lowther Manor in 1774 and a house was built on the property in 1776. Nor is much known about the four generations of his descendants who lived on the property located on Drexel Hill Park Road.

View from the Drexel Hill Park Road

FACTS:

• Exact Date of Construction: 1776 
• Added to NRHP: July 20, 1977 
• NRHP Reference Number: 77001159 
• House: 
• 2.5 story, 3 bay, fieldstone 
• 1 story kitchen added to east gable end 
• uncoursed fieldstone walls that are 18" thick 
• Slate roof 
• Windows are 6 over 9 light sash o first floor; 6 over 6 on second floor 
• Restored in 1960 by Leon Neefe 
• In 1975 a large 1-story, frame wing was added to the west gable wall which houses a modern kitchen, dining room, etc. 
• William Black constructed a schoolhouse near the house which was in use until 1850 
• This home was the northern most point reached by any major Confederate force during the Civil War. Interesting tidbit: Confederate cavalry under Lt. General R.S. Ewell captured a Union courier on the property while reconnoitering the defenses of Harrisburg. The courier posed as a "local yokel" and was released the following day. 

SOURCE:https://www.dot7.state.pa.us/ce_imagery/phmc_scans/H001155_01H.pdf

Railroads and Bridgeport (now Lemoyne)

A few days ago, I was searching out the tracks of the old CVRR line in Lemoyne, PA. What I came across were relics of yesterday's railroads. Most of the tracks were torn out, but bridges and out buildings still stood giving hints of what use to be.

360 degree shot standing at 40.247852,-76.890175 GPS Coordinates

Northern Central Railway bridge

As you drive up Market Street from the Susquehanna River, you go under three girder bridges. The first (farthest east) carried Northern Central Railway up north. This bridge is still in use. 

CVRR (PRR) bridges that would take trains to Enola's yard.

The next one is a dual girder. This bridge is obviously not in use as the tracks have been removed.

Most western of the three girder bridges.

The last girder bridge is still in use. 


After you drive under these three bridges you see a Keystone marker that explains Lemoyne was formerly named Bridgeport. It was also known as Riverton before that, but was changed. Incorporated in 1905, Lemoyne (Bridgeport) was a hub for the Cumberland Valley Railroad.


Here is a map from 1872 that shows many rail lines converging at Bridgeport. This is before the Philadelphia & Reading line made its way into the area. But, the Northern Central was in existence and paralleled the Susquehanna River. Although there is no sign of the J Tower, later called Lemo, one can see the need for a tower. This photo shows how many tracks filled this area. Notice the tower in the center an smoke stack to the right.


In this photograph you can see the tower and the smoke stack a little closer. The tower now exists at the train museum in Strasburg, PA. 

If you go to this page http://d_cathell.tripod.com/lemo.html and scroll down to the third photo the caption explains that until a curved steel bridge was built in 1901, the Northern Central trains would have to bring their trains around the tracks in the foreground and then travel in reverse across the CVRR bridge. They did this for 50 years!


I have taken a huge guess in laying out what I believe were the lines.

Feel free to comment on any additional thoughts, guesses, facts, or corrections.


SOURCES and suggested reading:
http://www.west2k.com/pastations/cumberland.shtml
http://www.railroadsignals.us/harris/harris.htm#the_Ex_Reading_Depot_in_Camp_Hill.__
http://d_cathell.tripod.com/lemo2.html
http://lemoynepa.com/documents/LemoyneBook.pdf

Remnants of Chambersburg and Gettysburg Railroad Bridges

The C&G was incorporated with the state and began construction in September 1890. The route strated at Conococheague Island, near Fayetteville on the Mont Alto Railroad and ran to Wolfe Hill north of Caledonia. It opened in summer or early fall in 1891.

I have discovered on Google Maps three locations (to the east of Chambersburg, PA) of this old rail line. Two of them I have found in person. The third is buried on private property. Winter is the best time to locate these bridges as they are not full bridges, but fragments of steel I-beams, girders, or stone.

BRIDGE A
The first bridge is more like decking with abutments and piers can be seen to the north of Brindle Road.

BRIDGE B
Bridge remnants near Edgewood Court. Note: this road is a dead-end even though it looks complete. To locate the bridge come at it from the west.

BRIDGE C
The third bridge is off of Woodstock Road. It is within a thick forest of private land. I have not located it in person, but I believe it to be where the waterway makes a quick hook east and then south again.

Railroads and White Hill (now Camp Hill)

White Hill, PA? Where is that??? 
My interest in local history and railroads brought me to this question as I learned of a Cumberland Valley Railroad station located west of the Susquehanna River.

Westenhaffer's "History of the Cumberland Valley Railroad" started this adventure. He stated the Cumberland Valley Railroad opened for travel from White Hill to Carlisle in August, 1837. By November of the same year it connected to Chambersburg. I gathered White Hill was west of Harrisburg before crossing the river. Bridgeport was Lemoyne's former name so that wasn't it. New Cumberland was too far to the south.

To my surprise, Camp Hill was the town formerly known as White Hill. Here's the facts on the town's naming from Wikipedia:

The name Camp Hill is believed to stem from a split in the congregation of a Peace Church, located west of the current borough. One faction of the church began meeting outdoors, on a hill. Prior to the American Civil War, the area was known locally as White Hill, which served as a stop along the Cumberland Valley Railroad between Harrisburg and Carlisle. During the Civil War, the Battle of Sporting Hill became the northernmost engagement of the Gettysburg campaign, which took place at Camp Hill in late June 1863. Camp Hill was incorporated as a borough on November 10, 1885 from East Pennsboro Township.

Back to the railroads...
If you live around Camp Hill, you discover two sets of tracks impede your travels from north to south and vice versa. Today, the one set of tracks is used by Norfolk Southern. The other set is idle. There is talk of using the tracks for Corridor One which would provide commuter rail transportation from Carlisle to Harrisburg.

Until January 16, 1839, CVRR's trains did not cross the river. This town that sat across the river from Harrisburg was the "end of the line." Now called Camp Hill, then called White Hill, was the place where CVRR eventually located it's northern most rail yard and a brick roundhouse. Forty-eight years after this railroad began, the CVRR engine house was completed in White Hill. This would be one year before Camp Hill was incorporated.

Rewind to a time when trains were the cat's meow for travel. The CVRR dominated the south central Pennsylvania area. In the mid-1800s, Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) had its western mainline in service, but its trains were routed north to Lewistown then to Altoona and eventually to Pittsburgh.

Location of former White Hill CVRR Station

The original passenger station stood to the east of the 17th Street bridge on the south side of the tracks. Here you can see the newer 1906 CVRR White Hill station. Today, it no longer exists. In the photo to the right, you can see the 17th Street overpass in the background.  Based on the location of the power lines, I would think the 1906 station was located near the power line that is the most prominent in the photo.

For years the CVRR successfully blocked all competitors' requests to connect into their main line which connected to Harrisburg by 1839. However, The Philadelphia & Reading Railroad (P&R or the Reading) worked its way into the location later.  In 1891 the Reading built a bridge across the Susquehanna and then linked Harrisburg to Bowmansdale.  The P&R had dreams of connecting westward to Pittsburgh to battle with the B&O and CVRR. P&R built the Philadelphia, Harrisburg and Pittsburgh branch (PH&P) to Shippensburg, PA where it connected to the Western Maryland line.

An interchange point connects CVRR to the P&R line near the 1900 block of Hummel Avenue.

You can see the older triple "S" intersection here. Today it is a wye connection that allows traffic to connect to the northern track.

Looking west: P&R on left; CVRR on right. You can see the ADM Milling building (ADM Alliance Nutrition) in the one o'clock position of photo.

Looking west.

Looking East at Wye (Camp Hill station is on left past the signals in the distance).

Today, you can see P&R's station off of 18th Street.

Camp Hill P&R Station

This is the story behind the parallel tracks in Camp Hill, PA. 

SOURCES:

"History of the Cumberland Valley Railroad" Paul J. Westenhaeffer, copyright 1979

History of Dauphin, Cumberland, Perry, Bedford, Adams and Franklin Counties, PA" I.D. Rupp, copyright 1846.

http://cvrr.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_Hill,_Pennsylvania

http://www.oakwoodbaptistcamphill.org/camphill.htm

http://www.west2k.com/pastations/cumberland.shtml
http://www.railroadsignals.us/harris/harris.htm
http://davecathell.tripod.com/ch.html
http://broadway.pennsyrr.com/Rail/Prr/Maps/Centhist/