Here are more Christmas events to enjoy in New Jersey…continuing the theme of the previous post.
Cape May, all the way at the opposite end of NJ from where we live has a lot to offer:
Dec. 12, 19-20 Enjoy the Lamplighter Christmas Tour - Self-guided, tour 5 beautiful B&B’s and Inns. They are beautiful, too! Adults - $15, Children - $7.50 Tickets at the booth at Washington Street Mall.
Dec. 11-12 Cape May Candlelight Hospitality Nights - Merchants offer treats to holiday shoppers throughout Town. For more information, call 609-884-9565
Dec. 13 Cape May Christmas Candlelight House Tour - Another self-guided tour of Victorian Inns, homes, churches and more all decorated in beautiful holiday splendor. $22 for adults, and $11 for children. There is a free shuttle service. Call 609-884-5508 for more information.
Dec. 13 - Ocean City will have it’s Christmas Parade on Asbury Ave, complete with Santa Claus. This will be at 7:30 pm. from 6th to 11th Street.
Today New Jersey’s own Bruce Springsteen sang at another Obama event, and while I’m not promoting Obama, not one bit, it gives me an excuse to talk about another NJ celebrity who has been around for as long as I’ve been listening to rock ‘n roll.
Bruce Springsteen was born in Freehold, NJ, south of where I am in NJ, in fact, almost everywhere in NJ is south of us, since we’re at the top of the State. I found a great website that provides some trivia about him, and will give you a taste, but out of fairness to copyright guidelines and all that fun stuff, the link to the full page follows.
Here’s some Springsteen trivia:
* Children, with Scialfa, Evan James, Jessica Rae and Sam Ryan.
* Says his favorite film as a kid was _Searchers, The (1956)_
* One of Springsteen’s most famous songs, “Thunder Road”, took inspiration from the Robert Mitchum movie of the same name.
* Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1999, where Bono of U2 gave the induction speech. When U2 was inducted in 2005, Springsteen gave their induction speech, returning the favor.
* Awarded the Polar Music Prize, the Royal Swedish Academy of Music Award, in 1997.
* Bruce Springsteen appeared on the covers of both Time and Newsweek magazine simultaneously. At that time this had only happened to world leaders. [27 October 1975]
* Brother of Pamela Springsteen
* Considered becoming a baseball player prior to devoting himself to music.
* Many of his earlier songs make reference to the New Jersey shore, where he spent his youth.
* Paul Schrader asked Springsteen to write a title song for a movie he had written called “Born in the USA”. After Springsteen wrote it, he liked the song so much, he used for his multi-platinum album of the same name instead. As a replacement, Springsteen wrote another song and that song title became the film’s new title, Light of Day (1987). That is why Springsteen thanks Schrader in the liner notes of the album.
* Father, Douglas “Dutch” Springsteen, died in 1998.
* Has two sisters, Virginia and Pamela.
* Mother’s name is Adele.
* Frequently works with director John Sayles, a fellow Jerseyite who shares a similar social conscience.
Okay, that’s enough…there’s more and a bio at this link, but promise you’ll come back after you visit.
And what better way to close a post on a Jersey blog than with Bruce singing “Jersey Girl”:
Well friends, I don’t think I’ll ever be “The Next Food Network Star” like our friend in the previous post, but maybe I have a chance in the “Great American Seafood Cook off? What do you think? If you want to check out the winners for 2004 - 2007, and see whether you…or I…have a chance, click on the “Cook off” link above and visit this fabulous site!
At first I was going to share a very simple, delicious Tilapia recipe, then realized that this isn’t a truly seafood, as it’s more common in fresh water, sometimes found in brackish water, so, I’m going with another. It’s real easy to make, healthy, and you don’t have to eat this piping hot, here’s what I do:
In a skillet (I love my cast iron skillet) sprayed with non-stick cooking spray, and with about a teaspoon of olive oil, lightly fry a small chopped onion and a few cloves of chopped garlic.
In another pot, cook up some whole wheat pasta…if you want to TOP it with the seafood mixture, cook any of the “long” pastas, linguine, spaghetti, etc. -OR- if you want to TOSS the seafood mixture with pasta, cook up some whole wheat penne, or similar pasta of your choice, there’s so many fun pasta shapes!
Back to the skillet, add a 1 lb package of that ever versatile imitation crab meat, don’t cook this long, quickly add a few tablespoons of white wine and a few tablespoons of lemon juice. Sprinkle about a tablespoon of Italian Seasoning to taste (we like a lot of whatever spice is in many recipes) and toss the mixture well.
Turn off the heat.
Chop up about 2 tomatoes and toss in the skillet.
When the pasta is done, drain, then return to pot, stir in about a teaspoon of olive oil, couple tablespoons of non-fat liquid butter, then add some herb seasoning (I use Mrs. Dash garlic & herb) to the pasta and toss well.
Now, either toss or top your pasta with the seafood mixture, and serve.
You may add sea salt to taste if you desire.
So there you have it? What ideas do you have? Think you have a winning recipe? Do you have a good source for domestic seafood? I suppose that’s a bit easier for those of us that live near the ocean, where our seafood can be local and fresh. Comment if you like, and be sure to check out the contest, it looks like fun. I had fun browsing the site as well!
When we went on our trip a bit over a week ago, from a distance, I was able to capture the Twin Lights that are situated in the Navesink Highlands. These historic lights were originally built in 1828, and then rebuilt of area brownstone in 1862. Today they are much like they were when rebuilt, but are no longer operating lighthouses.
Sitting about 200 feet above sea level, when in operation, one light remained stationary while the other flashed. The lights brought cargo and other ships safely into New York Harbor on the Atlantic Coast.
It was interesting to me to see two lights, as most of us are more accustomed to seeing just one. These were built with the light house keepers area, and rooms for storage built between, and connecting the two towers.
Twin Lights was decommissioned in 1949, then purchased by the State of New Jersey as a historic monument and is a museum today. If you visit, you can climb one of the towers and view the beautiful Atlantic Ocean. Enjoy the exhibits showing the history while your there.
I was listening to the weather today, and heard some not so fun news about one of our beautiful shore points, Cape May. They are experiencing some flooding. They showed a picture of water-filled streets that someone captured on their camera.
I’ve also heard that a woman went overboard late last night from a Norwegian Cruise Line ship at Atlantic City, another popular shore point, and it’s not easy to search for anyone during coastal storms like we’re experiencing today. I guess we’ll hear more about that later today.
I hope all will turn out okay, and I’m not here to post a lot of “gloom and doom”…life goes on, and life in Cape May is beautiful.
We have had the pleasure of vacationing there on a few occasions, and I had a class trip to the area when in 8th grade. To get there from here, we have to drive the length of the State of New Jersey…we live almost as far north as you can get, and Cape May is almost as far south as you can drive in NJ…approximately 3.5 hours away. Pictured is the Cape May lighthouse.
Cape May is not far from Wildwood, so we enjoy both beaches when we’re there. The walk to the water on Wildwood’s sandy beach is a long one on the hot sand if it’s a hot summer day, but that makes for a lot of area to enjoy the beach.
Wildwood is known for it’s LONG boardwalk (pictured). Walking the boardwalk is fun, and a fun activity is to ride bicycles on the boardwalk during hours when it isn’t too crowded.
There are spots as busy as Morey’s Pier in Wildwood:
or as serene as the sound of waves crashing on the beach:
(Pictures taken from Webshots…clicking any will take you to other photos.)
It’s May which means that the official start of the shore season begins here in NJ, it usually runs from Memorial Day to Labor Day. When my children were growing up, my parents would spend a few long weekends each summer at Ocean Grove. There were a few years that we went down to join them and celebrate my son’s birthday at the end of July.
Ocean Grove is known for it’s no alcohol policy, and observance of Sunday by following blue laws, generally a community that tries to maintain a high moral standard. It is a VERY popular destination, as you can see from this picture of a crowded beach:
This is not my personal favorite time to be on the beach, I’d much prefer being there after the busy season in September, at around sunrise or sunset, sitting on the beach looking at serene scenes like the following…nothing more soothing than the sound crashing waves:
Ocean Grove has a great boardwalk which takes you right to Asbury Park, and is known for it’s many Victorian homes, many along the ocean have been turned into hotels, like The Shawmont where my parents used to stay. We hope to take Mom down there this summer.
-
I’ll have some more Jersey Shore posts in the days to come as the season is upon us!
We are blessed to live so close to the Ocean, of course here in New Jersey we call it the shore. It’s nice to dream about as we once again have snow falling outside our cabin. The shore season officially begins on Memorial Day, and ends Labor Day, but our favorite time to go is just after the season ends in September. It’s quiet, no traffic, the beaches aren’t crowded, the prices are lower and the weather is still beautiful most of the time.
I’m not a sun bather, so don’t spend a lot of time on the beach in the heat of the day, you’ll find me there at sunrise, or sunset, beautiful, peaceful times. As for where to go, wow, oh my there’s so many different places, I’ll tell you about some we’ve visited in other posts as the spring and summer months get closer, but…sigh…I just had to take some time to dream a bit.
