Eat and Run: Octoberfest, Cincinnati Chili, and Hart's Turkey Farm Restaurant

At the Harpoon Oktoberfest in Windosor, VT. Now, something seems amiss about a few of these maedchen.

I was in the company of many brats last weekend.

No, I'm not talking about my friends' kids—I'm referring to bratwurst, the german sausage that is served on Oktoberfest.

Maroun and I had the pleasure of attending two Oktoberfesten last weekend. On Saturday, we went to Britta and Joe's day-long fest for friends and family, where one of the friends, Dave, had apparently broken the brat-eating record that year: six sausages! (Dave insider tip is to eliminate the roll which is mere filler. It also may help that he runs about 100 miles a week and must work up quite an appetite.)

"What's the women's record?" I asked, because I thought I may have set it the previous year.

M. sings traditional German songs.

Liz with her liebchen.

I am not a big meat eater, but Joe's brats are pretty irresistible. He has a special brand shipped from Wisconsin, where he grew up and learned how to prepare them. He grills them and then boils them in a vat of high-quality German brews and sauerkraut. Lekker!

Now, the brats at our second Oktoberfest at the Harpoon Brewery in Windsor on Sunday weren't nearly as appetizing. In fact, I found mine a little dubious, so I headed on over to the potato pancake stand. BUT, the beer was delicious and the day couldn't have been more beautiful.

Maroun and I were had gone to the Harpoon Oktoberfest to participate in the festival's 3.6-mile race as members of Maroun's work team, The Flying Medicis. We both did well, and we fondly remembered how we first met at the Palace Saloon 5K —another sporting event that gets washed down in beer.

(Some of) The Flying Medicis

What's the only thing that could compete with an Oktoberfest brat? Perhaps Cincinnati Five Way chili. I had been intrigued by this dish ever since I read about it on saveur.com. The combination of chili and spaghetti is brilliant (everything is better on pasta), and I couldn't resist making something so eclectic that it contained ground beef, grated chocolate, BBQ sauce, cumin, cinnamon, cloves...etc. And maybe the most fun thing about the dish is the toppings, because if you want to have it five-way, you add grated sharp cheddar, kidney beans, oyster crackers and chopped onion. I just love toppings.

Toppings

Although I first read about the dish on Saveur, I ended up going with a recipe from road food columnists Jane and Michael Stern who say they attained it by sending a dollar to woman who advertised in the back of a midwestern housewife's magazine that she knew how to make the real thing.

One final note on the Cincinnati Chili: when I posted a status update about it on Facebook, my friend Murdina made some enthusiastic comments. I told her I was sure it was something she would like. And then it occurred to me that this bizarre dish almost sounded like something she would make. She is well known (if perhaps not acclaimed) for her bizarre food preparations, like tuna on baked sweet potato and imploded microwaved kidney beans.

Anyway, Maroun and I rounded out our festive weekend by driving to Meredith, New Hampshire on Columbus Day. I took lazy foliage shots behind the car windshield until we pulled up at Hart's Turkey Farm Restaurant, where you can get Thanksgiving dinner every day of the year, except Christmas (when they're closed). Now, if that last sentence is not their slogan, I think it should be.