Boston in Winter - 2024

“Somebody help me.” I heard his low voice before I saw him, up from our vantage point on the ski lifts. It was a skier down on the slopes below us. He was barreling straight down the hill and picking up speed as he went along. Was he for real? We watched as he sailed past all the other skiers, past the bottom of the hill, past the entrance to the ski lifts, past the snow. He flew five metres deep into the parking lot before finally landing flat in the gravel face-down. Ouch. This was my first time up on the ski lifts, and my first weekend skiing. That did not seem to bode well. 

I was sharing the ski lift with my niece, who imparted the first of her skiing wisdom: if you’ve lost control of your skis, just fall over sideways. It beats hitting a tree or falling off a cliff. Or in this case, landing flat in the middle of the Nashoba Valley carpark.

Beginner slope on day 1

It was our first-ever skiing trip. Together with my three nieces, we’d signed up for skiing classes.  And to those who think that adults learn at the same rate as children, I know better now - that's definitely not the case. I was obviously the slow one in our class. We all started off at the same level, but by the second day, my two teenaged nieces had completed the black diamond run, while I was still on the beginner slope with my elementary-school going niece. (And she was clearly the superior skier out of the two of us.) It was with some trepidation when she declared that she was ready for the intermediate slope. But off we went. 

So I did tumble a few times on the intermediate slopes. But the snow was soft, and so the falls hurt only my pride. On one run, I didn’t fall once at all. Incredible. 

Skiing was daunting, but I had a clear game plan. Firstly, there's falling down, which breaks the momentum and lets you reset yourself. Falling is not an adverse outcome, it's a tactic. Easy-peasy. Secondly, if nothing else, you can always just take off your skis and walk down. And well, I’m a little shamed to say, I had to do that. But it wasn’t my fault. On my last run, one of my ski broke, a fact that I learnt after a Good Samaritan who stopped to lend a hand had pointed out that the wooden layer of my ski had snapped clean through. So I did end up having to hoof it back down the mountain :(. Was this the reason why I was having difficulties skiing after all? That’s my explanation and I’m sticking to it. He mentioned that the rental ski place would probably give me a hard time for the broken skis (they did.) But the rental shop didn’t really have much of a case, since I hadn’t done anything stupid with the skis. They did replace them after some grumbling, though it was close to the end of my session and I was pretty much all worn out anyway.

Other than skiing, we also did some ice-skating, which felt indescribably freeing in the open air. We went to a rink located downtown a weekend afternoon. In the midst of the office buildings, we skated to our hearts’ content. I had took a couple of roller blading classes over a decade ago, but my best days were clearly behind me as I got onto the ice - I could (mostly) keep my balance, but I was definitely missing the requisite amount of elegance that ice skating calls for. It was a bit of a joy to finally take off the ice skates and to instead photograph my nieces practising their figure skating routine. 

And we saw snow! Despite it being one of the warmest winters on record for Boston, it started snowing within hours of me reaching Boston. Our favourite supper spot was Russell House Tavern, and we went back a few times over the two weeks that I was there. The tavern was voted to serve the thirty-third best pizza in the US, and while I don’t know about that for certain, we did have an incredible mushroom goat cheese pizza with some remarkably fragrant mushroom slices on the thin-crust pizza. But I’ll say what kept us coming back were their happy hour oysters, which was $1 apiece and which we washed down with plenty of beer. There’s something especially intoxicating about their concoction of vinegar and diced cucumber that I applied liberally on top of the oysters (and did I detect shallots and lime juice?). But with oysters as fresh as theirs, we also ate plenty without any condiments too.  

From Russell House Tavern, we usually head over to Tasty Burger for a second supper - hot salty tatter tots and fresh onion rings. It’s located just a short walk down the street, and I adore the interior design: it looks a little like Pop's Chock'lit Shoppe from Archie comics. After a series of cold beers and oysters, fried food was the perfect after-meal snack.

Yardhouse, Poke Nachos

Another place that we love was Yardhouse, another restaurant that was worth a repeat visit over my short weeks in Boston. There wasn’t a single bad dish, from their fried cheese curds to their calamari and wings. But the standout was the Poke Nachos, an Asian inspired version of nachos made from  fried wonton skin and topped with diced sashimi, avocado, spring onion, nori flakes, jalapeños and sriracha mayo.  

We also headed down to Boston Seaport, which was a place that I missed out on the previous time I was there. Twenty years ago, back when my sister and brother-in-law were students studying in Boston, the area had been little more than a collection of warehouses. But time had brought astounding progress to the district, and it‘s now a bustling neighbourhood overlooking the harbour, with modern theatres, restaurants and museums. Luckily, not everything from the old neighbourhood disappeared. Yankee Lobster, a casual eatery that they frequented 20 years ago, remained, and we had their hot buttered lobster rolls for lunch one day. 

And naturally, we did a lot of shopping and baking. We drove up to New Hampshire to Merrimack Outlets, where I had a grand time browsing through the stores. My favourite thing to do in a new country is to check out their supermarkets. We also frequented Target and Costco, and visited Stop & Shop for some of those freshly-steamed lobsters that I enjoyed so much on my last trip. Boston is a coastal city, and I wanted to have my fill of shellfish and octopuses, even if I have to cook them myself. 

Asian-American cuisine (General Tso's chicken and Orange Chicken is pictured here) is my go-to meal at the outlets. Don’t knock it until you try it, they’re pretty incredible. I routinely bring beer along on our shopping trips, which turns our outlet-mall lunches from an after-thought into a delightful meal. 

During my WSET classes, we’d learnt about the wines produced in the good ol’ US of A. The first time I walked into Total Wine, I might have gone overboard a little. It’s a sprawling store filled with thousands of different wine bottles, and the aisles were not just organised by grape varieties, but also by their countries of origin. Our two weeks were a crash course in the wines of Napa, Sonoma, Los Carneros, Oregon and Santa Barbara. We paired these wines with some recipes that I’d been experimenting with. I dusted off my old roast pork belly recipe to confirm that my technique for crackly skin and tender meat was just as good as I remembered, even with Trader Joe’s premix spices. There’s a couple of versions of Boeuf Bourguignon, and a delightful coq au vin. 

The sweet wines that we bought were served with desserts (duh!). We bought more terrific cannolis from Mike's Pastry. I baked several batches of cookies, including Stella Park’s Levain cookies and the cookies that King Arthur declared Recipe of the Year in 2023. We made basque cheesecakes (yes, plural!) and David Lebovitz's pecan pie.

Stella Park’s Levain cookies 

Picture-perfect pancakes for breakfast. But I can't take much credit for them; these were Krusteaz instant-mix pancakes. 

We talked too much, laughed too much, and generally ate too much. We didn’t fit in whale-spotting, but that's fine, for we already had everything we needed to have a whale of a time right here.