County Line Orchard - Hobart, Indiana

By Lu

Apple Tree at County Line Orchard

My friend, Sandrine, loves fruit picking. This year alone, she took me to cherry picking, blueberry picking, and lastly apple picking. She must have been a fruit tree on another life. That's the only explanation I could come up with. However, there's something quite fun about picking a fruit directly from its tree. I could definitely appreciate it better. I wouldn't pick up an apple at the grocery store to buy, as I'm not much of an apple eater. I would pick up some apples that have been cut up and treated, and packed in a little snack pack however, if I was on a diet. But, that's it. The shiny apples at the grocery store usually can't tempt me.

However, I really had a different opinion when I saw the ripe golden and crimson apple hanging on the tree. Wow, it's so tempting. It's calling at you to pick one up and sink your teeth into it. I am definitely the daughter of Eve. We're all doomed.

County Line Orchard is not the Garden of Eden; however, it's pretty damn fun. It is located not too  far from Chicago, in a town called Hobart, Indiana. The worst part of going there was the Chicago traffic going towards Indiana, and then, the line to get to the parking lot. It was quite long and tedious. They definitely had gained popularity lately as I was there last year and I didn't remember this big of a crowd nor that intense of a traffic.

Yesterday, it was a gorgeous day. It was like summer with Fall foliage every where. It felt a little weird for me. I actually prefer going apple picking when the air is a little cool, and you have to wear at least a sweat shirt. What I was really looking forward to was the hot cider at the end. Yesterday was definitely too hot for a hot cider. Bummer. I think it also added to the abundance of people coming to the orchard.

Last year, when Ri and I went to County Line Orchard, it was more my style. There weren't much traffic; the air was cool; and we were wearing sweatshirts. Perfect. Yet, I had tons of fun this year too because I was actually exploring of what the Orchard had to offer.

The Barn

Coming in to the Orchard, you would see the big looking barn bearing their name. That barn was quite grand for being a barn. It was a big place, much bigger than the other nearby farms or orchards. The barn was actually their country store. It was quite nice and you could browse a lot of different things from Christmas stuff (yes, already), homemade jams and sauces, ciders, and donuts! That was my main reason for going here - the apple spiced donuts and the pumpkin donuts.  They're so delicious and fresh! Last year, Ri and I couldn't have enough of it. This year, I deliberately only bought a half of dozen to eat and share because if not, I'd be in trouble.

The store, and donut shop - that's the donut line

The apple spiced donuts were so fresh and tender. It was sprinkled with cinnamon sugar and tasted like Autumn in your mouth. The pumpkin donuts tasted so rich and sweet. They said pumpkin is an acquired taste; but, if you didn't like this pumpkin donut - there's something seriously wrong with you. With a glass of cold milk, I was in heaven eating that pumpkin donut.

I am really going all over the place today with my story. I just got caught up about the donuts, since they're the gem of the County Line Orchard.

There were a bunch of us going yesterday. Besides Sandrine and her family, Evi and Nate also went. Plus, there were two other families that came along (Sue & Gardner and their kids, and Evi & Nate's neighbors). The more the merrier!

If it were up to me, I would go to the donut shop first and that was it. However, we went to look for Sandrine and Scott. They got there first and they were chillin' out eating lunch and listening to the band on stage that played pretty damn good Bluegrass music. Yeah, people often didn't realize that I appreciate Bluegrass and Country musics. Growing up in farm town America who could blame me? Last year, my brother in law, David, screamed at my sister, Ri, since they were driving around Khatmandu, and my sister was playing Kenny Chesney's song "She thinks my tractor's sexy." Yes, it was my fault as I was the one who sent the song to her. I thought the song was a hoot.

Apple Spiced Donuts

Pumpkin Donuts

Ribbon Fries, Corns, and Fresh-squeezed Lemonade

I had a ball sitting on a picnic table, eating my burger and ribbon fries, drinking fresh squeezed lemonade, listening to banjo and mandolin in the background, watching pretty leaves that changed colors. It was just so so nice. I could really forget about everything else and submerged myself in the moment. The restaurant serves the typical American food - grilled cheese, burgers, hotdogs, fries, fried mushroom. They also sell roasted corns on the cob. Yum.

Next - time to buy admission tickets. If you're just planning to do apple picking, just get the general admission for $1. You get a tractor ride around the orchards that would take you to different stops. If you have kids and want to do more, you can get the all access. Then, you will have access to the kids farm, the moo choo trains, corn maze, and pumpkin patch.

Pumpkins...

Hay Maze at the kids farm

Since we had a lot of kids in our group, we went to the kids farm next. It was kinda fun looking at the farm animals - pigs, goats, some turkeys and silkies, rabbits, donkeys. Kids seem to have fun there. They were running around in the hay maze. So cute.

Next - tractor ride to the apple orchards. The tractor wagon stopped at the corn maze. We passed that one. I was glad we did because I am actually allergic to corn field or husk. I didn't plan on getting rashes all over me. My old high school boyfriend, Toby, took me to sweet corn picking years ago in Mendota. That night, I broke out in hives. It wasn't pretty and I haven't been back to a corn field ever since.

We also passed the pumpkin patch. None of us were feeling like carrying a big ol' pumpkin around today. But they sure were pretty!

Finally, we got to the apple orchard. County Line has so many variety of apples. The first row we saw was Suncrisp apple. They were green but tasty. Yesterday was the harvest time for the Jubilee Fuji so that was what we were after. Other than those, they also have Golden Delicious, Shizuka, McIntosh, Keepsake, Granny Smith, Gala, and some other types I've never heard of.

Fuji Apples

I was totally in love looking at the Fujis dangling from the branches of the trees. They looked so beautiful and you couldn't help but wanting to reach and pick them. I never planned to fill a bag with apples. I didn't last year. But, this year, I actually had quite a full bag. I just couldn't help myself. My co-workers were happy today when I gave them some apples. The Fuji apples were so sweet and succulent. They could have been a little more crispy but I love the sweetness of it. We spent a good amount of time picking apples and sat around enjoying the scenery. Sandrine's son, Brode, had tons of fun too playing with the apples. We had a lot of fun too.

Suncrisp Apples

Then, after having enough of the sun and apples, we went back to the barn for finally some donuts! We waited in line for the fresh donuts. The line was so long but it was moving quite swiftly. Finally we got our case of apple and pumpkin donuts. I was a happy camper.

It was a full day at the orchard. From being focused on the donuts alone, I was actually happy that I did branch out trying other things the orchard had to offer. I can't deny it - Fall is my favorite season. I love the pumpkins, the harvest colors, the mums. Going to an orchard and do apple picking is a very Fall thing to do, and it was a good time. Though this year, it felt like summer - I couldn't deny the fact I had a super great time, with apple donut in one hand, and a Fuji apple on the other hand.

If you're looking to find a Fall activity to do - give this a try! Hopefully, the weather cools down a bit so you can get the hot cider. It just wasn't the same without it. You'll love County Line Orchard, I have no doubt.

The Apple Orchard

General Questions:barn@countylineorchard.com

School Tours:tours@countylineorchard.com

200 S. County Line Road, Hobart, IN 46342
Phone No. 219-947-4477 Fax No. 219-947-7933

Fantastic Girlfriend Trip to Milwaukee

By Lu

Girlfriends spending Saturday afternoon at George Watts Teashop

I know..I know. We didn't go to exotic places like New York, Mexico, or Hawaii for a girlfriend trip. We only went next door to Wisconsin. However, this may just be the beginning. So, don't bash our girlfriend trip yet. It was still cool and worth writing for. Though it was a day trip, and on top of that, it was just a simple humble trip, we all had a fantastic time!

I've talked about my tea posse, correct? Just to jog your memory - my tea posse consists of Tina, Sandrine, Marilou, Rebecca, and myself. The five of us love afternoon tea and we tried almost all of the tea places in Chicago. Of course I have also written about those fine Chicago tea places. You can click here to read it. But you know what, we want to venture out of Chicago and experience afternoon tea elsewhere.

Since I used to live in Milwaukee, I mentioned to Tina, that perhaps we should try a couple places over there. Tina thought it was a good idea. She then arranged for this outing to Milwaukee, where we would be going for afternoon tea, then to a baseball game to see The Brewers playing. One thing about the tea posse, they're (I didn't say "we") also die-hard baseball fans, especially for our beloved Chicago Cubs. So, even though it sounded like an odd combination - tea and baseball, it wasn't really all that odd for this group of girls.

So the plan was concocted. The tea posse even grew now and we had new members. What can I say - we were just that awesome, and we do fun odd girly things. Who knows, maybe our next outing we would be doing doll party and watch UFC pay per view. Sounds like a good time to me.

Other than the core five girls, we also recruited Holly, Heather, and Evi for this trip. Since we took Holly for tea several months back, she's a believer now. We're so glad to have her with us for tea. The more the merrier! Heather and Evi also love tea. It was a perfect bunch.

Too bad, closer to the date, we found out we couldn't get enough tickets to see the Brewers. They're doing so good, so no wonder it wasn't easy to get a bunch of tickets. But, we moved ahead with the tea plan. Nothing would stop us now.

From thinking about logistic on how to get us all there, we ended up renting a mini van. It was a great idea because now we could all be in the same car. It just meant more bonding and talking time! Lucky me, I got to drive the whole time because I was the renter. From driving around picking up every body, we were running late. Time flew by so fast! If Evi was driving, we wouldn't have made it there...hehehehe. Peace, Vi!

To give you an idea: two girls live in west suburbs, 3 live in the city of Chicago, and 2 live in the north. We drove a lot of miles. By the time the last girl was picked up, we were 30 minutes from our reservation and we were an hour away. Plus, our reservation was at 3:30 PM, and the tea place closed at 4:00 PM!

It was a stressful drive for me - from trying to find the way to get back to the highway, racing time, and also battling Wisconsin cops... But we did just fine. We were really cruising in that brand new Dodge minivan. I also made the tires squealed so many times. Poor Heather. She's the only one who live  in Milwaukee, and she was stuck waiting for us. However, I would say it was from my strategic driving skills that we made it there by 4:00 PM right before they closed, and in one piece.

George Watts Teashop & Gift Gallery

George Watts Teashop is well known in Milwaukee as the upscale china place and teashop for Milwaukee's high-end residents. I remember my former boss, Inger, whom I viewed as that classy lady from the affluent Milwaukee suburb, took me there to buy a wedding gift for one of our coworkers. I actually chose this place because of what I knew. Heather also said it was named the best tea place in Milwaukee. Plus, according to their website, they just won the James Beard award. Quite intriguing! I was excited to try it.

The people there were so nice to us though we were so late. They still greeted us and serviced us with a smile. It was very nice of them. However, the place was practically empty by then. We definitely missed that tea ambience since it was just pretty much our table in that big room. The setting was more like a restaurant, with tables and chairs instead of love seats or that loungy atmosphere. The room wasn't particularly special. Nothing striking. It wasn't as fancy as some of the place we've gone to.

We were starving by then. The finger sandwiches came. We each got our plate and four sandwiches: chicken salad, tuna salad, cucumber, and olive and nut tapenade. I wasn't a fan of the tapenade sandwich. It reminded me of a Muffuletta, but not as good. The tuna salad was great. Rebecca and Evi thought the chicken sandwich was delicious. Sandrine thought the cucumber sandwich was too cream cheesy. Overall, they weren't bad sandwiches - however, they were nothing special. I could have made that. If I would compare them to the fancy sandwiches The Peninsula would serve, there would be no comparison.

The ordinary finger sandwiches

It satiated our hunger a bit; however, then we were looking forward to scones! We all love scones and thus why we love tea. Oh yeah, the tea menu was also quite small. There was no fine tea like my silver tip over there. The closest one to a Darjeeling were Earl Grey and English Breakfast. I hate Earl Grey so I chose English Breakfast. Then, I realized I hated English Breakfast too. But my friends seemed to enjoy their tea selections of more fruity and floral looseleaves.

Dessert Plate

Going back to scones, I thought we would finally got out three tier serving apparatus filled with scones and desserts! No, we got our own individual plate again of one piece of scone, a sunshine cake, and a flourless chocolate cake. Well, the one single scone was disappointing. It tasted good, but there was only one. Plus, the size wasn't uniform. Some got a bigger piece, and some got tiny piece. The worst part was the fact we didn't  get clotted cream, jams, and lemon curd for our scones. Unheard of!

The desserts weren't finger desserts either. The sunshine cake was a piece of sponge cake with frosting. The flourless chocolate cake was good, but it was just a chocolate cake, like a brownie.

Overall, we had a great time talking and being girly; but we all thought we have had better afternoon tea experience. However, it was only $18. Again, it was nothing compared to The Peninsula's $45 tea. George Watts Teashop is also a restaurant that serve other brunch/lunch type food. They must have won the James Beard award for those other stuff, not the afternoon tea.

Our next stop was Kopp's Custard, a must stop for many of us. Some of the girls wanted to stop by and tried the custard after reading my post. What can I say...Kopp's is so awesome. That's the most delicious custard in the world. That day the flavors were Chocolate Malt and Turtle Sundae. Yumm.....We all loved it!

Then, a quick stop at Sendik's. Sendik's is an upscale grocery store. They have several locations, but we went to the prestigious location in Whitefish Bay suburb of Milwaukee. Holly had to get several cases of Spotted Cow beers, and Sandrine needed to pick up some beer brats. I've just heard of Spotted Cow beers recently when my bosses were raving about it. I guess, it must be good. I mean my girl Holly picked up three cases! When we walked out of the grocery store, a couple of guys were looking at us with all those beers wanting to get in to our swanky party van. LOL.

Sobelman's Pub and Grill

Next, we had to fulfill Sandrine's wish of eating Sobelman's wings one more time. She had it some time ago when she was pregnant and though she's not pregnant now, the craving was back. We had to travel to the other side of town, towards the Brewers stadium. It was a huge tease since we didn't get to go to the game. Yet, it was a cold rainy day. It would be miserable being in the ball park. Sobelman's Pub and Grill was featured in the Travel Channel's Food War and they were pitted against a newer Burger joint called AJ Bombers. Sobelman's looked like an old Milwaukee tavern - small, crammed, and typical tavern with servers carrying lots of beer mugs. The cool thing about the place, they had a TV showing feeds of the cook in the kitchen preparing the food.

Sobelman's boasted to have the best burger in Milwaukee and though they lost the Food War to AJ Bombers, they still think their loser burger is better. I tried their loser burger. It was pretty good. It had a good taste, but was it the best burger I had? No.

Sobelman's Loser Burger. It was pretty tasty for being a loser

Sandrine's favorite chicken wings

The girls had the chicken wings. Sandrine loved it. They were good wings, but were they the best? Um, No. Not to me. Did we have fun eating wings, burger, sipping Sprecher Root Beer? Um, hell yeah! I actually enjoyed the bottle caps which was sliced and breaded deep fried jalapeno peppers. That was different.

We closed the night with the drive back playing my brother in law's David's geography game. Each person had to name a city and the next person had to name a new city starting with the last letter of the preceding city. We kept ending up with the letter "e." It was really hard to come up with a city starting with the letter e - Elmhurst, Encinita, Edinborough, Elgin, Elk Grove, E.....

From the talk we had on this trip - we had make plans for future trips: Afternoon Tea at Harrod's in London; New Orleans road trip; and either New York or Boston tea trips.

Then, several days after our trip, Tina shared this info regarding best tea places in the US that she read on the travel section of The Chicago Tribune. The article named must try Tea places:

1. The Palm Court in the Plaza Hotel, NY
2. Tres by Jose Andres at the SLS Hotel, Beverly Hills
3. The Grand Atrium at The Brown Palace Hotel, Denver
4. The Long Gallery at The St. Regis, Atlanta
5. Bond Restaurant/Lounge at The Langham, Boston

We are packing our bags!!! Let's go girls!

We definitely have something to look forward to. Yet, our small outing to Milwaukee was a great fun. I think we all had a fantastic time. I had fun with all my girlfriends. They all brought sunshine to my rainy day. Though the foods we had in Milwaukee weren't all top-shelf (other than Kopp's of course), the trip itself was definitely up there. It was like loving the Cubs. Are the Cubs the best team in baseball? Hell no. But we love them nonetheless.