"Dueling Dining-Car Chefs" Weekend with James Porterfield!

This post should also be called "When Guests Become Friends", as it truly was that kind of a weekend at the Elkhorn Inn & Theatre!

James D. Porterfield, historian and author of "From The Dining Car" and "Dining By Rail", and "On The Menu" columnist for Railfan & Railroad Magazine, joined us at the Inn as Guest Chef for our May 28-30  "Dueling Dining-Car Chefs" Weekend, and instead of "dueling" (LOL), he and Chef Dan created two delicious, multi-course dinners for our guests from the finest of historic dining car recipes!

Gene Bowker's Photo of the Elkhorn Inn & "Pocahontas" Railroad

See Gene's therailroadblog.com  for a great slide show of the weekend, his photos on www.genebowker.com and his articles in the Train Travel Examiner

Chef Jim prepared his feast on Friday evening, centered around the Pennsylvania Railroad's "Deviled Slice of Roast Beef with Mustard Sauce", and Chef Dan created his dinner on Saturday, with "Coast Starlight Chicken Breast with Pinot Noir and Dried Cherries" from the Amtrak West SBU as the focal point. Our gourmet railfan guests enjoyed both dinners accompanied by wine, period music, Andrew Fletcher's great illustrated railroad magnets (NS, of course!) from CustomTrains.org as favors, Jim's excellent commentary on each course, and more Pocahontas railroad trains sailing past the Inn than I think we've Ever had! Our guests enjoyed touring the area, as well as "railfanning" on the Inn's track-view balcony and patio, and Elisse & several of the Inn's guests even wound up in in the Inn's "railfan hot tub" in the moonlight, and one even got to go ATVing with Dan!

James Porterfield's first article on the Inn, "Almost Heaven?" in Railfan & Railroad, with his famous quote about the Elkhorn Inn being "the best legal train-watching location in the USA", together with his friendship, enabled us to create with him what we believe is the "ultimate" Railfan Foodie weekend! The dinner weekend was such a success, in fact- and Jim enjoyed playing chef so much- that the Elkhorn Inn will host another "Dueling Dining-Car Chefs" Weekend, Sept. 3-5, 2010 over Labor Day Weekend, with a totally new menu! Only 4 guest rooms remain available for this special weekend, so call us at 1-800-708-2040 or 304-862-2031 as soon as possible, if you'd like to join us!

James Porterfield & Dan, Not dueling in the kitchen at the Elkhorn Inn!

Menus for the Elkhorn Inn's May Gourmand Events!

Here are the menus for the Elkhorn Inn's "West Virginia Wine Dinner Weekend" May 14-16, and our May 28-30 (Memorial Day Weekend) Gourmet Railfan Weekend: "Dueling Dining-Car Chefs" with historian, author, and Railfan & Railroad columnist James Porterfield! (And if these menus don't make you drool, there's just no hope!):
May 14-16 "WV Wine Dinner Weekend":
Friday, May 14:
Appetizer: Proscuitto & Melon, served with Martin's Mist Dry Creek Blueberry Wine
Entree: Roast Lamb marinated in Kirkwood Winery Ramp Wine, served with Watts Roost Vineyard 2008 Chambourcin
Desert: Jones Cabin Run Vineyard Port, served with Chili Chocolates & Caramels from Kakawa Chocolate House in New Mexico- the ultimate!- and Vanilla Bean Ice Cream! And Coffee! OMG!
Saturday, May 15:
Appetizer: Vietnamese "Claypot" Ginger Chicken, served with Kirkwood Winery Ginseng Wine
Entree: Salmon Poached on Herbs, served with WineTree Vineyards 2008 Traminette
Desert: Flan with Caramel Sauce, served with Kenko Farms Mead Honey Wine

May 28-30 "Railfan Gourmet Weekend" with James Porterfield, chef, historian, author of "From the Dining Car" and "Dining By Rail", and "On The Menu" columnist for Railfan & Railroad. James Porterfield will be preparing a "Dining Car Dinner" on Friday evening, and Chef Dan of the Elkhorn Inn will be preparing one on Saturday! Both chefs will be utilizing recipes from James Porterfield's books!

Friday (Chef James Porterfield):
Chicken Mulligatawny Soup - Atlantic Coast Line
Tossed Salad with Special Dressing - Great Northern Railway
Deviled Slice of Roast Beef with Mustard Sauce - Pennsylvania Railroad
Potatoes Romanoff - Illinois Central
Carrots in Mint Sauce - New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad
Hot Strawberry Sundae - Fred Harvey
Saturday (Chef Dan Clark):
Shrimp Gumbo New Orleans Style - Louisville & Nashville Railroad
Cucumber & Red Onion Salad with Mandarin Orange & Toasted Caraway Seeds - American Orient Express
Coast Starlight Chicken Breast Pinot Noir with Dried Cherries - Amtrak West SBU
Steamed Asparagus with sautéed Garlic Cherry Tomatoes - Royal Canadian Pacific
Red Potatoes with Rosemary - Amtrak West SBU
Bread Pudding With Bourbon Sauce - My Old Kentucky Dinner Train

Each special weekend package is only $499 + tax per couple ($380 + tax for single), and includes two nights at the Elkhorn Inn with Continental Breakfast each morning, the two special dinners (Friday and Saturday evenings), and a late check-out Sunday.
Call us at 304-862-2031 or 1-800-708-2040 to book as soon as possible if you wish to join us for these Very special events at the Inn!

Upcoming Events at the Elkhorn Inn! WV Wine & Dueling Chefs!

May 14-16 the Elkhorn Inn will host a "West Virginia Wine-Tasting Weekend", including two Chef Dan dinners, each accompanied by 3 different WV wines! We aim to prove, once and for all, that there are not only Great wines from West Virginia, but ALSO Great food with which to accompany them!

May 28-30 (Memorial Day Weekend) the Elkhorn Inn will host a "Dueling Dining-Car Chefs Weekend", with James Porterfield, historian and author of "From the Dining Car" and "Dining By Rail", preparing a Dining-Car Dinner on Friday evening, and Chef Dan preparing one on Saturday! Jim Porterfield is also the "On The Menu" columnist for Railfan & Railroad Magazine, and this should be a very special weekend indeed- especially for our railfan guests! Enjoy photographing the Pocahontas RR during the day, and then be treated to a scrumptious Dining Car Dinner in the evening!

Each Weekend Package is only $499.00 + tax per couple ($380 + tax for singles), and includes two nights lodging at the Elkhorn Inn with Continental Breakfast each morning, two special dinners at the Inn, and a late Sunday check-out. BUT we only have 8 guest rooms available for each event, so we encourage you to call us at 1-800-708-2040 or 304-862-2031 to book as soon as possible! 

For more details, see the "Specials" page on our website www.elkhorninnwv.com or the "Events" section on our Facebook "fan" page http://wvurl.com/dOX and then give us a call and come on down!

Cardinals (& other things) in the Snow!

We came back from our mini-getaway at Glade Springs & Winterplace just at the start of Another snowstorm, and woke up in the morning to be greeted by cardinals and songbirds too numerous to count at the feeders right outside the Elkhorn Inn's dining room window! It's been non-stop bird-watching, and I've been madly snapping photo after photo while Lucky Kitty sits in the window bird-watching with me! Having experienced Kitty's transformation from tender kitten to killer-cat where birds are concerned, it is Too funny to see him sitting at the window avidly watching the ornithology parade- you can almost see the cartoon "thought bubble" over his little head! Dan is So cool about remembering to refill the feeders, and the birds have been having WAY to much fun dashing to and fro, eating & hanging out on the trees & bushes surrounding the feeder!

I always remember with a laugh how people told us- back in 2002, right after we'd bought the building- that there were "no birds" in McDowell County due to coal mining- when we've woken up to and from bird song, winter and summer, for more than 7 years!

The photos below were taken on our ride home from Glade Springs the other day: the Pocahontas Railroad in all her glory, chugging thru McDowell County in the snow, the red caboose and adorable Post Office in Elkhorn (& Dan with Jeepy, our wonderful 4-wheel drive), the frozen waterfalls, and finally Home: the Elkhorn Inn & Theatre and Elkhorn Creek in Landgraff, WV... Our wonderful inn-sitters left to try to beat the storm home, Dan got the fireplace roaring, and made us an Amazingly delicious dinner of pan-grilled pork chops drizzled with a balsamic reduction and figs, and then we snuggled up with Pittie, Kitty, & Lab! It was good to get away, but it's good to be home, too!

Happy New Decade!

New year, new snow! As I write this, the Pocahontas RR is chugging by the Elkhorn Inn- again! It's been a fab few days for railfans since New Year's, with almost non-stop trains and pushers going by! It's also been Wicked Cold here lately- at the moment it's a "brisk" 16 degrees in the mountains of southern West Virginia! Every time I run out on our porch to snap a few train pix, my fingers freeze, nose runs, and eyes tear- yes, it really is THAT cold! Dan & I rang out the old decade at the New Ramsey School club in Bluefield, WV, after a(nother) really fine sushi-saki fest at Kimono in Princeton, WV, and had a very nice time saying goodbye-and-good-riddance to the old year, while hoping/praying for a wonderful (safe, healthy, prosperous, joyful) new one...

Dan spent all day yesterday tweaking our three lines of plumbing, after McDowell Co. PSD inexplicably let the water pressure drop again (and, of course, denied doing so, as is their want) and our pipes almost froze (actually one did freeze...). Fortunately (miraculously), Dan was able to "tweak" everything, and we have water- and HOT water, at that! Living out here "in the country" makes you truly appreciate so-called "basic" things things like running water- and running HOT water- and the people who can make it run & make it hot! As I've written before, I have a Totally Useless set of skills for living in Rural America, & in 7 years they haven't gotten any better: basically what I can do is write and illustrate. So if the pipes freeze or the boiler's little insides stop boiling, I can... uh... write a press release on it & draw a picture. Swell. That and 10 cents won't even get you a cup of coffee out here if there's no power to run the freakin' Mr. Coffee! Dan, however, can not only un-freeze/repair/replace pipes, he can repair/replace the doohicky in the boiler so it lives to boil another day, rewire the countless electric things that forever need rewiring, and (daily) tweak the gazillion thingamajiggies in all our watchamacallits to make them all work again. I am ever in awe of his 1,000,001 technical skills- for we are talking a skill-set WAY beyond the "handy-andy" level and profoundly in the serious realm of professional electrical engineering, industrial plumbing, vehicle mechanics, and architectural restoration. And the truth is that if you Don't have those skills you really have No Business living out here in the boonies! For there seriously isn't anyone to call out here if the doohickey stops working in the whatchamacallit!

On a happy note, I started off the New Year with a fabulous contest win: a gorgeous (and extremely practical) sterling silver wine collar from Aspinal of London from the Seattle, WA food and wine critic, Ronald Holden, of the Seattle Global Gourmet Examiner and Cornichon.org Please click the links to read my winning poem, essentially Ode To A Wine Collar, and to check out his articles, as he gave the Elkhorn Inn a wonderful plug, and included links to our Facebook "fan" page and this blog! I am truly delighted by this win as this wine collar is something we will truly use- no more wine dribbles on the tablecloths of the Elkhorn Inn! :-) And if we're ever lucky enough to get out to Seattle for a "foodie-winey" trip, Ronald Holden is definitely our "go-to guy"!

THE SNOWSTORM- & we still have power!

I write this at the beginning of what is evidently going to be THE SNOWSTORM of the last 7 years. It is Seriously Snowing, as you can see from my "Pokey-in-the-snow" pix, and Weatherbug's been chirping madly on my computer warning that we are due for 12-20 inches before Sunday morning! We haven't had a storm like this since the Ice Storm that hit when we first bought the Inn building in 2002, and it really is something to behold! It's beautiful and wondrous, seasonally appropriate, etc., BECAUSE we are on the inside, toasty-warm and looking out, & because Dan made sure we had enough wood chainsawed into manageable logs for the fireplace, propane, candles, batteries for flashlights, etc. (I had one small "Oh, s***!" moment tonight when the power went out for 10 seconds, and put my head in my hands in despair, but then it all came on again, and life resumed!) And so, with mugs of Chef Dan's turkey gumbo & glasses of red wine at the ready, we were all set when Route 52 shut down & we could take lovely, still photos of the Pocahontas RR chugging by from our front porch! Route 52's been plowed now (gotta keep The Highway open for our coal trucks, dontcha know!), and it's literally a twinkling, snow-covered wonderland out there- right out of a Currier & Ives engraving! It's 1:20a.m, and our Inn guests are tucked up into their beds and the table is set for their breakfast, Pibble-Bear, Lady & Kitty are snug in their bed, and I am winding down: Facebooking (started an album of Pokey-in-the-snow pix for our railfans on the Elkhorn Inn "fan" page) , Tweeting, eBaying, Sweeping, & Blogging... because we still have power! Yay! LOL