Tea Parties and Easter Plans

Our restaurant is becoming more popular with speciality parties. Recently, our chef and daughter has put her chef school lessons to practice to host a ladies tea party. I took little part except for the marketing. We enjoyed using many of our elegant teapots, china, candlebras and silver. I felt forced, ha, to taste the beautiful little tarts.
Our Easter brunch menu is featuring many of our popular Items, plus a roasted leg of lamb from a licensed Cass County Farm. I will get to use my mint jelly. We are trying to showcase some of our local growers, including a buffalo farm. Old family recipes + favorites from church and feed company phamplets are so popular that I am pushing Leslie to make an Inntiquity Inn cookbook. I am trying to figure a way to make our hot German potatos stay fresh on our buffet. Leslie is now in serving etiquette classes. We have extensive dinnerware, silver, china chrystal and linens. Our fast pace living has caused many to be unused to formal dining. Our dinners help people learn the basics when this experience is needed. Instead of being something painful we strive to make formal dining enjoyable. We like the opportunity to utilize our Victorian inheritance.
Our special Easter packages include overnight stays , lovely breakfasts and linens plus an inn filled with beautiful furnishings from a slower and more leisurely life style.

Lovers and Return Lovers

Inntiquity is gearing up for Valentine's Day. George is polishing all of his beautiful table setting findings, polishing the silver ones, washing the crystal ones and checking the press on the linen ones. Leslie is making sure all her most popular recipes are located and to hand. I am making arrangements for flowers, and cards. We are hoping all our former guests , lovers and friends, will be joining us.
We are busy thinking of rewards for our overnight returnees of more than two overnight stays. We have given some a bottle of champagne, others a suite upgrade, and others flowers. We feel honored to have been honored to share a small part of their lives. so0me have returned five or more times. Others are trying to experience each different suite. We enjoy catching up on the news in their lives, some sad and some great. Be sure to let us know if we don,t always remember how many times you have returned.

See you soon, Lee George, and Leslie

Holidays at Inntiquity

Inntiquity hosted 42 for our famous Candlelight Champagne dinners on New Year's Eve. George and I were lazy and had friends, Norm & Sharon as our personal guests. In past years we have stayed up to watch the Ball drop on Times Square. This time we all said good night at about 10:45. It was great to celebrate thenew year. 2009 was not a great year with George undergoing Chemo. Thanks to the wonderful care at Simon Cancer Center, he was pronounced Cancer free. During troubled times one really appreciates family and friends. They helped us all.
Now we must organize and remove our decorations. Each year we promise we will do better at labeling. It was a wonderful time to catch up on family and friends. Our newest member is Leah Madison St. Clair. She is our 1st great grandchild. Her dimples and smiles made us all happy. My main attraction was large buttons on my sweater. Too bad she lives in Seatle. Our daughter Alexandra lives in St Louis and with her husband Mark breeds warmblood hunter jumpers at her equesterian center, Marquis Farm. Their Corgi's, Shotzi and Penny visited with them.
Our next Holiday celebration will be Valentine's Day. I am open to suggestionsfor an irrresible package to advertise on our web page. Suggestions appreciated. Another proposal was made and accepted here at Inntiquity. So far, hold your breath, evvery proposal made here at the Inn has been accepted. We, at Inntiquity are doing our best to keep romance alive.
Lee, Innkeeper

Thanksgiving in Logansport Indiana

Inntiquity Inn had a wonderful crowd on Thanksgiving. 71 guests. Everyone kept their reservation and gave Leslie, our chef, and her staff, wonderful compliments. Thankfully Indiana's old fashioned country cuisine is still highly appreciated. Many were disapointed that we are not serving our famous buffet on Christmas. Our daughter, Paige, cooks for our family on Christmas Day so we will enjoy quiet time reflecting our lifes gifts with our family this year. We truly enjoy being served by such a great cook.

George has been ill this fall and has not been able to help as much as in the past. Despiteall, and with the help of our daughters we have many og our decorations up. He is disappointed that he was unable to tend his gardens as much as usual. We women haven't been as appreciative of all the maintenance and upkeep that he cared foor.

New Year's Eve is a great time at Inntiquity. We have New Year's Eve Specials, Candlelight Champagne dinners, music, and overnight specials. It's great fun to see couples all dressed up and celebrating. The inn sparkles with romance, good food and good company. We hope you can join us!

Fall at Inntiquity

Leslie has been harvesting the the fruits , herbs and vegetables from our gardens and trees. So far she has created salsas, sauces, poesto, fresh tomato and pepper mixes. Next we need to finish peeling + cutting Bartlett and Asian pears. We are going to make pear sauce. They are so sweet all we need to add is a little cinnamon. She has already made soup from the vegetables and herbs. She is known as the soup Nazi of Logansport. She has convinced me that all the hours spent making her own stocks pay off. Some of the herbs She has replanted in large pots and placed in our entry, hoping the warmth will keep them. Our entry smells wonderful.!

George has replanted some of the shrubs in the kitchen gardens to winter over. He loves rare plants and always buys too many. If they make it to spring, he will hopfully have decided their new home. There are so many different plants that I have urged him to help me label them.

Our Thanksgiving buffet will use many of the saved herbs and vegetables. Foods and recipes from our families, the churches, feed stores, and Leslie's Charleston chef school are prepared in a cooking marathon. I still am called upon to make the pie crusts and noodles. George and I both get stuck with peeling jobs. There are so many dishes that we have a problem findung room serving them. Each year we are fortunate to have many repeat guests plus several newcomers.
We really enjoy seeing all the guests and their families.

Tomatoes Tomatoes

The Inn's kitchen gardens are raised 4x8s. We have 10 of them outside the kitchen door. Some are filled with herbs and some with lettuces. The rest are in peppers and tomatoes. Many people have not experienced the wonderful taste of an Indiana tomato that has not been refrigerated. We have about 15 different kinds. Some have stripes, some have a dark red top and dark green bottom, some are pink, some yellow, and some orange. Some are small patio types with different sizes, different colors and different shapes. I especially like the small pear shaped ones. We have 4 kinds of romas, beefsteak, Early Girl , yellow wonder and at least 6 kinds that I have forgotten the names. Next year I plan to at least make a map of where each are planted. I put the labels of the containers beside each kind in the soil when I planted, but the plants have growntall, bushy and swarm all together and outside their beds.

Leslie has made fresh tomato salad, gazapacho, salsa, tomato basil soup, tomato juice, Bloody Marys, cream of tomato soup, stewed tomatoes , stuffed tomatoes with chicken or tuna salad and of course sandwiches of all kinds, even a tomato and cream cheese sandwich.

The peppers are not as profuse. We have many colors, not as many as I planted. George tried to help by putting mulch on my beds. The tomatoes liked it. The peppers were killed or shriveled. Fortunately we have other unmulched beds.

Summer in Indiana has helped us serve fresh organic vegetables. We have a local farmer's market with open range eggs and chickens. We have neighbors up the road that have lamb, and another with buffalo. Our restaurant has been moving to organic locally grown foods. Our local growers have been coming to our with muskmelon, watermellon, onions, strawberries Our local Frozen custard stands help make summer in Indiana a great cuisine experience.

July at Inntiquity

We had a hot July in Indiana, requiring many waterings of our gardens. George had me put mulch on my vegetable gardens. Not successful. No weeds, but the pepper plants died. I have removed the mulch from 1 bed and am replanting with Miracle Grow. Hope there is enough time for them to grow. We use many peppers in our cooking even though we do not call them mangos as did our ancestors.
Several of our holiday guests were old friends returning to assist relatives and share the holiday. Others were interesting and shared stories of their families and experiences . One delightful couple were newlyweds. Others shared anniversaries. Our Celtic musicians entertained during the dinner hours. Good food, interesting guests and music!
Our partners in hosting were the Crooked Creek stables with good old Indiana horsemen to address any riding issues, France Park, with its waterfall, swimmuig area and great sites to take our famous picnic. There are also walking and biking trails along 2 banks of the rivers. One trail has a labyrinth. So far we have not had anyone reported lost.
Indiana Beach is just 22 miles away. May exciting things to do there. Rides, interesting foods, music and carnival atmosphere. Also swimming and boating is available. I spent many a summer evenings , in my younger days and some older days dancing to the famous bands playing there.