#9 NEW YORK – French Toast With Ma Mere

I journeyed to Scotia, NY where I grew up and where my mom lives in a house way too big for her. I was there for a weeklong visit and figured I could kill two birds with one stone by finding a place to eat breakfast, and be able to check off New York as the ninth state on the Breakfast Across America tour. The problem was that most of the nearby breakfast places are in towns that I had visited at one time or another. This disqualified them because it did not meet one of my criteria that the breakfast place had to be in a city or town that I had never visited. After much searching, I located a diner about an hour’s drive away in a small village near the Vermont border. We got in the car and drove through the bucolic farmland of Upstate Eastern New York to:

Country Gals Cafe
Cambridge, New York

AMBIENCE:  Country Gals Café is the quintessential small town diner. It was very busy when we got there and I would guess that we were the only non-locals.  The room is long and narrow like the typical diner, but without the long counter. I’ve seen that there is an ongoing debate in cyberspace on the difference between a café and a diner, but even without the counter, this place said diner to me. In fact, it used to be called the Cambridge Diner and the old sign still sits out front. So I don’t know why they decided to call it a café.  I’m in the camp with those who believe a café has a limited menu, outside seating, pastries, and a certain amount of pretentiousness none of which apply to the Country Gals.

   

We sat at a table across from the kitchen pass-through window and it was tempting not to grab some of the dishes that showed up on the ledge.

The country gals must have been big New York Yankee fans as the room was covered with all sorts of knickknacks, photographs, newspaper headlines and stuffed animals related to the Yankees. A Red Sox fan may want to avoid this place.

4 out of 5 stars but then dropping it to 3 ½ stars because I am not a Yankee fan

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FOOD:  My mother, who was not acting as a very good proxy for The Healthy One, ordered one of the specials – Katie’s Famous Maple Glaze over Texas Style French Toast.

She gave it a big thumbs up.

I got what the menu called “The Mayor’s Special” which was Texas Style French toast with blueberries and strawberries and whipped cream. There was a choice between 6 slices and 4 slices and after my experience at Dot’s, I made sure to get the 6 slices.  I also paid an extra $1.50 for real maple syrup from a local business with the great name of the Shushan Sity Sap Shack.  I dare you to say that three times fast.

I should also mention that I kept my vow and ordered no pork products.

Mom quote: “Are you going to eat all that?”

Having both maple syrup and whipped cream was overkill. The whipped cream also tasted store bought. Nevertheless, the French toast was tasty and the berries were fresh. I finished it without any problem to answer my mom’s question.

4 out of 5 stars

We wanted to ask the waitress a couple of questions but she appeared way too busy to be interrupted. First, we wanted to know who Katie was and what made her Maple Glaze so famous. Second, we wanted to know why my dish was called “The Mayor’s Special”. We could only guess. I decided to pursue the question of “The Mayor’s Special” as a service to you, the blog reader. My speculation was that the mayor of Cambridge would often come to the Country Gals Café and always order the French toast, berries, and whip cream while mingling with his constituents. My plan was to get on the internet and find a picture of the mayor, who I envisioned looking a little bit like Santa Claus without the beard, putting it in the blog, and making a snarky comment about his weight and the breakfast dish he found so “special”. Turns out, the mayor is not a he but a she named Carman Bogle. This is her picture:

Seriously! This is a recent picture of the mayor of Cambridge NY! 

So much for my theory.

 COFFEE:  The coffee was “diner-like”- in other words, a notch better than mediocre.

3 ½ stars out of 5

SERVICE: The restaurant was woefully understaffed. Only one waitress worked the tables of about 35 customers. She seemed friendly enough, and perhaps was even one of the Country Gals, but she was running around like Derek Jeter running the bases.  We did get our food fairly quickly but she gave me the store bought syrup instead of the good stuff and it took a while to get that corrected. It took a while to get a coffee refill. Nevertheless, she did a pretty good job of keeping up with the demands of the customers and I bet she slept well that night.

3 1/2 out of 5 stars

COST: $20.00 with tax and tip. You do get a lot of food and coffee for your money.

A FEW WORDS ABOUT CAMBRIDGE:  Cambridge is a pretty little village with a population of just under 2,000 people. It seemed to be a vibrant place as opposed to many of the economically depressed towns in Upstate New York. It has establishments that towns 10 times its size don’t have: an independent bookstore, an Irish pub, an excellent coffee house, and a number of galleries and craft shops. The population is made up of farmers, small business owners, craftsman, and artists (e.g. the late Maurice Sendak had a summer house in Cambridge)

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The area surrounding Cambridge is gorgeous farmland among lush green rolling hills. This is Grandma Moses country. She lived in Eagle Bridge just down the road from Cambridge. Grandma Moses was a folk artist who lived to the ripe old age of 101. Her paintings can be found in a number of museums across the country. One painting sold for $1.2 million in 2006. She didn’t start painting until she was 78 so there is still hope for old farts like myself. We happened upon a vegetable stand operated by one of her grandchildren and bought some corn.

BURN THOSE BREAKFAST CALORIES OFF:

-          - Walked through the Saratoga National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame

-          - Walked from Scotia to Schenectady and back.

August 31, 2016

NEXT UP: Connecticut