All good things

Holiday time is a likely time to seek out and sample new and different, or special and indulgent, foods and flourishes for the table. Two establishments devoted to gustatory delight currently serving our area, enabling the pursuit of pleasure for you and your guests or giftees, offer a wide range of daily dishes to go, deli items, enticing lines of groceries chock full of hard to find imports and full catering menus.

Hudson & Hudson
Old Lumberyard Shops
115 Seventh Street, Milford, PA
570/409-8808
ERH1951@pikeonline.net

The counter at Hudson & Hudson resembles an altar, projected and framed by coolers of unblemished offerings of cheese, cold cuts and inventive entrees, salads and desserts. Once I reached it, I just had to assemble a wee sampler of English and Welsh cheeses. But the getting there wasn’t easy, preoccupied as I was in the themed alcoves and aisles featuring pasta, preserves and honeys, crackers and crisps, savory sauces, house wares, bon-bons and much more. Pasta like perfect little olive leaves, not one but two varieties of arborio rice and Scottish tea, to resolve the ongoing English-Irish stalemate, were among the revelations of my visit.

The “What’s for Dinner” menu offered vegetarian stuffed cabbage for $1.75 a serving, breast of chicken filled with cheddar-jalapeno cornbread stuffing, served with herb gravy and cranberry chutney, for $6.75, a variety of side dishes, vegetable soup with wild rice, and quiche, whole ($11) or by the slice ($3.25).

Wish list items bobbed up from the full catering menu like cream in a cup of Ghiardelli hot chocolate: Mediterranean white bean dip with garlic crostini, smoked salmon mousse, apple pecan galette. I left with, among other things, a bottle of raspberry-nectarine dessert sauce and a resolve to create the sort of party to deserve it. You’re forewarned that Hudson & Hudson could make you discontent with the style to which you’ve become accustomed.

The Feast
334 Broadway, Monticello, NY
845/791-4555

A pervasive aroma of fresh ground coffee beans with deli accents met me at the threshold and nudged my appetite throughout my shopping tour.

The Feast puts the emphasis on deli, with hand-cut smoked fish, items direct from New York’s famous Carnegie Deli, and café tables for the on-premises noshing of them. Save room for the real-deal pickle.

A wide range of multi- ethnic dishes and imported groceries abound here as well, with a considerable showing of stock usually seen only in health food stores. The availability of produce, some of it organic, sets The Feast apart for convenience and freshness.

The feast offers full service meals for up to 400 guests.