S. and I decided we needed protein for breakfast, and we weren’t sure what we would get at the “light breakfast buffet” that was part of the meeting, so we ate breakfast at the Safari Room in the Tower of the Davenport Hotel. I wanted to try corned beef hash. I believe this was a mistake. I think you are probably meant to eat corned beef hash at a Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives kind of place. It was fine, but it wasn’t very crispy, which is what I was hoping for. S. had the crab omelet, and she said the crab was excellent.

The hash also had a horseradish cream sauce – maybe a little heavy on the sauce.

This hotel apparently doesn’t believe in coffee makers in the rooms – which did not make S. very happy. She is an early-morning coffee person. Apparently they want to drum up business for the Starbucks in the lobby. I am a Diet Coke in the morning person myself, and I was able to obtain some at breakfast.

We stopped in at a few of the meetings in the a.m, but we were not assigned to sit on any of those committees, so we decided to head down to the park again and look around. The original flour mill   that was located on the river is still there and has been turned into shops and offices. There weren’t a great many shops there, but we had fun in the Chocolate Apothecary, where I enjoyed an ice tea and a sea salt caramel. S. bought a box of Lemon Breeze by Jo’s Candies, a huckleberry truffle (again with the huckleberries) and another lemon treat that I can’t remember. She is into lemon and chocolate. I scarfed down my caramel before I got a picture.

We spent the most time in “Kitchen Engine” http://www.thekitchenengine.com/joom/ which was quite a nice kitchen store – we enjoyed looking at the gadgets, La Crueset cookware, fancy coffee machines, and tea selection. They had some hard red winter wheat in bags for sale that you could grind yourself. They also had dough conditioner, which you can add to your doughs, etc., to make them softer, and I have never seen that in a store, just online, so I bought it, I have enough room in my suitcase to take it home. S. bought a drink muddler, which she said she is not putting in her carry-on in case they think it is a weapon.

The muddler and its instructions caused some inappropriate giggling.

We walked back over the river on a different bridge. There are several different bridges, I think we have hit them all except one, so far.

By this time it was about time to eat, and Travis from Paradise Fibers had recommended Sushi Maru as a good place to eat. It is a conveyer-belt sushi place, so various rolls and pieces of sushi come by on a conveyer belt and you pick off plates you would like. The bill is based on the number of plates and the color of the plate rims, as some items are higher in cost and some are lower. You can also order some items from the kitchen if you don’t see them on the conveyer belt. We had several different kinds of rolls, they come 4 pieces to a plate, so if you are sharing, that way you get a taste of everything but don’t get tired of it. I also had a bowl of miso soup to wash it all down. The waitstaff are very helpful and knowledgeable about the ingredients (S. is allergic to tree nuts and sesame seeds, which can be challenging at Asian restaurants.)

We headed back to the hotel for meetings, and had good, productive committee meetings.

C. arrived from Colorado for the meetings and we toured him down to the park as we had some spare time. Well, first we went across the street to a Bruttles candy store, because this candy store was claiming to be the “original” soft peanut brittle (the hotel provides soft peanut brittle in the rooms and it is available for sale in their shop.) So we wanted to know what the story was on the peanut brittle.Apparently they were the originators of the soft peanut brittle, and provided it for the hotel, but then the hotel decided to start making their own recipe of soft peanut brittle for themselves. I gave a slight advantage to the taste of the Bruttles. C. went back later and bought 3 pounds, which he could easily eat before he gets home, he has a bit of a sweet tooth.

Then we walked down to the park, this time we did partake of the mini-donuts, sorry, no picture, as my phone was deceased. We walked down a kind of scary gravel trail (scary because it was steep) to the walkways/stairs along the lower falls, near the original power plant.

Again, my phone was dead, so these are some pics from C’s and S’s phones.

The organization held a reception that night with heavy hors d’eovres, so we debated whether we needed dinner or not. The reception theme was Hawaiian, and we had really good fruit, veggies with dip, Asian-style pork with hot mustard, large cold prawns with cocktail sauce, cheese tray, veggie egg rolls, sliders, chicken on skewers, beef on skewers, coconut shrimp and truffles and chocolate dipped strawberries. The best things were the pork, the fruit, the cheese, and the egg rolls, I thought.

C., who had flown in from Colorado that afternoon on a delayed flight and hadn’t had lunch, wanted to eat dinner so we did go to the Safari Room at the Tower again and had a light dinner – that is, S. and I had soup and C. had the three course for $15 special. I had the curried lentil stew, S. had the clam chowder, and C. had the Cesar salad, short ribs, and peanut butter pie dessert. And I forgot to take pictures!

We were all tired again, and headed for our rooms. I took a shower and spent some time crocheting, since I made such a big stink about getting a crochet hook, and got a few rows done. Usually my business travel treat is watching TV in bed, but for the last few nights, the selection has been remarkably bad.