Family Planning: summer vacation

When I plan trips, particularly family vacations, I write notes on scraps of paper, on my computer and  on my iPhone. MiniTime offers a way to plan family vacations and keep track of all the info.

This new website, with smartphone and tablet versions in the works, has both trip tips by family travel writer Suzanne Rowan Kelleher and custom itineraries the vacationing family can use, both as a planning tool and as a vacation diary.

I love the drag and drop feature of the itineraries; if you see attractions you want to visit or restaurants where you want to eat, you just add them to your trip planner.

The site offers personalized recommendations based on ages of your kids. It goes from infant to teen (17), and if you have kids in different categories, it offers the full range of attractions.

You can also book kid-friendly hotels directly from the website, with family-friendly amenities like roll-away beds, cribs, pools and microwaves in rooms noted. You can also sort hotels by amenities that your family wants, like a fridge in the room.

Foursquare provides restaurant suggestions, but you can’t yet sort by things like vegetarian food or availability of high chairs.

I was able to create an itinerary for my upcoming trip to Portland, Oregon, but planning one for Louisville, Kentucky, was incomplete. MiniTime uses crowd sourced info and started with top destinations; as the site grows and more reader feedback is added, planning trips outside major tourist destinations will grow easier.

For now, I am happy to recycle all those scraps of paper.

Vegetarian in Vermont: family friendly dining

The Common Ground Café, in Brattleboro, Vermont, was a Mecca for vegetarians. On any trip to Vermont, whether for skiing or biking, we detoured slightly off I-91 for interesting soups and sandwiches. Sadly, The Common Ground closed, but vegetarians can still eat well in the Green State.

For breakfast, The Hatchery, in Ludlow, has a vegan tofu scramble with avocado and salsa, that fuels you for the day’s activities. The Hatchery is only open for breakfast and lunch; lunch vegetarian choices include a grilled vegetable sandwich with spinach, mushrooms and feta, a tofu wrap with cilantro pesto and the ‘asparagui,’ with grilled asparagus, cheddar cheese, arugula and roasted peppers. On our recent family ski trip to Okemo, we had planned to have dinner one night at Harry’s Café, about 5 miles down the road from the resort. Unfortunately, we didn’t make reservations in advance and couldn’t get a table until 8:30. So this vegetarian-friendly restaurant, with a Thai night on Thursdays (and a few Thai items on the regular menu) will have to wait for another trip. Fortunately, Ludlow, a quintessential New England ski town, has other vegetarian and family friendly choices. The Cool Moose Café bills itself as a steakhouse, but t has great veggie burgers. The Bleu Moose & shrooms burger (also available in beef or chicken) has bleu cheese and mushrooms, and the tasty jacked up Philly burger includes jack cheese and cooked peppers and onions. Both are “2 napkin’ meals. There are several fish entrees, a roasted Portobello entrée and a hearty salad with local goat cheese, good greens and cranberries. Kid meals include a smaller burger, pizza and salad. Cool Moose also has a large selection of local craft beers. Coleman Brook Tavern, in the Jackson Gore Inn, is a farm to table restaurant with a few vegetarian choices. The pappardelle was loaded with fennel, roasted peppers and white beans in a wild mushroom broth. There is a filling roasted beet salad with Vermont chevre and pumpkin seeds, a Portobello strudel that works as a light appetizer and a delicious baked cheese stuffed with maple pumpkin butter and ginger-butternut squash. There’s an extensive and quite pricey wine list, great martinis and lots of single malt scotch to sip. Best of all, when you stay at the Inn, you can simply take the elevator to your room.

Fitness Challenge: Day 5

Stolen bikes don't stop the fitness obsessed. My stolen bike was my folding bike, a bike I got so I could ride in a skirt. I still have my mountain bike, which my husband can ride (it's a man's bike) so I borrow my neighbor's bicycle and we ride 38 miles (round trip) to the beach.

We also sign up for the NY Century Bike Tour in September, an annual bike ride around the city that we've done in the past with our kids. There is a family friendly 35 mile option, and realistic 55 and 75 mile rides. The 100 mile ride just starts too early.

London Apartments

When my family and I last took a family trip to London, we decided an apartment rental was the way to go. Our family vacation was for a week, and with a London Apartment we feel like natives.

Turns out London Apartments are a great deal only if rent from the right place. we got ours from a site that no longer exists, and the apartment was extremely cold, with barely working heat and inadequate lights.

But friends who have rented from London Apartments have had much better experiences, with family friendly apartments vetted by a local family.

Still, we had a lovely post-Christmas week, shopping the Harrod’s sale, visiting Kew Gardens, cooking vegetarian curry in our apartment and exploring London’s museums. My kids loved the city view from the London Eye, and making friends with the owner of the local chip shop. We also got half-price tickets to two West End productions, including an all-male version of Swan Lake.

Our apartment, near Portobello Road, offered easy access to the Tube, so we got weekly transit cards and explored every inch of the city.

Family Ski Trip: France

Skiing in Vermont is a no-brainer when you live in New York, but true powder heads fly out west.

Except for the really dedicated, and well-heeled, who go to Europe.

Skiing in France actually makes a lot of sense. You can take a ski train to the Espace Killy ski resort in Tignes, and drink French wine après-ski. Flights to Europe are at one of their lowest points during ski season, which runs from September to May, and you can find Tignes Ski Deals to make your family vacation reasonably priced.

Imagine being able to eat all that delicious French cheese and burning off the calories skiing.

There are many types of Tignes accommodations including
Tignes apartments where you can make your meals and full service Tignes hotels.

For families, ski school starts at age 2 ½ and there is childcare for younger kids. The village has family friendly restaurants, including vegetarian friendly creperies.

Artisanal Meat, Veggie Sandwiches

When a restaurant touts the origins of its meat, form four local butchers and specialty shops, I figure the vegetarian food is going to be an after thought. But Zito's Sandwich Shoppe in Park Slope, Brooklyn, puts as much care into its veggie sandwiches as it does in its meat offering, so this is definitely a vegetarian friendly place.

Of the 13 classic sandwiches, 5 are vegetarian (3 if you don’t eat fish). Plus you can create your own. All are served on brick oven bread baked by Il Fornaretto in Bensonhurst, or gluten-free bread from Everybody Eats in Park Slope.

The meatless was my first choice, with plenty of grilled portobellos roasted peppers and broccoli rabe, with artichoke spread. My only gripe was that it was too cold, so if you can let your sandwich sit for awhile, or ask the counter guys to heat it up.

But this brings up the problem many have with this place. The food is wonderful, but waits can be interminable. If you order arancini, Sicilian rice balls (there is an addictive veggie version, with spinach and homemade mozzarella) and sip a craft beer, you might be a little less puckish when your food arrives.

Sandwiches are huge, and make a more than filling dinner; at lunch, you might only eat half and save the rest for later. You could also split a sandwich and get one of the 6 veggie side dishes: faro salad with roasted corn, garlicky broccoli rabe or lentil with caramelized onions.

The eggplant parm, with more of that homemade mozzarella and a slightly too salty tomato sauce was a perfect counterpoint to the crusty bread. If you like breakfast for dinner, try the bargain Potatoes & eggs sandwich; scrambled eggs, fried potatoes, onions and parmesan cheese, with tomato sauce on the side.

The chickpea fritters were so meaty that my husband was convinced he had been given meat. These fritters are not like falafel at all, but with the lettuce, tomato and lemon, they were yummy.

Next on my list to try, before I start customizing my sandwiches, is the Sicilian tuna, with arugula and tapenade.

We were not bothered by our long waits, since the guys working there were so friendly and they have a great sense of humor. A family friendly place that promotes its high chairs and growlers has to be. Fill those growlers with Sixpoint craft ale to go, or drink a beer with your sandwich. There is also wines from Long Island based Gotham Project.