Reckless natives

( The famed Sunnyfield Farm, Bedford, New York, a favorite subject of Slim Aarons photos... while it looks tranquil, it is located on an insanely trafficked double yellow in the village... )

Don't get the idea that this entire corner of Westchester is rural and sparsely populated. On the contrary, Bedford is, I assure you, quite obnoxiously overpopulated and just chock full angst and traffic. Which is why, when the neighbor does stuff like this, (I think to make readers around the world think that this is some sort of quaint, tranquil suburban paradise of gentlemen farmers and old-school Wasps) it makes me laugh just a little. In reality, when the town began to approve any old structure to be built on just a thumb size lot, and pitched that silly five-acre zoning thing, the place just went straight to hell in many ways: The first was the quiet of our old roads which run concurrently in many spots with our bridle trails. The second was appreciation for anonymity and grace.

(This is the main street in Bedford Village, one of the three Bedford hamlets. Once a quiet small town street, it is now plagued with traffic back ups morning and evening. )

Anyway, all that amounts to a lot of fiercely unpleasant stuff: Our old cemetery in which so many local family members are buried being photographed to commercialize Halloween by the same offender, and an ugly lawsuit (which I never truly understood entirely) that polarized just everyone in these parts and sparked literal protests in town (with canape service, naturally).

I only mention all this because the riding-my-horse-to-breakfast-at Richard-Gere's-new-restaurant thing still cracks me up. I mean, this isn't pastoral Kentucky here, Pals, this is a human-jammed corner of the metro New York City region. And trust me, having grown up on those trails, this was an ill-advised and perilious adventure.

Okay, I just needed to get that out there because it has been making me itchy.

On the upside though, we went down the road here to Bedford Post, that new restaurant - on my "horse" - also known as a Volvo SUV which I nicknamed Sea Biscuit II for the occasion- and had brunch there. "The Barn" as they call it, is a cafe where they serve all manner of casually attired types breakfast and lunch and have a sort-of takeout cafe at the same time:


Honestly, for all the chatter and jive about the place, it is really no better for dining hereabouts as any of it's competitors and frankly, the staff seems completely stumped about where to go and what to do with regard to this mystifying food-service scenario they find themselves in. But my food - poached artichoke and egg on crispy polenta cakes with chimichurri sauce - was table-slapping good (no, I totally did not, but I wanted to), while Josh's "eggs benny," (annoying) was just a middle-of-the-roader:


Which is, coincidentally, also where you can find the kooky neighbors riding their steeds on any given day...