Guests at Mertz's Cabin

Consider yourself lucky if  Mertz invites you to her cabin in Big Bear. Sandi and I finally took her up on her invitation. After the 2-1/2 hour drive from Los Angeles up the mountain with the last 30 minutes of beautiful but winding roads, we were welcomed with champagne, a vegetable quiche and fabulous sourdough baguette slices which were brushed with sausage drippings, toasted and topped with feta cheese mixed with mayonnaise, bacon, tomato jam and basil.

After we relaxed and toured her cabin, we decided to do some hiking; more like window shopping in the town of Big Bear.  This was a necessity so as to burn calories and make room for the dinner she had planned for us. She took us to The Pines, a lovely restaurant overlooking the lake. Mertz and Sandi had a salad and I opted for the Salmon Vegetable Soup which looked and tasted much better than their salad. For our entrees, it was "to each her own". Mertz had the Pork Chops with sour cream sherry sauce which she said was delicious. Sandi had the Chicken Marsala and I had the Chicken stuffed with goat cheese and spinach. My stuffed chicken was much better than Sandi's marsala. The marsala sauce either didn't have enough marsala or it could have just been too "starchy". We didn't bother to order dessert as Mertz had something planned when we got home.

As soon as we got back to the cabin, she made us a nice alcoholic dessert drink. It was called Buffalo Milk which had Kahlua, Creme de Cacoa, ice, half and half, and frozen bananas. It should have had vodka but she left that out so as not to cook our brains.This was more like a milk shake; a very good milkshake. Even Sandi who is not used to drinking, drank the whole glass (she finished first). We were supposed to sip this baby while we watched television but that did not happen as it was just too good not to inhale the shake! It was a good way to end the evening. The 3 of us were so relaxed and just happy to be together!

Sandi and I thank Mertz for the invitation. We truly had a ball!!!!