Mom is more of a first course person than a baker but you seriously imagine that the loving and caring mother of five children and nine grandchildren ...an’t cook, Catholic or not? Never happen! Mom wasn’t a near gourmet chef like Amy but no one can rustle up solid, nutritious comfort food like my mom. If you look up ‘home cooking’ in an illustrated dictionary, there’s a photograph of my mother. ‘Son, we are so glad you can come home for your birthday party this evening. Frank’s coming down from. She did, and he would. They headed north on the lazy, secluded back roads of the Hudson Valley, eschewing the hustle and bustle of Rte. 9 and the New York Thruway. They made easy conversation as they stopped first at the country’s oldest operating vineyard in Washingtonville, where they purchased a bottle each of red and white, and then continued slightly northwest to just above Newburgh, where no fewer than seven wineries were listed on the informational map that Mallie had taken the time to. It was the building that had oncebeen the San Francisco jail. In fact, the first floor still had a coupleof the original jail cells which were often used for various B & D sceneswhere people could watch from outside the cell.The second floor had a lounge, a large public play space, some changingrooms and several smaller play spaces. The entered the large play spaceand she saw that it had been decorated like some kind of a haunted space.In the center was a raised platform which had an open. “I felt safer because there was more visibility, can you imagine? I remember thinking that it was a bear at first, huffing and sniffing around the tent. I got the mace ready, and when it found me, it tore through the fabric like it was paper, the tent collapsing on top of us. The thing was savage, I knew that it would kill me if I didn’t act quickly. It closed its jaws around my leg and tried to drag me out from under the tent, that’s when I hosed it. I knew where its face was because I could.