As is customary for all forum regulars who happen to travel farther than twenty minutes away from their homes, here is yet another installment of Adventures With...

Last week, the sister-in-law visited various culinary schools' websites to find out more information on her options (she's been putting off going to college for about a year and a half, recently she decided that if she does go to school, she wants to get into the culinary arts). About an hour after filling out a form on the New England Culinary Institute's website, someone from NECI's Admissions Department called her.

NECI is interesting -- they have a 7:1 student/teacher ratio. Actually, they try to keep students in groups of seven throughout the school year. Seven is a good number of people working a kitchen, it allows a great chance to get personal attention from the instructor, and a small class size helps to strengthen teamwork. For these reasons, NECI's incoming classes each term is usually a multiple of seven.

Jenny now has several incentives for attending this school -- NECI has offered scholarships and perhaps even discounted housing. What happened is the next term starts in about a week, and we think that they're trying to get that multiple of seven. (Of course they'd also want good students who want to become chefs, bakers, and other culinary professionals to come in, but we have no illusions that she wouldn't be getting some of these deals if NECI wasn't at 81 incoming students for the December term rather than 84.)

So we drove up to Burlington, Vermont all the way from the far side of the New York City Metro Area on Saturday afternoon and back again on Sunday.

Things learned on the drive up:

AAA (American Automobile Association -- for you non-North Americans, that's an insanely popular roadside service/travel club -- in Canada, it's called CAA) will not be able to send you a planned travel guide in three days.

Although it was nice to drive through New York State to avoid the City and the built-up urban sprawl around it, it added about an hour to ninety minutes to the trip. We saw a hawk.

Connecticut sucks. We decided to stop in Farmington to drop by the Connecticut Culinary Institute and just see what the campus is. Because it was about the half-way point on our journey, we thought we'd eat at a restaurant that the CCI operates in.

CCI is in a strip mall. Nothing was open.

So we got back on the interstate and looked for food. Every other state in the union has signs on the interstate indicating what food places are available at the next exit. Connecticut just has signs that read "Food Gas Lodging". No idea what actual food things exist -- you get off the highway, you take you chances. We pulled off at an exit, followed very small signs through turns and over hills to a Polish-Italian restaurant which was closed. We went back on the interstate, got off at the next exit to follow the food signs and wound up back at the same restaurant. Connecticut sucks.

For some reason, I keep wanting to say either "Maryland" or "Mississippi" instead of "Massachusetts". I have nothing else to say about Massachusetts because we seemed to enter the state at about 4:30pm, just as the sun set. Anybody else think there's something wrong with the sun setting at 4:30 in the afternoon? It's not evening yet! Evening should start around 6! Stupid 23-degree axis of rotation.

Vermont is much larger than previously thought. It took about two-and-a-half hours to get all the way up to Essex Junction (right by Burlington).

ARG! Stupid drivers! If you're going to cut me off by jumping into the left lane to pass a truck, pass the !@#$ truck! Don't just remain five feet behind the truck. Oh, here's another tip -- stick to one speed! If you want to drive five miles over the posted speed limit, then drive five miles over the speed limit! Don't constantly fluctuate between 65 and 75! ARG! CDX-111 -- I will find you! I will have my revenge!

So we arrived about eight o'clock after driving in the dark for about four hours and realized that the directions we were given were absolutely spot-on perfect, except for the last few miles. There's nothing like knowing how to get to the vicinity of somewhere, yet not able to get to the actual location. Despite being male, I stopped and asked for directions.

We stayed at the Inn at Essex, where the school picked up our tab. Good thing too, because the Inn at Essex is a very nice (read "expensive") hotel. I've only been in one other Really Impressive hotel in my life, and that was St. Regis in Philadelphia for a wedding and reception. We didn't realize that our friend's family was Old Money. Wow, that was nice (read "extravagant").

Back to Vermont.

The Inn at Essex is in the middle of nowhere. It's a five-star hotel, and to call it a hotel would be a disservice. Sure, there were rooms that people could sleep in and a perky gal at the checkout counter, but man o man, it's a few steps above a Holiday Inn.

The only bad part about the stay is there was a wedding reception going on that night which meant that there were drunk people in the halls. We were woken up about four times. I tell ya, humans are the problem.

In the morning, we met with Chef Jim Didn'tcatchhislastname, who gave all of us a tour of the Inn, which is one of NECI's campuses. (I'm not even going to compare NECI's Inn at Essex with CCI's strip mall and you shouldn't either.) We went around, wandered through the prep kitchens and the working kitchens, asked several questions, and basically made me want to quit my job and sign up.

Chef Jim explained the "intense" schedule at the school -- it's a two-year program for an Associate's degree, and they have near 100% placement out of the institute. If Jenny goes, she'd be in Vermont for six months, interning wherever she wants (California) for six months, back to Vermont for another six, then another half-year internship (which probably will turn into her first job just out of school).

He also went over the hours the courses take -- a 3am to 11am course when she'd in the bakery/pastry classes, long hours when she's not in those courses (basically 40 to 60 hour work weeks). On the ride home, she thought that was too time-consuming. We asked her what she thought the hours would be as a Master Chef in a restaurant. (There seems to be very little homework, all the learning is in-kitchen. A 40-60 hour work week seems normal for a college student, when you factor in out-of-class assignments.)

He also went over several career options -- pastry chef, working in a restaurant, owning a restaurant, operating a catering business. He's actually a demo chef, a chef that goes out to various places to recruit people to the culinary arts.

After that, we went to the NECI Commons in Burlington, VT. If you ever get out there, it's at the north end of Church Street. Order one of everything. I had the best grilled chicken sandwich I've ever eaten there. Also, the mocha chocolate cake... mmm... I should have ordered several to go. Oh! The smoked salmon club -- very tasty!

We decided to head out, and six hours later, we were back home. Vermont was just as long to get through going back, but it was daylight so we could see all the mountains and valleys we drove by in the night.

Night fell at 4:30 again, just as we crossed into Massachusetts, The Dark State.

Connecticut sucks. Someone decided that they had to be over in the left lane Right Now for No Apparent Reason even though we were driving Faster Than Them, so they cut out in front of us. There was absolutely nobody at all in front of them for a half-mile to pass. We had to get over in the middle lane, pass them on the right, and then back into the left lane. After a few people like that (what? what? why do that?), we decided to get in the HOV lane and get stuck behind a bus.

Well, we didn't decide to get stuck behind a bus, that just sort of happened.

We managed to get to New Jersey's Garden State Parkway where, at the last toll booth, my wife missed the basket with the token, which triggered the road rage that was building up so she GRABBED another token out of our ashtray and THREW it at the basket like it was a BASEBALL. I think the token wound up imbedding itself in the toll booth. We drove on.

Oh! This complete @#$#@ of a fellow motorist who kept cutting off people as we approached the first toll booth (nearly sideswiping cars as she did so), suddenly found herself cut off by two people (illegally) changing lanes. She laid on the horn for about a minute. Ah, karma. Sweet, sweet karma.

-Faux "home again, home again" Pas