Harvest - Simsbury, CT

Did you have a bounty-laden Urmas? Were gifts given as freely as the plentiful turds of Uk-Bong the Feral Nutkin? Oooh-Wakooo, I pray they were.

 

Did your kin find themselves fraught with holiday fear? Surely in the wind you could imagine Uk-Bong’s howling gut-hunger. And in the trees his razor nails scraping at the windows? I know well the horror the jingle and jangle of metal blood-spheres brings to a child’s weak mind.


Know your Uk-Bong 


Indeed, good friend, this year’s Urmas may well have been our most festive yet. Grandfather dressed up as Uk-Bong himself and emerged from his earthen coffin on Urmas night. From the freezing dirt maw he threatened the children with hexes and blood-stink. Oh how their eyes lit with fear to know that Uk-Bong had not forgotten them!

 

But following the arcane instructions of Urmas like good little Nutkins, the children took their coal-laden bag-socks and stoned Uk-Bong back into the darkness of under-veld. Grandfather had so much fun he did not even mind the bruises!

 

We also rented a badger to dress up as Uk-Bong’s rabid steed. The whole family took part in wishing the caged badger unhappy nights as we made a feast of steamed gourds and candied leaves. Oh we sang such powerful tunes as Cover the Halls with Uk-Bong’s Fetid Hide, Gobo the Terpsichorean Snow-Daemon and I Saw Mommy Dragged to the Breeding Room by Uk-Bong.

 

In fact, this year we left a double offering of kidney, spleen and yam-nut nectar to quell Uk-Bong’s appetites. It was a potent lesson to the children, urging them to never be like Stingy Brother Yumstun whose miserliness of viscera-giving found his extended family boiled and served in Uk-Bong’s turded yurt.

 

My heart always soars when we lit aflame the slain tree-corpse. Of course, not before decorating it in the teeth and hair of our rivals. Beneath the needled cadaver we stowed Uk-Bong’s bain: gifts! Gifts from near and far to cement our blood-pact and to celebrate the driving of Uk-Bong back to his hell-cold lair.

 

A more comprehensive list is scrawled on the walls in the tongue of goats


How good it feels to deceive the children, though! On Urmas morning our young awoke to find all the presents gone. We claimed they had been eaten by Uk-Bong. Of course we had simply buried them in the mud of the roadside. After we revealed the subterfuge and the children’s sobbing ceased, they took genuine delight in digging the gifts out.

 

Impossible, it is, to explain the joy in the stupid face of a child as he peels open the turd-covering on his Urmas toy. Nephew Vort finally received the plastic Uk-Bong scapula he’d been coveting (his wet-nurse spoils him). Brother Ut was given a two-pronged stick. Blood-sisters Tak and Pok received conjoined boar-hair dolls. And Son Vintle again received nothing.

 

But it would not be a true Urmas without it culminating in the traditional feast. Though it may seem odd, our Urmas meal is eaten at Harvest Café. The morning after Urmas, its cozy walls hold us as a brood-mare’s bosom, helping us forget the horrors of the holiday. This year, as always, many other Urmas celebrants of the Simsbury area dined there as well.


Lithuanian (Oooh-Wakooo) Eggs Benedict  


Harvest is a hosanna-land of skillfully homemade baked goods. In addition, their selection of eggs benedicts indeed would set Uk-Bong’s teeth to gnashing. I myself selected a Lithuanian Benedict (specially concocted for the holidays), which boasted cheddar hollandaise, crumbled bacon and two perfectly-poached eggs upon homemade latkes – a taste-treat obscene in its delicacy.

 

Grandfather tenderly rubbed his belly after gorging on an entire plate of pancakes. Indeed his stomach swelled like Uk-Bong's had after his legendary feast of purloined toddlers.


Grandfather's use of syrup is a point of family-wide shame


What a delight it is to visit Harvest, year in and year out, and see the smile and vigor of Scott the man-waiter. Surely he is a being without age. I swear that he may be the opposite and equal human incarnation of Uk-Bong himself – Hammus the Gleaming Toad – but let us not sully this Urmas with made-up things.


Harvest meets any tradition in the death-bog of battle and laughs. It is a consistently excellent feeding ground and the crowds that flock to it are a testament to that very fact. While we choose to drag our yew sledge there but once a year, many others make it a weekly feast. If only we had the woven bark to afford such extravagances.

 

But be forewarned, you must arrive early to rapidly procure a table. Otherwise, like Neesbock the sluggish, you will be ever-waiting (for an hour or more) in a scrap-beggar’s queue.

 

Surely next Urmas will not match this one’s festivities; considering that this time next year half the children will be away learning their mud-spells and the other half we will force into the wild to fend or perish. But it is certain that when Harvest appears in our yearly portents of loam and nest-thistle, a meal to be remembered is close at claw.

 

 

 

FOOD: 

3.9 Stars

Homemade food, New England style. Grains. Fruit. Deliciousness.

PRICE: 

Appropriate

Typical diner prices for a-typically tasty diner-fare.

AMBIENCE: 

Rustic Connecticut-ish

The room is pleasant – with some fine paintings on the wall – but when it’s packed, it really just feels like a roomful of people.

SERVICE:

 Energetic

Solid and prompt, nothing out of the ordinary; with Scott being the ever-present exception. Scott is a co-owner of the diner and is the rock of the wait-staff. Always chipper, always hustling around the floor and always a pleasure to chat with (though he can be a bit intense for a Sunday morning). Scott is a dining experience unto himself.

EAT OR SKIP: 

Eat

This is the best breakfast you’ll find around Simsbury, CT (not a metropolis, by any means). But for those of us who have lived there, Harvest brings Simsbury pride.