Something New: Samosas and Cricket

Sometimes when you attend a sporting event it turns out to not be about the game, but about the food.

Yesterday we attended a cricket match; one of the sponsors was a Hillsborough business - DreamCricket.com. While at the game we tried a vegetarian samosa, a triangular pastry stuffed with what seemed to be potatoes, peas, onion, and some spices.

Fabulous and, if baked and not fried, a seemingly relatively healthy dish.

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The HNJJ CHEF staff has been researching samosas (pronounced with the emphasis on the second syllable) and is unsure if they can reproduce what they tasted yesterday.

There is an online video showing how to make fried vegetarian samosas. As with all things internet, there are numerous variations posted - from the fillings to the type of pastry used for the wrapping, to the baking-versus-frying cookstyle - like this receipt or this one.

Maybe we can find a local source or discover who supplied the ones we ate yesterday.

Happy Labor Day!

Music Lesson

When my parents sold their final house,downsizing and moving into an assisted living/nursing home facility, these Sing Along With Mitch music books were among the things they saved.

Raising four children, my mother and father suffered through decades of music lessons, but being a Welsh family, it was expected that music was always around.

Offhand I remember four choir members (plus my parents), four sets of piano lessons (ranging from one year to maybe just over a decade), five-or-six years of clarinet, two sets of violin lessons(one for only a really pathetic year *ahem*), and - last but not least - a year of bagpipes.

Well, not exactly bagpipes. I believe this set of lessons only made it as far as the chanter stage. Actually I'm not sure they lasted for a year. Or maybe it's that my parents didn't last for a year. It's the only instrument that was dropped by the mutual consent of parent and child. No it wasn't me.

Mitch Miller died July 31st, about a month after my father. I don't believe that having to listen to beginning bagpipe lessons contributed to either one's demise.

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This is a photograph of real bagpipe players - none of them remotely related to my family - taken at a Hillsborough Township Parade, .

HTs Internet Vehicle Processing Facilities???

Hillsborough Township's Planning Board voted to recommend Ordinance 2010-26 to the Township Committee for consideration:

AN ORDINANCE AMENDING CHAPTER 188 (DEVELOPMENT REGULATIONS),ARTICLE V (DISTRICTS AND STANDARDS) OF THE CODE OF THE TOWNSHIP OF HILLSBOROUGH, COUNTY OF SOMERSET, STATE OF NEW JERSEY, TO ADD A NEW DEFINITION FOR INTERNET VEHICLE PROCESSING FACILITY IN SECTION 188-3 AND TO AMEND THE CONDITIONAL USES IN THE I-1 DISTRICT.

And what, you may well ask, is an "Internet Vehicle Processing Facility?" It is a storage yard for "...intact,damaged and used vehicles..." only sold through Internet auctions.

These facilities would be allowed in the I-1 light industrial zone district on lots with a minimum size of 7.5-acres and minimum lot width of 225-feet.

The public hearing is scheduled for September 14th.

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This is an interesting concept.

How many lots actually meet the requirements? Are actual bidders allowed to show up to look at and test drive the car they have virtually purchased? As the lots will contain "...intact,damaged and used vehicles..." how do you prevent it from becoming a junkyard? Is there any limit to the number of lots allowed?

How does the township verify that the sales have only been made through an online auction? What if someone never goes on the Internet and just walks into the lot to purchase a car or some portion of a car. Will they be allowed to do so and if that is the case why have a special ordinance called "Internet Vehicle Processing Facility", when it's just a "Vehicle Processing Facility" or Auto Salvage Yard?

What makes this different from the junkyard/salvage yards on Camplain Road?

And, finally, where the heck did this idea come from? I Googled the term "Internet Vehicle Processing Facility" and the only hit I got was Hillsborough's proposed ordinance. Nothing like being groundbreakers.
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Here is the proposed ordinance.

Last Cruise of Summer

This evening is the last official Somerville car cruise of summer 2010. A cruise aficionado told me that one of the best things about the Somerville Cruise is that the cars actually cruise, that is they drive around, they move, they aren't just parked.

So the theme of this weeks cruise album is classics in motion...

Until next year.
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Photographs by Susan Gulliford

Sonic Boomlet

This evening the Hillsborough Township Planning Board began hearing the application of Tom Mascia/SONIC to construct a restaurant at the corner of Route 206 and Oxford Place.

The applicant presented testimony by Robert Mascia regarding operations and engineer Brett Skapinetz testified regarding the site plan.

A dozen neighbors from the residential development behind the proposed SONIC attended the meeting and asked questions regarding lights, safety, privacy, stormwater management, and complaints from neighbors at other SONIC locations.

The hearing has been continued to the October 7th Planning Board meeting when the applicant's traffic expert will present his testimony.

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For additional HNJJ information regarding this application, go here.

Nanticoke, PA to Hillsborough, NJ

The HNJJ post of August 17th titled From Black Lung to White Lung discussed the connection between Nanticoke, Pennsylvania, and the Hillsborough-Manville area. Manville was part of Hillsborough until April 1,1929.

I am still trying to follow the migration from Nanticoke to Central Jersey, meanwhile enjoy these Nanticoke photographs taken about two weeks ago.

More information may be available in the book Ellis Island, The Coal Mines to the Asbestos Capital of the World by Ed Purzycki if a copy can be located.