What does it mean to be authentic? Why do we consider these things as a new year draws close?
Maybe because we’ve seen a few years come and go….and we realize with ever sharpening clarity that there is no time BUT the present and the time is nigh to come to terms with many things, especially being true to oneself
End of life issues come into focus, health strategies ( use it or lose it!) ,personal fears , interpersonal truths and , hey, it’s time to be beginning to live absolutely fully because tomorrow is not guaranteed.
I’ve heard it said “DON’T POSTPONE JOY”. I believe it is time to wear the good clothes or pass them on, lighten up, take the jewelry out of the bank and wear it, make that special recipe to share , volunteer at the food bank, give your attention fully to the moment and exalt every one of them through mindfulness.
Done are the days of people pleasing , I’m more geared now to helping within the community and the needs are many. Learn to be a true friend, a good listener. A fearless learner. An activist.
Living beyond my means because there’s pressure and so much cool stuff to buy? Nah, I asked for a hairbrush, groceries and socks for Christmas. Reduce, reuse, recycle…PAY ATTENTION to the things that matter, like our planet and how we choose to live on it. How can we best make a difference with our relationship to this living breathing thing we call Earth?
Why was it such an obstacle course getting here? To this place of relative peace and clarity? The markers are always there, but the noice ABATES as we gain focus and breathe fully.
If we’re lucky, the path forward becomes clear and a balanced illumination guides us into a new circle around the Sun.
Cookie exchanges for the holidays are found the world over. In the USA, the first examples of such a holiday exchange was noted in 1917 during World War 1.
By the 1950s the cookie swap was a fashionable way to create a glamorous gathering, a varied cookie gift box and support other women in the process. Gathering a new recipe or two and enjoying a few hours away from the pre- holiday rush was also a perk.
The concept was to bake one dozen cookies for each woman in the club, and often a few more, just in case. Stories were swapped along with the cookies and everyone took home a mixed collection in a container. Often a luncheon was served. Sometimes clubs even published cookie cookbooks featuring their all-star recipes, garnering funds for the clubs community projects.
Cookies that became popular over the years through these exchanges include gingerbread, snickerdoodles, shortbreads, intricate rolled refrigerator cookies, chocolate chip “toll house”, candy cane brownies, pecan sandies,”melting moments” ( whatever they may be, but I’ll take two!) and Florentines.
It was a convivial gathering, more about camaraderie than competition.
One of my all time favorites, and a Maine staple the year round, is the humble Snickerdoodle.
The history of the One Pie Company in Waldoboro Maine is a long and varied story. Many folks, albeit older ones, still walking around in Waldoboro worked there at one time or another in the canning factory.
The supply chain in Maine was strong indeed, because vegetable canning companies like One Pie and the fields the vegetables were grown in were steps apart! Waldoboro was, in fact, the supplier of most canned pumpkin and squash in America. Now the squash that’s used across the country at Thanksgiving is likely grown in Illinois . But am I still proud of One Pie’s Maine heritage? You bet I am! Every time I see those cans on a supermarket shelf and read “W. Paris, Maine”, I realize that those Maine roots run deep.
There was a time, between the Civil War and the 1920’s when Maine was an industrial canning powerhouse. Maine supplied all the tinned fish, sardines’s to be precise, in the country and most of the sweet, canned corn. Blueberries, peas, squash and pumpkin were also very much in demand!
It seems that the affiliation with Maine for One Pie is just window dressing now, probably good for business, since Maine is suddenly trendy. But they were forerunners in recognizing the beauty of regional food.
It’s peak foliage right about now and a wonderful time for a drive in the country.
It’s also a spectacular moment for Maine’s blueberry lands, which turn the most vivid of colors in the fall. Appleton Ridge in the Union area of Maine is a prime example of this display with its fruit fields lining the country roads.
Magenta, pink, red, orange, purple, rust and brown color the low-lying fields of bushes….it’s like another world!
It’s a special treat for me to pass by a pumpkin field still full of pumpkins that got passed by for harvest . Cattle and wild birds enjoy them. In light of that, I wonder why wild turkeys aren’t more delicious! Regardless, it’s a feast for the senses and we hope there are gleaner that also benefit. We need to see more of that in our foodways.
It’s a nice thought that even after their usefulness in feeding us , these fields and lands, once so prized by the Indians, are still feeding our souls in so many ways.
It’s a time honored tradition in Maine, “putting food by”.
Simply put ,that means canning, pickling and freezing the bounty of the September harvest so a delicious, sunny reminder of summer is available later in the year. Garden tomato sauce, pickles, fermented cabbage, relishes and chopped frozen vegetables that seem like a lot now of trouble now, but will be welcome in February or anytime the winter winds blow.
There’s nothing new about it, except the frozen part perhaps ( I suppose that was new in the 50’s). My Grandmother, Laura, taught me the merits of these techniques , canning, pickling and fermenting, to enhance the family table all season long. We enjoyed homemade sauerkraut , sweet and sour pickles, chow-chow, a Pennsylvania Dutch vegetable relish, dilly beans, chili sauce, sour green tomatoes and pretty much anything you can imagine, canned and sometimes fresh.
I’m grateful for the lessons learned at my Grandma’s elbow. I’ve made them my own.
It’s a great moment to visit a farm stand, if your garden wasn’t enough, and get busy! Make a delicious tomato sauce, a quick pickle…or try my favorite…spicy and delicious Jalapeño relish, recipe in our “seasonal recipes” section. Great on a taco!
One of my favorite country drives in the summer is to the always bountiful “Beths Farm Market” in Warren.
Passing through the rolling fields and pastoral views, I can almost taste the coffee and molasses donuts waiting for me there.
Road eats are a plus and as the weather cools they offer free coffee to shoppers and bake up a dizzying array of donuts, pies and other baked goods.
August is the perfect month to go especially if you have a summer recipe in mind, as I do on this sunny day. I’m hankering for the South of France and since that won’t be happening right away, the next best thing is a bowl of Ratatouille. Brimming with summer vegetables, such as eggplant, zucchini and summer squash, garden herbs,sweet onion and tomato, Ratatouille is a feast for the senses.
Good either hot or chilled on a sweltering day, it’s one of my go-to evening meals when I am busy because it may be made well ahead and in quantity. It freezes well too!
Top this economic and delicious dish with a medley of fresh snipped garden herbs ( I like Oregano, Parsley and Savory) and shave some good Parmesan on Top. Crusty bread and farm butter complete the picture.
We here in New England value several things to mark this Great American Holiday. Ideally family around the table, sparklers and fireworks.
A plater of salmon, peas and new potatoes tells guests that the garden is on point. In Maine we might throw a lobster boil with “all the things” as side dishes. It’s generally too early for local corn on the cob, but new dill, potatoes and shelling peas are new and exciting at this time every year. Ditto the salad greens.
Lunch is over, and the grill is cooling down. Desserts are set out and the lemonade its refilled.
Before the lawn games begin and the fireflies fade into fireworks, let’s give thanks for the independent spirit, our families and the people that make our country still the greatest on earth.
The first greens of spring offer incredible salads. The asparagus bed is producing and the rhubarb is in overdrive.
Rhubarb is something I never tire of. Rheum, or the garden variety we know from Grandmother’s garden is a plant with many culinary and medicinal uses. Famously tart, it’s almost always used with sugar. Only the stalks are edible. It has savory applications too (think of a glaze paired with ginger, hoisin and hot honey for barbecued chicken). Or a yummy toast spread.
My favorite is a deep dish pie or crisp paired with lemon and lots of vanilla. I’ll share my recipe in this month’s seasonal recipes section.
Meanwhile , if you can’t keep up with your crop of rhubarb, it freezes beautifully. Or make a fine bouquet!
We’re talking claytonia. It looks like a tiny, edible water lily with a flower in the center, a tender oval green with a long graceful stem. Also known as Miner’s Lettuce in the West, claytonia may actually be the way the West was won.
During the goldrush, native claytonia kept the miners alive at times when other food was scare and things weren’t, er, panning out. It’s absolutely loaded with Vitamin C.
We’re fortunate to have Barbara Boardman of White Duck Farm in Waldoboro active in her greenhouse planting and harvesting these delectables and others varieties of young and succulent greens. Much like a Spring hen starved for something fresh, we of Waldoboro flock to our greens “pick up station “ at a designated spot in town, tote home our bags of fresh greens and create abundant salads out of Barb’s greens.
The claytonia is my personal favorite, since it is available for the short Spring season only, and I relish it’s fresh and sprightly flavor! We like to mix it with other young and tender greens like the first kales and butter lettuces.
Pair this pretty Spring green with a creamy homemade Ranch dressing loaded with fresh dill weed.
Please check for our Ranch dressing recipe under Seasonal recipes,
I’ve just returned from a whirlwind week in the land of fire and ice. It did not disappoint!
Known widely for scenes filmed in Game of Thrones, the sites were many and varied with mossy waterfalls and unique volcanic rock formations, a black beach, diamond bay ( ice floes) a unique national park, AKA UNESCO site, eroding glaciers, Arctic winds and Icelandic horses. So many activities!
Reykjavik, the capital city was warm and welcoming , even with snow flurries in April . Everyone is friendly and helpful. Sporting a vibrant art scene, it boasts a more than adequate coffee culture, and a great deal of style. Not only is everyone chic and gorgeous ( could it be the fish oil we were served at breakfast?) but the Danish influences on architecture and interiors were very clean and appealing. Reykjavik is also home to a thriving nightlife scene and a stellar music festival, Iceland Airwaves. Oh! And a punk rock museum, a phallus museum(!), a contemporary art museum featuring, among others, the work of Robert Crumb who you may remember from Zap Comics….and so much more!
Every town in Iceland has a geo thermal hot pool and we fell in love with the bathing rituals which are purely Icelandic. Even our hotel had a steaming hot pool with a sandy bottom. We craved a more natural hot spring experience and hoped for a day at the Blue Lagoon and a silica mud mask . Sadly, the erupting volcano prevented that, but a day at Sky Lagoon was lovely, if not a bit commercial.We got to experience the seven step bathing ritual from a cleansing shower to a salt scrub and steam room after a lovely hot soak and cool water mist. There was a charming small cafe associated with the spa and we enjoyed a nice lunch afterwards. There are many healthy choices here.
Speaking of which, the New Nordic Cuisine, coined by Chef Gunnar Karl seems to be resonating throughout the city with elevated fine dining available widely. Fresh fish and especially lamb are excellent. It also features Iceland’s unique Farm to Viking fare, so if you’d like to share a sheep’s head and chase that with geo- thermal baked- in -the -ground rye bread and a shot of Brennivin ( basically Aquavit) I’ll give it a try with you. We did experience the fermented shark, which tasted like stinky cheese and is basically an excuse to do a shot of Brennivin, and their wonderfully earthy lamb soup, served traditionally in a bread bowl. Don’t expect a lot of salads here in winter, an island economy is prevalent.
Dairy, meat and fish comprise the mainstays of Icelandic fare. The dairy is rich and delicious and Skyr “yoghurt” was an epiphany. It’s not really yoghurt. Turn to my seasonal recipes to see how it’s used as a savory sauce!
Book a flight, Iceland is too good to miss! June would be prefect timing, tho the Northern Lights are difficult to view after early April.