On Saturday, we celebrated our son-in-law Mike’s birthday, and since it was so close to Super Bowl Sunday, I decided to go all out with football decorations. Full disclosure: I was inspired by one of my favorite blogs—Maya*Made. Maya, the young woman who writes the blog, lives with her husband and two children in upstate New York, on a beautiful piece of land with a swimming hole and a waterfall. Maya loves to “make & bake,” and her level of creativity is so high that it can scarcely be measured. At the same time, many of her projects and ideas are simple enough for less talented people (like me!) to tackle, and often the projects don’t require expensive materials. Do check out Maya’s blog, if you get a chance.

Anyway, thusly inspired by Maya, I cut a few branches, put them in a vase, and made football decorations for the tree. This was a very inexpensive project. Branches abound on Narrows Pond Road, and all I had to do was go out and clip a few. A brown paper bag we had on hand was perfect for the footballs, and we hung them with black thread on the branches. (My husband, Clif, helped with this project.)

When I give birthday presents, I always like to include something I bake. What came to mind? Why, sugar cookies cut out in the shape of a football, frosted with chocolate icing, and then decorated with lacing. They came out pretty well, if I do say so myself.

For the table setting, we made placemats out of paper bags, and Clif was able to find little chocolate footballs to use as favors.

This, of course, was the prelude for the birthday meal. In our house, the tradition is for the birthday boy or girl to choose whatever he or she wants for the meal, and then we cook it. Mike went with a tempura, always a fun, festive meal as it is cooked right at the table. A tempura makes any celebration or dinner a real event.

In “A Super Bowl Birthday: Part II,” I’ll include pictures of the tempura along with a brief description of what we used for the meal.

Yesterday it snowed again. I didn’t measure how much, but it seems to me that it was well over a foot. My husband, Clif, and I hand-shovel and scoop our driveway, and it took us an hour and a half rather than our usual hour. Nature’s gym! Our little house in the big woods looks positively tucked in now, and we are running out of room to put the shoveled snow.

Never mind! The dog had a great time leaping and barking. We got our exercise, and for supper that night we had a cozy meal of scrambled eggs, bacon, and toast made from homemade bread. Add a mug of tea, and what could be better?

For added satisfaction, it was a “mostly Maine meal.” The eggs, milk, butter, and bacon all came from Maine. The flour for the bread didn’t, but the bread itself was certainly made in Maine. In Winthrop, Maine, to be exact.

We bought the bacon at Barrels Community Market in Waterville. The bacon came from Herring Brothers in Guilford, Maine. The bacon is smoked and uncured. It doesn’t have added nitrates or nitrates. We fried the bacon until it was crisp; thick and smoky, it was some of the best bacon we have ever had. (Ditto for the garlic sausage we bought that also came from Herring Brothers. That sausage really jazzed up a black-bean chili I made a couple of nights ago.)

In a week or two, we’ll be heading back to Barrels for more sausage and bacon.

And, I hear there is more snow coming our way on Saturday.

Two weeks ago, my friend Marilis Hornidge died. The death was unexpected—Marilis died of heart failure—and could even be considered a “good” death. She was seventy-eight, and while that’s not old nowadays, it is not young, either. She had a reasonably long life and, more important, a creative one filled with friends, books, and writing. But, oh, how I miss her, and none of the facts of her life and death will take that away. Nor should they.

I met Marilis in the early 1990s through Maine Media Women, a group that supports women in all aspects of communications—from radio to television to the written word. Marilis was a writer who loved literature as much as I did, and something between us just “clicked” right from the start. Perhaps it was because we both had a passion for the late, great Canadian writer Robertson Davies. (Obsession might be more like it.) Perhaps it’s because we both had what might be called a loopy sense of humor. Perhaps it’s because she was from the South and I was from the North and opposites attracts. Who knows? But for eighteen years we were friends, and even toward the end, when we didn’t see each other much, the bond was still there. (I expect this is true for many, many of Marilis’s friends. Marilis had a knack for friendship.)

I live well over an hour from Marilis’s home, and after she died, bringing food to her family was not an easy option. But I wanted to do something in her memory, and last weekend I decided to make an apple pie—complete with decorations—in her honor. I invited my daughter Shannon and her husband, Mike, to share it with us, and after we toasted Marilis, I told them a little bit about her.

Marilis was born in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1932. One of the stories she loved to tell—and I encouraged it—was how she sang with Elvis at church. This was before he became ELVIS, when he was a “sweet boy,” as Marilis described him. If my memory is correct, their voices blended nicely, and they often sang together.

Marilis had a graciousness we often associate with Southerners. She always seemed to know exactly the right thing to say, and when she would meet me for lunch or at a meeting, she made me feel as though seeing me was the best part of her day.

“Laurie-belle!” she would exclaim in a soft, slightly Southern accent. “I’m so glad you’re here.” This always made me smile.

Here’s another story that still makes me smile. “Laurie-belle,” Marilis said, “In my generation there were two things that every Southern girl was supposed to know how to do—make good biscuits and good pie. Fortunately, my husband was a Northerner and didn’t know this.”

Marilis was a lover of cats and wrote a book called That Yankee Cat: The Maine Coon. It was published in 1991, and as far as I know, it has never been out of print—a remarkable achievement for any book. No surprise, then, to read what the magazine Cats & Kittens wrote about That Yankee Cat: “The best reference guide to the first truly American breed.”

What else to say about this woman who had a fine, strong face and a melodious voice? Her love of sending notes and cards? Her aversion to phones and computers? How do you condense a life into a short piece?

You can’t, of course. But, Marilis, you have been honored with pie and with words. You have been lovingly remembered.

And truly, you will be missed.

With “A Food Manifesto for the Future,” Mark Bittman has made his first appearance on the Op-Ed page of the New York Times. In his “Manifesto,” Bittman has laid out an ambitious set of guidelines for our country to follow to promote healthy eating as well sustainable farming. Some of it seems perhaps a bit too ambitious, but kudos to him for speaking up. If enough people hear it enough times, then just maybe there will be progress. 

I was especially taken with the following: “Encourage and subsidize home cooking. (Someday soon, I’ll write about my idea for a new Civilian Cooking Corps.) When people cook their own food, they make better choices.” 

A Civilian Cooking Corps! I love it. 

I’ll certainly miss the Minimalist columns, but I look forward to reading more of what Bittman has to say on the Op-Ed page.

It seems that during the short, cold days of January the Maine lawmakers have done more than think of ways to chip away at President Obama’s health care law. They have turned their minds to whoopie pies, and a legislative committee has been formed to consider making whoopie pies Maine’s official state dessert. This is an urgent matter. Pennsylvania is also thinking of making whoopie pies their official dessert, and heaven knows what trouble would erupt should two states have the same official dessert. There might even be a law against it, and a good thing, too. There could be a disturbance in the space/time continuum if both Maine and Pennsylvania proclaimed that whoopie pies were their official state dessert. It could get very ugly.

Then there are the party-poopers who are asserting that whoopie pies—some of which contain lard—are not good for us. Why not consider the blueberry?, the party-poopers ask. After all, a dessert made with blueberries would be much healthier than a poky old whoopie pie.

Maybe yes, and maybe no. It all depends on what kind of dessert is made with blueberries. It’s hard to believe that a blueberry pie—quite possibly made with lard—would be much healthier than a whoopie pie. Yes, blueberries contain antioxidants, but so does chocolate.

On this matter I will remain neutral. I love all things blueberry, and whoopie pies are one of my favorite desserts. Besides, it’s a silly argument, no matter how you look at it. Desserts are not supposed to be healthy. They are supposed to be sweet and good, an occasional indulgence, not something to be eaten every day.

Maine lawmakers will again turn their minds to whoopie pies on February 8. Will Pennsylvania beat us to the punch? Will blueberries insinuate their little blue heads? Stay tuned.

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Week Four: The Let Them Eat Bread Report

Last week I gave away two loaves of bread: One to my daughter Shannon, and one to Holly Studholme, the daughter of my friend Dawna Leavitt.

The grand total for January? Ten loaves of bread. At least forty-two more loaves to go.