On the second Friday of the month, except for July and August, the Winthrop Congregational Church hosts a fish chowder luncheon. For $7 you get a bowl of homemade fish chowder, made fresh that morning and chock full of fish and potatoes. With the chowder you also get homemade biscuits, pickles, a piece of pie, crackers, and coffee and tea. If that isn’t what we Mainers would call a wicked good deal, then I don’t know what is.
Therefore, on Friday, I took out my trusty bike, which I’ve dubbed Blue Beauty, and pedaled to the Congregational Church, which is about a mile from my house.
Blue Beauty, ready to go to the fish chowder luncheon
When I got to the church, a nifty little sign assured me that I was indeed coming on the right day.
This way to fish chowder
As I was locking my bike to a post, I could smell the rich fish chowder. But when I went in, what did I immediately see? The pie table, that’s what. Fish chowder is good, but to a Mainer, there is no lovely sight than a table full of pies.
Pies, pies, pies
I saw my friend Lee Gilman cutting a piece of pie to add to the table.
Lee Gilman hard at work cutting pie
Resisting pie—it was a mighty struggle—I went to one of the tables to wait for my friend Claire Hersom.
Ready and waiting for chowder
At last came the chowder, and it tasted just as rich and good as it smelled.
From Grist: Philadelphia has been subsidizing healthy food with its Philly Food Bucks, which “offers food stamps recipients a 40 percent subsidy at farmers markets.” Apparently, the program has been a huge success, but—no surprise!—they are running out of money. Truly, more money should be going into programs such as this.
From the Guardian: Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall makes an eloquent case for eating more vegetables and less meat. “To summarise, we need to eat more vegetables and less flesh because vegetables are the foods that do us the most good and our planet the least harm.” Yes, indeed!
From the blog 2 Minutes to Dinner: Chef Ronna Welsh has published a letter from a New York farmer who was hit hard by Hurricane Irene. Very moving and a reminder of how extreme weather can destroy livelihoods as well as homes.
From the Portland Press Herald: Pizza, pizza, pizza! Made on a mobile wood-fired oven that might be coming to a town near you.
From Salon.com and Felisa Rogers’s blog Scavenger: A good piece about how thrift and creativity can and should be combined.
From the Bowdoin Daily Sun: Great photos of their organic garden. Wow, that garden is a beauty. I am especially envious of their basil. (Mine did so poorly this year.) How heartening it is to see a college growing some of the food that is fed to its students.
Last weekend, I found out some sad news: Saturday, September 3 was the last day of the Winthrop Farmers’ Market. They are closing shop early this year because supplies are running low. I’ll miss my Saturday morning bike rides to the farmers’ market—buying fresh food and talking to the vendors. (However, I still have an “in,” so to speak, with Farmer Kev for vegetables. He has surplus to sell to his CSA customers.)
I admit that this early closing caught me off-guard. On this blog, I had planned to feature a profile of each of the Winthrop Farmers’ Market vendors, and as the market usually runs until October, I thought I had plenty of time to include them all. Wrong! I missed two of the vendors, and I hope to write about them next year.
But I did manage to talk to Richard Reed of R & L Berry Farms on 22 Berry Road in Readfield. As the name of the farm suggests, Richard and his wife, Leane—hence R & L—specialize in berries, blueberries and raspberries, but they grow vegetables as well. Berries are sold at the farmers’ market, and at their farm, when the berries are in season, Leane and Richard allow customers to pick their own. In addition, Leane makes berry pies, jellies, banana bread, and zucchini bread to sell at the farmers’ market.
They also sell honey, and right now they have 20 hives. Leane and Richard plan on adding 10 more hives and want to focus on honey and honey products: creamed honey, honey sticks, honey hand-creams, combed honey, and, of course, jars of honey. With honey having a much, much longer shelf life than fresh berries, it is easy to understand why the Reeds want to increase their honey production. And, honey is certainly delicious. On oatmeal. In green tea. On toast. In bran muffins. There are lots of good ways to use honey.
Leane and Richard have been growing and selling berries and vegetables for seven years. To further diversify, Richard has been learning how to make beef jerky, with much guidance on safety issues coming from the University of Maine at Orono. He plans to buy beef from Wholesome Holmstead, one of the vendors at the Winthrop Farmers’ Market and a farm that has been featured on this blog.
I love berries and honey, but what I really love are Richard’s whoopie pies, which he, rather than his wife, makes. Small—just the right size as far as I’m concerned—moist, often studded with mini-chocolate chips and thick with cream, these whoopie pies have become a Saturday treat, and I will miss them. I can and probably will buy Wicked Whoopee Pies at the grocery store, and Wicked Whoopies are very good. But Richard’s are better. He has a knack for making them, and I hope his enthusiasm for beef jerky doesn’t interfere with his whoopie pie production.
I’ll be looking for whoopie pies next spring when the farmers’ market opens.
After the long bike ride my husband, Clif, and I took yesterday, our minds quite naturally turned to dinner, and as our refrigerator and pantry are overflowing, we decided to make use of the food on hand. We had bought pizza dough for grilled bread for our Sunday get together, but there were so many great appetizers that we decided to forgo the grilled bread.
This meant we could use the dough for what it was originally intended—pizza. Now for the sauce. I had plenty of ripe tomatoes—Juliet is the variety I grow—from my own little garden, and it only took me two seconds to decide that a roasted tomato sauce would be just the thing for this pizza. In the refrigerator, I had a very mild soft cheese that came from Wholesome Holmstead. Not exactly mozzarella, but I thought it would be an acceptable substitute. For a topping I had leftover pancetta that Shannon had brought for appetizers on Sunday. (In my post about the Sunday barbecue, I mistakenly referred to it as prosciutto.)
The sauce takes a bit of time, but most of it is hands-off as the tomatoes roast in the oven. I took two pounds of tomatoes—the fair Juliet with a few romas mixed in. I cut the Juliets in half and quartered the romas. I put them in a bowl then tossed them with a few splashes of olive oil and a sprinkle of kosher salt. Next I spread them, cut side up, on an oiled cookie sheet and baked them for about an hour at 375°. (The tomatoes are done when they are very soft and a little brown here and there.)
After the tomatoes had cooled a bit, I put them in the food processor and pulsed a few times until I had a nice saucy mix. Into a large skillet, I heated two tablespoons of olive oil and added two cloves of garlic, chopped fine. I let the garlic sizzle for a minute or so and then added the sauce, which was very thick. I simmered the sauce for about a half hour, adding a bit of water occasionally to get a texture I liked. Not too thin, of course. I didn’t want a runny sauce, but neither did I want a thick gloppy sauce.
While the sauce was simmering, I crumbled the soft cheese, cut the pancetta into little clumps, and set both aside in small bowls. I also chopped 1/3 cup of basil leaves, which I added to the sauce when it was done simmering.
The time had come for the pizza dough. Someday soon, we hope to provide a picture tutorial for grilled bread as there really is a knack for stretching it and grilling it. But for now I can give just the barest outline because Clif is the grilled-bread master. He stretches the dough by hand, puts it on a floured board, brushes the top with olive oil, and puts it on the grill oiled side down. He immediately oils the top and cooks it with the cover down for a few minutes—until it is brown underneath. Then he flips it, cooking it until it is brown. He flips it one more time, adding the sauce, cheese, and toppings. He turns off the heat underneath, but leaves the other side on, so the cheese is heated by the indirect heat. Clif closes the cover for this phase, too.
The results? The best pizza there is outside of a wood-fired brick-oven pizzeria. This particular pizza, with the roasted tomato sauce, the soft cheese, and the smoky pancetta, was especially good.
Combined with a green salad, the pizza made for a very satisfying meal after a long bike ride. Best of all, there were enough leftovers for another meal.
Yesterday, the weather was humid and hot, but the rain held, and my husband, Clif, and I were able to spend the afternoon in one of our favorite places—on the patio in our backyard. Our daughter Shannon and her husband, Mike, joined us as well as our friend Claire, who just happens to be Mike’s aunt.
We decided to try cooking two small whole chickens on the grill, with indirect heat, and the results were mixed. We used a big roasting pan, and one chicken was set flat in the pan. The other chicken was propped upright on a little wire rack Clif bought at Home Depot, a rack that has space for an open can of beer onto which the chicken is placed. Supposedly, this makes the chicken moister, but unfortunately, the chicken set directly in the pan took longer to cook than the chicken on the rack. We probably should have taken the chicken off the rack as soon as it was done, but we didn’t, and it was disappointingly dry. On the other hand, the chicken cooked flat was quite good.
For both chickens, I had made a butter, garlic, sage mixture to rub under the skin—one stick of softened butter, four cloves of chopped garlic, and fifteen sage leaves, also chopped. This gave the meat a very good flavor, and I will definitely use this mixture again, for both cooking on the grill and cooking in the oven.
I will say that both chickens were brown and beautiful, but to paraphrase Dr. Who, good looks are no substitution for good taste.
Clif and I have decided we will try the rack and beer method again, but we will only cook one chicken and remove it as soon as it is done according to a meat thermometer. If at first you don’t succeed…
Despite the dry chicken, it was a lovely day on the patio. Courtesy of Claire and Shannon, we hand bang-up appetizers—a tangy Irish cheddar cheese with crackers; prosciutto and basil on slices from a very fresh baguette, and homemade tortilla chips from Whole Foods. Along with some salsa, of course.
Courtesy of farmer Kev, I served corn on the cob, green beans with browned butter, and red roasted potatoes with olive oil and rosemary.
Talking about books, movies, and family, we stayed on that patio until about 7:00. As evening came, the air cooled nicely, and Clif and I could hardly bear to go inside to clean up after our guests left. Surrounded by the forest, we listened as birds called to each other, the voices of woodpeckers, chickadees, and finches coming together in conversation.
This is a map of our Labor Day bicycle ride. It turned out to be a bit over 30 miles, and my wife, Laurie, and I were lucky that the rain held off until we returned home.
Yesterday, I helped my friend Sybil pack and sort as she enters the final phase of moving from a condo to an apartment. Because my husband, Clif, and I are a one-car family, I had to take him to work so that I could use the car. On the way, I noticed a couple of new things—a portion of the road was torn up, and the Burger King was completely demolished. (Naturally, a new one is being built to replace it.)
“Do you know,” I said to Clif, “that I haven’t been out of Winthrop in two and a half weeks?”
He just shook his head and smiled. “If I didn’t have to go to work every day, the same would probably be true for me.”
Clif and I certainly are prime examples of homebodies. When I mentioned my two-and-a-half week stint to a friend, her response was, “My, Lord! What did you do?”
This started me thinking. What did I do in Winthrop—population 6,000—for two and a half weeks? Every day that it was nice, I went on a ten-mile bike ride, on a route that takes me by a shimmering lake where loons call to each other. Clif and I went to the town’s book sale, art show, and lobster roll luncheon, all of which I wrote about in a previous post. I went to an author talk—given by Sarah Braunstein—and to book group at Bailey Public Library. I volunteered at our local food pantry. I made bread for family and friends. I met my friend Barbara Penrod for lunch at a restaurant in town where the food is not great, but it is good enough. I wrote pieces for this blog, and I made good progress on the children’s fantasy novel I’m writing—Maya and the Book of Everything.
While I didn’t physically go very far, I kept in touch with family and friends via the Internet. I read about Ali’s garden at the blog Henbogle, and I got suggestions for good books to read from Nan at her blog, Letters from a Hill Farm. I traveled through various books to an unnamed city in England where the battle between good and evil is fought not only in a boarding school but also in families (Charlie Bone and the Shadow by Jenny Nimmo); to Pittsburgh where I followed an old woman through the seasons as she deals with aging, family matters, and the inevitable disappointments that life brings (Emily, Alone by Stewart O’Nan); and I explored the nature of “tick-tock” time and “time alive” in The Magicians by J. B. Priestley.
Then, of course, there was Irene to prepare for and the resulting power outage.
I even developed a couple of new recipes, one of which I’ll share in this post. This recipe—salmon patties with basil and garlic—came about because I had leftover garlic and basil mashed potatoes. I decided to make salmon patties out of them, and Clif and I liked them so much that we both agreed it would be worthwhile to make the garlic and basil mashed potatoes especially for the patties and not just because we had leftovers.
All in all, it was a busy two and a half weeks even though I didn’t leave Winthrop.
Whoops! Summer sped by at such a busy blur that I forget to post my July Let Them Eat Bread Report. For new readers, here’s a brief recap: My project this year is to bake and give away at least one loaf of bread each week in 2011. I’m doing this as a personal protest against the selfishness in our society. In a time of shrinking resources and an ever-growing population, we must learn to share. The bonus: It’s good spiritual practice.
As they would say on the NPR show Marketplace, let’s do the numbers: In July, I gave away 4 loaves of bread, and the same is true for August. This makes a yearly total of 42 1/2 loaves.
Last week I gave a loaf to my friend Debbie Maddi. Because of our schedules, I gave the bread to her the day after it was made, and homemade bread, of course, is best the day it is made. Because there are no artificial preservatives to keep it fresh, homemade bread dries out much faster than store-bought bread. I duly apologized to Debbie and suggested it would make good French toast.
With a laugh, she replied, “This is not going to be used for French toast, let me tell you.”
A nice thing to hear!
But I must say, my bread does make very good French toast, and it is becoming a Saturday treat in our house.
Is there any sound sadder and sweeter than the chorus of crickets in late summer? Yesterday, when my husband, Clif, came home from work, we had drinks on the patio and listened to the crickets sing. We know what their song means—summer is coming to an end and with it warm weather, barbecues, and drinks on the patio after work. Fall has its blaze of glory and winter its cozy consolations, but in northern New England, summer is short and therefore greatly cherished. Clif and I are always sorry to see it end.
Along with lamenting the end of summer, we naturally talked about Hurricane Irene and the horrible destruction in Vermont and New York. Roads, crops, and livelihoods have been flooded and smashed, and I expect recovery will not only be costly but also slow. Money is tight during this recession, I know, but I hope that farmers, towns, and states will get enough help from the government to rebuild and to regroup. I might be a naive idealist, but like Mark Bittman, I expect government to “work for the interests of the American people.” And this means pitching in, both collectively and individually. Why this is often a matter of contention is beyond my comprehension.
Let me be clear about personal responsibility—I believe that individuals should do everything they can to prepare for emergencies. (I wrote about this in yesterday’s post.) Every household—not just the ones with wells—should have an emergency supply of water ready and waiting. In addition, they should have extra batteries for lanterns and flashlights, oil for lamps, and even a little camp stove for cooking should the power go out for an extended period. Then, of course, there is food, and all households should maintain an “emergency pantry” of food that is easy to heat—soups, baked beans, spaghetti sauce, pasta. Peanut butter and crackers—things that keep—are also useful to have in good supply.
If individuals are thusly prepared, then they can still eat and drink when storms come and the power goes out.
However, there are certain things individuals cannot prepare for—washed out bridges and roads, destruction of crops, flooded houses. To recover from these things we need collective help, the help of the state and federal government. This has been my philosophy for all of my adult life, and Hurricane Irene just reinforces this belief.
Hurricane season is not over yet. Not by a long shot. Clif and I will continue to monitor our supplies so that we are well stocked and ready should another hurricane hit. That way, we can have our eggs, toast, and tea, real comforts when the power goes out, and we have no idea when it will come back.
Well, the sun is shining, and our power is back on. We lost it on Sunday at about 3 P.M., and it came back on Tuesday at around 2:00 A.M. All in all, except for the inconvenience of having no power, we came through pretty well. There was no damage to our house, to our car, to ourselves. Clean up was minimal, accomplished on Monday morning. It was so minimal, in fact, that we were even able to go on a bike ride on Monday afternoon.
Best of all, our New York City daughter, Dee, came through safe and sound, and my husband, Clif and I were happy to learn that New York City escaped the worst of Irene. So many people in such a small space.
On the other hand, our thoughts and good wishes go to the people of Vermont and upstate New York, who are dealing with the devastation of the flash floods. Irene proved to be unpredictable, sparing New York City and turning west instead to soak an already soaked region. I’m sure the people of both Vermont and upstate New York will make it through this difficult time, but how discouraging it must be for them.
Even though we were only inconvenienced for two days, Irene reinforced what I had already learned from the great ice storm of 1998: One must be prepared for power outages and emergencies. With climate change and increasingly fierce storms, this has only become more evident in the past decade. As I wrote in a previous post, we were prepared for this storm. We had water in big buckets for the toilet as well of plenty of water in pans for drinking. I had canned baked beans and pasta and jarred spaghetti sauce for meals that would be easy to heat. (As it turned out, I didn’t have to use them.) There was plenty of lamp oil, cannisters of propane for the camp stove, and batteries for the radio and flash light. I will be vigilant about replacing these things when they get low, and readers, I hope you will be doing similar things in your own home.
Fried eggs on the grill
On a lighter note…on Monday, the day after the storm, the weather was warm and sunny with a brilliant blue sky. Clif and I ate breakfast, dinner, and supper on the patio. Clif grilled toast for breakfast, and he fried some eggs. For dinner, we had leftover macaroni and cheese, made on Sunday before the power went out. We also had hot dogs, nitrite and nitrate free, of course. Supper was made from food tucked away in our cooler. We ate well, and if the power had stayed out longer, we had plans to cook a whole chicken on the grill.
Mac and cheese in a frying pan on a burner on the grill
Now, to get the house back in order after the rigmarole of having no power for a couple of days, and then out to lunch I go with my friend Barbara Penrod.
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Notes From the Hinterland 