On Tuesday, I received my first box of vegetables from Farmer Kev’s Community Supported Agriculture program—henceforth referred to as CSA. I’ve written about Farmer Kev many times in this blog. For new readers: He’s young, he’s energetic, he doesn’t come from a farming family, and he’s been farming on leased land since he graduated from high school. Go, Farmer Kev!
Our own Farmer Kev, from a photo taken last year
This year will be especially exciting for me and, I hope, for Farmer Kev. He’s become a sponsor, of sorts, of this blog. In exchange for writing about his vegetables and ways to use them, I get a free CSA share. (I will write for food, as long as it comes from a source I approve of, and I most definitely approve of Farmer Kev.)
For the next month, I will, of course, be focusing on greens because let’s face it—when those greens get going they come in an avalanche that can be downright alarming. What to do with all those greens?
I have some ideas, and I am lucky to have a good friend who is also a good cook. Her name is Alice Johnson, and when she heard about how I would be writing regularly about Farmer Kev and his vegetables, she jumped right into the fray and has been sending me wonderful recipes that will make short work of those daunting greens. (Farmer Kev, you are in effect get two heads for the price of one.)
But for this week, which is just the start of the greens avalanche and should thus be manageable, I am going to focus on the humble radish. Yes, yes, they are good in salads, and I’m sure everyone knows this. But they are also good on buttered toast, which is a relatively new trick for this Yankee cook.
I got this idea from JoEllen Cottrell, who is director of the Winthrop Food Pantry. A while back, she told me about toast and radishes and said this is something that is eaten in Germany. (She has a German daughter-in-law.)
Really, toast and radishes couldn’t be easier. Make a toast—the better the bread, the better the toast—and butter it. Top the toast with thinly sliced radishes and sprinkle with a little salt, if you like.
The butter and the toasted bread go very well with the crunchy, tangy radishes. I had this for lunch yesterday, and I had it again today. It’s strangely good.
Starting next week, I’ll begin posting recipes that use spinach, Swiss chard, and Kale. I even have an idea or two for salads. With the help of my friend Alice, we’ll show those greens a thing or two.
It’s mid-June in Maine, and after a hard, hard winter, we have had a pretty good spring. May was sunny and warm. The black flies were brutal, but mercifully their time here was short—two weeks at their swarming, biting peak. June has been somewhat rainy and cool, but there have been enough nice days so that humans don’t feel too damp and soggy. Best of all, the potted flowers outside look very perky—not a given in June. Sometimes it rains so much that the pots become waterlogged, and the plants never really recover. Who knows? If the good weather continues, then I might even get a decent bunch of basil.
However, today is a cool day, a soup day. (As I’ve mentioned before, it’s a good thing Clif and I like soup because in Maine you can eat soup nine months of the year.) I still have frozen vegetables from Farmer Kev’s winter CSA, and I have decided to make a Mediterranean soup with green beans and summer squash. I splurged on fresh rosemary along with Italian-spiced chicken sausage. We’ll add cooked pasta to the bottom of the soup bowl before ladling soup on top.
Biscuit muffins—one of Clif’s favorites—will round out the soup. Somehow warm biscuits, muffins, or bread round out most any meal.
The rest of the week is supposed to be sunny, and I am especially hoping it will be nice on Friday, when friends will be coming over for homemade strawberry ice cream and cookies. If the weather is rainy, then we will of course eat in the dining room.
But how much nicer to be on the patio, next to the Irises, which are still in bloom. To have the birds fluttering above and around us in the trees. To be held by the green hand of the forest. And high above, framed by leaves, a blue circle of sky.
So tonight, soup and biscuits with the hope the weather will be clear on Friday for friends and homemade ice cream.
For Clif and me, one of the great pleasures of summer is riding our bikes around Winthrop. We feel extremely fortunate to live in such a beautiful town of lakes, fields, and forests. When we leave our driveway, no matter which way we turn, we have a choice of scenic rides.
Usually we begin riding our bikes in May, perhaps even late April if the weather is warm enough. However this year, because of library brouhaha and gardening, we have gotten a late start and have just begun riding our bikes. But better late than never, and eight slow miles will eventually lead to ten, fourteen, perhaps even twenty miles covered in less time. (I do want to add that speed is never our goal. Clif and I are what might be called steady riders rather than speedy ones.)
One of the reasons that Clif and I like biking so much is that we are very concerned about our carbon footprint. When we bike, the only carbon emissions come from us, a big improvement over our belching car. In the summer, especially, we try to reserve Sunday for a carless day, and we take to our bikes for an outing. We can even stop at a convenience store along the way to pick up the Sunday paper, which is then tucked into my trusty bike bag.
This Sunday, Clif and I went for a bike ride along shimmering Maranacook Lake. Aside from the beauty, we like this ride for a number of reasons—the road is relatively flat, there are lots of other bikers and walkers, and the traffic is slow.
On this ride, there is even a sign to encourage car and truck drivers to watch out for bikers and walkers.
There is Maranacook Lake, gleaming beside us as we ride.
This time of year the lupines are in bloom. Such a cheery burst of purple.
In Maine, the gardens aren’t in full bloom yet, but Joan’s peonies have started to blossom, and although they are not my favorite flower, I couldn’t resist taking a picture of one of them. (Yes, yes, I will admit it. They are lovely. I don’t know why I’m such a grump about peonies.)
Whatever the season, there is always something to notice on this bike ride. My friend Cheryl has observed that a person riding a bike can achieve a perfect speed—faster than walking but slower than a car. On a bike, a rider can cover quite a few miles while still observing the land, the sky, the water, people, and animals.
Even though we are late this year, Clif and I still have many months ahead of us for biking. Let the season commence.
Yesterday was an exciting day for the Bailey Library Expanding Our Boundaries Campaign Team. We have reached the million-dollar goal of our campaign, and we were able to add two books indicating this on our sign outside the library. Oh, happy day!
What an achievement for a town of 6,000 with only a handful of businesses. The road has been long and, at times, very bumpy, but we did it thanks to awesome fund raising by the entire team and awesome grant writing by Liz Sienko, Mary Jane Auns, and George Ames. (Because of changes in work orders, we still have about $60,000 more to go, but the team feels confident that it can raise this additional money.)
Richard Fortin, the library director, places the last book
Roger Lajeunesse, a campaign member, peels the sticker
After adding the last two books to the sign, we had a pizza party for the campaign team. Before, whenever we had a campaign-team gathering, it was in the original library’s fireplace room, which was crammed with bookshelves and tables. Now, we have an honest-to-God meeting room with two long beautiful oak tables that can comfortably seat twenty people. We have a big table in the adjoining events room where food can be served buffet style. How roomy and comfortable it all is and how much these rooms add to the library.
Much-deserved pizza for the team
Sometimes, I still can’t believe we have this lovely expanded library for our town. As Shane-Malcolm Billings, the adult services librarian, likes to point out, with an average of 3,000 books being borrowed each month, books are still very much the center of Bailey Library. This is as it should be, and it warms my heart to think about how much Winthrop reads.
However, what the expanded library allows is plenty of room to hold events, and this summer is chock-full of activities for children and adults. Between books (and DVDs) being borrowed and the expanded space for events, it is my guess that Bailey Library will soon become the cultural center for the town.
When I think about this, all the hard work seems so worthwhile. (I must also admit that I am completely exhausted by all the library brouhaha and the wrangling with the town council about money for operating the library. )
But, there. Now that the grand opening is behind us and the budget is set for another year, I should be able to settle into summer and rest a bit.
I know this might count as bragging, but right now the air at the little house in the big woods is so impossibly sweet that I can’t imagine how it could be sweeter anywhere else. How to describe this smell? Green? Woodland? Nature? Life itself?
If I could bottle this smell and sell it, then I would be a very rich woman indeed. People would clamor for it. I know they would. But unfortunately—or perhaps fortunately—this smell cannot be reproduced, not even by the cleverest chemist. This means that only a very small group of people, family and friends, have the privilege of enjoying this green, woodland smell at the little house in the big woods.
This morning, after hanging laundry, I took photos as I do nearly every day. It has become my practice, and through this practice I hope to become a better photographer.
The sweet smell of summer was all around me as I took pictures of flowers, the woods, and insects. The smell enveloped me until I felt as though it were holding me in its hand, and it seemed to encourage me to look closer and closer at what I was photographing.
From a distance, gardens and flowers, plants, and even insects can be beautiful, but close up they are strikingly interesting. How often do we slow down for a closer look? Not often enough, I think. Most of the time we are rushing through life, trying to get various chores done.
Photography is a good reminder to slow down, slow down and take a closer look. When the slowing down is combined with the sweet smell of summer, well, you have a combination that cannot be beat.
In Maine, June is typically a cool, rainy month more suitable for say, soup, than for barbecues and time spent on the patio. For those of us who love summer and being outside, June can be a bit of a trial. We want to wear shorts and t-shirts, but instead we are wearing turtle necks and sweaters. (Today, I am actually wearing a corduroy shirt over said sweater and turtle neck. I am determined to use as little heat as possible.) Every year in June my lament is the same, “Where oh where is summer?”
It will come in its own sweet time, I know. Fortunately, while June might be a rainy month, it is also a beautiful month. The leaves and grass are still lush and green. There is just the barest hint of the slug and snail onslaught that begins in earnest during midsummer. But best of all, the irises are in bloom at the little house in the big woods.
Now, I love all flowers—even peonies, those show-offs of the flower world—but irises are my favorite. Because our yard is so shady, many varieties of irises will not grow here, but I have found two very beautiful irises that do not mind partial shade and the damp it brings. Even better, the irises are purple, my favorite color for these lovely flowers.
Why do I love irises so much? I think it’s because they are both bright and elegant, a delight to the eye and soothing as well. Peonies, on the other hand, with their gaudy explosion of bloom and color, are just too darned much. Here I am, here I am, here I am, they shout. Full disclosure: At a friend’s house yesterday, I did admire her peonies, and my compliments were sincere. Still, when it comes to peonies, better her garden than mine.
This morning, before breakfast, I went out in the mist and took some pictures of the irises that have just started blooming in the backyard. Fortunately, the rain has not been heavy enough to beat down the irises. With any luck, there won’t be heavy rains for the next week or so, and the irises will bloom in all their elegant glory, bringing much-needed color to what can be a gray month.
Yesterday, we went to a friend’s retirement party held at the old grange—now the Helen Melledy Hall—in Monmouth. After thirty-five years of teaching high school chemistry, Mr. Knightrogen—aka Stephen Knight—has decided to “throw in his lab coat.” This year is his last year of teaching full time. (He does, however, have a part-time gig this summer in Farmington. You just can’t keep Mr. Knightrogen down.)
The hall was packed with family and friends, and the noise level was astounding. It’s amazing how happy people can make such a sound and a fury.
A view of the crowd and Mr. Knightrogen
Naturally, there were refreshments, and the food was pretty darned good, as my Yankee husband noted. Lots of tasty appetizers.
The spread
I can’t resist sharing this picture of my own contribution to Steve’s party. Yes, a recipe will follow in the next week or two.
Stuffed bread
To round out the refreshments, there was also wine tasting, courtesy of David Gulak, Steve’s future son-in-law. David is one of the owners of Meridians, a wine, beer, and food shop in Fairfield, Maine.
After everyone had plenty of time to eat, talk, and drink, there was a short program where a tearful Steve made a speech. There was also a snappy video, projected large on a back wall, and the video had testimonials from friends and former students as well as stills of Steve’s life as a teacher.
Then, of course, there was cake, made by Emilie Knight, Steve’s daughter.
Last but certainly not least, there was an official recognition from the Maine Legislature of Steve’s retirement and his service to Maine.
A much-deserved accolade for a dedicated and creative teacher. Clif and I have no doubt that with his energy, enthusiasm, and curiosity, Steve will have a fulfilling retirement and will continue to serve the community.
Every day, it seems, is national something or other day, but June 5 just happens to be National Donut Day. I am a donut lover from way, way back, when I worked at Dunkin’ Donuts during those halcyon times when each store had honest-to-God bakers who made donuts fresh every six hours. I ate more donuts than I care to admit, but because I was biking to work—ten miles round trip—I was fit and lean.
In 2008, I wrote a longish essay called “Desperate for Donuts.” In honor of National Donut Day, here are some excerpts, slightly edited, from that piece:
The Good and the Bad
Ironically, they are the perfect shape—a circle, round like a mandala, the symbol of eternity—and this should make them the perfect food. But fried in oil, perhaps drenched in glaze, covered with sugar, frosted, or even plain, they are not good for you. Not even a little bit.
Then there is their status. Jill Lightner, a West Coast writer, has called them the “dumb blonde of the pastry world. ” Patric Kuh, another West Coast writer, described them as a “street thug…strutting past Madeleine and Éclair.” There are also all the donut/cop jokes that have become so ubiquitous they are now clichés.
But…there is something about fried dough that transcends its lowly status, that crosses class lines, that worms its way into people’s appetites, even though they might not like to admit it. Simply put, fried dough is delicious, and donuts are the epitome of fried dough. There is nothing more sublime, say, than a raised donut, newly fried, dipped in glaze, and eaten just as soon as that glaze has dried.
A Brief History of Donuts
“When it comes to donuts New England is a place apart.” —John T. Edge, Donuts, An American Passion
New England can reasonably claim to be the epicenter of the American donut world, and its donut tradition stretches all the way back to the Pilgrims, who, after staying in Holland, brought fried dough, which the Dutch called olykoeks (oily cakes), to the New World. These ur-donuts had no holes, were yeasted, and had raisins, apples, and almonds in them. John T. Edge…has described them as “deep fried fruitcake.” A daunting thought, but I would certainly give them a try if the opportunity presented itself. Naturally, as the Dutch settled New York, they brought their olykoeks to this region as well, and fried dough had a firm foothold in what would become the thirteen colonies.
According to legend, Sea Captain Hanson Crockett Gregory, from Rockport, Maine, invented the hole in the donut sometime in the mid-1800s. Out at sea, with a holeless, olykoek-type donut in one hand and the ship’s wheel in the other, he supposedly stuck the donut on the spoke of the wheel, thus inventing the donut hole. Is this true? Only Captain Gregory knew for sure, but he somehow managed to convince the Boston Post his story was true and was duly accorded fame for his “invention.”
From there, donuts, complete with holes, went international, and they did so in a most unusual way—they went to France during World War I with the Salvation Army. Here again, we have the stuff of legend. In 1917, four Lassies (as the women in the Salvation Army were called) traveled to the camp of the 1st Ammunition Train in France. The soldiers wanted pie, but there were no bake ovens for the Lassies to use. However, they did have a kettle, oil, and the ingredients for donuts. From that first day, when two of the Lassies fried 150 donuts, word spread, and other Lassies soon began making donuts for the troops. Eventually, Lassies, often only two of them, would go on to make as many as 2,500 in one day for the grateful soldiers. Hence, the term “doughboy” was born. You might die miserably in the trench or be poisoned by mustard gas, but at least there were donuts to be had before the horrors of battle. It wasn’t much, but it was something.
A Donut Tour
“We devalue the things that give us pleasure.” —John T. Edge
I have a dream, a fantasy of sorts, that John T. Edge, a food writer who hails from the South, would come as far north as central Maine and that we would go on a donut tour together. We would start in Augusta, at Bolley’s Famous Franks, early in the morning when their donuts…are still warm. Taking time to savor Bolley’s tender, old-fashioned cinnamon donuts, we would then hurry to Frosty’s in Gardiner…marveling at the oh-so-fresh honey-dipped donuts.
From there it would be off to Willow Bake Shoppe in Rockport, whose cake donuts are impossibly tender and whose chocolate donuts are satisfyingly rich. I would perhaps introduce “wicked good” into Edge’s vocabulary. After all these donuts we would need a bit of a break, and Camden, on a sparkling day, would be the perfect place to rest. Finding a bench in the park overlooking the shimmering harbor, we would discuss the various donuts we had eaten, and I expect Edge would want to compare them to donuts he has eaten in other parts of the country. But in the end, Edge would return to a line from his own Donuts: An American Passion. That is, when it comes to donuts, New England is a place apart.
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Notes From the Hinterland 