Category Archives: Food

Oh, Artichoke Dip!

July 7, 2016 Laurie Graves 11 Comments

Being a foodie, I love cuisines from many cultures, but one of my favorites is Mediterranean food. To my way of thinking, basil, olive oil, and garlic form a holy trinity, and in my little herb garden, I am happy to report that my basil that is growing very well. I also love sage, oregano, rosemary, lemons, feta, olives, and artichoke hearts. I get positively dreamy over the thought of going to Italy or southern France or Greece and eating the glorious food.

Therefore, when my friend Jill told me she was bringing artichoke dip for our Fourth of July gathering, I could have jumped for joy, if my creaky knees had allowed me to do so. I have never met an artichoke dip I haven’t adored. With spinach, with cream cheese, with crab—it’s all good.

However, Jill’s artichoke dip, made from a recipe given to her by her mother, is one of the best of I’ve ever had—smooth, creamy, a little garlicky, with bits of chopped artichoke hearts. I could have some right now, and I will be making this dip to bring to an upcoming appetizer night we’ve been invited to.

Jill has graciously allowed me to post the recipe. It can be served with carrots or other raw vegetables, crackers, or toasted pita bread brushed with olive oil. And on a warm summer’s night, as you are drinking wine and eating this dip, you can pretend you are in the Mediterranean, where the sky and the sea are bright blue and the food is oh so good.

Jill’s luscious artichoke dip next to Alice's beautiful salad. — Jill’s luscious artichoke dip next to Alice’s beautiful salad.

Hot Artichoke Dip

Servings: 16 servings, 2 Tbsp. each

1 can (14 oz.) artichoke hearts, drained and chopped
2/3 cup mayonnaise
1/3 cup sour cream
1 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1 clove garlic, minced
1 dash hot sauce

Heat oven to 350°F.
Mix ingredients until blended.
Spread onto bottom of 1 quart oven-safe serving dish.
Bake 20 to 25 minutes or until lightly browned.
Serve with rye bread, pita chips, or fresh vegetables.

Food

A Very Happy Fourth with Appetizers and Dessert

July 4, 2016 Laurie Graves 13 Comments

Today, the weather for the Fourth of July is about as perfect as it can get—sunny, warm but not too hot, with a bright blue sky. Because of my creaky knees—aka arthritis—we decided to simplify our Fourth of July gathering this year and celebrate with an appetizer and dessert party. There will just be two seatings, which means far less running up and down the stairs for me. Tomorrow, my knees will be so happy.

Besides, as my daughter Shannon noted, who doesn’t like an appetizer party? I know I sure do. A little bit of this, a little bit of that. Everything prepared ahead of time so that I can just relax when the guests come. And even though we don’t look like it, Clif and I have gotten to the point where we can’t eat as much as we did when we were younger. A good thing, too, because if we did, then we’d be in real trouble.

Here is the menu: Chopped salad and dough for grilled bread (Alice); devilled eggs and artichoke dip (Jill); a salsa and cream cheese spread, tortilla chips, cheese and crackers, and grapes (Clif and me). For dessert, homemade vanilla ice cream pie with a blueberry sauce and a strawberry sauce (both sauces are also homemade).

The ice cream pie has become a Fourth of July tradition at the little house in the big woods.

Ice cream pie from a previous Fourth of July celebration

A very happy Fourth to all American readers!

Animals - especially dogs, Flowers, Food

Tortilla Pizzas and a Backyard Monarch

July 1, 2016 Laurie Graves 10 Comments

While it might not be accurate to state that Clif and I eat lunch at the little house in the big woods 365 days a year, it’s not far from the truth. Clif and I live on a tiny budget, and eating at home is far more economical than eating out. The upside of this is that when we do eat out, we really enjoy it. The downside is that sometimes it’s a challenge to come up with different lunches that don’t require a lot of time to fix and can be made from ingredients we have on hand.

Yesterday I said to Clif, “I’m in the mood for a tortilla pizza.”

As we have never made tortilla pizzas, this was a strange thing to say, but we had all the necessary ingredients—pizza sauce, cheese, and tortilla shells.

However, “All the sauce is frozen,” I said.

As I have mentioned previously, one of the things I love about Clif is that he is always ready for a cooking lark. “No problem,” he replied. “We can microwave the sauce until it’s thawed.”

This we did, and then came the next phase. “How about we grill them?” I asked. “Everything tastes better grilled.”

Clif was agreeable, and we were off. He spread sauce on the tortilla shells, sprinkled a blend of cheese—mozzarella, cheddar, and Parmesan—and out to the patio he went. I followed with plates, drinks, and napkins. We were not going to miss a chance to eat outside.

To borrow from Clif, those grilled tortilla pizzas were pretty darned good—brown and crunchy on the bottom with a pleasing blend of sauce and cheese on top.

As if that weren’t enough, while the pizzas were cooking, the sun went behind a cloud, and I could tell that the lighting was perfect for taking pictures of buds and blooms.

A sole survivor of skunks and lily beetles

But the cherry on the sundae, so to speak, was when a small monarch winged into the garden. No, not a butterfly. Instead, a dragonfly burnished with gold.

Quite a day at the little house in the big woods.

Food, Nature, People

The Best Lobster Rolls, Ever: Father’s Day Part II

June 20, 2016 Laurie Graves 19 Comments

Yesterday—thanks to Shannon and Mike—Clif and I had a glorious meal of lobster rolls from the Lighthouse Wine & Seafood Market in Manchester, Maine. (You might call this delicious treat Father’s Day, Part II, with me benefiting as much as Clif.) We both decided those lobster rolls were the best we’d ever had—chunks of sweet Maine lobster held together with just a hint of mayonnaise and absolutely nothing else.

Some foodies, usually from away, will proclaim that traditional lobster rolls are too plain and should be jazzed up with, say, chives or chopped lettuce or chopped peppers. Simply put, they are wrong. Maine lobster is as close to perfection as food can get, and lobster rolls need only bread, lobster, and a bit of mayo. Case closed.

The rolls were so large and delicious that when we finished eating, Clif took a nap on the living room couch, and I did what I love to do most in the summer—sit on the patio, read, smell the flowers, watch and listen to the creatures who come to the backyard, hear the wind move through the trees, and take pictures.

A perfectly delightful way to spend an afternoon, and what with all the yard work and other chores I’ve had, yesterday was the first time since last summer that I was really able to sit on the patio and watch and listen. To borrow from Mozart, a more delightful way to spend the afternoon I cannot imagine. It never, ever gets old.

Here are some of the creatures I saw yesterday in my backyard.

What a weekend! All would have been perfect if on Saturday night, Sherlock hadn’t dropped a live mouse on the floor in the living room as we were watching Game of Thrones. The mouse ran under the couch, and then to parts unknown. However, on Sunday morning, the cats were crouched by one of hutches in the dining room, and we left the dining room door open for most of the day. I can only hope that the mouse found its way outside, and as we haven’t seen any more crouching cats looking under furniture, I feel fairly optimistic.

Once again, I was reminded that perfection is only for the gods, not for humans, and into every life comes the equivalent of little mice running about the house. So while we can eat lobster rolls, let us eat lobster rolls.

Food, Nature

Rough Winds Do Shake the Darling Buds of Irises

June 13, 2016 Laurie Graves 18 Comments

For the past four or five days, the weather has been terrible in central Maine. We’ve had lashing rain, violent thunder storms followed by a hideous wind that doesn’t seem to know when to stop blowing. (If I wanted Indiana weather, I’d move to Indiana.) Fortunately, the wind hasn’t been strong enough to blow over trees on top of power lines and houses, but it has certainly been rough on the my darling irises.

However, I’ve been able to prop up most of them so that they still look reasonably good.

With trees creaking all around us, the wind pretty much keeps us inside. Yesterday, when our friends Cheryl and Denny came over for pizza, Clif couldn’t grill the pizzas outside because the wind was blowing too hard. But lucky us! His oven-cooked pizza is pretty darned good.

Nevertheless, we are chomping at the bit, as the saying goes, to eat outside, to spend time on the patio. But until the wind settles down, it will be eating inside at the dining room table for us.

cooking, Food

National Donut Day, In which Clif, Alice, and I Make Donuts

June 3, 2016 Laurie Graves 19 Comments

Today, this first Friday in June, is National Donut Day. Earlier this week I said to Clif, “Let’s make donuts in honor of National Donut Day. And let’s invite Alice. She’s going to be in town this Friday.”

“All right,” Clif answered blithely, knowing as well I did that it had been a long, long time since we had made donuts and that we might be just a teensy weensy bit rusty. But one of the things I especially love about Clif is that he is always up for a cooking adventure, especially when it involves his deep fryer.

Alice accepted the invitation, and the game was on.

Alice is one of those friends that everyone should have. We are very good buddies, and I have known her long enough so that if there was a disaster with donuts, it would be all right. We would just laugh about it.

Since Alice planned to come over around 11:30, I decided we should have a little lunch first, so I put together a platter of homemade chicken salad, which we gobbled up.

Then, it was on to donuts, and while it wasn’t exactly a disaster, we did have a few difficulties, the first being that I didn’t read the directions thoroughly. I dumped all the flour in the bowl at once, and this made it difficult for my little hand mixer to mix the dough properly. But the biggest kerfuffle was that the dough was too sticky for the donut cutters, and the dough stuck stubbornly inside the cutters.

Okay, more flour. Still too sticky. A little more flour. The donuts came out with a thump, but they were a weird shape.

Alice said, “My mother used to shake them into her hand.”

I tried doing this, and success!

“What was your mother’s name?” I asked Alice.

“Dorothy, but she liked to be called Dottie.”

“Thank you, Dottie,” I said, smiling and looking upward.

With a firmer dough and Dottie’s method, we were finally in donut-making business, with me cutting the donuts, Clif frying them, and Alice rolling them in sugar and cinnamon.

When we were done, we had two fine plates of donuts, and we settled around the dining room table with coffee and tea to go with the donuts.

When warm, the donuts were delicious. However, as they cooled, they became a little too crusty for my taste. When I mentioned this to Clif, he said that the next time we made donuts, he would not fry them as long.

This just goes to show that even with something as seemingly simple as donuts, practice is required to get them just right.

Over the next year, we’ll be making half-batches of donuts so that they will come out exactly the way we want. That way, when National Donut Day rolls around in 2017, Clif and I won’t be such a bumbling team.

Food, Movies

Mother’s Day: Of Pancakes, Chocolate Strawberries, and a Movie

May 9, 2016 Laurie Graves 10 Comments

This Mother’s Day was a quiet one for Clif and me. For the first time in many years, we had neither daughter to celebrate the day with us. After sighing sadly, I decided we would still celebrate with simple pleasures, which is how we celebrate all special days. And so we did.

In the morning, Clif made pancakes for breakfast, and while I know it’s bragging, I must say that his are the absolute best. Period.

After pancakes, while we were cleaning the kitchen, the doorbell rang. Puzzled as to who would be at the door on Mother’s Day, I answered it and discovered it was a Federal Express delivery. There was a package for me, from Shari’s Berries. My heart skipped a beat. Chocolate-covered strawberries! Sent to me by Shannon, who when she called to wish me a happy Mother’s Day, admitted she was a little blue not to be here, and she wanted me to have something sweet. While chocolate-covered strawberries could never take Shannon’s place, I will admit they were a sweet consolation. Shari’s Berries makes wonderful chocolate-covered strawberries, with berries that are so sweet and ripe. A real treat.

I also want to add that from each daughter, I received a gift certificate to a local greenhouse. Another perfect gift as they know how much I love flowers.

Because the day was rainy, Clif and I decided to go to Railroad Square in Waterville to see a movie—The Congressman with Treat Williams. This amiable movie is about, well, a Maine congressman, Charlie Winship, who doesn’t stand during the pledge of allegiance—he was busy doing paperwork—and the ensuing brouhaha . The Congressman was actually filmed in Maine, much of it on beautiful Monhegan Island, where WInship goes to help settle a fishing dispute. This might sound like an odd thing to praise, but indeed most movies and television series set in Maine are not filmed here, and boy oh boy it doesn’t take Mainers long to figure this out.

While The Congressman examines serious issues—free speech, the undue influence of lobbyists and the right wing as well as the overfishing of the ocean—this movie skims the surface the way rocks skip over water in a pond. Treat Williams is a very appealing actor, and he had his Jimmy Stewart moment when he expanded on freedom of speech. Heck, he even quoted Margaret Chase Smith, a beloved Maine senator who stood up to the bully Joseph McCarthy. But nothing really seemed at stake in this predictable movie. Nevertheless, both Clif and I enjoyed it, and so, it seems, did many other people—the large cinema was three-quarters full. After all, predictable isn’t always bad.

Railroad Square's new permaculture garden — Railroad Square’s new permaculture garden

When we got home, there was one more treat in store—crab salad sandwiches and hand-cut fries. I was so eager to eat this supper that I forgot to take a picture, but, readers, let me assure you, the sandwich and fries were pretty darned good.

So even though both girls live too far to celebrate Mother’s Day with me, all in all, it was a nice Mother’s Day.

Food, Nature

Arbor Day: Celebrating Trees on a Street

April 29, 2016 Laurie Graves 18 Comments

Happy Arbor Day! How fitting that a day should be set aside to honor trees.

According to the website Treehugger, “Arbor Day is generally observed on the last Friday of April.” It comes just one week after Earth Week, and so very appropriate as trees, along with the ocean, are vital for life on this planet. “Arbor Day in the United States was officially designated in Nebraska in 1872 – pioneers moving to the treeless plains realized they needed trees for things like fruit, windbreaks, fuel, building materials and shade.” Treehugger lists twenty “random” reasons to love trees, from providing food and shelter to giving “us something to look up to, literally.”

With this in mind, Clif and I headed to Gardiner, to A1 Diner for lunch, and then to take pictures of city trees. We, of course, have trees galore at the little house in the big woods, but I wanted a different aspect of trees.

At A1 Diner, how good the food was, especially those fries. (Readers, I did not eat the chips. To tell the truth, with that platter of golden fries before us, I wasn’t even tempted.)

Let’s just say that even without the chips, we were quite full. Nevertheless, Clif perused the beer at Craft Beer Cellar, and while he did that, I photographed some of the trees on Gardiner’s main street. Trees do not exactly dominate the street, but they are present, in their own lovely way.

Trees, trees, trees, with their wood and needles and flowers and leaves. What would we do without them?

Food

To A1 Diner We Went: There and Back Again

April 2, 2016 Laurie Graves 22 Comments

Yesterday, on a gray day perfect for going out for lunch, we went to A1 Diner in Gardiner. (Thanks, Shannon and MIke for the gift certificate.)

A1, as it is locally called, really is a diner car, perched on the edge of a rather steep drop-off.

Like the outside, the inside of the diner is a trip back in time. Need I add that this is one of our favorite places in central Maine?

The food is fresh and tasty, and oh, the fries!

The chicken sandwich was pretty darned good, too.

After lunch, we went to Craft Beer Cellar, where we used yet another gift certificate. (Again, thanks Mike and Shannon.)

As Clif is the one who likes beer—I’m more of a cocktail kind of woman—he perused the selection while I chatted with John, the owner of the store. We talked about Gardiner’s main street, how it has gone from being a street with too many empty store fronts to a bustling place with many businesses, which, for now, are thriving.

“The city has been very supportive,” John told me. “None of us would be here without that help.”

Take note other little towns in central Maine, especially those with a less than thriving main street. I’m not going to mention any names. Seeds of growth must be watered and fed before they sprout, and too many town councils are penny wise and pound foolish. (For more about how Gardiner promotes businesses that are apt to stick around, click here to read this piece by centralmaine.com.)

Then it was back home again, where I discovered that the small swamp up the road was finally free of ice. Would there be peepers come nightfall?

No, but there were plenty of clicking frogs. Surely the peepers will soon be singing their spring song.

Food, Movies

What a Clever Couple Are We: A New Snack, Pizza, and Diva

April 1, 2016 Laurie Graves 20 Comments

At the little house in the big woods, the excitement just never ends. Yesterday, Clif and I came up with an idea that was so brilliant we could hardly stop congratulating ourselves. After thirty-nine years of marriage, we discovered…drum roll, please…that we could actually make our very own nutty, crunchy mix at a fraction of the cost of buying it prepackaged.

I know. This sounds like an April Fool’s Day joke, but honest to gory, Clif and I actually did the snack equivalent of reinventing the wheel. Let’s just say that we could never be accused of being fast learners.

The proof is in the picture, and here it is.

For the price of one container of this snack at Target, we bought all the ingredients, which made a very large bowl of crunchy goodness. There is enough left of everything for another bowl with the same amount. We used peanuts, pretzels, and little wheat sticks. Obviously, other goodies could be added—Chex cereal, little rice crackers, almonds, cashews. The list goes on and on.

Our friends Alice and Joel came over for movie night, and we served this snack as an appetizer. Alice and Joel gave us the best praise they could by eagerly digging in. By the time the pizza was ready, there was just a wee bit left in the bowl. I promised our friends that this mix would be served at future gatherings, especially on the patio during the summer.

Movie night has come to mean pizza night, and I know this is bragging, but Clif has developed a very good hand with dough. He knows just how to stretch and flour it so that the pizza is chewy and satisfying. Last night’s pizza was topped with turkey pepperoni, chunks of sweet red pepper, and slices of mushroom. Clif also uses a blend of cheese—cheddar, mozzarella, and Parmesan.

Settling in the living room with our pizza and Alice’s tasty endive-stuffed salad, we watched Diva, a quirky French movie made in the early 1980s. IMDb’s description of this movie is so concise and snappy that I decided I could do no better: “Two tapes, two Parisian mob killers, one corrupt policeman, an opera fan, a teenage thief, and the coolest philosopher ever filmed. All these characters twist their way through an intricate and stylish French language thriller. ”

The only thing I can add to this is that the movie has aged well and doesn’t seem terribly dated. Oh, and the Diva has a magnificent voice that positively soars. One more thing: Diva gets a 96% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. If you haven’t seen this movie, then put it on your watch list.

After the movie, we had warm apple crisp and vanilla ice cream. We discussed the movie and the problems of the world.

A new snack, pizza and salad, a good movie, and apple crisp.

What a way to end March.

Notes From the Hinterland