I know. Readers are probably thinking, “What in the world is it with this woman and cupcakes? And vegan as well? Hold the icing!” The truth of the matter is, even though I’ve written quite a bit about cupcakes, primarily for Wolf Moon Journal, they are not my favorite dessert. Donuts, pies, and cookies have a much greater pull on me than cupcakes ever could. But last summer, at a Taste of Brunswick event in, of course, Brunswick, Maine, I became smitten by 111 Maine’s cupcakes—moist chocolate topped by a whipped butter cream icing that hovered impossibly between firm and melted. But still, as a rule, I would choose cheesecake over cupcakes anytime. 

However, cupcakes seem to be constantly insinuating their way into my awareness. This time, it was via an article in the New York Times about how Chloe Coscarelli, a twenty-two-year-old vegan chef, won the final round of the Food Network’s show Cupcake Wars. Those tempted to sneer should know that Coscarelli won “a $10,000 prize and the chance to supply the cupcakes for an OK! magazine celebrity event.” 

Even though I am not a cupcake fanatic, I would be interested in trying Coscarelli’s cupcakes and would even consider making them. But for me, the larger issue is cooking vegan, and Coscarelli has a website and blog that feature recipes that go beyond cupcakes. There is every indication that a vegan diet, one based on plants, is healthier for the planet and for its people. Raising animals for meat and dairy uses a lot of energy, and many of the diseases we associate with developed countries—heart attacks, diabetes, and some kinds of cancer—can be linked to a high-fat, high cholesterol diet. Michael Pollan advocates eating mostly plants, as does Mark Bittman, and it seems to me that they are on the right track. 

Now, I am not going to renounce butter and eggs. I will continue to eat fish and chicken in moderation. Occasionally, I will eat beef. But I am going to check out Coscarelli’s website and try some of her vegan techniques. It’s good for old cooks to learn new tricks, especially if those tricks are healthy and delicious.

Because of the early season and the heat, my flower gardens are looking a little shabby. However, as consolation, we have the beautiful colors of late summer vegetables. Since I live in the woods, I can’t grow many of my own. However, Winthrop has a thriving little Farmers’ Market, where Farmer Kev and other vendors sell their fruit and vegetables, and I am able to get most of my fresh food, including meat, at this market. I also go to Stevenson’s, a small stand in Winthrop open seven days a week, and between the market and the stand, this time of year I buy very little produce from the grocery store.

Along with the wonderful, fresh tastes are the wonderful colors. I was so taken with the different colors of the various vegetables that I arranged them in a basket so that my husband, Clif, could take a picture. Except for the red peppers, which I bought at Stevenson’s, all the vegetables came from Farmer Kev’s stand.

Yesterday, from the Bowdoin Daily Sun, I received a link to an excellent guide to eating seafood from Food & Water Watch. We all know that seafood can and should be part of a healthy diet. (The excellent health of Japanese women can be partly tied to their love of seafood.) However, because of pollution and overfishing, some seafood is better than others. 

Food & Water Watch have compiled a list that addresses specific seafood and its impact on both human health and the environment. A pocket guide can be downloaded, and there is also a quick, handy guide on the website for different kinds of seafood. I was very happy to discover that three of my favorites—haddock, wild salmon, and lobster—get a check of approval for human and environmental health. 

This means I can eat lobster rolls and haddock with a clear conscience. Delicious, good for you, and not bad for the environment. A triple run!

Long, long ago, Maine used to be the breadbasket of New England. I kid you not. This was in the 1800s, before people headed west for greener pastures. However, there is a grain-growing, bread-making renaissance in Maine, culminating with a Kneading Conference in none other than Skowhegan, the mill town where my parents grew up. 

I had hoped to make it to this year’s Kneading Conference, but my schedule just didn’t allow for this to happen. When I read Marian Burros’s recent piece in the New York Times about the conference and the resurgence of grain growing and bread making in Maine, I was doubly sorry that I wasn’t able to go. 

Next year, I hope. In the meantime, I’ll be making bread.

Doomsday prophecies are nothing new. The end of our world has been predicted many times, yet onward it spins, with an ever-growing human population. Sea levels are rising, Earth’s temperature is rising, and, in response, animals and plants are slowly migrating north. (Oh, the changes I have seen since I was a child in central Maine. Believe it or not, there was nary a Japanese beetle to plague us.) But so far, at least, our little lives go on much as they always have. We work, we play, we raise our families. And we consume. Boy, do we Americans consume. 

Now, environmentalists can be a gloomy lot, and end-of-the-world, doomer predictions play right into their pessimism. It is hardly surprising that people with sunnier, more optimistic natures tend to dismiss these predictions, especially when we haven’t had any great, worldwide catastrophes in recent times. 

No one, of course, can say for certain what the future will bring, and we humans are endlessly inventive. However, just because we haven’t had a recent worldwide catastrophe, doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be concerned about the way people—especially those of us in rich countries—are depleting resources. Earth has a finite supply of water, land, and resources. The more people there are, the less there is to go around. This is only common sense, a homely virtue that often seems to be in short supply. Those of us who are concerned about food—and shouldn’t we all be?—often wonder how in the world everyone is going to eat if the human population goes ever upward. 

In yesterday’s New York Times, Mark Bittman reviewed Julian Cribb’s book The Coming Famine: The Global Food Crisis and What We Can Do to Avoid It.  Since I haven’t read the book, I can’t make direct comments on it, but here is a short excerpt from Bittman’s review: “Much of ‘The Coming Famine’ builds an argument that we’ve jumped off a cliff and that global chaos — a tidal wave of people fleeing their own countries for wherever they can find food — is all but guaranteed. The rest of the book concentrates on catching an outcropping of rock with a finger and scrambling back up. The writing is neither personality-filled nor especially fluid, but the sheer number of terrifying facts makes the book gripping.” 

Not a fun read, by any means, but The Coming Famine will be going on my to-be-read pile. And, there are things as individuals that we can do. Bittman writes “Dietary change is primary, and can be as simple as eating a salad instead of a cheeseburger and an apple instead of a bag of chips. Waste less food. Compost. Garden, even if (or especially if) you live in a city. Choose sustainable food, including fish. And so on.” 

I’m preaching to the choir, I know, but let’s face it—this mindful path toward food is not always an easy path to follow. It is often more expensive and more work, and most of us like to eat fat, salt, and meat. Restraint is not always easy, but our own health and the health of our planet could very well hinge on restraint.

This is not a food picture, but I couldn’t resist sharing it. Besides, a little digression now and then adds interest not only to blogs but also to life.

I took this picture of my daughter Shannon and her bridesmaid, Andrea Maddi, just before the wedding. They were both a little jittery, and I thought that maybe some prewedding meditation and breathing would calm them down and lighten the mood as well.

“Put your hands together,” I instructed. “Close your eyes. Breathe in, breathe out.”

They did as they were instructed, and I snapped a picture of them.

And by gum, I think it had the desired effect. Afterward, we all laughed, and Shannon and Andrea weren’t quite as jittery.

August 14^th, the day of our daughter Shannon’s wedding, was one of those lovely, clear days that tourists who vacation in Maine dream about. The day was warm, but not too hot, there was hardly a cloud in the bright blue sky, and the humidity was low. All summer brides (and grooms!) wish for such weather for their weddings. 

The actual ceremony was held outside (another reason to be thankful for nice weather) under a large pavilion. Shannon’s boss, who is a justice of the peace, performed the ceremony, and everything was as splendid as the weather. Andrea Maddi, one of the bridesmaids, read an Apache prayer. Claire Hersom, the groom’s aunt, read one of her poems. Then, there was a receiving line, pictures, the meal, and dancing. Lots of dancing. 

In fact, like the preceding week, it all seems a blur—a bit like Christmas where a lot of preparation goes into one day that seems to pass in a flash. Many of the guests have commented on how “glowing” both Shannon and Mike were. How true! They both looked so happy to be getting married. As I have told many of my friends, Mike and Shannon are very devoted to each other, and while it may be old-fashioned and not terribly romantic, I believe it is this devotion that will help them through the hard times that inevitably come into all people’s lives. 

Anyway, a beautiful day for our family and for the many dear friends who came to celebrate it with us. And I am now a mother-in-law. 

However, as a foodie, it would be remiss of me not to relate a conversation I had the following day with a young man named Chris, one of the guests. A small group of us, including Mike and Shannon, went to Riverside Farm Market & Café in Oakland for brunch the day after the wedding. Riverside Market sits on the edge of fields, gardens, and, yes, a vineyard. Beyond the fields, gardens, and vineyard, the Messalonskee river flashes and glitters as it flows by Riverside Market. In an area of Maine known for its pastoral prospects (as well as its mills), it would be hard to find a more pleasing view. 

Along with growing grapes, which is made into wine, Riverside Market grows much of what they serve, and all the food is fresh and well prepared. I love going there for brunch and am especially keen on their eggs Benedict. The poached eggs are plump and perfect, and the hollandaise sauce is smooth and rich. My husband, Clif, sat on one side of me, and Chris, the aforementioned guest, sat on the other. 

Chris now lives in Washington, D.C., but he is originally from Louisiana, where his parents run an organic farm that features grass-fed cattle. Chris is a foodie, and as he had never been to Maine, he was eager to try lobster rolls and real maple syrup, both for the first time. (When our server heard this, she shook her head in surprise. For Mainers, real maple syrup is almost a birthright.) 

On the way to Shannon’s wedding, Chris had stopped in Freeport to have a lobster roll. “But I didn’t get a good one,” he said. 

“Oh, no?” I replied, wondering what was wrong with it. “Tell me about the lobster roll.” 

“Well, it was stuffed full of lobster meat, but there was no sauce, nothing to go on top of it.” 

Spoken like a true son of Louisiana, where most things, even the seafood, are served with some kind of hot, spicy sauce. Laughing, I told Chris that in all likelihood he had had a perfectly fine lobster roll, that we “Yankees” tended to like our seafood straight up and plain, and indeed there is some virtue in this. Too many spices can easily overcome the delicate flavor of seafood, especially when it comes to lobster. Enlightened, Chris vowed to give lobster rolls another try, keeping in mind there would be no spicy sauce on top. 

With maple syrup, which Chris had for the first time with his blueberry pancakes at Riverside Market, it was quite another matter—love at first taste. And a triumph for Maine. A maple-syrup convert. 

So the wedding is now over, and a happy day it was. I hope to have a few pictures, not all of them food related, to post sometime soon.

This week, as the saying goes, has been a blur. My daughter, Shannon, is getting married on Saturday, and the week has been filled with all manner of folderol as we prepare for the big day. My eldest daughter, Dee, who lives in New York, came home last Saturday so that she could help, and my husband, Clif, has taken the week off.

There are programs to print, favor bags to assemble, a stuff-the-party-favors simple supper to host, a bridesmaid luncheon to prepare, and all the other things that go with a wedding. Simply put, it’s a rather lot of work getting a daughter married, but it is also an event that is bringing great pleasure to the family. Mike, Shannon’s fiancé, loves books and movies and Shakespeare. He fits right in with our family.

For the simple supper, on Thursday, we plan on having burritos, grapes, hummus with pita bread, and all the little accompaniments—salsa, chips, and sour cream. I’m also thinking of making a green salad with apples, goat cheese, and roasted walnuts. For dessert, we will have frosted cocoa squares, easy to make and pretty tasty.

On Friday, for the bridesmaid luncheon, I will be making a chicken tarragon salad, a strawberry and kiwi salad, and little sandwiches with pesto, fresh mozzarella, and tomatoes. For dessert, one of my old standbys—lemon-frosted shortbread.

If we have presence of mind, we will take pictures of the spreads to post on the blog.

Then, it’s on to the rehearsal dinner, which we are not hosting, and the wedding day itself.

Onward and upward!

This summer, thanks to Tubby’s, my husband, Clif, and I have spent more on ice cream than we ever have. Normally, we go out a few times each summer for ice cream. Nowadays, with Tubby’s right in town, we try to keep it to a few times a week. As I noted in a previous post, Clif and I ride our bikes nearly every night, and as luck would have it, most of the routes we take seem to go right by Tubby’s. After riding ten, twelve, or eighteen miles, how can we resist stopping? Too often, we don’t, and my favorite flavor is Pucker Up, a lemon ice cream that is the right balance of tart and sweet with an intense lemon flavor. 

However, in the Dining & Wine section of today’s New York Times, I read a piece that gave me a bit of comfort. In “You Scream, I Scream…at the Price of Ice Cream,” Julia Moskin writes about the high price of artisan ice cream and gelato, and how a place called Grom, in Manhattan, charges $5.25 for a small cone. Moskin considers $2.95 for a small cone to be “a relative bargain ” and notes that it is possible to get good ice cream at that price. 

If memory serves me correctly, at Tubby’s a small cone, dubbed a “Baby Bear,” costs about $2.95. Now I can think of it as “a relative bargain” and not feel so bad about indulging a few times a week.  

Also in the Dining & Wine section is a piece about making ice cream—“Egg-Free Ice Cream Lets Flavors Bloom.” And, there is an interactive feature, “Notes from the Ice Cream Taste Test,” where “The Dining section conducted a blind taste test of 11 kinds of strawberry ice cream.” I was a bit surprised by the winner, but then that is often the case with blind taste tests. The unexpected and the cheaper often win.

Well, late summer is here, and what better time is there to enjoy ice cream at a stand where it is made in small batches? Along with summer itself, ice cream is a fleeting joy, too soon gone, but oh so sweet. Fall will be arriving shortly, and after that, well, we know what comes after that. In the meantime, let’s raise our ice creams in tribute to summer, in all its warm, green glory.