One of the things I love most about winter is seeing bare branches against a bright blue sky. I never get tired of the stark beauty of the trees silhouetted against the sky. When I walk in the woods, I tend to look up, and I have to be careful I don’t trip. Another thing I like about the bare branches is that they reveal things—such as squirrels’ nests—that are hidden when the trees have leaves.
Here are some pictures I took recently.
Last Friday, I drove to Portland for a book launch party for Talking Walls: Discover Your World, written by my friend Margy Burns Knight. (Clif was supposed to go, but he had caught a nasty virus and quite sensibly stayed home.) The party was held at Mainely Frames & Gallery, right on Congress Street, and the whole store was decked out with Talking Walls related displays—from art work by the talented Anne Sibley O’Brien, who illustrated the book, to a mannequin “reading” Talking Walls in the big window at the front of the store.
That Friday was also Portland’s First Friday Art Walk, and Congress Street had the air of a carnival. Lots of people were on the street, and many stores were open, featuring art displays and offering free food. There were even street artists, set up with little stands to display their art. Where else but in Maine would anyone even think of doing this in February? I wish I had had some extra money. I would have bought something from one of those plucky street artists.
I did, of course, buy a copy of Talking Walls, and it was beautifully signed—I mean this literally—by Anne Sibley O’Brien and Margy Knight. This book will go to Sara, a young woman who will soon be having a baby. I have known Sara since she was a little girl. I went to her wedding several years ago, and now I am going to her baby shower. And, as I’ve mentioned previously, when I go to baby showers, I like to bring books as presents.
The food at the reception was made by Margy’s daughter, Emilie Knight and her partner, David Gulak. The food was delicious, especially a blueberry ricotta spread with balsamic vinegar and roasted garlic. Using what I think might be the right proportions, I will definitely try making this spread at home. Emilie and David are starting a catering service called Knilak’s Catering, and their business is so new that it doesn’t have a website yet. However, for information about catering, Emilie can be reached at emilie.m.knight@gmail.com.
Lots of people came to the book launch party, and many of them were Margy’s friends from central Maine. Books, good food, friends, and art. What a fine way to spend a clear, cold night in February.
I’m going to end this post where I began, with Talking Walls. Here is a quotation about the book from Margy’s website: “Visit walls of joy and of sadness, walls built to protect people or to keep them apart.”
Yes, indeed.
A fine, cold day. The windows are frosted, and the snow in our yard still glitters. Today, there will be a walk with the dog in the woods, and I’ll bundle up with hat, head band, neck warmer, warm coat, leggings, and warm gloves. I’ll also bring my camera. The other day, I took a picture of bittersweet on snow, and it came out so well that I’m going to print it and see whether it will be a good photo for a card. During the course of the year, I send and give lots of cards made with photos I have taken. I have estimated that I give nearly 100 photo-cards in any given year. Birthdays and anniversaries. Sympathy cards. Thank-you cards. Notes just to say hi. Bundles of cards given as gifts. On Monday, I brought “flowers”— five note cards with pictures of flowers—to my friend Esther, who hasn’t been feeling well. So the moral of this story is that when I go out, I almost always bring my camera with me. You never know when you’re going to get a good picture.
From Sustainable America: Ten things to do with stale bread.
From Bill Moyers & Company: Amy B. Dean interviews Michael Pollan, who maintains our food is dishonestly priced.
From Eating Well: A recipe for clementine and five-spice chicken. Just reading the recipe made me hungry.
From the Good Shepherd Food-Bank’s blog: Heat or eat?
From Maine Today: Soup recipes from the blog Spoon & Shutter.
From Maine Magazine: Little BIGS, a bakery to try out in South Portland. My, oh my, they even sell donuts!
In central Maine, we had a snow storm yesterday, and it brought between 6 and 8 inches of light, fluffy snow. A perfect kind of snow storm. Clean-up was easy, and we didn’t lose our power. This morning, Liam and I went outside, me to finish shovelling, and Liam to leap and bark at the flying snow. The air was clear and cold. The sky was a deep blue, and the sun made the snow sparkle in its white expanse. At the little house in the big woods, it seems as though we are surrounded by a sea of snow. This afternoon I’ll go out to finish the clean-up. If my nose and toes aren’t too cold, I’ll take the dog for a walk in the woods.
Dinner is all set. A few days ago, I put chicken legs in the slow-cooker and spread leftover cranberry chutney on top of them. This has given us three meals, and tonight I’ll use the last of the chicken. I’ll remove it from the bone, simmer it in the chicken drippings that I saved from the first slow-cooker meal, and serve the chicken and drippings over couscous. We had this last night, and my, it was good, if I do say so myself. The cranberry chutney has given the drippings a lovely, slightly tart flavor.
A nice warm meal for a cold night.
On Sunday, I went to Susan (aka Ida LeClair) Poulin’s house for a Franco Salon. A bit of backstory: For the past few years, Franco-American writers, musicians, educators, and story tellers have been getting together once a year for what we call Rassemblement, a gathering. The past couple of years we have met at the Darling Marine Center in beautiful Walpole, Maine. At the gatherings, we read, we perform, we present, we sing, and being Francos, we talk. A lot. At each Rasemblement, there is a wonderful feeling of support, of camaraderie, and a sense—to borrow from Susan—of coming home.
(The history of Franco-Americans in Maine is not a happy story. It’s filled with prejudice and discrimination, ranging from voter suppression to the Klan marching against Francos. By Maine law, French—as it was spoken by Franco-Americans—was stamped out in schools, at work places, and other public institutions, and by the time my generation came, it was mostly gone. No bilingualism for Maine. No, siree.)
Anyway, we all enjoyed being together so much, that someone—perhaps Denis Ledoux?—suggested we get together throughout the year to share our work and support each other. So various people have opened their homes for Franco Salons, and last Sunday Susan Poulin—a talented storyteller and writer—and her husband Gordon Carlisle—a Francophile and a talented artist—opened their home to us.
As a good eater, I must first comment on the food. There were 13 or so of us at the Rasemblement, and I swear we had enough food to feed at least 20, maybe even more. We Francos are taught, at an early age, that to not have enough food at a gathering is a very, very bad thing. Maybe not a mortal sin, but certainly a venial sin. Indeed, to run out of food at a party would be enough to make most Francos twist inside out with mortification.
Therefore, there was quantity—breads, cheese, crackers, oranges, and a multitude of desserts—but there was also quality. Oh, there was quality. Susan made two delicious soups—a turkey sausage soup and a peanut stew. She also made a huge salad so delectable that I could have filled up on just that and some of the wonderful bread other guests brought. Part of what made the salad so good was the dressing Susan made, with a high quality olive oil and balsamic vinegar she gets from a local shop. I can truthfully say that I’ve never tasted such a good dressing.
After we finished eating and talking, we settled into the living room. I read a couple of posts from my blog, and Susan read from her “Ida” blog as well. David Morreau and Susann Pelletier read poetry. Michael Parent told a story of the legendary Ti-Jean, sometimes a fool and sometimes a genius. Lucie Therrien sang two songs. Bob Perreault read from his novel, and Denis from a memoir he’s writing about his time in the seminary. Joan Vermette read a portion of an imagined monologue from a long-dead cousin who talks from way beyond the grave. Norman Beaupré read a scene from of one his novels.
As I listened, not only did I feel as though I was “at home” with these gifted Franco-Americans, but I also felt proud to be a part of this group, proud to be Franco-American.
For the first time in a long while, I will not be writing “cold, cold, cold.” Today in central Maine, the weather is very fine for the end of January, and soon the dog and I will be going for a woods walk. I love the the woods in winter, the calm and the quiet. At least for me. For the creatures of the woods, I expect life is anything but calm. There is the constant search for food and for some, the constant avoidance of becoming food. That, of course, is the way of things. In the woods, the dog sniffs at all the enticing smells, and I take in the beauty, the dark trees against the snow. At home, at the end, there is always tea and fruit and a little something crunchy to go with it. Winter pleasures.
From the Portland Press Herald: A food pantry on SMCC to help its struggling students.
From BuzzFeed: ‘Tis the season for soup, and here’s a “definitive” ranking.
From NPR: Obese kindergarteners have a tendency to become obese adults.
From Eating Well: Need a break from soup? Here’s an almond-&-lemon-crusted fish recipe.
From the Guardian: Think you are hip because you eat quinoa? Well, hold onto your coolness because a new grain is coming to town, and that grain is teff.
On a cold winter’s day in January, Sherlock catches some sun.
But the dog and I take to the woods.
We are gone for over an hour. When I come back, it is tea time, and that tea, along with my afternoon snack, certainly tastes good.
Time to settle on the couch, to read and rest and dream of spring.
In this country, when it comes to food, there are several groups of people. There are those at the top with the money and the inclination to buy only the best—organic, local, free range, no hormones, no antibiotics, grass fed. They can rattle off types of cheeses the way a kindergartener can rattle off the alphabet. When a high-end restaurant opens, they are the first ones there, and if the food is very good, then the menu becomes a sort of Holy Grail.
To those people I say, good for you. There are a lot worse ways to spend money—oh, so many worse ways—and affluent people who care about food and shop locally are supporting farmers and artisans who usually need every bit of support they can get.
Then there are the people who are not quite as affluent, the ones who must budget and plan to provide healthy meals for their families. They buy organic when they can—when the price is right and when there are sales. If they are lucky, there is a Trader Joe’s nearby where they can shop. However, often times they buy conventionally grown food because there simply isn’t enough money in the budget for the extra cost of organic. They know, of course, that in the long run, organic is better for the planet and for their health. But in the short run, bills must paid, the children need new sneakers, and the washing machine just broke and has to be replaced. There are a lot of people in this category, including Clif and me.
Finally, there are the people at the bottom—those who earn extremely low wages, those who are disabled, seniors living solely on Social Security, students, and those who have lost their jobs. Often they receive food stamps and rely on food pantries and soup kitchens to help them get through the month. Organic and local are seldom considerations for them. Just getting food on the table is enough of a challenge, never mind where it comes from or how it was grown. Unfortunately, there are far too many people in this category, and their numbers are growing.
I have lived long enough in Maine to have seen many food trends, from the days of casseroles made with cream of mushroom soup to quiche to granola to the advent of vegetarianism. But I have never seen such a fevered interest in food that corresponds with the huge gap between what those at the top eat and what those at the bottom eat. I suppose it should come as no surprise. As inequality becomes more pronounced in this country, it manifests itself in many ways, not the least in what we eat or how we regard food.
Tonight, President Obama will be giving his State of the Union Address. Political pundits are predicting that the president will talk about inequality and how bad it is for this country. This is all very well and good, but talk is cheap. Will action follow? Will this large ocean liner of a country at least veer in the right direction?
I remain hopeful, but I am not overly optimistic. To continue with the ocean-liner analogy—there are many, many icebergs in the water, just waiting for that ship.
Last week at our local grocery store, chicken was on sale, and chicken was what I bought. They were little roasters, and I picked up 2 of them, one for the freezer and one for immediate use. Usually, when I buy roasters, I, well, roast them in the oven and then make soup with whatever is leftover. This time, however, I decided to do everything in the slow-cooker, which has become my favorite small appliance. (If I had children at home, I would invest in 2 slow-cookers so that I could make twice as much and have leftovers.)
For meal 1, I cut up some carrots and potatoes—I wish I had cut up more—and put them in the bottom of the slow-cooker. I sprinkled salt and pepper on them and added 3/4 cup of water. On top of the vegetables, I put the little chicken and sprinkled more salt and pepper along with some dried thyme and sage. (No, Shannon, I didn’t measure.) At this point, onion or garlic could have been added, but I wanted the meat and vegetables to be mellow, so I left them out.
I set the slow-cooker on high, and four hours later we had succulent chicken and tender vegetables made so tasty by the broth that they didn’t need butter. (The skin is the weak point with chicken in a slow-cooker. It is slimy rather than crisp, but as I told Clif, we shouldn’t be eating the skin anyway.) There was a nice amount of broth at the bottom of the crockery, and as I have a big refrigerator, I just put the crockery with the broth on the top shelf. The leftover chicken went on a plate of its own.
The next morning, I skimmed the fat from the broth in the crockery, put the crockery in the slow-cooker, and turned it on to high. I added the leftover chicken and bones; 4 small cloves of garlic, cut in half; 1 whole onion, peeled; 2 ribs of celery, cut in big chunks; 2 big carrots, unpeeled and cut in big chunks; 1 small bay leaf; 3 whole cloves, stuck in the celery; a teaspoon of salt; some ground pepper; and finally, water to cover the bones. I am letting this simmer for about 5 hours.
As I write, I can smell simmering soup. I’ve tasted the broth, of course, and it tastes exactly the way it should. In a little while, I will strain the soup and pick the meat from the bones. As we ate most of the potatoes and carrots I cooked yesterday, I’ll boil some potatoes and carrots to a add to the soup. (Next time, I will indeed cook more with the first meal.)
“Corn bread or bran muffins to go with the soup?” I asked Clif.
“Bran muffins.”
So we’ll have chicken soup with bran muffins tonight, and it’s my guess there will be enough leftovers for another meal of soup and muffins. Not bad for a 5-pound bird.
In fact, I would say it was down-right frugal.
The weather report in central Maine remains constant: Cold, cold, and cold. I take the dog out for two short walks rather then one long walk, and I still can’t wait to get home. I’m so bundled up that you can just call me “Laurie of the North.” I should have Clif take a picture of me and post it on this blog. I wear a hat, headband, neck-warmer, the heaviest coat I have, leggings, fleece pants, and big warm gloves. Even so, as I walk, I feel as though my face is frozen into a grimace. It must look like I’m smiling because when cars go by, drivers smile and wave at me. Or maybe they just think I’m nuts. Stay warm this weekend!
From Mother Jones: Michael Pollan’s take on the paleo diet.
From Eating Well: Mushrooms are not only delectable but if exposed to light, they also are rich in Vitamin D.
From NPR’s the salt: How food hubs are helping new farmers.
From Oxfam: The best and worst places to eat in the world. Who is number one? Not the United States but rather the Netherlands.
From the New York Times: Cooking for the cold. Melissa Clark’s lentil soup with lemon might just be on our menu next week.
From the Portland Press Herald: Anne Mahle’s recipes for no-knead bread using a sourdough starter.
From Salon: Journalist Sarah Gray lives on food stamps for a week. It’s a gimmick, of course, but Gray is a good writer, and there are lots of details about our food system in her piece.
Notes From the Hinterland 