In the New York Times, there is a link to Beth Quimby’s piece in the Kennebec Journal about Maine lobster. I decided that if the Times thought it worthwhile to link to the KJ, then I should take note and do the same.

The piece is indeed quite relevant, not only to Mainers, but to those “from away” as well. Among other things, the piece discusses the price of lobster and how the high cost of diesel makes it increasingly difficult for lobstermen (and women, too, presumably) to make a profit.

Quimby writes, “Mother’s Day is the informal kickoff for the lobster season in Maine.” The implication is that Mother’s Day will give an indication of what kind of demand there will be for lobster during the upcoming tourist season.

In my recent post about Mother’s Day, I wrote about how a corner market in SoPo sold out of lobster rolls by 12:30. If other Maine shops selling lobster had a similar demand, then it’s my prediction that despite the high price of diesel, 2011 will be a banner year for lobster consumption in Maine.

In an article in the New York Times magazine, there’s a lovely picture of a plate of…something. In the center of the plate, there is an oval of green that could be some of kind of jell or anemic guacamole. This oval of green rests on four (?) white balls that appear to have been rolled in crumbs. Surrounding the white balls and the green oval are three curled bits that resemble beef jerky or some kind of edible leather. The finishing touches—a nest of swirled green stands on top of the oval and to one side of the plate, two splashes of something dark as blood.

What could this be?, you might wonder, and I wondered the very same thing when I first saw the picture. Readers, this is dessert, created by New York pastry chef Brooks Headley. However,“ ‘I don’t think of myself as a pastry chef, exactly,’ the 38-year-old Headley says. ‘I just make food that happens at the end of the meal.’”

And what happened with this dessert I just described? Well, the green oval with the nest is celery “sorbet with a little dressed celery salad”; the white balls are “goat-cheese-mousse balls coated with olive-oil-sautéed bread crumbs”; the leather, “macerated figs with balsamic vinegar.” The two splashes of something dark as blood? The article’s writer—who just happens to be Mark Bittman—didn’t say, but I’m guessing it’s balsamic vinegar.

Would I try this dessert, if given the chance? Sure, I would. It’s odd, but none of the ingredients are really that far out. Mark Bittman says it’s “incredible,” and I’m inclined to believe him.

Would it be something I would eagerly order for dessert after a good meal? Since I haven’t actually tasted the celery sorbet concoction, I can’t really say for sure, but my guess is that it wouldn’t be my first, second, or even third choice for dessert.

One reader’s comments sums it up perfectly for me: “Why does this look like the dejected remnants of a dessert rather than a lusty dessert itself? The tongue, I assure you, does not easily tire…”

I’ll take this one step further: In our house, except for ice cream, dessert is not common. We do not always have a tin filled with, say, chocolate chip cookies or brownies at the ready for whenever the urge for something sweet hits us. Much as I like making apple and blueberry pies, there usually isn’t a pie just tucked in the cupboard on top of the plates. (My resting place for pies.)

We have desserts on special occasions—for holidays, for birthdays, for when company comes for dinner, and because we have them somewhat infrequently, “the tongue does not easily tire…” Just the reverse, the tongue eagerly awaits a “lusty dessert,” and celery sorbet with a little dressed celery salad somehow seems a little, well, anticlimactic.

So please, just give me dessert—chocolate cream pie, mousse, apple crisp, lemon squares, cheese cake, strawberry short cake.  The list is long. And save the celery sorbet for an in-between kind of course, maybe even for a salad.

Here are a couple of posts that make some good foodie points. The first is Julia Moskin’s New York Times review of the restaurant Buvette, which is in New York City on Bleecker Street. Buvette is a French restaurant, but casual rather than formal. Moskin describes many of their dishes, which certainly made my mouth water, and then ended with this: “Buvette stands for wallowing gracefully in modest luxuries: a well-made omelet, a well-seasoned horseradish cream sauce, a well-balanced chocolate mousse.”

I love “wallowing in modest luxuries.” It gives me pleasure just to think about this lovely phrase, and it is exactly the right approach to food—a way filled with pleasure but also a way that is sustainable, not at all over-the-top, and definitely not snobby.

The second piece, written by Anne Mahle, is in the Portland Press Herald, and it addresses the extreme concern that some people have about eating the right thing—always local, always organic, always perfectly good for you. Then, in their busy lives, when they slip and buy, say, a frozen pizza or nonlocal milk, or, the worst horror of all, they actually slink into a fast food restaurant for something to eat because they have a meeting in a half hour and there just isn’t time to cook and eat before the damned thing starts, they have guilt, guilt, and more guilt.

Mahle briskly does away with these dark blots on our foodie consciences: “The guilt and stress we create for ourselves around food are, to my mind, a complete waste of energy….It is the striving that is important…”

Mahle is right. The striving, the work that goes into being, if I may borrow from myself, a good eater, a responsible eater, should never end because even though progress might sometimes be slow, success does come with practice.

And if we slip from time to time, as most people will? Then there is always tomorrow, when we perhaps we won’t slip.

Today, via the New York Times, I came across a piece Eric Schlosser wrote for the Washington Post. The piece’s title is “Why Being a Foodie Isn’t Elitist,” and Schlosser, who wrote Fast Food Nation, addresses the charges that the food industry and its attendant lobbying groups have leveled against food writers and activists such as Michael Pollan and Marion Nestle, and Schlosser himself.

Schlosser has been called “not only an elitist, but also a socialist, a communist and un-American.” Nestle has been labeled, “a food fascist,” and Pollan has been accused of being “anti-agricultural.”

Naturally, Schlosser refutes the charges, arguing that it is not elitist to be concerned about the quality of food Americans eat, and I agree with him. He views the name calling as “misdirection,” an attempt to deflect attention away from the few companies who control food production in the United States. Again, I agree. What better way to discredit someone than to call him a socialist or a communist? In our culture, those are very dirty words, just slightly below serial killer and child molester.

Schlosser honestly notes the way foodies can be elitist, by using food as a way to gain status. Expensive cookware, hard-to-find ingredients, and pricey restaurants can all be symptoms of a snobbery that not only drains the fun out of eating but could also “sideline the movement or make it irrelevant.”

Fair enough, but Schlosser’s original point is correct: It is not elitist to care about the quality of food that Americans—especially those who are poor—eat. It is not elitist to care about people’s health. And it is certainly not elitist to be concerned that the food production in this country is in the hands of a few big businesses. It seems to me that it is quite appropriate to be worried about all these issues, and it would be a very good thing if more people were, too.

And I’m going to go one step further. It is not elitist to enjoy cooking with simple ingredients that are easy to find but are of good quality. It is not elitist to enjoy feeding friends and family. And it is certainly not elitist to enjoy food.

The French believe it is the birthright of all French citizens, regardless of income, to eat good food. Hear, hear!

And this belief couldn’t be less elitist. In fact, you might even call it democratic.

Tomorrow, my daughter Shannon and her husband, Mike, will be moving from Farmingdale, right around the corner from us, to South Portland, about an hour or so away. While my husband and I will really miss having them close by, it will be so good for them to be minutes rather than an hour away from work. Even though their new apartment is more expensive than the one they are leaving, Shannon and Mike will save so much money on gas that they will actually come out ahead.

Today will be another one of those “flurry of cooking” days. I’ll be making food for the first official meal in the new apartment. On the docket for today’s cooking are brownies, bread, and macaroni and cheese in a casserole dish, the latter of which can be popped in the oven when we are ready to eat.

In fact, we’ve already had informal meals—chili and pizza—at the new apartment. We set up camp chairs in the dining room and used a cooler for a little table. This cozy arrangement reminded me of another move, long ago, when I was eight years old, and my family moved from a tiny ranch in Waterville, Maine, to a big farmhouse in neighboring North Vassalboro.

One afternoon, my father’s brother, Leo, and his wife, Barney—Bernadette, but no one ever called her that—and their two daughters, Linda and Carol, helped my parents clean the new farmhouse and get ready for the move. After the cleaning was done, we all sat on the bright yellow floor in the kitchen as we ate our meal. I can’t remember what the meal was, and, as astonishing as this might sound coming from a foodie, I’m not sure it really mattered.

I remember my mother saying, “How funny we must look, sitting on the floor like this.”

And we all laughed. I suppose we did look funny. But what a feeling of camaraderie, of accomplishment, of helping. We would have, of course, done the same thing for my aunt, uncle, and cousins.

Sometimes, the memories of shared meals are just as important as the actual food.