As we head toward the darkest day of the year, after a very challenging fall, here’s a bit of bright news for Mainers for the holidays. It’s from Health.com, which is featured on Yahoo!, and it’s a piece about “America’s 10 healthiest grocery stores.” For Mainers, the good tidings are that Hannaford, a New England chain, made number five on the list. For those who live in or around southern Maine, the news gets even better: Whole Foods (no surprise) and Trader Joe’s (ditto) also made the list at #1 and #4, respectively. 

The criteria for healthy included a large selection of organic as well as minimally processed foods without artificial ingredients. Clear labeling also garnered points, and so did locally grown food. 

Now, my favorite places to shop are either farmers’ markets or vegetable stands, but in Maine in December, these places are pretty hard to find. (However, some indoor markets are starting to sprout here and there.) This means that trips to the grocery store are a must.  

As a native Mainer who remembers the old days when supermarkets in Maine had nothing organic, I find it encouraging that they have come so far. I know there are many counterarguments, ranging from concerns about cost to questions about organic food becoming big business. The concerns are real but so is this fact: The more people eat organic food, the better it is for their bodies and the planet. My friend Sherry Hanson, who once lived in rural Illinois, has described the big machines spraying pesticides and herbicides over the fields. A rain of poison leaching into the dirt and water, and what is sprayed in Illinois does not stay in Illinois.  

So this holiday season, buy some organic food. Carrots, oatmeal, dried beans, even popcorn are all reasonably priced and are affordable for people who live on a modest budget.

When you buy organic, you’ll be giving a gift not only to yourself and your family but also to Earth. And that, dear readers, is certainly a cause for holiday cheer.

This summer, three of our daughter’s Shannon’s friends came from Washington, D.C., to attend her wedding. Shannon lived in D.C. for six years and made many good friends while she was there. When my husband, Clif, and I visited her, we met and become fond of some of those friends, in particular Matt, Alvaro, and George, the ones who came to her wedding. Matt and Alvaro have even stayed with us in Maine while visiting Shannon.

While in D.C., Shannon earned a reputation of being, shall we say, an indifferent cook. Therefore, at the wedding, when I told Matt and Alvaro what a good cook Shannon had become, they were incredulous. Well, if only they could have had dinner at Shannon’s place on Saturday. It would have made true believers out of them.

Any meal that family and friends cook for me is a good meal. I love to cook, but I also love it when people cook for me, and while I appreciate good food, the act of cooking, the loving-kindness behind it, is just as important to me as the quality of the food. So when Shannon invited Clif and me over for a meal to celebrate the end of my radiation treatment, I immediately said, “Yes, please!”

I have watched Shannon’s progress in the kitchen and have tasted the results, so I knew I was going to get good food. However, I was totally unprepared for the meal she (and Mike!) made for us: Cornish game hens, moist and delicately flavored with lemon and fresh thyme; roasted carrots and fingerling potatoes; a fennel and green bean salad with feta and olives; and, the grand finishing touch, a homemade chocolate cake (Shannon’s specialty).

There couldn’t have been a better meal at any of Maine’s good restaurants, and we have quite a few of them, especially in Portland.

This fine meal also goes to show that where there is a will there is a way. Shannon and Mike live in a very small apartment with a tiny kitchen. They have an oven that cooks on screech—suitable for roasted dishes but not so much for a cake. Therefore, Shannon had to make the cake in two batches and cook the layers one at a time in her toaster oven. The results were everything you could hope for in a cake—light, fluffy, and, most important, not dry.

So when people whine that they can’t cook because their kitchens are too small or they don’t have the right equipment or something isn’t working quite right, I think of Shannon and one word comes to mind: balderdash!

Time and time again, Shannon has proved them wrong.

Yesterday, I earned my reputation as a good eater when I went to The Senator in Augusta and had lunch with Esther. Not only did I eat every bit of a lobster sandwich (not roll—this one was made with bread) and a pile of fries so large that it makes me blush to think that I only left a few, but I also ended with a thick chocolate mousse topped with real whipped cream, beat stiff just the way I like it. How did I feel afterwards? Full but great.

Yesterday was also the last day of radiation treatment for breast cancer, so my indulgences, seemed, well, fitting. I brought in a tin of homemade toffee bars for the radiation-oncology staff—mostly women—who have been so cheerful and full of loving-kindness these past six-and-a-half weeks. There is no way around this—it is both intimidating and scary to lie topless on a table day after day and get zapped by large doses of radiation. But Jane, Barbara, Roxanne, Becky, Alyssa, and Juanita made all the difference, and I am so grateful for the good care I received at the Harold Alfond Center for Cancer Care in Augusta. As I left, the women gave me fond hugs and wished me well.

After that, it was onward to coffee cake and tea at Barnes & Noble and then to the Senator to meet Esther, a dear friend of my mother’s and a dear friend of mine as well. (My mother passed away two years ago.) Having lunch with Esther would have been treat enough, but she also brought me a basket of goodies—apple wine from Sweetgrass Winery in Union, Maine; a box of toasted green tea that I’m crazy about; homemade apple sauce; and a bright pink cyclamen.

Tonight, my husband, Clif, and I will be going to our daughter and son-in-law’s home for a celebratory meal, and I’ll bring the apple wine with us.

What a way to end treatment!

As I promised myself, this has been a week of treats, ranging from donuts to pancakes to coffee cake and then back to donuts again. (Yes, there is a trend toward donuts.) But Monday’s treat has been the best treat so far—a yearly holiday get together with six women I have been friends with for nearly twenty years. At one point, we all belonged to a group called Maine Media Women, which is where we met and became friends.

I can’t remember when we decided to get together for a yearly holiday gathering, but it has been for quite a few years. At first, we went to restaurants, but then Joyce kindly offered her place for a potluck, and we have been meeting there ever since. It’s so much more comfortable than a restaurant. At Joyce’s home, we can nibble on appetizers and chat, move to the dinning room for dinner and more chat, then go back to the living room for little presents. The whole evening has a wonderful flow.

Some people have a “touch” when it comes to making a house beautiful but cozy, and Joyce has this touch. Candles were lit and there were vases with fir and pine and red carnations. Everywhere, there was some pretty little thing to admire, but Joyce’s home is neither cluttered nor busy, as my home has a tendency to be.

Some highlights: I heard about Lynne’s trip to the Middle East, Peggy’s upcoming trip to Colorado, and Sherry’s little beach cabin in Oregon, where her son lives. There was also the hilarity that ensued over Joyce’s presents to us all: fake animal noses that lit up. But for me the real highlight was Laney, my friend Perian’s nine-year-old daughter, who came to the party with her mother.

Now, I know all children are special in their own way, but, to me, something about Laney seemed extra special. I talked to Laney about horses—like many girls her age, she’s crazy about them; about what she wanted for Christmas—horseback riding lessons and a hamster; and about school. Her father is a skilled photographer and seems to have passed some of this on to Laney. Not only did she use my camera to take a picture of all of us, but she also showed me how to retrieve images that were previously taken. (I admit it. I’m not much for technology.) The icing on the cake, so to speak, is that Laney is a little foodie, and she made the brownies we had for dessert.

Thinking of Laney’s love of horses, I asked her, “Do you like kitties, too?”

“I like all animals,” came the reply.

Good answer.

We all brought little presents for Laney, and it was such a pleasure to watch her open them and then stash them away in a bag. (I noticed Laney nipped one of her mother’s chocolates and add it to her own bag.)

When we were all getting ready to leave, I said to Laney, “Come next year, too.”

“I will,” she said.

In a few years, Laney will not want to come to a party with a bunch of middle-aged women who wear lighted animal noses and giggle themselves silly. That’s how it should be. Children need to go their own way as they grow older.

But we’ll have the pleasure of her company for another couple years, at least.

Yesterday’s treat was actually a double treat. Not only did I have a lobster roll at the Winthrop Congregational Church Fair/Luncheon, but I also, by chance, met my friend Debbie Maddi. Her husband, like my husband, had elected to stay home. Fair/Luncheon events are not the sort of things most husbands like to attend, which meant both Debbie and I were on our own. It was a happy coincidence that we just happened to arrive at the fair at the same time, and it took only a matter of seconds before we decided to have lunch together.

The basement of the Congregational Church was divided between fair tables and lunch tables. The latter had checked table clothes, and the room was full of people either eating or shopping. Each table had a little menu, which included lasagna and, most important, lobster rolls.

I am a lobster roll enthusiast, and I can never eat too many of them. Summer, winter, fall, and spring. All are a good time for a lobster roll. The best ones have chunks of lobster just barely held together with mayonnaise, but lobster salad, made with more mayonnaise, is perfectly acceptable, too. Not surprisingly, the Congregational Church lobster rolls were made from lobster salad. No complaints from me, and more than worth the $6 for the plate, which included chips and homemade pickles.

As we ate, Debbie and I chatted about books, family, and breast cancer. When she heard I was heading down the homestretch with treatment, she generously paid for my lunch.

“To celebrate,” she said.

Yes, to celebrate!

After lunch, we poked around the fair, where I resisted the impulse to buy a lovely old blue and white porcelain serving dish, complete with lid. Dishes are one of my many weaknesses—I suppose this makes perfect sense, given my obsession with food—and our little house is overflowing with dishes, old and new.

Then Debbie and I walked around Winthrop, stopping in at the Bailey Public Library, which was having an open house. Shane, one of the librarians, was working at the front desk, and he just happens to be the leader of the library’s book group, to which I belong.  Book group is coming right up—December 15—and we couldn’t help discussing, just a little, the book we’re reading—Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese. (I’m looking forward to hearing about what others in the group think of this fascinating but flawed novel.)

So I guess really it was an afternoon of triple treats—meeting Debbie, the lobster roll, and then talking with Shane at the library.

Yesterday, it seems, I caught the Christmas spirit, and it came from a very unlikely place—by the Kennebec River in Augusta, Maine. With its empty storefronts on main street, its strip development, and its labyrinthinian malls that aren’t quite malls, Augusta must come close to being the shabbiest community in Maine. On the other hand, what more appropriate place to be visited by the Christmas spirit, which always moves unexpectedly?

Because we only have one car, I must bring my husband, Clif, to work and of course pick him up again so that I can go to the Cancer Center for treatment each day. (I do want to add that two special friends—Sybil and Alice—have been giving me rides two days each week, which has been a tremendous help.)

Yesterday was a “tired” day for me, when all I felt like doing in the afternoon was spending time on the couch, alternating between reading and napping. This is hardly surprising. I am nearly at the end of radiation treatment, and fatigue is perfectly normal. But not much fun, especially during this busy time of year. Let’s just say that wanting to spend each afternoon dozing on the couch doesn’t exactly lead to holiday cheer.

Even after my nap, I was still tired, and I drove rather bleary eyed to Augusta to fetch Clif. It was dark, and this only added to the tiredness. I decided to bring our dog, Liam, along. Now that it gets dark so early, he doesn’t get half as much outside time as he would like, and I thought a trip to Augusta would give him a little something to think about.

Clif works in an office building on a small hill overlooking the Kennebec River, and when I parked the car, I noticed a blue and white shimmer from a park below. Five or six bare trees—good-sized ones—were strung with lights, and they looked lovely in the dark. Since I had about ten minutes or so to spare before Clif got out of work, I decided to take the dog for walk in the park. Down main street we went and down several flights of newly constructed outside stairs—me going in a choppy fashion because of my arthritic knees and the dog trotting nimbly ahead of me. (May he have many more nimble years!)

This is going to sound like a cliché, but so be it. As I walked among the trees, I felt as if I were bathed in a shimmer of blue and white. All was quiet except for the murmur of the river. There was just the dog and I, and it seemed as though we were in some kind of enchanted place. Now, in the many, many times I’ve gone to Augusta, I think it’s safe to say I’ve never felt as though it was some kind of enchanted place. But that is how I felt last night after being among the trees and the lights.

After the best night’s sleep I’ve had in a long time, I woke up this morning feeling very nearly like my old perky self, full of bustle and plans. I felt so good, in fact, that after going to the Cancer Center, I decided to treat myself to a donut at Tim Horton’s, to a Canadian maple glazed donut. Then it came to me: Why not have a treat a day until next Friday, December 10, which will be the last day of radiation? What better way to celebrate coming down the homestretch? None that I can think of, and that’s what I’ve decided to do.

For a foodie, the best celebrations are ones that involve food, and my plan is to have something special every day. Since our budget is modest, and Christmas is approaching, the treats will be small. But that’s just fine. I love little treats.

From now until next Friday, I’ll be having a “treat a day.” On the blog, there will be pictures and little descriptions about the treats.

Was it the Christmas spirit that perked me up or a good night’s sleep? Who cares? What fun to plan a week of treats.

It’s that time of year, the time of turkey and thanks. As a rule, it is common to give thanks for loved ones—family and friends—and I am thankful for them, especially after being diagnosed with breast cancer, which has a way of paring life down to its essentials. It is not something you want to face alone, and I am very grateful for all the support I’ve received.

But I would also like to give thanks to something that often gets overlooked, especially in households with, shall we say, a modest budget. That something, of course, is the kitchen.

On the face it, my kitchen is nothing to brag about. My husband, Clif, and I live in a ranch-style house built in 1969. Originally, it started out as a “cracker box,” with a long, narrow kitchen and living room and three small bedrooms. Then, the previous owners added a large, bright dining room at one end and two good-sized bedrooms on the other. (For these additions I am very, very thankful. Without them, we probably wouldn’t have bought the house.) Thus the cracker box became one long, narrow house. A freight train, if you will.

But back to the kitchen. It is dark with too few cupboards and not enough counter space. Because of its narrowness, only one person at a time can work comfortably in it—two is a squeeze but doable. Three? Forget about it. My kitchen has a tiled floor, probably its best feature only slightly marred by my foolish choice of color—white. (It seemed like a good idea at the time for a dark kitchen, and the white tiles did indeed brighten it up. But every footprint and paw print show up in bold relief on this white floor.) The cupboards were the classic dark pseudo-wood cabinets so common in the 1960s. We have gotten around this by painting them red.

My pots and pans? Nothing special. They are Revere Ware—a cut above average but again nothing to brag about. The same could be said about my mixer, my food processor, my toaster. Really, there is nothing about my kitchen or its equipment to strike envy in the hearts of fellow foodies.

But over the years, this kitchen has literally fed hundreds of people—young, old, and in-between. We’ve packed them into this freight-train house with its imperfect kitchen and its Revere Ware. We’ve made bread, chili, pies, crackers, soup, fish, chicken, beef stew, biscuits, pizza, and many, many other dishes. We have had appetizer nights, standing-room only parties, barbecues, and sit-down dinners. In short, this kitchen has helped nourish friends and family.

So I give thanks to my kitchen, and I hope readers will do the same with their kitchens, too. If you have a big beautiful kitchen with granite counters and expensive pots and pans, give double thanks. If all you have is a crockpot, a hot plate, and a toaster over, still give thanks. Whatever you have, you can cook for and nourish the ones you love. Need I add this applies to both men and women? Sons as well as daughters? I hope not.

This piece has included pictures of my kitchen. After the New Year, I am hoping nearby friends and readers will allow my husband and I to come into their kitchens and photograph them. And perhaps share a recipe or two. Please do let me know if you are interested.

And finally, happy Thanksgiving to all!

Today is an important day for me. It marks the halfway point of my radiation treatment for breast cancer. So far, everything is going fairly well. Last week, I had problems with fatigue—so bad I felt as though I could barely get through the day—but blood pressure medicine seems to have been a big help. (It’s been high ever since my diagnosis, and my doctor decided the time had come to do something about it.) I’m much better now, and I’m grateful to have some (if not all) of my old energy back.

Not surprisingly, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about cancer, and I recently read a terrific book called Living Downstream: An Ecologist’s Personal Investigation of Cancer and the Environment by Sandra Steingraber. In October, I had the opportunity to hear Steingraber speak at Bates College in Lewiston, where I learned that New England has one of the highest rates of breast cancer and prostate cancer in the country. Later in the month, I also saw the documentary Living Downstream at Railroad Square in Waterville.

Anybody who cares about personal health, family health, and the health of the planet should read this book and see the film. Steingraber, like Rachel Carson, with whom she’s been compared, is both a good scientist and a good writer, and she makes an eloquent, compelling case for how the West’s use of petrochemicals has so polluted our environment that cancer rates are going steadily up. Yes, cancer has always been with us, but there is more of it now than there ever has been, and it’s not all due to early diagnoses and to longer life spans. Steingraber wonders “why so much silence still surrounds questions about cancer’s connection to the environment, and why so much scientific inquiry into this issue is still considered preliminary.” (There’s a recent New Yorker article about cancer that asks the same question.)

Steingraber had bladder cancer when she was twenty and a college student. (She is now in her fifties.) It seems that cancer runs in her family. But here’s the interesting thing— Steingraber was adopted at a young age, and it is her adopted family, not her birth family, that has the high incidence of cancer. After her own struggle with the disease, Steingraber turned her attention to the environmental causes of cancer, and, she eventually decided to devote her professional life to spreading the word about cancer and the environment, about how DDT, dioxins, and other endocrine disrupters harm our health.

This, of course, is a complicated subject, and while Steingraber tells stories from her own life to illustrate her point, she also gives readers plenty of science, data, and statistics. (I admit that my eyes glazed over from time to time.) The book made me sad and angry. It also made me determined to do what I could to help, to join the symphony, as Steingraber would put it. At the end of Living Downstream, she asserts, “I believe we are musicians in human orchestra. It is time now to play the Save the World Symphony. It is a vast orchestral piece, and you are but one musician. You are not required to play solo. But you are required to figure out what instrument you hold and play it as well as you can.”

So here is what one musician is going to do. It’s a song I’ve been playing for a while, but I’m going to play it louder and stronger than ever by writing, by eating as much organic and local food as I can, by not flying unless it is absolutely essential, by driving as little as possible, by recycling with a vengeance, by carrying my own cup and silverware wherever I go so that I don’t need to use disposable ones.

Small actions, small song. Right now it is what I can do, and I hope to do more as time goes by.

In my last post, I wrote about the recent elections and how discouraged I felt by the results. The Far Right and the Tea Partiers made real inroads, especially in Maine, and this is a worry for progressives who believe that individual responsibility must be combined with societal responsibility. The two are twined, and to my way of thinking, it is impossible to have a decent society if they are separated. Yes, individuals should work hard and be thrifty and resourceful. But there are some things that are too much for individuals—roads, trains, schools, and health care come immediately to mind, but there are other items as well, which are for the common good and should be overseen by the government. (Other things, such as the sale of chocolate, shoes, and books should be left to businesses.)

Unfortunately, the common good doesn’t seem to be first and foremost in the minds of the Far Right/Tea Partiers. In the New York Review of Books, I read a piece about Rush Limbaugh, the Far Right’s de facto leader, and the piece clarified some of the motivations behind that group. There is no other way to put this—Limbaugh et al. seem to be older, affluent white people who are at the top and who want to stay there. They don’t want to share, and they see their authority and status threatened by uppity minorities and poor people. If society is too equal, then who will serve Limbaugh and Company? So they sneer and tear down and bully the public, making enough converts to influence opinion and elections.

What to do? As a member of society, I will, of course, continue to vote, supporting candidates whose views match mine. However, I know very well that as a “hobbit,” as someone who lacks power and money, my influence is small. This is not to downplay the importance of voting but rather to be realistic about my role in shaping politics.

Yet I need to do something to lift myself out of the doldrums the past election has put me in, and here is what I have decided to do: I will make bread, and I will give it away. I have even come up with a title—the Let Them Eat Bread project. (This is, of course, a twist on “Let them eat cake,” which Marie Antoinette supposedly said to her starving subjects. True or not, it represented the indifference those at the top felt for those at the bottom, and it seems to me we have a similar situation right now with the Far Right.)

This project has been brewing for quite a while. It’s taken me about a year to learn how to make decent bread, and one of the reasons I started making bread was so that occasionally I could give it away. But now it’s time to get serious, to give bread away on a more regular basis.

With bread being “the staff of life,” I am very much aware that giving it away is a symbolic act. However, we are a symbolic species, and this action of mine is meant both as a way to share with others and as a way to rebuke those who are not inclined to share. Opening the hand, so to speak, rather than clenching the fist. (And if we are going to survive as a species, we’d better damned well open our hands.)

Every project needs some guidelines, and keeping simplicity and flexibility in mind, here is what I have come up with:

1. Starting on January 1, 2011, I will give at least one loaf of bread away every week. (I want to wait until radiation treatment stops.)
2. If possible, I will give away more bread—2 maybe even 3 loaves a week. Since my mixer will only make enough dough for 2 loaves at a time, this is more time consuming than it sounds.
3. It counts to give bread to family and friends.
4. It counts to give bread as a thank you.
5. However, I will never take money for the bread.
6. As I get more into the habit of giving bread, I will branch out to acquaintances. In fact, I will try to branch out to conservatives. Just as with the Buddhist loving/kindness meditation, it will be good spiritual practice to include those who are not “kindred spirits.” They might not like my politics, but they’ll probably like my bread. (Who knows? Perhaps one day I’ll even be able to bring myself to give a loaf to Paul Lepage, our new “Tea Party” governor.)

And that’s it! It would be fun to come up with some kind of label to stick on the bags of bread. I’m not graphically inclined, but Clif is, and I’ll ask for his help.

Anyway, come the first of the year, let them eat bread!