BROOKLIN — The Oddfellows Hall, with its mansard roof and gabled dormers, stands tall at the corner of Reach and Center Harbor roads. The towering landmark is in good hands and on secure footing now thanks to several civic-minded collaborators in town. Robert A. Baird, whose Utah family’s business Historical Arts & Casting Inc. …
FRANKLIN — Barry Buchanan is an equal opportunity photographer. The Montclair, N.J. native loves shooting with film. Yes, actual rolls of transparent plastic. But the photographer also will shoot with a digital camera or smartphone. “I use all of the tools,” Buchanan said. “My preference is for film.” Photography has always been a part …
Our slow, cool spring produced a bumper crop of rhubarb for many folks. Although usually eaten as a “fruit,” rhubarb is a vegetable, botanically speaking. An invaluable homestead plant in Maine, this tart- tasting member of the buckwheat family can reach up to 2 feet tall. I’m a collector of rhubarb recipes, and we’ve …
ELLSWORTH — Like a lot of makers just starting out, Julia Ventresco didn’t have the money for a professional sewing machine, which can run into the hundreds, and even thousands, of dollars. She was making do with the inexpensive Singer machine she had, but her projects were getting to be a bit too much for …
Editor’s note: Brooklin author/photographer Richard J. Leighton creates the popular “In the Right Place” posts online about life and nature in Maine. He shares a post the second Thursday of each month in The Ellsworth American. By Richard Leighton May is famous in this country for Mother’s Day. In the larger world, May also is …
BAR HARBOR — Sprightly Masanobu and Tomoko Ikemiya have been eating a raw food diet — fruit, greens, sprouted vegetables, nuts and grains — for over 25 years. “It makes us feel good and it’s the healthiest, most uplifting, easy-to-digest food,” said Masanobu Ikemiya, who is an internationally known concert pianist. He is best …
A drizzle of cream. A dab of butter. A slice of cheese. What could possibly be wrong with pleasures like those? And yet, to the fat-fearful, they might as well be arsenic — especially heavy cream, which seems to occupy its own circle of dietary damnation. Granted there are some folks whose systems don’t react …
Ron Fortier of Ellsworth recently wrote to me, “With the present stay-at-home situation, I have been delegated as chief cook. I’m rapidly running out of comfort food ideas,” he said. “Please, if you have any fresh ideas, please share, lest I am forced to eat them lobstah. Don’t want to take them away from the …
ELLSWORTH — If there’s a silver lining to undergoing chemo or radiation treatment it might be this: milkshakes are encouraged. “We try to get as much calories and protein per swallow, basically, as we can get into people,” said Donna Walsh, an oncology nutrition specialist who works at the Harold Alfond Center for Cancer Care …
ELLSWORTH – The holidays are a time to look forward to favorite traditions. For some, it’s decorating a Christmas tree with old ornaments made in the second grade, digging out an heirloom gingerbread recipe or hanging a freshly made wreath, decorated with treasures gathered from Maine’s forests, on the front door. Michael and Mandi …
Asparagus was brought to America by European settlers sometime in the 18th century. Abigail Adams, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson all learned to appreciate asparagus and grew it on their home farms. In the first American cookbook, published in 1796, Amelia Simmons calls asparagus “an excellent vegetable” and wisely cautions against overcooking it: “by over-boiling …
When I visit my cookbook assortment seeking culinary inspiration, the nearly 100-year-old Girl Scout chant sung around the campfire, “Make new friends, but keep the old. One is silver and the other gold,” reminds me that when it comes to practical matters in the kitchen, old friends still have a lot to offer. One of …
