With the onset of fall weather, shorter days and cooler nights, my dining room is lined with trays of pink tomatoes, bright blue-green pears, and fuzzy orange peaches. This “fruit-ripening” station allows me to harvest the produce before the critters like squirrels and coons raid the garden. I check the fruit daily, processing or eating …
As a space saving measure on our tiny plots of gardens sculpted into the granite boulders, we grow many of our crops vertically. Up rather than out. Shell peas, sugar snap peas, fragrant sweet peas, cucumbers, Scarlett Runner Beans, tomatoes, peppers and four varieties of pole beans. Anything that can be trellised is “trained” to …
One of my early food writer heroes was Marjorie Standish, longtime columnist for the Maine Sunday Telegram. In addition to writing for the paper for 25 years, she published several cookbooks highlighting sensible, down-to-earth Maine recipes. These recipes were often those shared by her readers and Maine households all around the state. I still have …
During the hot, dog days of summer, our dining style becomes more casual and relaxed. The gardens and farmers markets are bursting with fresh fruits and vegetables that are a delight to devour during the intense heat. The fresh produce comes with the added benefit of being healthy for your body. My favorite part of …
Summer is a busy time for Maine families as we try to squeeze in every ray of sunshine before the long, cold winter. Our home becomes a literal bed-and-breakfast as we delight in entertaining family and friends with picnics on the beach, hikes in the mossy Crockett Cove woods preserve, sunset suppers and cocktails on …
It’s Maine strawberry season! Our family can never have enough of the luscious, red-ripe strawberry that leads the parade of summer fruits. Strawberries in sugar over piping-hot biscuits with Jersey whipped cream, sweet, icy-cold strawberry popsicles, succulent berries tossed with fresh greens, goat cheese and nuts and mouthwatering strawberry jam on toast or English muffins. …
My latest “coffee-table” reading is Thomas Keller’s, “Ad-hoc at Home,” a collection of recipes that the acclaimed chef prepares when not cooking at one of his nine restaurants and bakeries. No intricate garnishes, immersion blenders or sous-vide needed. These are uncomplicated and family-style preparations, meant to feed a crowd. Enjoying our evening glass of wine, …
I once owned and operated a specialty food store, catering company and small café on Central Street in Bangor. The shop, located in in the heart of the city, was one of few eateries in the almost deserted downtown. While consumer trends had pushed major retail shopping to the mall, the financial and legal seat …
The recipe for Green Goddess dressing has a storied past, originating as a sauce for eel on the plate of Louis XIII. In 1923, the creamy rich condiment made its U.S. debut at the San Francisco Palace Hotel as a salad dressing in honor of British actor George Arliss, who was appearing in the play …
Our household eats foods seasonally, and the winter diet of root vegetables gets quite long. So, I am quite excited in the spring to spot clumps of fresh chives, purple asparagus tips and the dark green leaves of rhubarb starting to unfold. Something new to cook! Botanically speaking, rhubarb is classified as a vegetable, although …
There is nothing more welcoming in spring than a clump of fresh chives. The smallest species of the onion genus, Allium Schoenoprasum, is a choice edible herb, and the only allium native to both the Old and New World. Here in Maine, chives grow as a perennial, and self-seed themselves wildly throughout the garden. Chives’ …
In many households, the lengthening daylight hours herald the time to do some major cleaning. This age-old ritual of “spring cleaning” is rooted in religious and cultural traditions and linked to the biology of how humans are wired. In the Jewish custom, the home is cleaned before Passover, while Christians clean the altar before Good …
