The Barrens in August

My mom grew up in Cherryfield, a small town Downeast. As she hates when I tell people, she was the Maine Blueberry Queen of 1950! Who even knew there was such a thing.
For the past few years, my husband & I have been spending some time in the area. We reserve an adorable cabin on the Machias River, (gas lights & cooking! I've done plenty of campfire cooking, and while I wouldn't rule it out in future, I do like my camping on easy mode.) The way passes through miles of blueberry barrens, the late-season red foliage of which gives the town of Cherryfield its name.
These are wild blueberries, the fruit small & intensely flavorful, which grow nowhere so well as the Downeast region of Maine. They are not to be confused with their high-bush cousins, the fat berries you see in the supermarket.
(Free opinion: it is a waste of good blueberries to put them in a pie, full of cornstarch & sugar. It renders them gloppy and the flavor insipid, and also turns your teeth purple.Pancakes, yes; muffin, yes; yogurt and salads and cream cheese, yes; by the handful YES PLEASE.)

The soil of the barrens is a highly acidic thin layer over ledge. It's called a "barrens" because not much except the very low-growing wild blueberries can thrive there. The proximity of the Atlantic keeps the air humid, which helps the shallow-rooted plants survive. The image above is in mid-August, during the picking season. The bushes that have not yet been harvested are heavy with fruit. I imagine this place before colonization, what a blessing this wild abundance must have been, and just below it, Wigwam Falls, popping with Atlantic Salmon, back in the day. (Atlantic Salmon are far rarer now, but there are groups working on their restoration - the Downeast Salmon Federation has a hatchery in East Machias where they raise salmon the the parr stage and then release them into Maine rivers - salmon return to their home rivers to spawn.)

Here's my favorite blueberry recipe:

Blueberry-Banana Smoothie

In blender:
3/4 cup wild Maine blueberries
1/2 banana, frozen
3/4 cup orange juice
Quick shake of nutmeg

Blend until smooth. Enjoy!

Pickers Cabins, Columbia Falls, Maine

It's nearly picking season in Downeast Maine. The pickers will come and live at the barrens in rustic little camps until the work is done.

 The barrens are a spare but beautiful landscape, upon which little will grow except blueberries, because below a very thin scrim of soil lies solid bedrock, scraped clean by glaciers. The blueberry foliage turns deep red in early August, and stays brilliant until the snow covers it. The town of Cherryfield - right next to Columbia Falls - got its name, oddly enough, from the red foliage of its blueberry barrens. My mother is from Cherryfield, and she worked in Wyman's food processing plant as a teenager, plucking sticks and rocks from a conveyor belt of blueberries. She hates when I tell people this, but she was crowned Maine Blueberry Queen of 1950! You probably love wild Maine blueberries - everybody does. They are a superfood, you know! These barrens are, in fact, wild; the blueberries were here before there were companies to cultivate them. They may have been here before there were any people to enjoy them! The pickers cabins in the photo above are the accommodations provided by the Passamaquoddy Wild Blue Berry Company. 

Ready for picking! July 2017

Berry Season: Homegrown is Alright with Me

A land baron I am not (or baroness, I guess.) I live on a double city lot. Nevertheless, my husband and I manage to grow quite a lot of food on our small parcel. This busy lady favors easy things to grow - tomatoes, hot peppers, pole beans - but by far the easiest, and my favorite, are raspberries.

They grow like the proverbial weeds - and sometimes they are the quite-literal weeds, as it's easier to grow them than it is to root them out where you don't want them. The don't even need to be weeded or watered. You just need a sunny-ish patch (I put mine on a difficult-to-mow western slope.) and to wait a year after they are planted, for the canes don't produce fruit their first year. I chose a variety that does all its fruiting early in the season, because once the tomatoes & beans start coming I can barely keep up with processing them, so I feared all-season raspberries would be wasted.

The fruit, of course, is amazing, but the leaves also make a nice tea, which is a gentle treatment for menstrual cramps or diarrhea. Less reliably, raspberry is said in lore to strengthen the bonds of marriage and ensure fidelity, and the bushes to protect a homestead against lost spirits. I can attest to this latter property - I have yet to see a ghost here!

Raspberries are delicious all by themselves. They are also yummy additions to cereal or salad; or here is a simple dessert preparation:

2 cups fresh raspberries, rinsed and drained
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup sour cream

In a mixing bowl, bruise the fruit lightly with a potato masher. Sprinkle the sugar on top, mix briefly then let sit for an hour. Add the sour cream, stir thoroughly, and spoon into bowls.  A summer dessert soup!

Chocolate Bowls Update

If you, like me, find it encouraging to read about other people foibles, to know that other people are fuck-ups just like you are but they muddle through (so you can, too!) you should read the first entry on my chocolate balloon bowls. That one is all about the fuck ups. This is the got-it-figured-out part!
Lookie:

So, the quick-&-dirty is:

• Use good balloons! Like, go to the Party Store and pay $5 for a bag of SHINY (but not mylar! use latex) balloons. Get the 5" ones. 
• Use good chocolate, and melt only half of it. Then add the unmelted part & stir until it's all melted. This will cool the melt so it won't pop the balloons. 
• Put a little blob of chocolate on wax paper to be the "stand" for the balloons to sit on. Forget the pizzelle cookies, they didn't work out. 
• Rinse the balloons (obvs), dry them, and then spray the very bottoms only with cooking spray. I did one without this, and it worked but it was alot dicier. 
• Plan to dip a second time, after the chocolate has cooled  completely, for thickness. Do not try to get them as thick as you need with one dip! (BANGSPLAT. Guaranteed.)

Here's the balloon removal process, the part that gets skipped in all the videos:

Put a piece of tape where you are going to piecer the balloon with a pin, to prevent popping. 

Balloon shrinks as air escapes. You may have to gently pry balloon away from chocolate.

Lightly squeeze and tug on the balloon to release it from the bottom of the bowl.

That's it! That's all. Well: they need to be filled, in this case with frozen yogurt & fresh raspberries, and whipped cream. I learned something new and I got to eat lots of chocolate mistakes, so I'm happy.

Update to the update: Here's what they looked like full. I assembled slices of raspberry frozen yogurt, whipped cream, nuts, and fresh berries. Putting the shapes, textures, and colors together is the best part, right after eating it. :)

The Chocolate Balloon Bowl Adventure

First let me tell you: there are about a zillion videos on youtube on how to make chocolate balloon bowls. If you want to try it, you should definitely watch those! And then you should come back here, and I will tell you all the difficulties that you are going to encounter, that those videos sorta gloss over.

I decided to make these after a heavenly experience with chocolate balloon bowls at the Portland Pottery Cafe. I suspected it would be harder than it looks, but at first I thought I was pleasantly mistaken:

I knew it couldn't be that easy

Waffle cookies for the base: check.
Ghiradelli chocolate, because it's more chocolate and less...not-chocolate, I guess? Check. Melt, dip, place on cookies...all so easy, all so neat! Who knew?

Except...um, how do you get the damn balloon out of the bowl? I mean, deflate it, obviously, I did that; but the balloons just tore and the part inside the bowls stayed inside the bowl. No amount of persuasion would get them out of the chocolate bowl, and the bowls are fragile, so they fell apart with my efforts. Fell apart with the balloon shreds still stuck to them! Also where it did come loose it left a gross balloon residue, even though I washed them.
I asked the chef at the PP Cafe, and she said, I dunno, I just popped mine & the came right out.

I got another bag of chocolate for Take 2. This time I washed the balloons thoroughly with soap and water, rinsed them, and before dipping each one in the chocolate, sprayed them with cooking spray. I tried to make a thicker layer of chocolate on each one...that was a mistake. I also, when I ran low on chocolate, added some white chocolate baking chips so I could keep trying; also a mistake!
Both the thicker bowls and the added white chocolate caused the balloons to pop and  splatter chocolate  all over the kitchen, which was not entirely unexpected - I was sort of surprised when that didn't happen the first time through. It was sort of hilarious and experiential, the first few times. After about the fourth one it was less amusing.

I did get four useable bowls, which is fine because I only have one mother.

The four good bowls

All the videos just gloss right over getting the balloons out of the bowls, where as in real life it is possibly an absolute fucking deal-breaking disaster! Use the spendy balloons that are meant to be water balloons, wash & dry them, and spray them with cooking spray.

Use the good chocolate, and only the good chocolate! I think the cheaper chocolate has to get hotter to melt, maybe? Which pops the balloons. You don't want the gooey chocolate-covered balloon to pop in your kitchen, or anywhere else. Melt half the bag of chocolate melting discs, then add the other half to them, to get the temperature you need. If you use the microwave (which, don't) be very attentive! A few seconds, check, mix, a few more seconds...or get this:

A burned mess on one side, and not even melted on the other!

Anyway! This might look like a disaster, but it was actually a fun learning experience. I kind of want to try it again - call me crazy - but I can't afford more chocolate! If I remember I'll take photos of the assembled desserts so you can see what all this effort was for.

Dessert at the Portland Pottery Cafe

I've been meaning to post this for a while! A few weeks ago I hosted a date night event at Portland Pottery - couples spend an hour or on a wheel-throwing lesson, then have dinner.

The dinner was great but the DESSERT was amazing. So amazing i am still thinking about it weeks later. A cylinder of mascarpone with walnuts, surrounded by raspberries, chocolate gelato, and a wedge of fruit pastry.

Chef Manda does not offer this particular work of art every day. There are always a few cheesecakes, bars, macaroons, and cakes to choose from, but if I want something like this, I am going to have to make it myself. And where do we go to learn new skills? Why, youtube, of course!

I decided I am going to try this for Mother's Day, when I will have a small but forgiving audience of family. Will keep you posted! In the meantime go say hi to Manda & Kevin at the PP cafe. Tell 'em Lori sent ya.

Maine Beer News

I was delighted but unsurprised this morning to read that Portland recently ranked the #1 city in the WORLD for craft beer. YOU GO, Portland! I love Portland, and I love a well-made beer, favoring IPAs & lagers - less interested in pumpkin-spice and blueberry varieties, but hey, whatever floats your teeth.
Portland is an up-and-coming tech hub, and those lads & lasses have expensive tastes and the money to satisfy them. Craft beer tastes, and craft beer budgets = 😋😜!!

I was surprised, and even more delighted, to read that Augusta is getting a craft brewery of our very own. Cushnoc Brewing is set to open a location on Water St. this fall. I've been waiting & waiting for the booming economic health in Southern Maine - and especially Portland - to reach Augusta, in the same way that the economic health of Boston crept north to Portland in search of more affordable living options. I may have a long wait yet, but at least soon I can enjoy a craft beer half a mile from my house to pass the time!

Not to mention a wood-fired pizza.

The Morning Monkey

The Morning Monkey

Everybody knows about Chunky Monkey Smoothies, right?

1 banana
1 tsp cocoa
2 Tbsp peanut butter
1/2 cup plain yogurt
1/2 cup coconut milk

While this version is delicious, it has one drawback: I have to buy coconut milk for it, which I don't use in anything else: by itself, or in other smoothies, it tastes like soap. (Turns out it is high in lauric acid, which is a saponin.) And, frugalista that I am, I noticed there was often a bit of coffee left over every morning - sometimes more than a bit. It's about impossible to guess exactly how much we are each going to want! I started saving it in a pitcher, to maybe drink as iced coffee later in the day, but then got a better idea.

I switched out the coconut milk in the Chunky Monkey with leftover coffee, and man is it delicious! Now I often have this in place of my morning brew. Wakes me up and gets breakfast out of the way at the same time. The slight bitterness of the coffee is the perfect balance to the sweetness of the peanut butter.  Not only do I use my leftover coffee, I can remove an item from my shopping list. This is a very satisfying breakfast. It's a little on the caloric side - 382, but who's counting? - but between the protein, fat, and fiber, I find I don't get hungry until mid-afternoon. Frugal and fabulous, a winning combination.

Morning Monkey Smoothie

1 banana
1 tsp cocoa
2 Tbsp peanut butter
1/2 cup plain ypgurt
1/2 cup cold coffee

I put away the dishes in the rack while the blender is whirring.

Pumpkin Breakfast Smoothie

The familiar One-Pie label has not changed in half a century. It reminds me of childhood holiday baking, literally the only time cans of pumpkin puree were found in my mother's shopping cart. One-Pie has been canned in West Paris, Maine for 50+ years.

Pumpkin is having something of a resurgence, though: not just for pie, anymore! Pumpkin soups are often found on menus at trendy restaurants throughout the cold weather months, and I see pumpkin bread & muffins everywhere. Not to mention the so-trendy-it's-comical Pumpkin Spice Latte.

While I like my pumpkin pie and bread and muffins as well as anyone, I am something of a smoothie fanatic. Thick, sweet, creamy smoothies make healthy breakfasts seem like dessert. One of my requirements for my breakfast smoothie is that it not have any weird-ass ingredients like chia seed or pollen or spirulina (what even is that?) Nothing, in short, that I would have to make a special trip to Lois's for. (Nothing against Lois's - I just don't want to have to plan ahead that much.) So my version of a pumpkin smoothie is pretty simple:

Lori's Mostly-Maine Pumpkin Smoothie
1/2 cup One-Pie pumpkin puree (West Paris!)
1/2 cup apple cider (from The Apple Farm, in Fairfield)
1/2 cup vanilla yogurt
1 tsp honey (from a beekeeper friend in Southern Maine)
1 good shake of cinnamon

So good, and good for you!

Jubilee

I'm a tomato gardener.Not in a truck-garden, farmer's-market kind of way, but we plant four raised beds, and the largest - 10" x 6" - is full of tomatoes. I usually get short season varieties: Sun Golds, Oregon Springs, Consmonaut Volkovs. But I get my seeds from Fedco, and I always check the box that says if you re out of the variety I ordered, send me something else.

This year they sent me Jubilees. Wow, what a beautiful tomato! Large, smooth, yellow-orange fruit, a little seeter than a regular tomato...and still producing. It's late October, and I just plucked this beauty. My freezer is full of bruschetta, salsa, and tomato sauce by now, so all Ocotber fruit are sliced and eaten. On BLTs, in omelets, in salads, or just by themselves.

My Sun Golds are still fruiting, also. This was one fantastic year for tomatoes.