Italians

A day on the water with a bag of Italians represents something of a culmination of our week here in South Freeport, Maine. Italians are to this part of the country what steak subs are to Philadelphia. We get ours from a local deli called Pat's, this particular version being a soft hot dog roll (known hereabouts as a "top-cut bun") sliced open and loaded with cold cuts, provolone cheese, thin strips of green bell pepper and sliced tomato.

Thus loaded, the Italian becomes a kind of open-faced sandwich. Tradition holds that before eating it you drizzle the filling with extra-virgin olive oil, which these days is provided in little foil packets (as opposed to the small plastic containers that sometimes opened and spilled inside the bag as you were transporting them home, a potential disaster and a story for another time...)

The point of sailing with Italians isn't so much the sandwiches, of course, as the journey. Italians immediately conjure up summer days from the past spent lolling around Casco Bay, landing on one of the small islands, finding a place to picnic--the sea breezes heeling the boat and stirring conversation, feet in the water and looking for purchase in the stones, scouting locations for the luncheon feast, climbing rocks, spreading napkins, oiling the Italians, guzzling beers.

So it was on this particular trip as we marched to the marina with our lBean bags loaded with sweaters and sunblock and potato chips, the several coolers prepared by Peter and jammed with sodas and water bottles and Becks and Pabst Blue Ribbon (the latter would be Peter's current favorite brew, Carling's not being available in Florida, where he now resides).

Originally we had planned to lunch on an island called Goslings, but Peter, who was ferrying the teenaged girls and the young girls in the Boston Whaler, reported over the radio that Goslings was too crowded (even on a Thursday afternoon) so we headed for the next closest island, Little Whaleboat.

The beach was perfectly deserted as we approached in the dinghy. The teenaged girls were already stripped down to their swimsuits with the younger girls scampered off to climb rocks and collect clam shells. We located a shelf of rocks with a good view and sufficient surface to spread out our victuals and there we settled in to devour our Italians.

It was a perfect place to create new memories over sandwiches, only the occasional squawking of the seagulls to break the silence, sailboats gliding past in the distance, Shannon and John discussing the small rock ledge out in the water they had encountered last week with the sailboat. "It isn't on the chart," Shannon repeated a number of times, as if to assure himself that he hadn't hit the thing on purpose.

Down on the beach, the teenaged girls were wading in the water. Finally, Isabella plunged in and swam slowly out into the small cove, bobbing up and down using her breast stroke. We watched, savoring our Italians, munching on Cape Cod potato chips and drinking our beers.

On the return leg, the breeze kicked up and now we were taking it off the starboard bow, rather than from behind, so it was more of an interesting sail, not the leisurely event when we'd had a light wind behind us. Shelly took the opportunity to read a chapter on sailing in Maine from Roger Angell's new memoir, he being the longtime sports writer for The New Yorker.

Mr. Angell has it right, we are pretty much just loafing out here in the water, we sailors. The lobster boats that we pass are doing true work. Somehow we got lucky and can simply enjoy this marvelous spot, the bay with its clean sea water, the fresh breezes, the pine-studded islands. We find all sorts of excuses for getting out on the boat--eating Italians for lunch being one. We hope not to hit anything lurking under the surface. Really, we are just city people who miss the outdoors, who want to re-live all the good times we've had on the water and most of all draw closer to the pulse of the planet.

Indian Pudding

It seems that any house near the water automatically attains "cottage" status here in Maine. But the cottages seem to be getting bigger and bigger, with more and more modern accoutrements, to the point that they are no longer distinguishable from what we landlubbers "from away"--as visitors are known--refer to as "houses." Except, as I said, they are near the water and happen to be planted in the soil of Maine.

The place where we are staying here in South Freeport comes much closer to what I think of as a true "cottage." In fact, we commonly refer to it as "The Red Cottage," exactly because it is painted red, like a barn, on the outside. The cottage is not winterized at all. There is no insulation. So, from the inside, what you see are all the bare two-by-fours and ceiling joints, as well as the knotty pine boards that constitute the sides of the cottage and the underside of the roof. You also see the electrical wires running here and there to wall switches and light fixtures and wall outlets, occasionally wrapping or turning around an ancient ceramic insulating terminal. The floor boards, meanwhile, have been painted a battleship grey, but overlaid with a playful scheme of dots in various primary colors, so you hardly realize you are walking across a bare wood floor nearly 100 years old.

There are five bedrooms in all, three upstairs in the original part of the house, and two downstairs in a fairly recently renovated basement. So the cottage theoretically (and in actual fact) will sleep 10 or 11 persons, which does make for some interesting situations around the lone bathroom. A second bathroom in the basement would make an abundance of sense, but remains a fantasy for us guests.

You can't choose your kitchen when you are on vacation and this one has its quirks. It is a fun place to work, with plenty of space and the timbers painted a bright yellow. Even the underside of the sink, which is completely exposed without any artifice of cabinetry, is painted the same cheerful yellow, except for the PVC plumbing pipes. There's a microwave oven, separate cabinets for pots, pans, cutlery, placematts and liquor. Conveniently, there are even pots large enough to boil lobsters, something we do frequently, and a blender for making lobster bisque, should the mood strike.

The seal around the inside of the refrigerator door is barely functional. The owners of the cabin have addressed this issue by attaching a bungee cord to the wall. In the even you should need something out of the fridge, you have to unhook the bungee cord from the handle on the door. When you are done, you close the door and stretch the cord to re-attach the hook on the handle. This has been the system for maintaining cold inside the refrigerator for as long as we can remember.

The largest skillet in the cottage is an old restaurant model, heavy steel, whose bottom is so badly warped that the only way to use it is to find a smaller pot to place somewhere under the long handle, so that the skillet will balance awkwardly on the electric burner. Still, there is so little surface area of the skillet underside touching the electric element that actually cooking with it is a challenge.

Another challenge is the electric oven. The thermostat has been broken forever, so that when you set the temperature for, say, 275 degrees, what you actually get is something closer to 55o. This differential in cooking temperatures made itself evident fairly quickly. I think we were making cookies that needless to say baked to a crisp much more quickly than we were expecting. We made a quick study of the oven and I think even wrote out a translation so that we could actually use the oven and obtain the desired temperatures. I don't know where that went, but we did purchase an oven thermometer that still hangs from one of the oven racks, so you can at least see how far out of whack it is and make adjustments.

Again, the owners of the cabin seem to think the hanging thermometer is solution enough. No need to bother replacing the thermostat. We've heard that when other renters complain about the oven, they are told something along the lines of, "There are professional chefs you use that oven and they do just fine." Meaning us, I guess.

But the reason for this post was to talk a little about Indian pudding. Indian pudding, as the name implies, is a traditional New England dish that recalls a time when there was active trading between Boston and the sugar plantations of the Caribbean Islands. The main ingredients are so basic and so identified with the original colonies--corn meal, molasses, eggs, milk, sugar--that there is hardly anything more American. But my guess is there may be only three people on the planet who still know what Indian pudding is. Yet Indian pudding is a favorite dessert of our friend Shelly, who grew up in South Freeport, so we try to make it at least once a year while we are here.

Last night we were eating leftover steaks with freshly sauteed shrimp and my famous three-hour green beans. Our friend Tom, the world traveler and bon vivant, had brought a selection of French wines whose names we couldn't pronounce. We thought it was the perfect meal to be capped off with Indian pudding and ice cream. Be prepared to cook this pudding in the oven for up to several hours (it's not a quick dish at all, but not difficult). We cooked it in a large Pyrex dish. This version if from Marjorie Mosser's "Good Maine Food."

To make a pudding for eight persons, first bring 1 pint of milk just to a boil, then stir in 1/4 cup corn meal. Cook 10 minutes then add 1/2 cup molasses, 1/2 cup sugar, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon, 1 egg (well beaten), 2 tablespoons butter, 1/2 cup raisins. Mix everything together, then add 1 pint cold milk. Transfer the hot mixture to an oven-proof bowl or casserole and bake at 250 degrees for 2 hours, or until the pudding has set. When it has baked 1/2 hour, stir the pudding and add 1 cup of cold milk. It will finish baking on its own.

To serve, remove pudding from oven to cool a bit, then scoop into bowls with your favorite ice cream or perhaps some whipped cream with just a drop of rum.

Food and the Weather

Here in South Freeport, Maine, each day dawns with thoughts of the next meal. Being one of the first of our party to stumble out of bed in the morning, I've taken it upon myself lately to swing past the local Shaw's grocery to pick up the papers and purchase a few items from the produce section for breakfast. In consideration of the calories consumed the evening previous, I have been preparing a platter of assorted fruits, accompanied by yogurt and cereals for a casual buffet.

Sometimes the plans for lunch--and dinner--have been sketched out days earlier, and frequently involve a trip by sailboat to one of the many small islands that dot Casco Bay. But of course sailing is contingent on the weather, so we pay a great deal of attention to the predictions printed in the newspapers and to the outlook as viewed from the windows of our cottage.

Yesterday was to be one of those days where we loaded up the boats with coolers, chips, lobsters and cooking paraphernalia and headed out into the waters of the bay for a lunchtime lobster fest. The predictions were for clouds, then sun, so we weren't exactly surprised when we found the bay shrouded in mist when we woke in the morning. There was a brisk breeze blowing and we were confident the fog would blow off or burn off as the morning wore on.

But things did not get much better. In fact, they got worse. Instead of preparing for a sail, we quietly settled into activities designed for the indoors. The two teenaged girls focused on a puzzle, some 300 small pieces lying in a jumble on the dining room table, representing a disassembled photograph of the Taj Mahal. Our daughter and her friend Alice occupied themselves with a stack of dominoes, arranging them into various shapes and using them as building blocks. The adults retreated into their books, the whole assembly falling into a lethargic hush, interrupted occasionally by a chuckle or belly laugh instigated by a line in one of the books being read.

The fog had the effect not of drawing us closer together in our small cottage, but of isolating us in our individual worlds of contemplation.

Occasionally one of us would look up from his reading to make another assessment of the weather. Now the wind was driving the mist across the bay in long, ghost-like tatters. Another time it would appear the fog was lifting, and we could see clearly the pine trees on the opposite shore. Spirits would rise in anticipation. But then we'd look about again and the fog had descended more definitively than ever. Visibility was reduced to almost zero. We were locked behind an impenetrable wall of sodden grayness. We retreated back into our reading material.

Around noon , Peter made his usual appearance from the motor home that he has parked at the end of the driveway. Soon he was draining water from our several coolers, retrieving ice from the freezer and refreshing the beers and sodas that are always ready for us on the side porch. Peter's cooler routine is so predictable, you could set your watch by it.

Shannon, who maintains the sailboat, returned from a spin around the harbor in his dinghy to report that things "didn't look good." He had purchased a length of braided Dacron rope to make a docking line for the boat and proceded to unbraid one end and fix a loop in it with his nautical sewing kit.

By this time it had become obvious to all that there would be no lobster feast on the beach this day. Shelly, who is nominally in charge of all plans, although she makes a good game of not being, announced that she still had enough lobster meat from dinner two nights ago to make a few lobster rolls. She began toasting top cut buns on the stove top, then passed around plates of lobster rolls, but without the usual Cape Cod potato chips, since it appeared we had run out and no one was in a mood to drive to the store for more.

The lobster rolls were utterly delicious, the delicate yet unmistakable seafood flavor somehow managing to rise above the buttery brownness of the toasted rolls, and just the right amount of fullness for a midday meal. But then Shelly observed that there was still a considerable amount of roasted pork loin left over from several nights ago and certain to go bad if not eaten. Her husband John and I volunteered to make the ultimate sacrifice, so we were presented with yet another plate of toasted buns, for which I received a severe reprimand from my wife.

It was worth every fat-inducing bite.

Needless to say, we never did make it out in the boat. The wind blew, the fog settled in for good. Peter built a fire in the fireplace. John found a place in a easy chair in front of the fire and never left. The teenagers finished their puzzle and moved on to their scrap book. The little girls scampered off to Alice's house, leaving a mess of dominoes and toys on the dining room table. Visitors came and went. Drifting in and out of wakefulness, I managed to finish a book I've been reading in fits and starts for months, John Thorne's "Simple Food," a marvel of insights and writer's craft.

Soon enough, we'd moved on to cocktails--Bombay Sapphire martinis--and a dinner of New York strip steaks prepared by Shannon on the grill, along with roasted potatoes and green beans from the garden of Shannon and his wife Meg. Shelly and the girls gathered around the dining room table to trim the beans. I blanched them in boiling salted water and, when we were ready to sit, tossed them in a heavy skillet with parsley, mint, butter and extra-virgin olive oil. They were perfectly ripe with exquisite color--so jewel-like it was almost a shame to cook them at all.

But we did, and dinner was a family affair. Then it began to rain...

Top-Cut Buns

You might think making a lobster roll would be the easiest thing in the world, more or less like falling off a log in your sleep, but that would be a mistake. A lobster roll is no mere sandwich. A couple of serious protocols pertain. Here, I'll tell you why.

First, consider the bun you plan to stuff with your lobster meat. You may have read a description in a cookbook or a magazine recipe where the author says, simply spread the lobster meat inside a hot dog roll. Wrong. I can't tell you what a disappointment it is to see so many authors and so-called authorities simply skip over the first essential step of making a lobster roll. And that is finding some good, authentic top-cut buns.

Top-cut buns do look a little like your garden variety hot dog roll, I'll grant you that, but there are crucial differences to consider. The most important is, of course, that unlike hot dog rolls, which are sliced through the width of the bun, top-cut buns--as the name implies--are sliced on a vertical axis, beginning at the top.

If you examine a top-cut bun closely, you'll see that what it resembles more than anything, when viewed from the top down, is two extra-thick slices of ordinary bread pressed closely together. The top of the buns are browned, like a normal bread loaf. More significantly, this leaves the sides of the buns exposed and creamy white, perfect for browning with a knob of melted butter in the bottom of a heavy skillet. And that's the ideal for a lobster roll: buns browned and exquisitely crisped on the sides. This is something you cannot do with your every day hot dog bun.

I have looked all over the District of Columbia for top-cut buns and haven't found any. I didn't really expect to. Top-cup cut buns seem to be a New England phenomenon, offered for sale in the local supermarket under such brand names as Country Kitchen from the LePage Bakeries in Auburn, Maine. (Incongruously, Country Kitchen calls their buns "Frankfurter Rolls," which only confuses matters further. But don't be fooled.)

There are other brands that I suspect you will find nowhere but in the range of the Boston Red Sox fan base, although I could be wrong. If you are desperate for a lobster roll and, like those of us in the District of Columbia, are not in the top-cut bun distribution area, I suppose you could use an ordinary hot dog roll. Try browning the inside of the bun, spread out flat in melted butter in the bottom of a heavy skillet.

Now the lobster filling is actually the simplest part, assuming you've spent the requisite time picking over your lobsters cooked the night before to salvage every last delectable morsel. As I mentioned before, this is usually a task taken up by our friend Shelly, who grew up in South Freeport, Maine, within spitting distance of the lobster boats tied up in the marina, and has been eating lobster since she had teeth to chew with.

Shelly approaches this task of picking with an unusual zeal that I believe suits her personality. She is a dedicated public defense attorney--in fact, dean of a public law school dedicated to public service--and I think this dedication to public service carries over into her lobster picking. It is rather a thankless task, searching out every last bit of edible meat amongst all the little nooks and cartilaginous crannies of the lobster carcass. But someone obviously has to do it, and none better than a dedicated public servant.

For god and humanity, I say.

Shelly also has some very specific thoughts on how the lobster should be dressed. Apparently many magazine editors and cookbook authors cringe at the idea of so few ingredients being listed for the lobster roll fitting, because you will see celery, onions, parsley and all sorts of other things suggested. But I think Shelly's way is best and that is to mess with the lobster hardly at all and just let the pure lobster flavor shine through. If anything, add a scant amount of mayonnaise--enough to barely hold the meat together in a delicate unctuousness--salt, freshly ground pepper and a squirt of lemon. Toss the ingredients together and fill your toasted bun to your heart's content.

Serve the lobster roll with some artisan potato chips. We like the Cape Cod brand, but you could even serve chips you make yourself. A cold beer works nicely to wash it down, but you should have the beverage of your choice. If you can't finish all the lobster (a ridiculous thought, I know) it will be fine as a snack later, or the next day.

Cooking Lobster

There is something reassuring about looking out from the porch of our cottage and watching the changing of the tides in our neck of Casco Bay. We are just a few feet from the water, somewhat elevated in the trees, and where we are the bay stretches to a narrow point where it ends. The sailboats sit at their moorings off in the middle where it's deep enough. For when the tides recedes, all you see for a couple hundred yards from shore is mud.

Then the tide brings the water back, about eight feet of depth, so that you can step right off the marsh grasses where we tie up the dinghies and where the kelp lays in thick matts and go for a swim.

It seemed like everyone was loafing more than usual yesterday, just reading the papers and catching up on the first-place run the Red Sox are having. The ladies drove off to Portland to look at art and none of the guys had enough energy to make a plan for sailing. So we didn't shove off till well into the afternoon. But then our sail on the old Hinckley sloop, which Shannon keeps in tip-top condition, turned into a bit of an adventure. A light breeze swelled into a 15-knot blow, to where we (meaning Shannon) had to switch out the jib for something smaller and also take a reef in the mainsail.

That made things a bit more pleasant for Shelly, Meg and Hank, who were complaining quite a bit about the boat being somewhat severely heeled over to the starboard side. Now the plan was to sail till about cocktail hour, then make a beeline back to the marina so we could cook lobsters for 13 persons.

As you might imagine, lobsters are something of a preoccupation here in South Freeport, Maine. We talk about eating lobster pretty much every day and actually do eat some maybe every other day. John, Shelly's husband, got bored Saturday around lunch time so I walked with him 15 minutes to the local lobster shack, formally called Harraseeket Lunch and Lobster for referred to locally as The Harraseeket. It wasn't as crowded as I would have expected on a Saturday but still a little before noon. So we walked down to the lobster pound window and placed an order for two "large" lobsters (about 1.5 pounds) and two soft drinks. This set us back $61. Lobsters are not cheap, even in Maine, although you do get a generous break if you cook them yourselves.

Our lobsters were ready in about 15 minutes. Meanwhile, the picnic tables surrounding the lobster shack were beginning to fill and a long line was forming at the take-out window. The lobsters arrived perfectly cooked, almost too hot to touch, on a Styrofoam tray with napkins, a slender plastic picking fork and a small container of melted butter.

This time of year you are served "peeler" lobsters, meaning the lobsters have recently molted, or shed their old shell, and are forming a new shell that is still soft. In fact, the shell is soft enough that you can break it apart with your bare hands. So that's what you do. Start with the legs, breaking them apart at the joints and sucking the meat and juices our. Then work on the claws, where so much of the good meat is and chunks big enough that you can dredge it in the butter. When you've finishes those, pull off the tail and crack it down the middle on the underside. This frees us the meat so you can slide it out all in one piece. You should have several good mouth-fulls, also dredged in butter.

Now it's time to do a little fancy digging, pulling the shell part off the middle portion of the lobster where the legs were once attached. Inside you'll see some wavy, finger-shaped appendages that look like meat but are really the gills. These are not edible. What you need to do is crack open all the small compartments in amongst the cartilage and pick out the many smaller pieces of flesh that are located inside. This is the true skill of lobster picking, locating these small pieces of meat. Shelly is an expert and truly enjoys it. That's why we always give her our lobster carcasses after a meal, because she will sit there and find so much meat we didn't even realize was there, and save it in a bowl for tomorrow's lobster rolls (more about that later).

Inside the lobster you might also find a green goop commonly called the tomale that is the liver. Many people spurn the liver but anyone who's tasted it and has any sense at all knows it is delicious.

So after we got back to the dock from our sail we bought 20 lobsters for something like $6 a pound. I filled a bucket with sea water down at the beach and we cooked the lobsters in two batches in a big pot set over a propane burner outside the cottage. Several leftover salads were served as well and two big bowls set on the dining table for the shells. Then things got pretty quite for a while as people satisfied themselves cracking lobsters and dredging the meat in butter and drinking white wine and getting their hands all greasy.

When we'd had our fill, Shelly and Meg started the process of scooping out the remaining lobsters and tracking down any stray bits of meat for the next day's lobster rolls.

Our seven-year-old daughter, meanwhile, has become reacquainted with her friend Alice who lives in South Freeport and they were supposed to have a sleepover at Alice's house nearby. But just as we were finishing our lobsters the girls and Alice's mother showed up, explaining that a Daddy Long Legs had found his way into the girls' bed and the sleepover had to be cancelled.

Those are the kind of things that happen when you're on vacation in Maine.

Searing Scallops in Maine

First, I should probably explain how South Freeport, Maine, became the locus of our summer vacations.

Our friend Shelly grew up in this small village on Casco Bay, just up the coast from Portland. By small, I mean a few streets, a post office, an elementary school and a tiny store that also serves as coffee shop and breakfast joint. There's also a marina where the lobster fishermen keep their boats, and for the past generation of so a place known as The Harraseeket, a renowned lobster shack.

When Shelly first invited us to spend time here, it was in a simple cottage on the point located in Deliah Powers Memorial Park, also the local campground. There, we watched her nieces grow up and spent many hours into the night playing darts and drinking Carlings Black Label with Shelly's older brother, Peter, a wounded Vietnam vet and the family cut-up.

Besides Peter, Shelly has an older sister, Nack, a college arts administrator whose youngest daughter is just starting college. There's a younger brother, too, Shannon, a former Navy diver who's married to Meg, a professional baker. Shannon takes care of the family sailboat, now an old wooden Hinckley sloop in excellent condition. Peter's wife, Hank, is a teacher on Cape Cod. Their daughter Loren is a public defender in New York city, planning to marry soon, and daughter Beazie has started college as well.

For the last dozen years or so, a typical day in Maine has gone about like this: Shelly is one of the first up. She starts making muffins with the local blueberries. Her husband, John, fetches all of the available newspapers, including the New York Times, Boston Globe and Portland Gazette, mainly to see what the Boston Red Sox did last night. If the Red Sox win, there usually is a brisk conversation about how they Sox are doing, about the latest star players, and where the dreaded and loathed New York Yankees are in the standings. If the Red Sox lost, it's pretty quiet.

Cereals, fruits and other breakfast making are placed on the dining table for people as they begin to stir and think about filling their bellies. Some people jockey for position in the sole bathroom. There is much newspaper reading, casual conversation about the day prior, the subject of what to have for dinner comes up and what are the plans for sailing that day (?)

Around noon, Peter gets up from his long night of playing darts or whatever and begins managing the coolers. This is no idle task, at least not the way Peter approaches it. There is much shuffling of beverages between the coolers, filling of ice to the proper level, judging quantities of beverages to match the day's planned activities and of course storing of the empties, which are all redeemable for cash here in Maine. When Peter is not around, there is quite a commotion around the issue of coolers.

Sometime in the afternoon the talk of sailing will get serious. There's been a fairly brisk breeze all morning that will inevitably abate later, just as we are making the return leg on the day's sail. In other words, we always get started later than we should, and never get back to the cottage until an hour or two later than when we should have started dinner. It's a grand production, involving at least one sailboat and a Boston Whaler. Typically we choose one of the many islands in Castco Bay for a destination, and if it is to include lunch we will often buy a selection of "Italians" at the local deli, meaning submarine sandwiches with Italian peppers and olive oil, along with many bags of assorted potato chips and pretzels and of course the coolers that Peter has so carefully arranged.

Sometimes we just head over to the hotel at Chebegue Island for a cocktail. But this year we learned the hotel has suddenly closed--again.

Our latest favorite destination is Bustin's Island, not too far from South Freeport. There's a small ferry that makes regular service to Bustin's. There are no automobiles on the island, nor electricity or other utilities. People have solar panels to charge their cell phones and propane to power refrigerators. Otherwise, they spend very quite summers in their cottages taking walks around the island and admiring the view.

Nack and her daughter Lydia have a connection to one of the cottages on Bustin's. That's where Lydia's grandmother lives. This year we were greeted with news that the neighboring cottage burned to the ground recently. A wedding party was staying there. It was cold and they were lighting fires in the fireplace every night. Apparently the wood inside the walls surrounding the fireplace overheated and burst into flame. The wedding party, including a grandmother who was carried out, escaped with just minutes to spare before the place collapsed. The intense heat shattered several windows on the cottage belonging to Lydia's grandmother. Surrounding trees were torched. The fire trucks had trouble pumping water because the tide was out. Mostly they hosed down the neighboring cottages to keep them from burning as well.

The cottage that burned was utterly leveled. Nothing left but the base of the fireplace. However, we were told the bride-to-be returned and, sifting through the rubble, did find the wedding rings.

The girls love the trip to Bustin's because of the rope swing. There's a long rope tied high in the branches of a hickory tree and they push off from the rocks at the shoreline and drop into the water from a height of eight feet or so. The little girls, including my daughter, like to play in the tide pool while the adults sit on the cottage porch and drink their beverages and gossip about this and that.

Yesterday we arrived back in South Freeport late for dinner as usual, except that there were some cold salads already made, including a sesame noodle saddle, a big bowl of tortellini, tabbouleh and a green salad fresh from Meg and Shannon's garden. The only thing left was to cook the six pounds of sea scallops that Hank had brought with her from Cape Cod.

I cooked these as simply as I know how, seasoned with extra-virgin olive oil salt, pepper and usually garlic salt and onion powder, but we didn't have that so I used some Adobo seasoning from the spice rack in the cottage. Coat the bottom of an iron skillet (or two) with olive oil and place over high heat until smoking. Add enough scallops to just cover the bottom of the pan and sear on both sides until the scallops are just barely done. Do this in batches and place the scallops on a large serving platter, garnished with chopped parsley and lemon slices.

Serve with a well-chilled white wine, in this case whatever is in the fridge.