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.

Monsanto Spanked Again

The U.S. Patents and Trademarks office has rejected four of Monsanto's patents for genetically engineered crops on grounds the ag giant is using the pantents to bash small farmers.

The Public Patent Foundation, which had challenged the Monsanto patent claims, issued a press release announcing the patents office action. Until today, we didn't know there was such a thing as the Public Patent Foundation, or that it had taken up arms against Monsanto and its efforts to corner the market on the world's seeds. But we are glad they did. Here's a portion of their press release:

The Public Patent Foundation (PUBPAT) announced today that the United States Patent and Trademark Office has rejected four key Monsanto patents related to genetically modified crops that PUBPAT challenged last year because the agricultural giant is using them to harass, intimidate, sue - and in some cases literally bankrupt - American farmers. In its Office Actions rejecting each of the patents, the USPTO held that evidence submitted by PUBPAT, in addition to other prior art located by the Patent Office's Examiners, showed that Monsanto was not entitled to any of the patents.

Monsanto has filed dozens of patent infringement lawsuits asserting the four challenged patents against American farmers, many of whom are unable to hire adequate representation to defend themselves in court. The crime these farmers are accused of is nothing more than saving seed from one year's crop to replant the following year, something farmers have done since the beginning of time.

One study of the matter found that, "Monsanto has used heavy-handed investigations and ruthless prosecutions that have fundamentally changed the way many American farmers farm. The result has been nothing less than an assault on the foundations of farming practices and traditions that have endured for centuries in this country and millennia around the world, including one of the oldest, the right to save and replant crop seed." The lawsuits filed by Monsanto against American farmers include Monsanto Company v. Mitchell Scruggs, et al, 459 F.3d 1328 (Fed. Cir. 2006), Monsanto Company v. Kem Ralph individually, et al, 382 F.3d 1374 (Fed. Cir. 2004) and Monsanto Company v. Homan McFarling, 363 F.3d 1336 (Fed. Cir. 2004).

Under our links to "Bad Things in Food," we have now added the website of Percy Schmeiser, a Candian farmer who has made legal cause with Monsanto.

For a complete copy of the Patent Foundation press release, go here.

Wild for Squash

Have I mentioned that one of my ambitions is to initiate the ultimate squash cook-off here in the nation's capital? Are you up to the challenge?

Maybe next year.

Meanwhile, the food section at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has put together this enticing collection of squash recipes.

Have any of your own you'd like to add to the pot?

Runaway Garden

A garden waits for no man and that should be perfectly clear. I wasn't sure exactly what to expect when we arrived home after two weeks in Mexico. Our friends Helen and Tomeika have been doing a great job of watering through the depths of summer in Washington, D.C. So everything is lush and green.

As I suspected, the tomatoes are already growing out of their cages. They are like wild animals, almost impossible to contain without constant attention. There were many cucumbers that had grown to almost enormous size, but not too big that they can't be pickled. (Wave for the camera, dear.)

The bush beans I planted obviously are not bush beans at all but climbing string beans with nothing to climb on. Otherwise the beans have been a bit of a disappointment this season. Not much production there.

More than anything, though, I am ticked at the okra. I planted burgundy okra for the first time and haven't been able to eat any of it. There were many pods on the plants this morning and I organized a meal around them. But when I began to slice them it was apparent immediately that they were old and tough and sinewy, even though they looked great. (The plants themselves are no more than 18 inches tall, very strange, since I am used to looking at okra at least a foot over my head).

I can't imagine a summer without okra, yet this may be one. Shame on me for not planting some of last year's seeds.

But enough whining. I pulled up several edamame plants loaded with beans. They could have been picked a week ago but still there was a ton of them. I blanched them in salted water, saved some for our drive to Maine and placed the rest in the freezer for later. Our daughter loves edamame beans, and so simple. She just pops them right out of the pod into her mouth.

The potato plants have wilted and nearly disappeared, many of them. So I fetched my forked spade to see what might be going on under the surface and sure enough scooped up a load of potatoes in all sizes, red and purple mostly. We have a 20-foot-long bed of potatoes so I figure we will be eating them for quite some time.


Dinner was supposed to be smothered okra with onions and corn, but since the okra was a bust I quickly changed course and opted for some dark Italian kale. We have plenty, and where I was once worried whether it would survive it is growing gangbusters.

To make a meal for four persons, or a side dish for six to eight, Start by sauteing some sliced onions out of the garden in extra-virgin olive oil, then lower the heat and add some minced garlic that has been "curing" the last three weeks since we harvested it, maybe four cloves. Cover with a 14.5-ounce can of diced tomatoes, including juices. Then remove the ribs from about 8 ounces of dark kale leaves, such as Lacinato. Slice these finely and add to the pot with some salt, pepper and apple cider vinegar. Cook over low heat until the greens are tender, at least an hour.

Remove the kernels from two ears of corn and place these in the pot as well for a few minutes. Meanwhile, cook separately a pound or so of freshly dug potatoes cut into chunks. When tender, drain these. To serve, spoon some of the greens over the potatoes, drizzle with extra-virgin olive oil and dust with Parmesan cheese.