Articles
The Library Holiday Recipe Exchange
About a dozen people stand around the long table in the reading room of the Alice Pendleton Library. There is the aroma of coffee in the air, and a fire crackles softly in the fireplace. A trimmed Christmas tree stands to one side. Our librarian is at the copier, which whirrs and grunts as it
Journal Of An Island Kitchen – Molasses: Like Life Itself in Maine
As soon as it turns off a little chilly, molasses starts tasting even better than it did when the weather was warm. That thick, rich, somewhat bitter sweetness, a good deal like life itself in Maine, makes a cold island winter endurable. Despite its somewhat grim history, it is a comfort food, right along side
At Home, At Sea: Recipes from the Maine Windjammer, J.
Baggywrinkle Publishing, 2004 Schooner Cooking Worth Taking Ashore It was nice meeting Anne Mahle, a friendly, helpful and conscientious soul, and clearly a good cook and storyteller. I ran into her in At Home, At Sea, a book of recipes you can use in your galley or kitchen. Other people run into her as the
Journal of an Island Kitchen: I’ll have a horse’s necktie, please
Modern life promises us whatever we want whenever we want it, no wait, twenty-four seven as they say (as if there was a thirty-six eight). Well, not on this island if you are talking about an honest to goodness hot-fudge-sundae with whipped cream, and nuts or jimmies and a cherry on top. And I have
In Praise of New Asparagus
As soon as mud season is over, and the earth gives just a little underfoot, I go out to our 35-foot-long double-rowed asparagus bed, and begin my gardening year by pulling away last year’s dried old stalks and throwing them on the compost pile. We mulch that bed pretty heavily, and I pull the hay
Journal of an Island Kitchen: Eggs-actly
According to recent calculations a third of a million eggs will be laid on Islesboro in the next ten years, and that will be just by hens as long as our chicken population does not change very much. Islesboro has around 603 souls, according to the 2000 census, and at this time of year, March,
The Saga of the Little Brown Knife
Surely every one has a pet tool – the tool that feels like an extension of your hand, the tool with which you do so much that not to have it is unthinkable. I have a pet knife, a little brown knife, which makes paring and peeling a pleasure. This knife is at least 40
Islesboro’s Beacon Project
Four generations of Islesboro’s Boardman family gather with members of The Beacon Project board of directors at the property where an elder care facility will be built in the near future. The Boardman family made the land available to the project at a generously low price to make the six-resident facility possible. Assisted by advice
Sylvia’s Recipes for All Cooks: Many Maine Dishes from Maine Folks
(self-published) $28.95 “If I can get the younger generation into the kitchen then I will have done what I hoped to do,” said Sylvia Hocking, who has just published her second cook book, Sylvia’s Recipes for All Cooks, Many Maine Dishes from Maine Folks. The South Thomaston author baked for the rich and famous after
Journal of an Island Kitchen: 20,800 Christmas Cookies
At the rate of 1,600 a year, plus or minus, Pauline Byrd must have made 20,800 Christmas cookies during the 13 years at least that I know of. A few days before she packed up her car to drive to New Jersey to spend the holidays with her daughter, Pauline would deliver to all her