We had an adventurous time getting to our next destination, taking the blue roads along the coast to check out two small towns: Wiscasset and Damariscotta. Both are known for having excellent seafood. At Wiscasset, it’s the lobster roll at Red’s Eats. Inn Damariscotta, it’s the oysters. They are said to be terrific just about anywhere you order them in town: they come from the oyster beds in the Daramiscotta River. But Jan, a friend we made at the wedding, said “There’s nothing like sitting down to a plate of oysters at King Eider’s Pub.” She was so right. There’s nothing like it in the world. The oysters were so fresh, so briny, so magical. They made our throats tingle. We had one taste and it took about half a second for us to look at each other and know. These were the best oysters of our lives.
More about the oysters, Red’s, and our trip to Rockland, after the jump.
While Greg slept off his scolding, I slipped out of the hotel for an early breakfast. I had heard from the Boston friends we met at the Black Trumpet Bistro that the place to go was the Friendly Toast.
Apparently, a lot of other people agree! Luckily, I got there before the lines. My breakfast and the interior, after the jump.
Is it ever really a good idea to have a nightcap at your hotel bar? I question the intelligence of this, but the fact is, we went ahead, and we ended up with some good material.
So here we are, enjoying our bourbon. The band is playing.
Yes, that’s a woman singing and playing drums. Her only other accompaniment was a keyboard player. When we walked into the hotel lobby, we thought, Oh boy. This is the stuff that Saturday Night Live skits are made out of.
And then we were enjoying our drinks for a while, and you know what? We realized the band was pretty good. (Or was that the bourbon talking?) Anyway, you can judge for yourself, in this little clip I like to call “Greg Gets a Scolding.”
We chose the Black Trumpet Bistro for dinner because the chef-owner cooks with local — sometimes even foraged — ingredients, and we wanted to taste New England. Plus, there’s a wine bar.
We only had a few hours in Portsmouth before sunset, but it was plenty of time to take in the brick sidewalks, tall steeples, quaint alleyways and of course, the stunning views of the harbor.
We packed up the car, loaded the bikes and got on the road. Like the dorks that we are, we even had a cooler for drinks and snacks on the road. Thank goodness, because we wouldn’t want to ignore the sage advice of the government in Maine:
There are many funny (cars loaded with bikes and kayaks) and beautiful (waves crashing along a rocky coastline) things to see in Maine, but this sign may have been one of my favorites. We came across it at the first rest stop across the border, where there were only restrooms and a room of vending machines full of chips and sodas. Hence, the warning, I suppose.
After the jump, the SCFmobile, loaded with bikes, but no kayaks, and a few photos of dorks eating their lunch at picnic tables on the side of interstate highways. This is going to be fun, people! Click to continue »
SCF is obviously WAY behind on blogging this summer. I’m going to try to catch up in a rather unconventional way. I’ll be posting our photos from our recent travels and meals in Maine, and at the same time, post-dating older entries as I complete them from the other exciting activities of the summer, including Minnesota and the North Fork and plenty of dinners in the orchards and the fields. Thanks for hanging on there, fans!
On the way home from our visit to Schell’s, we made a detour to Nicollet, Minnesota to check out Schmidt’s Meat Market. This is the spot where Bob and Ann get goodies each year around Christmas time and send us a nice care package. We were so excited to meet the meat in person.
Schell’s Brewery in New Ulm, Minn. was established in 1860, making it the second oldest brewery in the US. (The first is Yuengling.) We went for a tour and a tasting on a beautiful Friday afternoon.
Jake’s Stadium Pizza — one of Greg’s favorites because of its thin, crackery crust and fun toppings, such as Canadian bacon — is moving to make way for a CVS. We were there on its last weekend in the old location.
After lunch, we took the car out to the prairie for some sightseeing and nostalgic visits to places like “the home place,” where Greg’s dad grew up. When the wind whistles the tall grass and it sways back and forth like waves along the fields, you start to understand such references as “for amber waves of grain.” Even though these are green.
The second sour cherry pie of the season seemed to work out a little better. I gathered the dough a little tighter and didn’t put quite as much filling inside. This sour cherry pie filling, by the way, is great with David Tanis’ pie dough recipe, which I had frozen from all the way back in the fall when we were making apple tarts.
I must admit. The first sour cherry pie of the season was a bit of a failure. Not an abject failure — I was able to salvage it. But not what I’d been hoping and dreaming of for a year. Come along and I’ll show you why.
When I tell you that these are the best baked beans you’ll ever have, you should believe me. They’re from an Alton Brown recipe, and I originally discovered it on the Serious Eats blog. (I wish my photo looked as good as that one, but you’re going to have to take my word for it. These are kick ass. I mean Kick. Ass.)
The best thing about shopping at the Pleasantville Farmers Market is that it’s the only market where you can get Rainbeau Ridge goat cheese. It was delicious the next morning with strawberries, a bagel and some jam:
I ran the lawnmower in front of the bees, and boy did they get all uppity about it! They were buzzing so much I had to get the camera out. So here’s a look-see.
After drinks at the Red Hat, we walked around the corner for supper at the Day Boat Cafe, a new seafood restaurant in Irvington. The ceiling is lined with red oars.
We harvested lettuce, beets and carrots from the fields this afternoon, and made a delishy salad for dinner. Roasted carrots, roasted beets, goat cheese, fresh lettuce with lemon vinaigrette and garlic bread.
It’s just so easy for us to go to Barcel. It’s four blocks away, we love the food, and it’s not that expensive. I guess that’s why we go so often. This time, we went for brunch!
Even the toast and eggs are great. More, after the jump.
I got a bee in my bonnet about having some creme fraiche ice cream to go with all the good fruit and pies we’ve been having, and that’s not something they have in the freezer aisle at the store. So I got out my eggs, cream, milk, sugar and, yes, creme fraiche and got to work.
After our first two stops at Alta and El Faro, we walked along the High Line (sorry, no photos) to our final stop of the evening, Tia Pol. (SCF fans may remember Tia Pol from such posts as BDoF, Part II: Tapas at Tia Pol.) By this point, we were pretty full, especially due to the tortilla Espanola and the shrimp in white sauce we’d had at El Faro. But we were lucky enough to get three seats at the bar, so we settled in and shared a little something-something.
