Category: Maine

Tidbits from Maine

JWF Leave a comment

TOUCHSTONES

For many years, we began our summer stay in Maine with a day or two in Portland. The pandemic changed that, and we had not been overnight there in several years. This year, we returned to the historic Portland Regency Hotel, formerly an armory, for one night. Its location on Milk Street is perfect for wandering the Old Port, venturing to Monument Square, or even going on to the Portland Museum of Art. That afternoon and at breakfast, we reconnected with John, our favorite longtime waiter and one of the nicest guys around.

My friends know I never pass up a chance to stop in a bookstore, and I have favorites in Portland and Boothbay Harbor. Before dinner on Friday night, we browsed in Longfellow Books on Monument Square. It’s a generously sized independent bookstore with a wide selection of fiction and nonfiction, both new and used, and a separate room devoted to children’s books. Naturally, I purchased a book for me, one for the grand girls, and some notecards.

On Saturday, we made our way up to Southport Island with some time time in Boothbay Harbor. Lunch was at Harborside 1901 Bar and Grill, a more recent favorite which we fondly call “Fiona’s Place” in honor of the founding chef. The Chief Penguin ordered fish and chips with a side of cole slaw while I inaugurated the season with my first lobster roll. Yummy!

After lunch, we visited Sherman’s Books and Stationery, a longstanding touchstone going back 30 years. This location is the mother ship and there are stores in eight other towns. The two-level store carries lots and lots of books, but also toys and games and a big selection of greeting cards, along with housewares and Maine memorabilia. It’s a treasure trove and it’s easy to get lost in here for an hour or more!

At the Southport General Store, another touchstone, we bought the weekly Boothbay Register, a must read for me, and stocked up on wine, ice cream, and pizza slices for dinner. The next day we got ahead of the summer crowds with an early morning trip to Hannaford, the area’s primary supermarket in Boothbay Harbor, for essentials.

Later in the day, it was time to check out the temptations at Pinkham’s Gourmet Market. This store, which initially sold just local seafood, keeps expanding its offerings and adding more goodies. Here we bought fresh crab cakes, deviled clams, some prepared salads, and a jarred Indian curry sauce. Back at the house on Southport, we hunkered down for the remainder of this rainy, foggy day, delighting in the cooler temperatures. So very Maine.

DINING OUT IN PORTLAND

David’s Restaurant in Monument Square

We have eaten at David’s a number of times in recent years and always enjoyed what we ordered. This dinner was better than ever and several notches up in taste and presentation. The highlight was the special starter of arancini made with three different cheeses and served on a smear of poblano cream. Spectacular!

One remaining arancino

We followed this with ahi tuna crudo and roasted Brussels sprouts for the Chief Penguin and delectable salmon cakes with pickled veggies for me (another special of the day). We shared a Caesar salad. Caesar salads are ubiquitous on menus, but they vary widely in the freshness of the greens, the crunch of the croutons, and the balance of garlic and Parmesan in the dressing. This one was a winner in all regards and was topped with a pair of white anchovies. The menu choices overall were so appealing, we vowed to return for lunch!

Note: Photos from JWFarrington (some rights reserved)

 

Maine Highlights: Summer 2022

JWF Leave a comment

Southport Summer
Lilies in the garden
Maine sunset
Searching for sea glass
Roaming at twilight
Shucking oysters
Thank you, Coastal Crave!
Pemaquid Point Lighthouse
Getting ready to swim

Scenes from our wonderful summer!

At the botanical gardens
Partying with friends
Choosing books to buy at Sherman’s
Dining around
Lunch at the Contented Sole
Many visits to the gardens
Lunch at the yacht club

Fun to have friends visit

As summer ends, the monarchs get ready to depart
Rowing along—or not!

Note: All photos ©JWFarrington (some rights reserved)

A Maine Week: Granddaughter Fun & Books

JWF Leave a comment

FUN WITH GRANDDAUGHTERS 

Eating at Home

Coming to Maine is a summer tradition for our granddaughters, and they eagerly anticipate the visit.  This year was no exception.  Certain activities are a given for the week.  One is making blueberry pancakes with Grandma.  Each year, they are more adept in the kitchen, and my role is now more that of an advisor.  The pancakes this year were especially delicious!

A newer tradition is one dinner of clams with linguini; chef for that is our son with the clams from a local purveyor. Note, these girls also love oysters so their dad got some local ones and shucked them himself.

Linguini a la vongole

Out and About

Also on the agenda is a visit to Boothbay Railway Village.   There is a schoolhouse and a house and other 19thcentury buildings to explore, plus the train ride around the village loop, and, of course, some time looking at the extensive model railroad exhibit.  At ages 6 and 10, they still loved it.

In past years, they played miniature golf with their dad.  This time, the Chief Penguin and I joined them.  Dolphin Mini Golf was created thirty-odd years ago and is a fun course to play.  Each hole is somehow sea-related with one shaped like a dolphin and another a whale.  An ice cream hut and a small shell museum round out the offerings.  The donated shell collections include shells from around the world as well as from this region. 

Then there’s the annual wander through Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens stopping to play the metal drums and pipes, sitting and rowing in the canoe, and bouncing on the string bridge. We spent the most time (probably an hour total of our couple hours) in the Fairy House Village.  The girls were creative and exercised their imaginations, each building a house of sticks, leaves, stones, shells, and woodland materials.

Readers All!

Both E and F, are now avid readers—such a joy to see!  F is immersed in the Ivy and Bean books, while older sister E is a fan of historical novels and fantasy and is currently finishing up Chris Colfer’s Land of Stories series.  I had borrowed a stack of books from the little library here and brought with me a few books for them.  In addition, we all enjoyed browsing and buying at Sherman’s in Boothbay Harbor. 

Other hits were a book of Little Women paper dolls, a Lego Friends set, and swimming in the cove.  

We ate several meals out including two dinners at Cozy’s Dockside where the girls enthusiastically ordered cones from the ice cream treats menu. 

MAINE BOOK OF THE WEEK

Fellowship Point by Alice Elliott Dark

Alice E. Dark (amazon.com)

This is a leisurely novel about two octogenarian women, lifelong friends.  It’s meant to be savored and read slowly.  Polly and Agnes are women of an earlier generation, and the book takes place from 2000 to 2008. Societal expectations for women then related mostly to marriage and children.  Polly Wister, is the traditional woman, married to Dick, a Penn philosophy professor, and a mother of four sons. Her friend Alice Lee is single, author of a series of children’s books that made her reputation, but secretly also the author of adult novels written under a nom de plume.  

These friends winter in Haverford and Philadelphia but spend summers on the Maine coast in a family compound dating back more than 100 years founded by Alice’s great grandfather.  Alice wants to preserve the open land beyond the homes as a bird sanctuary.  Other owners and sons want to develop the land. 

Over the years, there are secrets and conflicts, marital tension, and issues over how much one likes or doesn’t like how one’s offspring have turned out.  This all plus an unjust accusation against a neighbor of the so-called “servant class” churn beneath the surface and sometimes erupt.   

Add into this mix Quaker values, old money, an unrequited love, and a new friendship, and you have the ebb and flow of the enduring relationship between Alice and Polly.  They are very different people and yet they share almost everything, emphasis on almost.

Both for the wonderful writing and its thoughtful exploration of the meaning of life and what kind of legacy we leave behind, it’s one of the best books I’ve read this year! (~JWFarrington)

Note: All photos ©JWFarrington (some rights reserved). Header photo taken at Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens.

Exploring Maine: Brunswick

JWF Leave a comment

ART AND EATING IN BRUNSWICK

Crosswalk in downtown Brunswick

For years, we’ve driven Route 1 on the outskirts of Brunswick past strip malls, fast food restaurants, and auto repair shops.  We had never ventured any farther into downtown Brunswick.  This week we did and discovered that Maine Street (it’s really named that) is quite charming with several blocks of shops, a wide variety of restaurants and cafes, and even a couple of bookstores.  Just beyond a lovely park is the beginning of the Bowdoin College campus.  

On the Bowdoin campus

Bowdoin is an old liberal arts institution, chartered in 1794, and has produced an illustrious group of alumni.  Among them are generals, statesmen, explorers, and the writers, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. The campus stretches along one side of the street opposite attractive old style frame houses.  It has an extensive expanse of green and a mix of a few contemporary buildings interspersed among more classic red brick architecture.  

The Chief Penguin and I walked the half mile from where we parked the car to our destination, the Bowdoin Museum of Art. The art department has a grand old building listed on the National Historic Register. Next to it is a glass cube, the entrance to the museum itself.

Entrance to Walker Art Building

Among the featured exhibitions, we paid the most attention to At First Light: Two Centuries of Artists in Maine.  This is a marvelous exhibit filling several small galleries with paintings, a quilt, and a Wabanaki basket.  Artists include George Bellows, Alex Katz, Lois Dodd, N. C. and Jamie Wyeth, along with others I hadn’t previously encountered.  Here are a couple of my favorite works.

Pastoral painting by N. C. Wyeth
Detail from The Mainland by Jamie Wyeth, 1992. (I love the luminosity of the buoys.)
The Mantle by Will Barnet, 1992. (I like the layering of window and door frame and the soft tones in this contemplative work.)

After the museum, we met my Scarborough cousin and his wife for lunch at one of the two Indian restaurants on the main drag. Shere Punjab, a small colorfully painted family-run business, offered up delicious curries and naan.  Collectively, we sampled the chicken and lamb curries and the fish curry.  Fluffy basmati rice was served with them.  It was so good we all vowed to eat there again!

MAINE BOOK FOR THE WEEK—A SUMMER COLONY

Haven Point by Virginia Hume

Haven Point is a first novel by a former political writer and editor.  It’s the kind of book you curl up with, and before you know it, the whole afternoon has whizzed by!  The families with summer homes at Haven Point believe in its traditions, one being the annual singalong.  It’s a colony established by upper-class sorts, all with the right educational and professional pedigrees.   

Maren marries into the world of Haven Point when Dr. Oliver Larsen becomes her husband.  She grew up on a farm in Minnesota and was a nurse with Oliver at Walter Reed Hospital in DC near the end of WWII.  She feels like an outsider during much of her life in Maine.  

Their daughter Annie is a talented artist, but battles alcoholism for many years.  Annie’s daughter, Maren’s granddaughter Skye, is secretive and ashamed of her mother’s relapses. She also feels that Haven Point, with its Waspy whiteness is too insular a society. Love, tragedy, betrayal, and addiction run through this novel set between 1944 and 2008 told in multiple voices.  I quickly became enmeshed in these characters’ lives and the hours disappeared.  (~JWFarrington)

Note: Header photo is Summer by Frank Weston Benson, 1909. Photos ©JWFarrington (some rights reserved.)