Maine coast

Coastal Maine: Reading & Eating

In summer, we’re given permission, as if it’s really needed, to read whatever we want, and to eschew serious tomes.  Or to decide that that heavy book you’ve been meaning to tackle is just perfect for long stretches of SSR or “sustained silent reading.”  When I was in 4th grade, we did a lot of reading comprehension exercises.  Read a passage from the Power Builder, then answer questions about it, then, when you’d finished some requisite number of Power Builders, you were rewarded with a period of sustained silent reading.  I loved that latter!  And still do.

Here are two books that are simply pleasurable reads.  Enjoy!

Who am I?

The Woman in the Photo by Mary Hogan

I’d classify this novel as an airplane read. It’s engaging, but is somewhat overwritten and feels a bit as if Ms. Hogan just dashed it off. It follows a now standard practice for historical novels of linking characters and events of the past with a parallel modern-day story. In this case, the event is the Johnstown, Pa flood (not really a flood but a wall of water from a burst dam) and the main character is Elizabeth Haberlin, a rich young lady who’s preparing for her society debut. In the present, adoptee Lee Parker, eighteen, is finally old enough to receive a bit more information about her genetic heritage which propels her on a search for her birth mother.

The best sections deal with the aftermath of the Johnstown tragedy in 1889 and Lee’s initial meeting with her birth family. A more elegantly written novel about this historic event is In Sunlight, In a Beautiful Garden by Kathleen Cambor.

Whodunnit?

The Poacher’s Son by Paul Doiron

Doiron is the former editor of Downeast magazine so it’s no surprise that this, his first mystery, is set in northern Maine. What one might find unusual is that the main character is a state game warden, and in this wild woodsy setting, represents the law and is, in essence, a cop. Mike Bowditch is a rookie warden, still learning the ropes, and is shocked when his father is a fugitive murder suspect and the object of an intensive manhunt. Jack Bowditch is a longtime brawler and heavy drinker with a long string of girlfriends, and he and his son have been mostly estranged since his parents divorced when Mike was nine. Seemingly bent on self-destructive actions that will destroy his young career, Mike is caught up in the search for the killer, all the while proclaiming his father’s innocence. Engrossing and suspenseful, this will appeal to mystery lovers, especially those also fond of Maine. This book was published in 2010 and there are now six additional Mike Bowditch mysteries.

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Casual Dining

To match the easygoing quality of the two books, I’d suggest Oliver’s on Cozy Harbor.  With both inside and outside seating, Oliver’s offers lobster rolls, chowder, and fresh haddock plus a number of salads, sandwiches and daily specials.  And an indulgent cheddar and blue cheese spread with pita chips that’s positively addictive!  Open for lunch and dinner, it’s also a good place to take the kids.

Photos by JWFarrington (some rights reserved)

 

More Portland: Art & Food

ART

In 25 years, we had never been to the Portland Museum of Art before this visit.  This time we rectified that with a pleasant walk along Congress Street to the museum.  It’s an impressive complex of several buildings and we wandered through the special exhibit featuring Georgia O’Keefe and three other women artists who all worked for a time in New York.  I also liked seeing furnishings and paintings from their permanent collection including several by Frederic Church and Childe Hassam and others.  And I explored the historic home, also part of the museum, with its intriguing patterned carpets and wallpapers which appealed to me.   2016-07-14 12.54.15 2016-07-14 13.13.29

EATING

Restaurants in Portland run the gamut from seafood places galore to a number of ethnic options as well as more usual Italian and French fare.  Here’s a sampling which represents where we dined last week.

Gilbert’s Chowder House

Reliable for chowder, of course, as well as lobster rolls and fried haddock along with the requisite French fries and cole slaw.  Good, but not exceptional.

Petite Jacqueline

A French bistro in a large, airy space with big windows.  We enjoyed the special of the day, chicken fricassee over rice, fish en papillotte in a butter caper sauce, salads (beet and green), and a lovely shared creme brulee to top it off.  Raspberry and chocolate colored bar stools add a punch of color.

Sisters Gourmet Deli

We had lunch at this inviting café on Congress Street. You order at the counter and they call you up when it’s ready.  Nice assortment of wraps, sandwiches and salads. Chicken salad with almonds and grapes on greens passed muster as did the Santa Fe chicken salad.  2016-07-14 11.46.35

Piccolo

This newish tiny Italian place on Middle Street was able to squeeze us in for a 5:30 dinner.  The chef and others are alums of Daniel Bould’s restaurants in New York and they deliver the goods!  We sampled mostly from the small plate sections of the menu and were delighted with our choices:  heirloom tomato salad with coins of delicate mozzarella; squash blossoms stuffed with salt cod (baccala) which were simply delectable; crisp baby octopus presented in a small skillet; chickpea fritters; stubby pasta with lamb ragu tinged with mint and orange, and a dessert of strawberries and micro basil on a sweet round of cake.

Fore Street

Highly touted and the place that initiated farm to table in Portland, Fore Street is at the edge of the Old Port.  It’s in an old warehouse with rustic beams and several wood-fired ovens. Tables are at a premium so reservations should be made in advance unless you want to join the 5:00 pm line-up and find out at 5:30 how long the wait will be. You can do your waiting at the bar then!  Fortunately, I had made a reservation several weeks ago, granted for an early 5:45 seating, but far preferable to waiting in line.

The menu is extensive with lots of beef and pork, but also fish and chicken. We began with a lovely Jet Star tomato tart for me (luscious, warm, almost poached tomato slices on a rich croissant-like pastry and topped with an herb-flecked egg of goat cheese) and the sweet corn and mushroom salad for the Chief Penguin. He then had the roasted foie gras with accoutrements and I the spit-roasted half chicken. No small chicken either so he got a third of my portion. The chicken was slightly smoky on the outside and very tasty, and the foie gras a hit—how not to savor this delicacy!  Service was brisk almost to the point of being hurried. I’m thinking they want to turn their tables as many times as possible each night!  Instead of dessert, we opted to take home a small box of their house-made chocolates.

Note:  All photos by JWFarrington (some rights reserved)

 

Manhattan Meandering: Fashion & Food

AT THE MET

A good friend came into the city for the day and she and I were engrossed for several hours viewing two exhibits at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It was a rainy Friday and the corridors were packed with people. Fortunately, the first exhibit hall was less crowded so we could get a close up view of the paintings. Vigee le Brun was a French artist who lived from before the French Revolution into the 1840’s. Initially dismissed because she was female, she became popular in her day and was portrait artist of choice for many royals including Marie Antoinette. After her death, her work seems to have been overlooked or ignored for many years. Certainly, she was unknown to me until this exhibit. Some of the portraits were really stunning and I also enjoyed seeing the several self-portraits she painted over the years.

The Costume Institute exhibit, Manus ex Machina: Fashion in an Age of Technology, was dense with museumgoers which made seeing the gowns occasionally challenging.  It is a fascinating study of the hand crafts (embroidery, pleating, beading, feathers, etc.) involved in the creation of haute couture over the years along with the use of the latest 3D printing to create nylon mesh and other unusual fabrics. Gowns by the Houses of Chanel, Dior, and Lagerfeld shared space with very edgy ones by the likes of Alexander McQueen and John Galliano.  The alcove spaces and the ethereal background music gave the whole experience a church-like feel. This exhibit runs until August and is definitely worth seeing.  For more info see The New York Timesreview article which also includes photos.2016-05-06 15.35.11

Flying Saucer Dress
Flying Saucer Dress

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FASHION IN FILM

Following on the fashion exhibit, we went to see Andrew Rossi’s new film, First Monday in May.  Note that Rossi also directed the compelling documentary, Page One: Inside the New York Times, about the challenges of staying relevant in the age of the Internet.  First Monday is a sumptuous, gorgeous look behind the scenes at the creation of the Met’s 2014 costume exhibit on China and the extravaganza of a gala that precedes the opening.  Stars here are Anna Wintour (her dresses and suits are almost as much fun to see as all the historical and contemporary gowns) and curator Andrew Bolton.  Running through the film is the idea that fashion equals art, and that it is only in recent times that fashion has been recognized and accepted as such. Visual treats!

 

DINING

Three new places for cozy dinners.

Café Loup on West 13th St. We sampled the chicken with tarragon and the fish and chips and were happy with both at this white-walled French bistro.  Also good were the mesclun salad and the house green salad.  It was crowded the night we were there with what looked to be lots of academics.2016-05-08 19.25.04

Doma na rohu.  A rustic German restaurant on 7th Ave with wood tables and an inviting bar.  Happy hour specials include the usual beer and wine and also pretzels with sausage and mustard.  Skip the veal schnitzel (dry and unadorned), but do tuck into the great sides—German potato salad, reminiscent of my grandmother’s version; very tasty browned spaetzle; and the so-called bowl of greens—a salad with cubes of beets, cherry tomatoes and a few slices of cucumber.

Trattoria Pesce Pasta.  On Bleecker Street, this is comfort food incarnate and perfect when you’re tuckered out from a long day—for us, said long day included a bus trip to Bethlehem and back.  We skipped salads and just enjoyed the sole with artichokes and sundried tomatoes (very saucy and not fancy) which hit the spot.   Sides were a choice of sautéed broccoli or spaghetti with red sauce. One of us was healthy and the other couldn’t resist the pasta which was surprisingly good!

 

All photos by JWFarrington (some rights reserved)

Header photo:  Jackson Square

 

 

Manhattan Moments

MOSTLY HEARTWARMING

We missed seeing this film at the Sarasota Film Festival and so were pleased to catch it here in Manhattan. The Man Who Knew Infinity is based on events in the life of genius mathematician, Srinivasa Ramanujan. Ramanujan was a poor man from Madras with no formal education who saw the world in numbers, patterns of numbers and equations. No one in India understood his work, but a colleague referred him to one of the professors at Cambridge University. The film portrays the prejudice, academic jealousy, and indifference he faced while at Cambridge, initially even from his sponsor, Professor Hardy. Dev Patel of “Marigold Hotel” fame is engaging as Ramanujan and Jeremy Irons plays the condescending, socially clueless Hardy. Interwoven with Ramanujan’s amazing story is an appreciation for the beauty and elegance of complex math. Ramanujan’s work is still being used today.

Colorful plate at Santina
Colorful plate at Santina

EATS

We have some favorite restaurants in the West Village, but are attempting to broaden our scope and intersperse some new ones midst the familiars.  So far there are two new places which we’d definitely recommend.   Rosemary’s serves breakfast, lunch and dinner, and we were there for dinner. It’s a bare wood floor, bare wood tables room with lots of glass and a lively (somewhat noisy) vibe. The food is what I’d call rustic Italian and there were some different (read not ordinary) dishes on the menu. Especially lovely was the linguine with preserved lemon, Parmesan, and a bit of chili; the lemon really provided some zing.  Also good was the shrimp starter with jalapeno, mint and breadcrumbs. Our waiter was a very pleasant young man from Minnesota.

We also sampled the Brazilian cuisine at Berimbau, a tiny, very casual restaurant that makes up in friendliness what it lacks in space.  The Chief Penguin is a fan of caipirinhas, the de facto national drink of Brazil, and immediately ordered one which he pronounced most satisfactory!  We had the fried calamari (not exactly Brazilian) and the chicken stroganoff (apparently stroganoff with poultry is more popular than the traditional beef) and the tropical salmon served with rice with diced vegetables.  Both were very good.

We also went back to Omar’s, Santina, and Frankie’s, all restaurants we’d enjoyed previously. Omar’s was quiet and lovely, Santina a very happening loud, but delicious, venue in the Meatpacking District, and Frankie’s, also very popular, where I had some of the lightest and best gnocchi I’ve ever had anywhere!  Given the demographics of this neighborhood, we are becoming accustomed to being the oldest folks in the dining room.

G NOTES

One of the joys of this stage of life is spending time with grandchildren. We are now blessed with two girls, one almost 4 and the other a mere 6 weeks old. There is nothing quite so soothing as sitting with a small baby snug against your chest, her heart beating against yours as she snoozes, occasionally emitting little squeaks. F. spent two hours asleep like this as I sank deeper into the couch.

E. can be a motion machine, but lately she has been content to sit close to me or her grandfather, always in physical contact, for a story or conversation.  She is also drawn to Grandpa’s shirt pocket from which she can pluck a few Cheerios. This week I got to see her and about seven other girls and one little boy in action at their ballet class. The girls all in leotards or tutus, still one moment, twirling or jumping the next. There is a mirror so the parents can watch the proceedings without being seen.  Fun.

 

Photos by JWFarrington (some rights reserved)