May 8: Cookie

night class
thinking about the cookie
left in my bag

December 28: Frigid

Below zero:

finishing off the cookies,

watching cooking shows.

August 18: Spruce Head

Lobster shack lunch.

In the saltmarsh sandpipers

feeding at low tide.

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March 7: Heaven

Perfect night's end--

chocolate cake and coffee,

sky full of stars.

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February 20: Indulgence

49th birthday--

a chocolate-frosted donut,

steamed milk in my tea.

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February 18: What sustains us

Grilled cheese and tomato soup

on a cold night--

avoiding politics.

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December 15: Christmas stollen

Marzipan Christmas stollen--
I still miss my Nana
gone thirty years.

August 31: Bistro

Drink in this moment:

good glass of cider, a crepe,

time alone to think.

 

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June 29: Oysters

Shucked raw oysters--

it's like eating the ocean

one bite at a time.

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June 22: Foods of summer

After mowing the lawn,

fresh peas and salmon,

strawberries and ice cream.

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May 15: Anniversary

My husband and I celebrated our 12th anniversary tonight (two days early because I will be away this weekend) at Primo, one of Maine's best restaurants. One of the reasons Primo is so good is that they take farm-to-table seriously: they grow many of their own vegetables and raise their own pigs and chickens on-site. After an amazing, 2-1/2-hour meal, we stepped outside to be wowed again by the starry sky.

 

Anniversary dinner--

bright Venus hovers

over the pig pen.

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February 12: Food Network

One of our winter entertainments:

 

We eat burritos

watching chefs on tv

bake exotic desserts.

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February 9: Gulls

What better way to spend a sunny winter's day along the waterfront than by observing gulls with birder friends, punctuated by lunch at a good Vietnamese restaurant.

Distracted by birds
we don't notice we're cold
until we're slurping hot pho.

January 31: Orange

It's good for me--

unpeeled orange

in a blue-and-white China bowl.

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October 27: Sunday

In from the woods.
Crusty boule, toasted, with Brie.
Football on TV.

October 7: Postseason

As the autumn leaves glow dimly through the mist in the dying light of this October evening, the Red Sox third playoff game vs. the Tampa Bay Rays in a five-game ALDS series has just gotten underway.

Bottom of the first.
Spaghetti sauce simmers
while I knit, anxiously.

December 29: Misty mountaintop fadeaway

The title of this post sounds a bit like a cross between something from The Hobbit and a Dead song, but the moment was real enough. My husband and I decided we needed to get lunch and treats at Morse's Sauerkraut before the snow storm hits tonight. Driving there, we passed austere snow-covered fields and trees laden with snow under a bleak, blank sky. As we headed home, the first flakes began to fall. As we drove into Camden, cresting a hill that offers a view toward the Mount Megunticook ridge line, we noticed how snowfall along the top of the mountain made it seem to simply fade away into the white sky.

Mountaintop fades into white
snowfall. In dreams
it's like that when I die.

December 4: Pressed tin

Dinner out tonight with my husband and a friend at a restaurant in Rockport in a lovely, renovated old space with a painted, pressed tin ceiling.

Remembering Nana's kitchen:
pressed tin ceiling,
sugar cookies cooling.

October 26: Guacamole

Dinner with good friends at another favorite restaurant, El Camino in Brunswick. For starters, home-made chips, salsa, and guacamole. Squash and peppers tacos for dinner. Chocolate and chili pot de creme and maple flan for dessert. We discussed what three foods we'd want to have on a desert island, and I was reminded of a winter when I spent a month camping in the Sonoran desert of Arizona and practically lived on tortilla chips and guacamole we made each day from good, fresh, inexpensive local avocadoes (and special Coronas from right over the border).

If stranded on a desert island
one food I'd wish with me:
fresh guacamole with tortilla chips.

September 2: Riverside dining

On our way home today from our overnight in the big city (Portland, ME), after stocking up at the only Trader Joe's in our state, we decided to hit our favorite seafood restaurant for a late lunch/early dinner. The Slipway, perched on the scenic St. George River, is only about 20 minutes from our house. Not only does it offer excellent food--we enjoyed tuna tartare, grilled local squid, fried local oysters, corn-on-the-cob, salad, handcut fries, and an amazing piece of coconut cream pie--but the atmosphere is pure Maine. Our table looked out onto the river, where gulls fed as the tidal waters slowly receded, sailboats bobbed on their moorings, and fishing boats waited at dock. To see this view, we had to look through flowering runner beans and other late summer blooms, past the restaurant's pier, where we'd have been dining in warmer weather. Inside, the walls were bedecked with vases of sunflowers and colorful buoys hanging from the ceiling in a way that felt artful, not tacky. Probably even more so than when we were in Portland, we felt like we were on holiday and enjoying every minute.

Gulls probe the flats.
We too enjoy
the fruits of the sea.