Vacation, a Farmer's Market Visit and a Garden Update

So, last week we went on vacation.  To Maine.  And it was wonderful.  Definitely wonderful.  It was quite relaxing.  Read that as relaxing, not catch-up-on-sleep-ing.  I feel like I came home more tired than I left, but I feel like whoever said that vacations are supposed to be restful must not have done much.

To start, we visited uncle PM and aunt MS.  We went to a concert in the garden of a very pretty historic home and spent some time along the ocean.

In the morning, before we left, we got breakfast across the street from Big Sky Bread.  My favorite bread bakery ever.  Period.

Which leads me to the next leg of our journey.  DJR and MW just happen to live in the area where were headed.  The R family was kind enough to invite us for dinner the first night we were there.  It was so nice of them.  This connects to Big Sky Bread because we were supposed to bring rolls.  We got rolls at Big Sky Bread, and happened to, you know, pick up some granola while we were there.  It was too tempting.

The rolls were good.  But, I must say, they were a little bit upstaged by the main course.  What was it you ask, that could upstage such good rolls?

I am a New England girl through and through.  But, I had never eaten a lobster before.  Well, not a whole one.  It's only been the last couple of years that I've even discovered the wonderfulness of  lobster rolls.  Even then, a whole lobster just looked too darn intimidating.

But lucky for me, DJR taught me how to eat one.  With the help of NL, who, well, just happened to have pulled said lobster out of a trap that very afternoon.   Waaaay fresher than any restaurant ever.  Just saying.

We also had steak (for those who don't eat lobster) and pasta salad that we found at the store down the street from the hotel.  We were limited in our choices.

I have decided that everyone should eat their first lobster with the lobsterman who caught it.  Sure, it is so fresh and good that it will never be equaled, plus they know tricks about cooking them.  But really, staying in a lobstering community and eating with a lobsterman makes you appreciate much more the struggle and triumph that lobstering is.

It was so good to see DJR again, and MW too -- I had dinner with her.  It almost brought me back to the apartment days.  It will be weird going back to school with out them.

Many thanks to the R family and NL for making our trip so special.

And that kind of outdoes all my other food stories.

The next night, we had crackers and cheese and fresh Maine wild blueberries for dinner.  On the deck.  Overlooking the ocean.  And watching lobstermen unload onto the dock.  Not bad.

Then, there was breakfast on the deck.  Homemade bread and granola.  While watching the boats go into and out of the harbor.

Oh, and scones and tea with "lots of jam" at NNJ&J.

Best jams ever.  I'm convinced.  The scones are pretty darn good too.

Oh, and we happened to find a DJR in the kitchen cooking the jams.  Imagine that.

And apparently when you're in Maine and order "lobster tracks" ice cream, it comes with red-colored white chocolate covered caramel cups.  Who knew?

And then there was the farmer's market.  DJR had also suggested that to me.  And we just managed to go before we had to check out and head home.

I think I have a new favorite farmer's market.  It was amazing.  There was anything you could ever think of there.

Produce,

Goat cheese,

Pottery,

Beautiful bread,

Carved Bowls,

Yarn,

Lemonade,

Fresh Seafood,

Flowers,

Pies,

Baked goods,

Anything, really.

Our spoils: truffles (from an Island chocolatier we had visited the day before), blueberries (of course, we were in Maine), tomatoes (ours aren't ripe yet), and wonderful cinnamon raisin bread.

We're convinced that this farmer's market is so good, that schooners come and moor in the port so that their inhabitants can go on shore to the market.

When we got home, we even had some of our own produce to pick!  I harvested two summer squashes, three cucumbers and two green peppers.  I gave up on them turning red.  Yay for homegrown produce!

One final fun story from this year's vacation: in the back of a gift shop/cafe, we found a room of used books for charity.  I found a 1934 edition of the Better Homes and Gardens cookbook, in decent shape, and for only $3.

This should be fun.