We were really disappointed last night when we were walking to find Ladle, the new soup restaurant on Exchange Street inPortland, to find that it was closed! Perhaps there was a run on soup in the afternoon and they were left with empty pots, so they closed...who knows. We decided therefore to go to Federal Spice, a small walk up service Asian(??) wrap restaurant on Federal and Temple Streets. We were five people and on a Friday night at six pm were able to find a table on the first floor. My sister and my friend Doug had been there a number of times and really liked the place. The food was good and inexpensive and I lamented the fact that we have no place like this in Belfast except for the Baywrap. My sister had a black bean quesadilla with pineapple chutney which was beautiful, but smooshy. The taste was really good though. I had a burrito filled with lemongrass rice with coconut curry chicken. I had to add some hot hot asian sauce to give my wrap some flava. Greg had a black bean and jerk chicken wrap and Doug had his filled with catfish. What we didn't order were the famous Yam fries, which looked great and probably were incredible. Apparently the restaurant uses as much local produce as they can get in any given day and so one has to like this place simply for that fact. The food was a nice change from what we get here on the coast. They have a small (3 seat) bar with two beers on tap and a great outdoor table section.
We'd certainly come back here again and try some of the other fare. I was jonesin' for the Yam fries on the way home.

Enjoy,
Seth

Greg and I are hopping in the car on Friday for the 10 x 10 painting show in Portland. We hope to get to Ladle, a new soup restaurant on Exchange and Congress that is partially owned by our friend Regan. I've heard good things about the joint and it got great reviews in the local papers. If you are around the area, stop in and let me know what you think.

Enjoy,
Seth

I had cake issues yesterday. Actually, it was more like cake tragedies, one after the other. There are days when one should just put away the pots and pans and go order out, and yesterday was one of those days, but I had a job to do. I offered to make two cakes for birthdays yesterday. One cake for a 1 year old and one cake for a 29 year old, both celebrating at the same party. The one year old got yellow cake with chocolate frosting, easy. The "grown-up" cake was mocha chocolate cake with kalhua mousse between the layers and chocolate caramel frosting. I overbaked the first chocolate cake and decided to start again. The second ones came out perfectly, until I cooled them and tried to work with them, then they fell apart, literally. Luckily, I saved the first two overdone cake layers and tried to salvage one of the fallen apart cakes to use as a layer but that just dissolved into the mousse...what an ungodly mess. I thought to myself...WWJD? (what would Julia do?) So I quickly got out a springform pan and picked up the pile of cake/mousse from the counter (I wish I shot a picture of that) and tamped it down into the springform pan and poured a nice layer of chocolate caramel frosting on top and shoved the whole thing in the freezer...it looked very elegant at that point.
Then I salvaged what mousse I could and assembled the original chocolate cake and shoved the lopsided mess into the fridge to set at 4pm (we were due at the party at 5pm).
MEANWHILE, my frosting was not setting because I made a double batch and there was too much of it to get thick in the fridge. Its essentially water and sugar boiled til amber and then infused with heavy cream which is then poured over chocholate , stirred til smooth and then put in the fridge to get thick...that didn't happen, so I was left at 4:45 with unspreadable frosting and both cakes waiting. WWJD? I pulled out the mix master and whipped that frosting into shape. I came out like heath bar frosting, light chocoate with bits of caramel in it....saved the day and its amazing what frosting can hide!!
We were a bit late to the party and I smelled like frosting, but a good time was had by all. The evil cake disappeared very fast much to my suprise. The 1 year old got frosting everywhere, including her hair, her face, her mother's hair and everywhere else...a job well done in my book!

Not sure how the springform cake came out as it still in the freezer, I'll let you know.

Enjoy,
Seth

During Spring cleaning, I found about six frozen bananas on the upper shelf of the freezer yesterday morning. I wanted the skins to make a good wake up food for my roses, so I hauled out my ole banana bread recipe and went to work on the frozen nanas.
We've been eating everything on banana bread since yesterday...its the best when its toasted and spread with Teddies natural peanut butter...mm mmm mmm.
I don't like crunchy stuff baked in my bread, but feel free to use pecans or walnuts, or whatever...just fold them in at the end. Pregrease a 9 x 5 x 3 pan and preheat oven for 350.

1 stick butter
3/4 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
2 cups flour (1 can be whole wheat)
1 tspn baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
3-4 large ripe, peeled, mashed bananas
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Cream butter and sugar and then add eggs one at a time, stirring til mixed with each. Sift in dry ingredients and mix in, add bananas and vanilla and if you want, nuts and mix slightly. Pour into loaf pan..Can easily be doubled.

Cook in center of heated oven for about an hour, or until the top is crispy. Insert toothpick or fork in center to test for doneness.

Take the peels and chop them up with water and add the day's coffee grounds. Spread around base of roses and rhodies, and azaleas for an great organic feed.

Enjoy,
Seth

Easter Sunday was a very long day with nothing going on. The weather was bad and nobody invited us to an Easter celebration...no brunch, no nuthin'! Feeling sorry for ourselves, we tried to do everything from going to the gym..closed to going to Hannaford to find something fun for dinner...closed! We were SOOL. So we got in the car around dinner time and drove around and around looking for someplace to land...even Pizza Hut was closed. We ended up going to the Irving Station in Searsport to eat. How sad and pathetic were we! The sign outside said "Join us for Easter!" We were one of probably 5 tables, all of which had lovely plastic Easter centerpieces complete with sparkly plastic and velvetine easter egg.

We used to love coming up here, because the food was relatively good. I think they have changed food merchants though because their chicken fingers were not as good as they used to be. Greg liked the fish and chips, but said that he could get better ones at Willy World in Northport (There is a for sale sign in front of Willy World in case anyone is interested)

We had a bunch of laughs and toasted the Easter Bunny. All in all a pathetic, yet strangely satisfying Easter. We came home and watched movies, had popsicles and popcorn and went to bed fat and happy.

Enjoy,
Seth

I got it in my craw this morning that I NEEDED to dye some easter eggs. Greg thought I was nuts and yelled so from bed where he was still "sleeping." We only had a half dozen eggs, so it was going to be a short dyeing session. Unfortunately, one cracked in the pot, so I only had five.
We also only had some red wine vinegar, but that apparently didn't affect the dyes. We learned about the power of adding oil to the dyes when we were young, so I added some oil and voila! It took me all of 10 minutes to dye these and now I can go on with my Easter day knowing that I participated. We are not cooking dinner for anyone nor have we been invited anywhere, so we will spend a quiet day going about our daily chores.

Happy Easter Readers, I hope you all have a wonderful day.

Enjoy,
Seth

We haven't been to potluck in several months, mostly because we are usually never here that weekend (I think we plan it that way subconsciously). Anyway, Greg had to go down to Brunswick to help a friend move into her house and I stayed here to do chores and figure out what to make. I always try to make something fun and new (except for the time we arrived with cream cheese and jelly with crackers!) because cooking for me is a sport. I thought about making Chocolate cheesecake, and I should have with what I ended up making, but I wanted something Eastery. I found a recipe for Sweet Ricotta Cheese Tart, essentially cheescake in a crust. Apparently it is a traditional Italian dessert to serve at Easter. It sounded good and turned out to be a fairly elegant presentation, but I think I would serve it with a raspberry sauce next time. What is nice about it is that it is very light, not too sweet and really tasted like one of those Italian pasteries that you find in shops in New York. My recommendation would also be to make it a day ahead of when you want it so that it can sit in the fridge to meld the flavors. Below is the recipe. I doctored the one I found by folding in sour cream and substituting Orange Licquor for vanilla.

Preheat oven to 350

Crust:
1 3/4 cup flour
1/2 cup sugar
1 teaspoon grated orange peel
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder

Combine ingredients and then add

1 stick unsalted butter, chilled and diced

you can either mix above in a food processor or combine by hand until a coarse meal forms.

Then add two eggs

combine mixture to form moist lumps. Scoop together in a ball and knead on a floured work surface. Divide into two balls, one slightly bigger than the other . Wrap smaller and chill in freezer.
Roll out larger into a round large enough to cover a 9" tart pan bottom and sides. ( I used a higher sided 7" tart pan) make sure it has a removable bottom.

For filling:
16 oz whole milk ricotta
3 oz cream cheese Softened
1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 tablespoon corn starch
1 teaspoon vanilla extract or orange licquor
1 1/2 teaspoons grated orange peel
4- 5 oz sour cream

Using electric mixer, beat ricotta and cream cheese cornstarch and vanilla. Beat in 1/2 cup sugar, orange peel, and eggs and vanilla. Take out beaters and fold in sour cream. Transfer filling to tart pan.

Roll out smaller ball of dogh into 10" round to cover top of tart. Crimp sides and trim excess. Cut four slits in top of tart and bake in the oven for approximately 1 hour or until golden brown. Cool completely and serve.

Enjoy,
Seth

I can't figure out the placement of these pictures, so bear with me. As some of you know, homemade pizza is our lifeblood here in Northport. Whenever we make it, friends invariably come running over clutching a bottle of wine with that hungry saussage look in their eyes. Since a lot of our friends are still out of town for the winter, we had pizza alone with our movie, Scotland, PA...hysterical movie with a great sound track. I wanted to document my pizza making skills for you all, so here is the fruits of my labor. The crust is a cornbread crust made with 1.5 cups of wheat flour, 1 cup of cornmeal, 1 packet yeast dissolved in 1 cup of warm water, sea salt and some olive oil. I put the yeast in a bowl and add the warm water and let that bubble for about 10 minutes. I put the dry ingredients in a bowl and then add the yeast, mixing with a fork until it comes together in a ball. Then I add aobut 1/8 cup of olive oil and knead in the bowl with my hands until moist and elastic. Let it rise in the bowl covered with plastic and a towel for about 45 minutes or until doubled in bulk. Then take it out of the bowl and place it on a greased cookie sheet. Now I have tried a pizza stone and those air cushioned cookie sheets, but I find that the crispiest crust is achieved by just using a cookie sheet.
If the dough will not cooperate with you and spread to the edges, let it rest for a minute and try again. A tip I have is to wet your fingers with oil so they don't stick to the dough.

I drain a can of organic diced tomatoes and then spread that out across the dough, add cooked sausage or hamburger (please add topping of your choice here) and then cover with shreaded cheese (I use what we have available in the house, last night was munster, its usually chedder) and add oregano and perhaps some fresh garlic and you are good to go. Its way too good. Place pizza in the lower third of a 390 degree oven for about 30 minutes or until cheese is gold brown and bubbly.

Enjoy,
Seth

On my first night in Philadelphia, I attended a lecture on architecture in the age of Benjamin Franklin which was really incredible. Of the three houses in which Franklin resided during his career as a diplomat, only the London one survives. His Philadelphia house, Franklin Court, was torn down just 20 years after his death by his own descendants to make room for 6 rental properties in order to provide and income for the family.

After the lecture a colleague with an expense account took me to Bookbinder's for dinner. Apparently its famous as the place to be seen in old Philadelphia and has been for 150 years I think.

I attach this photo of the bar at Bookbinders so that I can say that our table was the table right in the middle of the room there. I can say that I was shocked by the prices in this boisterous watering hole. Its mostly seafood and my mouth dropped open when the waiter told us that they were really famous for their lobster which were $29.00 a lb with a two lb minimum! Sixty bucks for the smallest lobster in the joint. That would feed a family of four a beautful lobster here in Maine.... with real butter even! The New York Strip steak was $45.00...this wasn't the Philadelphia I was used to.
So I ordered the famous snapper soup and chicken ceasar. My dining companion had fried oysters and the seafood cob salad with a double espresso for dessert (I'd be up all night).
The soup was great, and the turtle meat wasn't very big, so I didn't have to think about it...It arrived as a thick rich brown broth with a carafe of sherry on the side that you poured over the top and mixed in....wow, super delicious with the homemade breads they had.
The ceasar was fine after I removed the anchovie. M.L. appeared to love her fried clams, but wasn't that interested in the cobb salad, which doesn't sound great to me anyway.
This place is right on Walnut and second street and, I think, is filled with more tourists than glam queens. The service was perfect, every time I put my water glass down, there was a waiter to fill it. More bread was magically placed on the table and our plates were cleared immediately, something that I personally love.
Gotta try making that soup, or at least find a recipe to see what's in it.

Enjoy,
Seth

We made dinner the other night for a friend and so I decided to document it with photos. The first thing I did was trim a pork roast of most of the fat and then salted and peppered it, drizzled olive oil on it and tossed it with shallots and rosemary. Around the outside of the roast, I added new potatoes that were tossed with oil and garlic and sea salt. Boom, into the oven to cook for about 1.5 hours. The next thing I made was corn bread. 1 cup flour, 1 cup corn meal, 1/3 cup sugar, dash of baking powder and salt all in a bowl. Add 1 stick melted butter, 1 cup milk, 1 egg and about 1/2 cup olive oil and blend. Pour into cast iron pan and pop into the oven...done. Greg got in the act with the dessert, crispy apples, and so I documented his attitude towards apples and sugar :-) This dish is so easy to make and serves as a great "morning after " breakfast.
cube up your favorite apples and pears and toss with ginger, cinnamon, a pinch of salt, fresh nutmeg, and brown sugar (about 1/4 cup) and a small handful of flour. add raisins if you want.
Top with a mixture of 1. 5 cups quick cooking oats, 1.4 cup brown sugar, about 1/2 a stick of butter, and cinnamon. Blend topping in bowl until mixture looks like coarse meal and sprinkle on top of apple / pear mixture. Cook until top is golden and crispy.

haven't really been doing anything exciting in the kitchen. I did make butterscotch pudding for Sarah from 3Tides, cause it seems to be her favorite...ugghhh. (I used a jello mix)

Didn't get any feedback about the photos, so I'll cease those.

Back at you next week when I return from being on the road.

Seth

We drove down to Cape Cod to preview an auction. Took the dogs and drove there and back in one day...Greg is never coming on a business drive with me again, I can tell. We went to an auction preview and then went out for lunch...a difficult feat during the winter months on the cape. Found a place right near the auction house called the Lost Dog Pub in East Dennis. Lemme say that it was perfect in a pinch. Greg had fish and chips that he wolfed down because we hadn't eaten since 6am and it was about 3pm. I think he mumbled that the fish was great and the skinny fries he had were excellent. The rest of us had pesto pizza. I need to remember that pesto and pizza don't nessesarily go together. My pizza was excellent, but sooooo oily!
The interior of the place was very pub-like. I wonder if its that dark in the summer months too.

It was pretty great driving around Cape Cod.

Enjoy,
Seth

Voila the carrot cake. I think I need a class in cake decorating, I am so bad at the whole piping frosting, etc. I can't even make those orange and green carrots that usually decorate carrot cakes! To compensate for this, I sprinkled leftover grated carrots over the top for a festive look.

Enjoy,
Seth

Tomorrow is my sister's birthday. Usually when someone tells me of their impending day, or if I happen to know, I ask what kind of cake they would have if they could have any cake. My hopes are that someone will come up with some big challenging cake that I can try, the reality is I usually end of making carrot cake. What is it with the popularity of carrot cake? No one eats my carrots at dinner time, why ask for them in the dessert instead? Do carrots taste better

with lots of sugar and frosting??? Well, of course they do, doesn't everything? I have a feeling that its my frosting that brings people back for the carrot cake. Come to think of it, my sister didn't seem to want the cake as much as she wanted the frosting. So here it is.. use it with your favorite carrot cake recipe or try it on something else. It really is good.

12 oz. of Philadelphia cream cheese, softened

one stick butter, softened

3 teaspoons orange licquor

zest of one orange

juice of one orange

2 cups of confectioners sugar + more if nessesary, added gradually.

Place all ingredients except sugar in a large bowl. Add about a cup of the confectioners sugar and beat until smooth. Taste. If the mixture tastes mostly of cream cheese, add another 1/2 cup of sugar and repeat taste. Use the remaining sugar to get the frosting to be tangy, tasty, but not overly sweet. (I hate that in a frosting) Beat until smooth, really smooth and creamy. Place frosting in a smaller metal bowl, cover and refrigerate until cold. Its like frosting with attitude, it sticks well on cake or cookies and should have the consistancy you see in the photo above.

This frosting spreads perfectly when done correctly. It has the added festiveness of white frosting with orange zest bits in it like confetti. Your dessert guests will rave.

Enjoy,

Seth

well, can you all guess what Greg and I had for dinner tonight, hmmmm? I'll give you a hint, goes down great with a big glass of cold milk! So much for giving the tart to friends...it was 1/2 gone in about 10 mintues

Sigh,
Seth

We saw friends of ours the other day and invited them to dinner tonight at 6pm. Around 3pm I get a call asking to reschedule. I'm a bit bummed, I thawed this big pork roast and was going to marinate it in shallot, sea salt, and rosemary infused olive oil (good thing I didn't) I guess that we'll just carve off a few pork chops per the next few days. I did, however, make the dessert and since I have my camera ready, I thought I would try something new and add pics of some of the things I am cooking here...though you'll only get the pretty things. Voila, a carmelized upsidedown pear tart. What the heck am I gonna do with this? The recipe for this is somewhere in the archives, this time I added a bit of port to the caramel to infuse some strong flavor. I'll probably give this away tomorrow to some friends who just got into town and will only be here a month before they return to Saudi Arabia. If you can't find the recipe for this tart and you are dying to try it out, let me know and I'll post the recipe...its super easy, but has a big bang appeal for guests....they think I worked for hours making it. Once you get the recipe down, it can take as little as a 1/2 hour prep time.

Enjoy,

Seth

An astute reader I'll call "Topher" suggested the Kennebec Tavern in Bath as an alternative hot lunch and dinner spot in that fair city. Topher writes "It's right on the water with an outdoor deck (weather permitting). "Pub" style food at lunch and dinner plus seafood and a few "upscale" entrees. Indoors, you can choose the bar area w/ booths or a separate dining room."

Disclaimer "Maine Foodie" has not and probably will not for quite some time visit, eat, imbibe, or otherwise make merry at the above establishment. "Maine Foodie" is simply passing on the sage wisdom of a reader who does not want his name used. The inclusion of this piece of eating knowledge does, in no way, constitute a review by "Maine Foodie."

We took off yesterday and met my sister at Reid State Park in Georgetown Maine for a romp with our two dogs and her yellow lab. The dogs had never met before and I was very impressed with how well they got on, especially Libby (the prey driven giant schnauzer) who was very polite the whole day.
After about 4.5 miles and 2 plus hours we all started fantasizing about having warm grilled cheese sammies with crispy fries..mmmmmm :-) I think we stepped up the pace a bit and put on our thinking caps as to where we could get such fare. We ended up deciding that we could live without the grilled cheese, but the fries were a definite must. Bath is the closest city and so we wheeled on over to the Beale Street Bar-b-que an Grille. We had a huge booth with very high backs for privacy that made me feel very hemmed in after 3 hours in the open. The special board touted a cheeseburger wrap with fries that sounded great! Ann and I both had that and Greg had a chesseburger with peppers and mushrooms. I ordered a small ceasar salad for the table too. The interior of the grille is just as expected, very bare bones with a definite grille/ bar feel to the place....there were lots of kids there though.
The food arrived and I must say, I got exactly what I ordered. A cheeseburger with lettuce and tomato in a tomato tortilla with great skinny fries. After a few bites though, I wished I had ordered a big heaping bowl of mac and cheese (I had order envy after I saw it delivered to another table) I think on another day my meal would have been satisfying, but after all that hiking, all I wanted was carbs and calories...and lots of creamy cheese! What I ended up with was pretty much shreaded lettuce with some meat and cheese in a wrap...nice, but not my brain wanted. The ceasar was excellent, nice strong cheese and dressing flavor..top notch. Greg loved his burger and his fries and Ann agreed with me that her wrap wasn't what her brain wanted. She also craved the mac and cheese. The menu also included lots of ribs and smoked stuff, so I can only imagine how the place is for bar-b-que fans. The bill came to about 13$ a person for lunch.

We skipped dessert in favor of chocolate bars from Reny's next door.

Enjoy!
Seth

Last night after going to the fridge about 6 times to see if something good to eat magically appeared while I was away, I decided to start with rice for dinner. I took a japonica mix that I got from the Coop in Belfast and sauteed it in olive oil, cayanne, salt and pepper, added water and let it cook for a while, added a can of black beans with the juice and let that cook for awhile, then added frozen squash and lima beans and came out with goop for dinner! It was really good rolled up in a tortilla. MMMM, just goes to show that you can make something good from nothing in the cupboard.

Has anyone noticed that Hannaford in Belfast has a sushi bar now? Kewl, if you're a sushi-type person.

Enjoy,
Seth

Thank you Cheryl for reminding me to blog about the reopened 3Tides. Since I did tell David that the newly stripped and waxed bar was blogworthy, I should mention it. We went down to 3Tides on Friday to celebrate signing and registering as Domestic Partners in Maine. I kept filling out the forms and signing them without a notary present, so we kept putting the actual Registering part off.
We wanted to get to the bar early to hang and chat with David and Sara, but alas, we didn't get there until 7 or so, by which time the bar was packed!!

All the tables had been reserved, so we stood and chatted with friends and hovered over our neighbors Deb and Laura at the bar until they left so we could have their seats. The bar top looked great. David had spent the previous week stripping it down and getting all the history out of it before smoothing it down and waxing it. I was really impressed by how clean it looked and how silky smooth the bartop was. David said that he will have to clean and wax it now about once a month, a small price to pay for the fantastic new look and feel of it. Of course he also cleans it every night as well, I know what a stickler David and Sarah are for cleanliness.

Dinner was great, the quesadilla was perfectly packed with goodies and Greg's new regular of tomato, basil and mozzerella topped with chicken and bacon on bread (his own creation) was great too.

Enjoy,
Seth