Whoopie Pies and Lobster

I named this blog “Whoopie Pies and Lobster,” because those are two things that represent Maine, and I love them both! If you’ve landed here looking for whoopie pies to order, I’m sorry, I don’t have any. But why not make your own? They’re wicked easy and it’s lots of fun!

Here’s a recipe and a bit of history to go along with it. A perfect take-a-long dessert for a 4th of July picnic, you will impress your friends and neighbors!

Summer is finally here! True, we’ve had some rain lately, but the weather is going to be gorgeous this week.

My son is visiting from Chicago, and we picked him up at the airport yesterday afternoon. There was a hairy moment when his bag didn’t appear on the conveyor belt, but the kind man from United found it out back. Relieved, we came home and had pizza. I turned in early, as we have to go food shopping today. I want to get that out of the way so we can have some fun!

Robert and I were down to East End Beach the other day, and I snapped a photo of some kayakers launching from the boat launch. My son and I are planning on taking the L.L. Bean Kayak Tour of Casco Bay during his stay, and I am betting he will really love it.

I have canoed before, but never been in a kayak. I can’t wait to get out and around Casco Bay to see the sights from the water! Right now, I am only able to see them from shore, which isn’t a bad view:

But it seems a shame to stay on the shore all the time.

In other news: I’ve added a new website to my links, called Everybody’s Mother. It’s a new service that I’m offering, for people who just want someone motherly to talk to for 15 minutes. Check it out.

Lastly, I’ve been seeing a lot of people looking for Whoopie Pies in Maine, so I thought I’d either post a good recipe or a good place to order them. Anyone have either, drop me a comment!

Robert and I had a project to work on, so we decided to take the laptop and head on over to Mackworth Island this morning, as it was absolutely gorgeous weather.

When you drive up to the booth at the entrance, you have to tell the attendant that you’re going there to walk the trails, then he’ll raise the bar. Park in the small parking lot to the right. The trail encircles the island, so you can start from the parking lot or walk back across the road by the booth and go that way. We started from the parking lot, and sat on a bench overlooking the water. I stopped along the way to take a picture of the view of East End Beach and the boats in the water:

I love the roses, seen in the righthand corner (click on image for larger view). Those are rugosa roses, which open their buds into single-petaled blooms this time of year, and are seen all along the coast of Maine.

We sat on the bench and talked, looking at the peaceful water. A few people jogged by up above on the path behind us, or walked their dogs, and last night’s rain dripped from the trees every so often. I watched the seabirds circling and landing on a rock, which was sticking out of the water due to the lowish tide.

After a while, finished with our business, we walked back to the car and headed down to Becky’s Diner for breakfast. Seeing as how the news has been touting a big breakfast as being good for ya, I’ve been right on track these past few months with my bacon and eggs. My hips don’t lie about the bacon, ayup.

I got my herb seedlings potted up yesterday, finally! I had to wait the day before due to rain, but we had some sun yesterday morning, so I got out there after breakfast and went to work.

I had several basil seedlings, some sage, catnip, rosemary and a lemon balm plant that was apparently several plants in one small pot. I grew the seedlings myself and the lemon balm was a Walmart special. Since the lemon balm was so much larger than the rest, I decided to give it its own pot, and put the baby seedlings in my new clay strawberry pot. Following is the result:

Yes, those are my new L.L. Bean sandals in the bottom left of the pic, along with my Royal Blue OPI toenails.

Here is a close-up of the side of the strawberry pot, with some sage seedlings:

Here is the lemon balm in its new home. I stuck some leftover basil and (very tiny) rosemary seedlings in along with it:

Here is one of my hanging flower pots, with pink impatiens and blue lobelia:

They really love the cool and rainy weather we’ve been having lately, wouldn’t you say?

Here is my patio tomato, along with yet some more basil seedlings. I had a ton of them, having been a little heavy-handed with the peat pellet planting, just in case some didn’t germinate. I think they all germinated, thus, I ended up with a boatload of basil seedlings. But you can never have enough fresh basil! The patio tomato is also from Walmart:

Oh, and my morning glories are finally vining out:

This is what the cat does when I’m working on stuff:

He thinks my new futon is his personal cat bed. He also brings his toys up onto it and I find milk rings and the like in the fold on a daily basis. Notice how closely the color of his fur matches the futon cover: yes, that was on purpose!

It’s a bit cloudy and damp right now, but quite mild. It will be rainy off and on the next few days, so I have all my plants up on the porch, safely under the eaves. I think by tomorrow or Wednesday it will be warmer and sunnier, so my newly potted herbs will really be taking off.

Fresh basil all summer! What more could I ask for?

I’m blogging from the Star East Café on Forest Ave. near Woodford’s Corner. I love coming here on Sunday mornings with the laptop and eating a leisurely breakfast. Saad, the owner, is really friendly and he has a new special coffee, which contains cardamom, among other things. It’s delicious!

Oh, here’s my breakfast:

I love the home fries here, as well as the light and airy Arabic bread (seen in the background). The prices are hard to beat as well. The room is large, so there are plenty of tables, giving the restaurant a spacious feel. Saad has set up a fountain near the coffee bar, and plays relaxing music in the background. I can sit and watch the world go by while I’m sipping my coffee.

Did some chores this morning: washed the shower curtain, cleaned out the tub, took down the garbage, and put some dished in to soak. I cleaned out the fridge recently so I have a lot of food storage containers that need sanitizing, so I’m soaking them in dish soap and a little bleach. When I get back home, I’ll rinse and dry those, then go outside and figure what herbs go where in my new strawberry pot. I spent part of yesterday making a little watering system for it, like the instructions on this page.

I had trouble finding a drill, then when my neighbor produced one, neither of us could figure out how to get the screwdriver bit out so I could put a drill bit in! The older ones come with a key but this one was a twist and release only it didn’t want to release. My husband wasn’t home so I used a hole punch and a big rubber mallet to punch holes in the PVC tubing, which I got down to Aubochon’s Hardware on Forest Ave for 72 cents. My neighbor did have some small pea-sized rocks, which he donated to the cause. I used an old nylon knee-high to keep the gravel in the bottom. I did discover that you need to plug the bottom whole on a clay pot to give it enough pressure to let the water come out the holes in the PVC tube. After lots of water and some dirt spilled out the bottom and out the holes in the side of the pot, I mean. I swept the bulk of the mess off the porch, and was waiting for the rest of the dirt to dry out when a downpour started. We’ve had a lot of these spotty showers lately, but hoping today will stay clear long enough for me to get my herbs planted in the pot.

I’ve got basil, catnip, sage, and lemon balm. The first three I grew from seed, and the latter I got as a small plant for about $2.00. I may have a few rosemary seedlings, waiting to see their true second set of leaves before I decide what to do with those. My mint plant, which I got at Hannaford in the produce section for $2, is doing fabulous in a new larger pot, so I will have to make some bulgur salad with chopped mint or some refreshing mint iced tea soon. I have a few morning glories starting to vine out amongst the pansies and impatiens, which are also taking off like gangbusters. I love having flowers around me!

Yesterday was the first day of summer, but it’s not quite summer-like weather here yet. Maybe by Tuesday, I think, but we always have a nice ocean breeze here on the coast of Maine, so if it gets too hot, I’ll be at the beach!

Have to finish my coffee and get back home to do the rest of my chores, have a wonderful day!

The rainy weather is back today, so I decided to head over to Planet Fitness and ride a bike indoors. I was able to set the resistance a lot higher than previously, because I have been riding my street bike all Spring. My street bike is a one speed, so it takes some effort to go up even a small hill, thus, the gym bike was too wimpy for me.

I brought along my camera, just in case I saw a photo op near the Back Cove, but no luck. I put my camera in my new little butterfly tote that I picked up at Borders:

It’s small, measuring about 9″ high without the handles, so perfect for my camera, a small flower-covered spiral notebook, and my new flip-flops from L.L. Bean.

My doctor just put me on blood pressure pills, so I’m determined to lose some weight to help bring it down. If I drop enough poundage, she will let me go off the pills to see if it stays low. The blood pressure is not super high, but high enough that my doc doesn’t want me walking around without a little help. I’m betting it’s from all those heavy meals I cooked this past winter, this past long and dreary and very snowy winter. I will have to take up snowshoeing or cross country skiing next year (watch, we will not get any snow because I said that).

I guess we’re lucky to have such mild weather, I hear it’s not so mild in other parts of the country. Hope everyone out West stays cool (and safe!), and if you can manage, head on up to Maine for a vacation! It’s supposed to get up to 77 by Tuesday here.

Would be a peony! We have a rose bush across the way, and tucked behind it is a peony bush. They are both blooming right now:

We just had some rain, as you can see from the peony. The flowers love this weather, I am not too hep on it. Sure, a little rain shower here and there, but this daily pattern of clouds reminds me of England. I love England, I love Washington State, but we had enough clouds and dreariness this past winter: bring on the sun!

Soon enough I will be complaining about the heat, and I be looking at the photo of the rain-drenched peony and wishing it were like today. But hey, then I can go take a kayak tour of Casco Bay to cool off!

Forgot to mention yesterday that L.L. Bean is having a Kayak festival this Saturday and Sunday, June 21-22, in Freeport. “Free shuttles will bring you to and from the on-water activities at the Paddling Center.” Sounds like a great time, free oceanside cookout from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., GPS Techno Treasure Hunt from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., and a Try Before You Buy Test Paddle, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. They will have crafts for kids from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Live Bluegrass music from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. and a performance by Big Bad Voodoo Daddy in Discovery Park in Freeport at 7:30 p.m., an homage to Cab Callaway.

Plus the Bean is having sales on kayaks at this event, natch. Hey, I’d buy a kayak if I weren’t planning on fundage being spent elsewhere. Maybe next year…

Robert needed some new shoes, so we went a-hunting today. First we tried Payless, then Kohl’s, and Robert suggested L.L. Bean in Freeport. I agreed, so off we went. It’s only about 15 minutes north on the highway.

We tried the outlet store first, where they have discounted items, but he didn’t find anything he liked. We were both getting a bit peaky, so we walked down to the Azure Cafe and had lunch outside. I had a salad with chicken and mango dressing, and Robert had a burger. Very pleasant staff at the Azure, and my salad arrived looking as pretty as a picture. Unfortunately, dear reader, I don’t actually have a picture, because I ate it very quickly. I do, however, have a photo of the 90th year anniversary boot:

Refreshed, we walked over to the main L.L. Bean store. I went upstairs to look at the women’s shoes, and Robert ventured forth into the men’s department. He found a pair of black suede slides, which are very comfortable. I have a pair of brown slides that I got at the outlet store last fall, and I can attest to how great the L.L. Bean slides are: they are awesome. Sturdy, too.

I was looking for new flip-flop sandals, and I found some on the wall that were discounted from $19.99 to $12.95. A clerk told me that they would be about $9.00 at the register, so I bought two pair: one with blue crabs on the straps and one with red lobsters. I wanted a third pair with green straps and blue dragonflies, but they didn’t have any size 8’s left. However, I’m happy with what I got and they are very comfortable. I’ll be stylin’ this summer at the beach.

After that, we stopped at Wilbur’s Chocolatier on the way back to the highway. I got some chocolate covered Maine blueberries, a jar of blueberry jam, and two Gran Marnier dark chocolate truffles. Wilbur’s is moving down the road soon, to a larger location it seems, and you know what that means: more chocolate!

Looks like a storm is moving in: on the drive back from Freeport, we saw mist ahead of us on the highway, and the tall buildings in Portland were shrouded in fog. My flowers are loving this weather, but I’m ready for some sun so I can go try out my new sandals!

I sent my dad a calendar for Father’s Day. Not just any calendar, it was one I’d made using some of my photographs. Dad is a big Nature lover, so I chose shots that I thought he’d like, from seagulls at Popham Beach, to a chipmunk at the Maine Wildlife Park, a photo snapped by chance in the woods on the path leading out of the park.

Dad always pointed out animals to me. One day, when I was staying with my folks after a divorce several years ago, I was sitting at the kitchen table, staring dejectedly out the window onto the lawn.

“Come here! Look!” Dad called from the other room.

There, out the living room window, I saw a tom turkey, standing in the middle of the road, tail feathers outstretched. He stood defiantly, not moving for the longest time. Beyond, a few of his fellows pecked for bugs in the grassy field at the side of the road. The toms roamed in a pack of three or four, while the females roamed separately, herding their latest clutch of babies along as they foraged for food. They’d go up one side of the yard and into the field beyond, and later in the day, come down the other side, stopping under Dad’s Japanese plum tree to peck at the windfalls.

One day, Dad had a load of dirt delivered, to fill in low spots on his lawn. He instructed the deliveryman to dump it at the edge of the mowed area, just where the tall grass started growing on his 20-acre spread of land. It sat there, waiting for one of my brothers to pick it up with a bobcat and dump it in the appropriate spots. We’d gone a while without any rain, so the dirt pile became quite dry and dusty. You could see it if you looked out the kitchen window, past the maple tree with its thermometer nailed to the trunk, and beyond the shed we called the summer kitchen, which is what we imagined the original occupants of the old house had used it for back in the day.

Dad came into the kitchen, and looked out the window. “There’s something moving back there on my dirt pile. Hand me the binoculars.”

I obliged, removing them from the hook on the wall. Binoculars come in handy when there’s wildlife to be seen out back: deer feeding in the evening, or sand cranes bobbing up and down in the tall grass. Sometimes a bald eagle will be spotted, swooping over some small game visible only from the air, but most often, it’s the local turkeys making their rounds. Sure enough, Dad said there was a female out back, flapping on top of the dusty pile, giving herself a dirt bath.

“I’m going to take a closer look,” he said, walking out the door. I followed. This was the most action I’d seen in months, and looking at wild turkeys was better than sitting there dwelling on the foibles of mankind, especially my own.

As I got closer and caught up with Dad, he said, “look to your right, there’s some more females!” I was looking to the left of the pile, as I’d seen something moving there. But sure enough, a few more females could be seen in the grass, now running away as they saw us coming.

The dirt pile erupted, as about 20 young turkeys flapped their wings and took off behind their mothers into the field. Invisible at first, they’d been in the pile taking dust baths as well, and their color matched the color of the dry dirt, camoflauging them.

After the initial shock, we started laughing. We’d never gotten that close to the turkey pack before, letting them wander while we watched at a safe distance from inside the house or the dooryard. We’d certainly never seen the clutches of several females exploding out of a pile of dirt at close range. I’m not sure who was startled more, us or the turkeys.

We saw a lot of wildlife that summer: baby deer at the side of the road on the way to the store, a mama bear with three cubs in a ditch, sand cranes with two babies feeding in the fields, and the usual array of birds flitting about the trees. Then there were the hummingbirds.

I’d put up a feeder on the corner of the porch, and we’d often get buzzed by the little suckers as we walked outside. It was really an oriole feeder, bought on a whim the previous year, but it worked fine for the hummingbirds. We all loved watching them, and once in a while one would hover just outside the screen door, staring at us (or perhaps something colorful in the kitchen). These were the ruby throated variety, it being too far north for the more exotic varieties found in the southwest. I’d even seen them pecking at the orange extension cord out back, the one Dad used for his weed whacker and kept wound up on a piece of fence rail when it wasn’t being used.

One day, Dad was in the kitchen and he said, “look! Look at this, come quick!” It was an oriole, drinking at the feeder. I’d never seen one, and here one was, not 3 feet away from me on the other side of the windowpane. Apparently orioles aren’t too picky about their food, and this one liked the hummingbird food just fine.

I remember once I was riding with a friend on the highway. We were going to a mall in the massive sprawl of the Chicago suburbs. I spotted a hawk sitting on the side of the road. “Did you see that?” I asked. My companion answered in the negative. We rode in silence, and I looked for something to stare at besides the dull grey overpasses, becoming more and more frequent as we got closer to the more densely populated areas. There were clouds in the sky, the kind we used to call “horse feathers,” or “mackerel.” Dad always said, “a mackerel sky is followed by a storm,” and he was usually right. It was late afternoon, and the sun cast a rosy glow onto the clouds.

“Would you look at that sky!” I said. “Beautiful, isn’t it? Don’t you wish you could paint that?”

She looked at my sideways.

“You see beauty in a lot of things, don’t you?” she asked. She went on to explain that she never saw those things, and she was amazed that I could see them.

It was then that I realized what a great gift Dad had given me my entire life. More than food and shelter, and love, he’d shown me a way of looking at the world that wasn’t taught to everyone. He’d given me a love of Nature, and taught me to observe it. No matter where I lived, or what my circumstances, I could always find beauty around me, thanks to my Dad.

He loved the calendar, as I knew he would. After all, he’d taught me to see the wildlife, and it was really his gift that I was giving back to him.

Thanks, Dad.

Sorry I have not been blogging lately: I got caught up with BrightKite and Twitter. It’s so much easier to post little snippets on those sites! Also, I haven’t felt like blogging, to tell the truth. The weather was very hot and humid the past few days, so I was a little dragged out.

Today, however, was just perfect! I got up just before sunrise, around 5:00 a.m. There was a little mist, and I could see the rhododendrum bush across the way, its large magenta flowers glowing in the predawn light. Little yellow flowers stood out against the brick wall of the brick, and a pink fairy rose nodded in the slight breeze. I grabbed my camera and tried to take some pics, but the light was too dim and my brain was too fuzzy from not enough coffee to make the proper adjustments. Also, I think I have to turn off the “vivid colors” setting in low light situations, because it looks pretty funky with it:

Those are some pansies, with some blue lobelia, and a pink impatiens in the background. I guess they really do mean vivid on the camera settings, don’t they?

I went up to the beauty school today and got a pedicure. I usually do my own, but for $15, it’s a real bargain. I chose a blue polish, it’s dark, but very stylish, made by OPI. I love OPI. The girl put a clear coat over the top and they look luscious. Blueberry toes.

Tonight I’m making a pot roast in my new Le Creuset dutch oven. I got it at a yard sale over the weekend for only $10! I was thrilled, those things are trés expensive new. I rubbed my pot roast with herbs de provence, then seared it on both sides in a bit of oil for about 5 minutes per side. Then I lifted the roast out and put in some chopped onion and lots of garlic, and deglazed with some good French red table wine. Slapped the lid on and put it on low. We had a late snack of Brie with bread, so supper will be at about 7:00, as Robert has clients up till then. I’m roasting it on low on the oven top for about 4 hours total, maybe less, we’ll see.

Then I roasted some beef marrow bones, cut sides up, in a cast iron pan in the oven (20 minutes at 450 F). I added those to the pot roast for flavor. Later, I’ll add some carrots, celery and potatoes. Maybe a bay leaf or two.

I got a patio tomato and a Provence lavender plant yesterday and potted them up. I had a mint plant ($1.99 at Hannaford) that I also potted up. Tomorrow I will take my basil seedlings and put those in with the tomato plant. I have some sage and other herbs that will need their own pot, and a lemon balm plant that can stay in its little pot for a while, until it gets bigger. The flowers are all doing quite well, if not quite as vivid as the photo above.

Tomorrow I’m starting a women’s writing group: it will be myself and another woman, and we may add more as time goes on. I’m really excited, as I need a kick in the pants to get me to finish some fiction stories, and nothing like having to show someone your stuff once a week for motivation! Also, writing can be very isolating. While I love having some time to myself, I also need contact with the outside world. No water cooler talk here (unless you count the cat meowing when I go into the kitchen, where his food dishes are).

My son is arriving in less than three weeks and I’m very excited! We’re gonna have fun going to the beach and seeing the sights. Maine is such a great place to be in the summer. In anticipation of his visit, we got a new futon, which folds out into a double bed:

It’s wicked comfortable, too! They make futon mattresses with lots of foam and padding nowadays.

Now I have to go chop some carrots and celery to add to my pot roast, enjoy your day or evening, wherever you are!