Blueberries and Lobster

My friend just bought the farm.

Ok, technically he’s leasing a few acres from a semi-retired couple. But he’s treating the land as if it was his own, measuring plots, drawing up plans for vegetables, chickens, and pigs. He has plans for cover crops, grains, even worms. I went out for a visit on this clear, snow-covered Thursday, and Farmer J. and I tromped around in the snow, guessing at animal tracks and leaving our own.

It’s a beautiful farmhouse, only a few years old, with exposed beams and a glasshouse off of the kitchen. My first instinct: herbs and large viney things in the glasshouse, surrounding the wicker lounge chair. But there’s plenty of land; who needs a glasshouse?

In the back of the farmhouse, an errant patch of snow-covered kale, still good. I came home with a bag. I’m pondering soup of some kind, possibly involving potatoes.

I like kale. I like that it survives snowstorms.

Farmer J. is in the process of building a hoop house, with plans for cucumbers, tomatoes, and other things. I want to walk down the hoop house in the middle of summer. I can see this already, full of tomato plants staked up in slightly unkempt rows, fresh plant smells, smooth tomatoes, bumpy cucumbers. In my head, it’s already June.

And off to the side, an octagonal barn, oddly yurt-like.

I know where my food is coming from when summer hits. I’m making plans for fresh, local food, grown by someone I know and trust. I know where my eggs are coming from, my peppers, cucumbers, spinach, pork. Do you?

The first real snow day of the season. A message from a friend: coffee break? And so I lace up my Bean Boots, throw my laptop in a bag, and trudge down the hill to the North Star Music Cafe.

I love this place. Ever since I discovered their wireless internet access, I’ve gone there to work at least once a week, sometimes more. It’s homey, with overstuffed couches and a kids’ play area, and the vegetarian-friendly food is simple, fresh, and often comes from local farms. What more could I possibly want?

Oh, right. Friendly staff. Got that too.

This morning: an “everything” spelt bagel with olive oil, freshly ground black pepper, tomato, and avocado. So simple, and so delicious.

And then I stayed after chatting with my friend, and worked through lunch: A huge bowl of beans and and brown rice with red onion, cheddar, tomatoes, and avocado. (I like avocado!)

It’s so funny, you know? They bill themselves as a music cafe, a proper coffeehouse. They even have beer on tap — sip your HSA while enjoying the open mic night. But I’ve never really gone there for any of the shows. This will have to change.

An Englishman and a Scotsman were discussing oats. The Englishman, with his nose in the air said “In England, we feed oats to our horses, and in Scotland you feed oats to your men.”

The Scotsman replied, “That’s why in England you have such fine horses and in Scotland we have such fine men!”

I grew up eating the instant oatmeal from packets. Mix with boiling water, and in sixty seconds it sets up into healthy, delicious wallpaper paste. One time, eating breakfast in the car as usual, I sneezed. Strawberries-and-cream wallpaper paste wound up all over the windshield. Ew.

Even regular rolled oats would have been better. But a few years ago, a friend introduced me to steel-cut oats, and I was sold. They cook up to a nice chewy texture, with a nuttier flavor than regular rolled oats. But no matter how you eat ‘em, oats are a healthy, filling, frugal way to start the day.

We used to buy McCann’s Steel Cut Oatmeal in the big tins, but that is a habit that gets expensive quickly. These days, we buy our steel-cut oats in bulk, which is much cheaper and (I think) tastes just as good.

There’s a thousand ways to cook oats. You can make them in your slow cooker overnight, you can cook them with milk and buttermilk, you can cook them in the oven, you can even eat them cold. But my favorite way is the old-fashioned way, on the stovetop.

They don’t actually take that long to cook, even on a weekday. Put them on while you shower, and they’re ready to eat when you’re dressed. If you’re pressed for time, you could omit the toasting, and/or soak them in cold water overnight.

Steel-Cut Oats
makes 4 servings

Put 1 c. steel-cut oats into a saucier or pot, on the stovetop over medium heat. Toast the oats, stirring frequently, for about five minutes or just until fragrant. Add 4 c. water to the pot. Simmer for 20–25 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the oats have thickened into a nice porridge.

I like mine with raisins, walnuts, pumpkin seeds, and local Maine maple syrup. How about you?

A friend of mine forwarded me a link to an interview with Sam Hayward, owner of Fore Street, a well-known restaurant in the Old Port. I haven’t been to Fore Street at all yet (I’ve heard it’s quite pricy), but now I want to go.

On whether the short growing season in Maine makes produce more intense:

That’s a theory. Produce in Maine tends to have an extremely strong flavor…. Our plants are challenged by cool nights, a short growing season, an intensity of light in late June and July, and a lot of bugs and funguses and other attacking microbes. I did an event in Mendocino County, California… Basils were growing five feet tall. You very seldom see basil growing like that in Maine. I harvested a bunch… and I couldn’t coax any flavor out of it. [It] might as well have been lettuce.

It’s worth reading the entire interview; you certainly get a flavor (pun intended) of how people approach food here.

I like food that comes from a place. I like my fish to come from the ocean, my blueberries to come from bushes, and my potatoes to come from the earth.

We’re lucky, here in Maine. We have a host of local farmers who grow, raise, and otherwise produce food for our community. We have a community of men and women who harvest food from the water. And we have consumers who would rather eat their neighbor’s beets than the beets from the supermarket.

And in Portland, where I live, we have an incredible number of restaurants who will patronize our local farmers. We get cheese and year-round arugula from Laughing Stock Farm. We get our beef and lamb from Wolfe’s Neck. And we get our chard and red onions from the friendly folks at Freedom Farm. The list could go on for days. And I want to tell you about it.

I’ve been keeping a food-related blog on my LiveJournal for several years now, and it seemed to be about time to make it a little more public. Welcome to Blueberries and Lobster.