eating (local) creations and exploring (local) waters

So the past couple days has been a pretty quiet time in my life, as you can see from the blog. Just a lot of livin' life, nothing too wild. I'm inherently aware of my super detailed budget that I've set out for myself until September 1 (and then the post-September which is much more exciting, cuz it involves savings!!!) so I am trying to make do with what I can experience for minimal to no cost, other than just some gas to get there, or the old "foot powered" method.

I'm finding I really enjoy living in a town where I can walk twenty minutes and make my way to most of the businesses on the main street. A bike ride or long walk is the grocery store.

To give you perspective:

Things within a five minute walk: Whole Food Market, laundromat
Things within a ten minute walk: bank, gas station
Things within a fifteen minute walk: UMM (work!), Bluebird Restaurant, post office, library, community-supported agriculture pickup spot
Things within a twenty minute walk: Helen's Restaurant, Dairy Spot drive-in, recycling center, town hall, subway, "the dike" (where farmers market is).

Neato!

Anyway, today was my first pickup for my CSA pickup from Tide Mill Organic Farm in Edmunds, ME . What a bounty!


Garlic scapes, broccoli, fresh salad greens, green onions, and I think red chard. I made a beautiful meal for both Betty the Cat and I....well, Betty's was a tad different:

Mine was a wonderful pasta dish using all the fresh ingredients with the addition of some spinach and asparagus that I had picked up at Hannaford, my local grocery. Yum! With the addition of a glass or two of the Wild Maine Blueberry Oak Dry from Bartlett Winery (yay Stephanie! I finally found an "occasion") it was a lovely meal:

I also embarked on something that several people mentioned I need to learn how to do since I live in New England now...breadmaking! Marissa, the most wonderful girlfriend, sent me a great pre-made refrigerator dough recipe from my favorite (ok, my second favorite to National Geographic!!! Nothing beats N.G.!!) magazine Mother Earth News. So, I made the dough tonight, and will try baking it tomorrow! Here's a pic of it right after I combined all the ingredients:

I wanted to try it to make sure it really did taste like bread. Sure enough, it did.
(come on, I live with an elderly cat and am currently unemployed, I have to entertain myself)

After following the directions and allowing it two hours and a bit to rise, here's what I had:
Whoa, sweet. I had to go out and buy a new broiler and pan set for my oven since the one that came with the apartment oven looked like someone had died and been baked on it (thought: I wonder what it will cost me to recycle THAT?), but with a "you're new here" discount (10% since it was unmarked) at the local appliance store (they had two left in the back room), I am in business. And I got myself a baking stone, and some supplies at the Machias Hardware Store (dear family, gift certificates to local business are great gifts ha!!, that is where its at!!!) and I am all set to go. I will post pictures of my baking creation tomorrow. Evidently this is the kind of recipe where you can let it sit in your fridge as a wet dough for up to 2 weeks and just grab a chunk and make a "boule" when you need to. I am stoked to try it out!

Other than exploring local foods lately, I found what I have deemed "my spot" near Machias yesterday. It's Fort O'Brien/Fort Machias State Historic Site. This place is truly wicked awesome. The funny thing is that its just 4.5 miles away from my house...and just a little driveway leads to a fort that has been in existence since 1775! And also is one of the few forts in the U.S. to be in all three land-based U.S. wars (revolutionary, 1812, and civil).

The cool thing is that its just mounds! And there was a cellar that was designated as the ammunitions store room underground that has since been filled:

The view from here was pretty amazing. I brought along Harry Potter to read, and sat all by myself watching the tide come in. I even got "barked at" by a couple of red foxes. A case of they scared me, I scared them. Pretty neat, though...can't say I've ever been within thirty feet of red foxes. The area is just gorgeous, and is atop a cliff overlooking the mouth of the Machias River in Machiasport (where I am thinking I hope to buy a house someday) which leads into the Bay of Fundy. In the background you can see what I think are FCC towers or something like that. Who knows. All I know is that there is only one American radio station I pick up in my car and house here, the rest are Canadian.


Interestingly, yesterday was the first day over 72 degrees that I've seen in Machias thus far, so as you can see, I was out sunning myself. I can definitely see Ft. O'Brien as a reading/relaxing kind of spot. I was there for about two hours on a Sunday afternoon and not another person came by! There are foxes, seagulls, a ton of different water birds I don't know yet, and lobster pots right off the shore...so hopefully someday I'll get to see the lobster getting harvested right in front of me!

I also explored the Machiasport public boat landing, which is right by the BBS Lobster Company, where you can stop in for a piece of the days catch. No one was working on Sunday of course, but I got to see what the public piers look like. A tad different than in Iowa. Note that the tide is at pretty much dead low when I took these, so you get to see a lot of the water life up front.



All in all, a pretty great couple of chill days. In other news, I finished my first "Maine" book, which was The Edge of Maine by Geoffrey Wolff. As I hoped, I learned a good amount of Maine history, as well as the finer points of the interactions of lobster fisherman, blowboaters (sailboaters), and the ferry industry. Neat. Next on the list: Sea Glass by Anita Shreve (thanks for the lend, Stephanie!) and The Lobster Chronicles (if I can find it somewhere used, the local library only has a couple of her books that I already have).

That's all for tonight from the Sunrise Coast!