Biking for MS

This weekend Jon (from Sebago Brewing) and I will be doing a 150 mile bike ride to benefit the National MS Society. I've never done any sort of organized ride like this before, but I am looking forward to it. The ride is split into 2 days and the routes are as follows:

Saturday's Ride



Sunday's Ride



I will be riding my 1980's Schwinn Traveler that my friend Rich found off a highway somewhere south of Boston 4 years ago. I used the bike a lot when living in Boston, but the thing was in pretty rough shape. The cables were mostly all rusted out so the breaks didn't really work and I could only go back and forth between two gears, but things have changed since then...

I had the bike professionally tuned up a couple weeks ago and everything works swell now. I even installed one of those biking computers so I can track my speed, time, mileage, etc. and my boss gave me some of his old pedals that have toe baskets on them. Hurrah!

So, if you would like to help sponsor me for this National MS Society charity ride, feel free to check it out here. After all, you are all good people and it's for a good cause. Who could ask for anything more?

Supposedly the brewery is going to provide Jon and I shirts that say "Powered by Beer" or something. More on that as it develops.

Wild Dogs Mom-Style

Seth, Lindsey, Mike D, and I crafted a new delicacy for mankind tonight. Sometime after the hour of midnight we developed the Wild Dog cooked Mom-Style.

Lemme break it down for y'alls:
* blackened grilled hotdog
* toasted bun
* powdered Parmesan cheese
* pickled jalapeño slices
* Cholula or Schricha
* powdered chili pepper
* mustard

Yeah, so that's what it consists of. I think Seth came up with the "Wild Dog" moniker; Mike and I threw on the "Mom-style" because our mother (bless her heart) always eats the dogs that end up getting burnt, which just so happened to occur with these fellas.

First Harvest of 2008

Bea showing off our first zucchini and slicing cucumber of 2008
The fruit of our labor is ripening? Uhm... Well, anyway, yes, our vegetable garden has produced two pieces of produce so far, and we picked them both on Saturday morning - a zucchini and a slicing cucumber (the pickling ones are not ready yet). Hopefully this is the start of a busy picking season for us.

To be brief, we are excited.
To be less brief, we are very excited.


This is the meal we made tonight with some fresh goodies.
Zucchini Sweet Potato Frittata - from one of the Moosewood Cookbooks
* fresh zucchini from our garden
* fresh eggs from Bea's farm
* fresh garlic from Bea's farm
* sweet potato
* smoked mozzarella
* cream cheese
Totally delicious and unhealthy at the same time. The smoked mozzarella really makes this dish outstanding, so much that the cream cheese could probably be removed.

Stuffed Fried Zucchini Flowers - from one of the River Cafe Cookbooks
* zucchini blossoms from the farmers' market
* fresh basil leaves from our garden
* ricotta
These are fun. We'd been wanting to make them for a couple years but zucchini blossoms are hard to come by, and we haven't wanted to snip our own. Each flower is stuffed with a basil leaf and some ricotta then lightly battered and flash fried making a tasty treat.

We used our first cucumber last night in our special salad that we served with homemade tamales.

Pickling 2008: Episode I

my pickled flying saucer squash

This afternoon was spent getting my picklin' on. The last pickling I did was in 2006 in Wyoming. I made many a delicious spicy dill pickle and dilly bean out there. This year I am expanding the scope.

Today's Pickling:
Beets - from the Portland Farmers' Market
a) in a sweet pickling brine
b) in a salty dill spicy pickling brine

Radishes - from Broadturn Farm CSA where Bea is teaching
a) in a salty dill spicy pickling brine with lots of whole garlic cloves

Flying Saucer Squash - from the Portland Farmers' Market
a) in a salty dill spicy pickling brine

Overall, I pickled 9 pints and 3 quarts, so if you do the math that's a total of 1.875 gallons of preserved pickled goods thus far. I am looking for to see how these turned out, and also I am anxiously awaiting our own pickling cucumbers to reach pickling size...

Rent-a-Husband

I saw this van while delivering beer to Sebago's South Portland brewpub.
The thing I really liked about it was that the van was being driven by a woman.

Oh yeah, and Happy Bastille Day France.

Broadturn Farm

Left: these are chickens
Right: these are the 11 eggs I picked from underneath them

Bea is working at Broadturn Farm (their blog) in Scarborough, ME; the farm is mainly a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture), but she is teaching there for their youth day camp program for the summer.

The farmers and interns staying there for the summer had us over for dinner tonight during which I participated in:
- drinking their home brewed Kombucha
- drinking raw milk from their cow
- picking the eggs shown above whilst getting slightly picked from the chickens
- eating tasty fresh organic local food stuffs

They have interns that help them over the summer for harvesting and growing and such and it really reminded me of our time in Italy; it's really the same sort of deal, but here they don't get tons of free organic delicious wine out of the deal, what a cryin' shame. Anyway, the place and people there are awesome and it makes me want my own farm STAT!

Fact. I've wanted to be a farmer ever since I played SimFarm back in the 90's. Fact.

Acadia: Day 2

"The Smoking Incident at Thunder Hole"

Exhibit A: Thunder Hole - a highly showcased rocky hole in Acadia National Park that naturally produces huge thundering bursts of water that erupt tens of feet into the air
Exhibit B: a cigarette butt
Exhibit C: a magnified view of Exhibit B

For those of you who haven't been there, Thunder Hole in this picture just looks like a regular piece of Maine coast, but it's not. It really can be quite eventful. Also, not pictured above is the fancy walkway, guard rails, stonework, etc. to guide people down here. Sure, it's not the Grand Canyon, but again, it's not just some rock off the side of the road.

We were standing right behind this lady who was smoking. I know many fine smokers and that don't bother me or other people a bit; however, this incident was obnoxious because:
1) If you're going to smoke please be courteous and do not smoke in the most crowded scenic area around
2) you're not allowed to smoke in National Parks anyway (unless you are in your car or designated area)
After finishing her cigarette the lady promptly proceeded to toss it over the rail directly at/into the Thunder Hole - see the exhibits A through C above. Three people around us started giving the lady a hard time about this - rightly so - to which she responded:

"First of all don't, tell me what to do."
There was no "Secondly" or "Second of all" because, well, there was really nothing else to say. She just left after throwning down some 'tude and Bea heard her mutter something like "Lets go hun, we don't need to let these people degrade us" or something.

Hey, it's true, everybody has rights and feelings, nobody wants to be put down or embarrassed, especially in public in front of their kid, but come on lady - you were surrounded by outdoorsy people here to enjoy a federally preserved natural wonder and you just used one of its focal points as an ashtray! It made me think of other possible absurdities like putting a cigarette out in Old Faithful, sticking used chewing used gum on the Lincoln Memorial, or taking a leak on the Petrified Tree in Yellowstone.

Acadia: Day 1

Wild blue berries are outstanding!
Bea and I collected blubes on our hike to the top of Mansell Mountain and the Great Notch of Acadia National Park. There were tons of the wild blue berries everywhere, but unfortunately for us, most of them were not ripe enough to eat. The photo above only shows a portion of what we collected, most of what was picked went directly from hand to mouth.

Some people out there might tell you (mothers especially) that eating fresh unwashed wild fruit is dangerous and is apt to give you a "busy bottom", but we did not heed any such warning and so far we are alright - those folks probably just want them blubes for themselves...

Also, a word to the wise, if you ever find yourself in Acadia for the 4th of July and somebody tells you it's a good idea to drive up to the top of Cadillac Mountain to watch the fireworks in Bar Harbor - don't do it, the fireworks look minuscule and there's a mob of people.