Category: quest for the best

The Annual Ides of March Quest for Fried Clams

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, Adult children, celebrations, comfort, family, good grief, quest for the best, restaurants

My dad’s last meal was fried clams.

Flashback to 1998. Dad was dying of lung cancer. The living room was dominated by the hospital bed sent by hospice once it was clear he could no longer manage the climb to the second floor bedroom. He had been in and out of consciousness for several days when he suddenly became alert again, like himself. This day also happened to be my mother’s birthday. She had died two years prior of cancer.

After he had been turning up his nose at solid food for days, he said he wanted to eat. What do you want, Dad? Whatever it is, we’ll get it.

He wanted fried clams and french fries from (the famous!) Kelly’s Roast Beef in Revere. So, my brother drove to Revere (not so very far from where we were) to get him what he wanted.

He ate and enjoyed every last bite.

And then he fell asleep, drifting into a coma from which he would not awaken. He died peacefully two days later on March 15, 1998.

Every year, I have fried clams on March 15th to commemorate this experience and to celebrate my Dad.

This year, at the recommendation of my friend Stephanie, we tried a new place in New Hampshire, Petey’s Summertime Seafood and Bar.

It was definitely worth the trip!

So maybe I expanded on the fried clams…Dad loved ice cream sundaes, too, and I am my father’s daughter. 🙂

And he loved martinis, dry, with two olives…but that’s a different story.

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**Disclaimer: This is my memory of this experience. Other’s remembrances may differ.**

Look what I FOUND at FOUND!

by Karen, posted in author, books, Fashion Sense, quest for the best, shopping

I followed the articles in the local papers about the evolution of FOUND, a shop that is the vision of FOUNDer 🙂 foundPamela Bennett. Pamela wanted to showcase the talents of Maine women (and some men!) who create from the heart and give them a venue in which to make their products available to people who might not otherwise find them.

 

For example, Amy Rose of  Amy Rose Made in Maine makes lovely jewelry. One of my favorite pieces is her silver charm of the state of Maine on a silver chain. Find it at FOUND, as well as at her ETSY shop: Amy Rose Made in Maine. Below in the slideshow are some photos of her products.

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Also, Jeanne Emerson has some of her designs at FOUND. This is her process (paraphrased from her website): Eco-printing, sometimes known as botanical printing, uses the natural dyes in flowers, leaves and other natural materials to produce one of kind, magical and beautiful designs on paper and fabrics. Check out the slideshow below to see her scarves and cards.

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FOUND also has books! Kathy Eliscu’s wonderful book is there, Not Even  Dark Chocolate can Fix This Mess! Kathy’s book is about Tink, a woman in midlife who is so busy saying ‘yes!’ to everyone else that she starts to lose track of herself. She becomes overwhelmed, and then makes a mistake that turns into a big (you guessed it!) mess. Once you pick this book up, you will not be able to put it down!

My book, One Brave Thing, is also at FOUND. Bebe wants to get married some day but keeps picking guys that are wrong for her. She learns from her mistakes, however, and in the process, learns how to stand up for herself and trust her gut about how to live her life.

me-and-kathy-at-found

Find signed copies of both books at FOUND!

I have given you just a small sampling of the amazing gifts at this great shop. Have some Christmas shopping left to do? Stop in at FOUND in Kennebunk, Maine! You will be able to find a beautiful gift for everyone on your list.

You’re welcome!

My slip is showing

by Karen, posted in books, no fear, quest for the best, Someone's gotta say it, writing

I have recently become aware of some minor formatting issues with my book, which I will be addressing in the next printing.

😀

Wasn’t that mature of me? An amazingly calm reaction, since my inner critic and inner perfectionist are usually hard at work full-time, preventing me from letting anyone see my fiction writing, never mind noticing that, hello? It’s not perfect. Indeed, they worked quite successfully in tandem to prevent me from publishing One Brave Thing… for years.

After I first published it, I had this nagging feeling of…I don’t know. Something. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. Until one day, suddenly, I could: I felt like my slip was showing!  When you put your art of any kind out into the world, you are taking a risk. You are revealing parts of yourself that you have never before revealed. People will tell you what they think of your efforts. Some will not convey this information in a nice way at all. But some will do it in such an amazingly caring, wonderful, loving, joyful way that it will make you want to weep.

The latter more than outweighs the former.

I have found these words (I am paraphrasing Jack Canfield here):

  Some people will say yes, and others will say no. So what.

Maybe there are times when you are feeling imperfect, too.  Here’s a motivational audio by David McGraw based on Jack Canfield’s Success Principles that I love. Maybe you will, too!


So thank you to my friend, Kathy, who did One Brave Thing and let me know that I had a tiny bit of spinach in my teeth. And for now, my first book shall remain perfect in its imperfection.

Like me. 🙂

 

Poetic license, people! Heard of it?

by Karen, posted in author, books, quest for the best, The write words at the write time, writing

writers thesaurusI have been reading and reviewing books for years.

Years.

I haven’t loved all of them, but with only one (to my knowledge) notable exception*, I was not ever unkind to the author in my review. If I liked or loved a book, I said so. If I didn’t, then I moved on. Just because it wasn’t for me didn’t mean it was okay to ruin it for anybody else.

So, I was not prepared to deal with the negative feedback I got about one word that I chose to use in my book, One Brave Thing: ‘fleusy’. The first objection was to my repeating the word. Repetition is a tool that I use in my writing. I like to have my characters repeat words for emphasis. I am fairly sure that I am not the first writer in history to use this technique.

The second objection was to how I chose to spell ‘fleusy’. She wanted me to spell it ‘floozy’. I thought about spelling it that way, but I didn’t like how much it reminded me of ‘boozy’, so I decided to spell it differently. ‘Fleusy’ reminded me of ‘fleur‘ and I liked that better.

Hello? I am a wordsmith. If a word doesn’t work for me in my writing, then I change it up or make up a new word, if necessary, to get the feel that I want.

So, shut up. I can.

*The notable exception: Jodi Picoult’s My Sister’s Keeper. I wasn’t critical of her actual writing. I just hated how she chose to end the book. Just an artistic difference of opinion.

Birthday club

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, friends, quest for the best, restaurants

Strawberry Nutella CrepeI am part of a great group of nurses who all work from home. Once a month we (mostly) all get together for breakfast and to celebrate a birthday, if there is one that month. This month we went to Two Hands Crepe and Juice Bar in Brunswick.

Okay, it’s a hike to Brunswick from Wells, but you can get thay-uh from he-uh, and it was totally worth the trip.

I ordered a sweet: the Strawberry and Nutella Crepe (pictured on the left) and it was EXCELLENT. The birthday girl, Annette, ordered a savory: the egg, ham, and cheese. Annette, who has spent time recently in France (I know, right??), said that her crepe compared favorably to ones she’d had there. So…Two Hands got a hit!

The space itself was sunny and bright. The staff was caring and conscientious. The artwork (paintings of animals) that adorned the walls was compelling. The giraffe Made. My. Day. 🙂

My only regret was that I didn’t have time to go visit the farmers market happening around the corner. It looked fabulous (note to self: plan extra time for the next Friday morning visit).

If you are in Brunswick for breakfast, go check them out.

(Hint: There is no parking lot. Find a space on the street out front.)

Bon appetit! 

(I know, predictable! But I couldn’t resist!!)

🙂

 

 

Italian birthday cake, 2015

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, baking, family, italian, quest for the best, recipes

IMG_4349My family of origin had some family traditions, but they were few.

One that has made it to the present is the Italian Rum Cake birthday cake tradition. My brother’s birthday and mine are about a month apart. We both love Italian Rum Cakes. My family? His family? Um, not so much.

Okay, they hate it.

As much as I love this cake, it is not fun to have a birthday cake on my birthday that no one but me will eat.

Also, it’s damn hard to find this cake in Maine. Actually, it’s IMPOSSIBLE to find this cake in Maine.

So here’s what my brother and I do now:

  1. We call La Cascia’s Bakery and order the Italian Rum Cake with Strawberries (included) and Peaches (cost extra-pay it! it’s worth it!). You get to choose between whipped cream and buttercream frosting (WHIPPED CREAM FROSTING ROCKS!). You must decide if you want nuts on the outside or not-I can never decide so I order nuts on half of it. 🙂
  2. One of us picks up the cake and drives to the other’s house (we take turns hosting-this year is my brother’s turn).
  3. We split the cake. Literally. We each eat half. In our defense, we order the smallest one (serves 8-10 people in real life) they make.

That’s it. Problem solved! We love the cake! Our relatives are not subjected to it! Plus it’s June (my birthday was in May) and I am still eating birthday cake!

I did find a recipe for it (without the strawberries and peaches) on the Mangia Bene Pasta website, but there are something like a thousand steps in this recipe, so it’s pretty certain that I will never make it. Ever. I’d be too tired to eat it after all that.

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The day I ate whatever I wanted

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, books, Party for one, quest for the best, restaurants, writing

starbucksWhen I read the title of this book by Elizabeth Berg, The Day I Ate Whatever I Wanted, I thought, YESSSSS!!!! That’s all I want! To eat whatever I want! So in honor of my birthday month, I did that today. Full disclosure: I was using food to comfort myself because I had to work the day before, on Mother’s Day. You know. Again. Solace eating. I’m on it.

I started with, believe it or not, a bowl of Cheerios and milk, with a banana (the revered food of Minions everywhere!) cut up in it. Hello, childhood. I have been craving this meal lately, for some reason. I’m going with it.

Then I had a chocolate croissant (Him: Do you want me to heat it up? Me: Yes! Yes, Please!) from Starbucks at the mall.  This was completely unplanned! I was going to get a Tiramisu Frappuccino, but then I heard the croissants calling my name. How could I let them down?

Next I had Maple Roasted Butternut Squash soup from Kamasouptra. With the tag line: Steamy. Hot. Soup. Really?kamasouptra  The best thing about Kamasouptra Soup is the (steamy, hot) roll that comes with it. Once you’ve had it, you’ll want it again. And again. Hey, maybe that could be another (racy)slogan for them..? 🙂

Mid-afternoon, I got hungry again (I know, right?). On my way to get a healthy snack (an apple) from the fridge, I remembered that I picked up a whole wheat wild blueberry muffin from New Morning Natural Foods new-ish Kennebunk Deli earlier new morningin the day. If you get one, here’s a tip: zap it for 20-30 seconds in the microwave before you eat it. You’re welcome.

Finally, I picked my daughter up from track, and she asked that question that daughters everywhere have been asking their mothers for centuries. “Mom, what’s for supper?”

I had no idea.
She noticed my hesitation and knew an opportunity when she saw it. “Let’s get Chinese! Like you wanted to yesterday! For Mother’s Day!” Okay, so you know.

She had me at Mother’s Day.

We went to Maple Leaves. I forgot to take a picture of our food, but I did take a (blurry) picture of my fortune.

fortune

My daughter was all over this, because I’m getting ready to either a) find an agent to sell my book or b) publish it myself.

Hey, any and all signs are welcome here.

🙂

My one word 2015

by Karen, posted in movies, my one word, NaNoWriMo2014, no fear, quest for the best, The write words at the write time, writing

IMG_0743I have written about My One Word (MOW) in the past. The premise is this: you pick just one word to inspire you all year long.

If you are a writer, the appeal of only writing ONE WORD in a writing session is seductive.

It is, however, also deceiving. It’s harder to choose just one word to write down than you might think. There’s actually an entire website devoted to this topic, with a section devoted to just choosing your word.

When you can only choose one, you want it to be the best word ever.

The contenders this year for me are, in no particular order:

Write Meditate Breathe Focus Declutter

I thought I had a good list from which to choose when I made the mistake of visiting the MOW website’s ‘Pick your word’ section and another word, a bright and shiny new and different word, popped out at me: BRAVE. This word, this BRAVE word, showed me that I had unconsciously been thinking that MOW must be a verb. Every word that I thought of was a verb.

But Brave? Brave can be an adjective or a verb! Or even a noun! And Brave is a big, important word. There’s an entire Disney Movie about that word! I have written other blog posts that contain that word!

Oh, I just thought of yet another (verb) word:  Decide.

I think maybe I just did. 🙂

What do you think about choosing One Word versus making New Year’s Resolutions?
What would YOW (Your One Word) be?

If you are BRAVE, please comment below with your choice!

 

Mentoring: top ten tips

by Karen, posted in Life in the cube, Midlife Crisis, quest for the best, Work from Home

officeIn my first career, I managed a restaurant. Over the years I trained a lot of waitresses, ice cream scoopers, grill cooks,  supervisors, and even managers. We had a three step process that worked really well.  First, she watched me do it. Next, I watched her do it. Finally, she did it by herself, but I was nearby; present but not hovering, taking more and more steps back until she was efficiently operating on her own.

That was it.

Now I am in a different profession.  I have been a trainer/mentor for many colleagues over the past several years. I recently have been on the trainee side of the equation again (hel-lo) and it’s helped me remember what is helpful and what is not so helpful from this side of the table.

  1. Listen to your trainee
  2. Choose your verbs carefully: “Struggling” is unkind. “Learning” is another word that expresses the same phenomenon but doesn’t leave your trainee feeling crushed.
  3. Rookies make rookie mistakes. Let them.
  4. Tell your newbie that she is doing a great job. Tell her frequently, every day, even it if’ it’s overstating things a bit. It’s very motivating.
  5. Adult learners process information differently (read: more slowly) than they did in their earlier decades of life, and they might be coming face to face with this difficult truth in a new and uncomfortable way. Give them frequent little breaks to absorb what is coming her way.
  6. Allow a little time to debrief at the end of the day.
  7. Chocolate helps. A lot. In large amounts.
  8. Introduce some fun; fun is good.
  9. Remind your newbie that you were sitting in the same seat that she is now when you first started, and look at you now!
  10. Never forget rule #9 yourself.

Resolutions

by Karen, posted in books, Midlife Crisis, no fear, quest for the best, Turning 50

Best_Year_hardcoverI remember getting to the end of 2011 and thinking “What an awful year this has been,” and hoping 2012 would be better. Fast forward one year: I remember getting to the end of 2012 and thinking, “What an awful year this has been,” and hoping 2013 would be better.

I’m sensing a pattern here, people.

So, when I saw this online course on The Daily Om’s website, The Best Year of Your Life by Debbie Ford, of course my interest was immediately piqued. Then I thought, “What if this year, instead of just hoping that it would be a better year (reference the definition of insanity), I took some active, conscious steps to try to make it happen?

What this course has going for it:

  1. It’s online. No hauling my sorry ass out of the house in -1 degree weather to get to it.
  2. It’s relatively cheap: $21 for the year.
  3. No stupid, exorbitant, deal-breaking shipping and handling charges are tacked on at the end.
  4. It’s structured. I like structure.

I am not sure if I’m going to sign up for this course or not, but I’m leaning toward it at the moment. Debbie Ford has written a book with a similar title The Best Year of Your Life: Dream It, Plan It, Live It (2005), but so often I buy books then put them in the to read pile, where the languish indefinitely. It might be 2014 before I find it again, and then 2013 might end the way 2011 and 2012 did.

What good would that be?