Category: restaurants

Not wasting my vacation

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, family, friends, Holidays, local fun, movies, restaurants, shopping, tweens, yoga

I think that it’s very important to get out of your rut–I mean, routine–on your vacation week. This is especially challenging, of course, if you are taking (yet another) staycation. Having part of your time off fall during the holidays can make it a little easier to break out…as in the  “Hel-lo? What day is it?” situation in which I found myself just after Christmas. Still, the gym on Tuesday and Thursday, food shopping on Saturday line up could definitely stand some tweaking.

Sunday: Christmas. ‘Nuf said.

Monday: Clean up the house, rest up from the holiday, dinner at Olive Garden. Happily, I found the $4 off dinner coupon prior to paying and then remembered to use it.

Tuesday: Friends came over to make home-made, authentic egg rolls. Last time we made chicken and shrimp. This year, to change it up some (hey, it is vacation!) we made a third version: spicy pork, which ended up being a hit.

Wednesday: Pirates game (a present for the fam) after dinner at Binga’s Wingas (a present for Dad).

Thursday: Friends day. Lunch with former colleague for our rescheduled gift exchange, then scrapbooking for the first time in a year and a half, with more friends. The understanding kind that are not shocked that, despite your good intentions, you did not remember to organize your stuff and print out the Christmas pictures to use that day. Hey, it’s all about friends, right? UPDATE: This event did not actually happen and will be rescheduled. Instead, I went to Kohl’s and bought some cute things on clearance. Yay!

Friday: Shopping at the mall with my tween with her gift cards. Got an $89.50 fur-lined hoodie at Aeropostle for $10!!!  This was followed by eating w/reckless disregard for the future at the Buffet of Gorging and Obscene Excess at the mall. Then we saw We Bought a Zoo at the movies. May I just say: Go. See. It. It was excellent. We both loved it. Movie watching was accompanied by popcorn and Peanut M+Ms (aka “the devil”).

Saturday: New Year’s Eve. Chinese buffet at East and Just Dance 3 on the Wii to work (some of ) it off. Yoga first thing in the morning.

Sunday: New Year’s Day: Pajama day! Read stack of books and magazines that have been piling up. Went for a walk. More Wii. And…let the healthy eating begin!!!! Egg whites, soup, salad were on the menu. Really.

One of the best vacations ever. 🙂

Angels at Clay Hill Farm

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, friends, no fear, restaurants

My friend Kristen recently offered me the gift of angels in the form of a visit to my house. It had strings attached, however. One must, after hosting the aforementioned angels for a period of time, send them on their merry way to the households of three other people.

I could not think of three other people who would have been willing to take the time to host. Sadly, I passed on the gift.

Then another friend told me about Clay Hill Farm’s current Monday night special. Rev. Ruth Kramer apparently can speak to angels and, more importantly, tell us what they are saying. She gives readings every Monday night (for now) at the restaurant. I’m interested in that, I thought. It occurred to me that since I couldn’t have the angels come to me…could the angels be bringing me to them?

I made plans for tonight to go hear what they have to say to me. The bonus is that dinner at the restaurant is part of the deal.

Because even when it’s about the angels, it’s still all about the food.

🙂

What (I think) I am doing on my summer vacation

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, Date night, family, friends, Karen's Kitchen, local fun, restaurants, yoga

Nothing gets done without a plan, right? Write it down, make it happen, as the saying goes. Well, I’m writing it down. Universe? Make it happen!

First, the not fun, obligatory things:

  1. Friday: waste the day emptying out the fridge and freezer into coolers with ice packs, then waiting for Sears to deliver our THIRD new fridge in as many weeks (dont’ ask)…then putting it all back in. BONUS: I’m really starting to get the hang of it! Here’s hoping that the third time is the (refrigerator) charm…
  2. My online class will post new lessons on two Fridays and one Wednesday during my vacation. I plan to complete them on time. (Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!).
  3. Feed, clothe, launder said clothes, and in general care for the fam to the extent that they will let me (read: do things for them that they can’t or won’t do for themselves~reference laundry).

Okay, now for the fun stuff:

  1. Saturday: Yoga at Windsong Yoga in South Berwick. Yay! Then going to the Lucky Pup Rescue Fundraiser at Fetch’n Fun in Wells ( and yes, Annie, we are bringing cash for the raffles!). Then in the evening we’ll go see the free Wells Harbor Concert. This week it’s All Together Now, a band we’ve seen and really liked in the past. 
  2. Sunday: brunch with my friend and her daughter (who is my daughter’s friend) at The Good Table in Cape Elizabeth. We’ve been there twice before with our friends and all I can say is if you’ve never been there, GO! Go on a Sunday morning if you can. They will have you at ‘cinnamon buns’.
  3. Acton Fair. Not sure which day yet, but definitely going. Probably stop on the way to or from at Ted’s Fried Clams on Route 109 in Shapleigh. Stop in at Somethin’ Sweet to see Jen the fabulous baker of said sweet somethin’s. 🙂
  4. Try for a Sea Dogs game.
  5. Saturday August 27 is The Chili Fest at the Wells Jr High School from 11-3.

Miscellaneous fun stuff to fit in where and when possible: Read. Write. Beach. Garden. Not set the alarm for any reason. Glow bowling at the Bowl-a-rama in Sanford (call for times: 207-324-2401). See Crazy Stupid Love if at all possible at the Wells Five Star Cinema. Farmers Markets. Arundel Ice Cream Shop for Mounds Ice Cream (if I can tear myself away from the Pecan Banana Bread and Cherry Vanilla Chocolate Chunk…).

Oh yeah, and eat copious quantities of cupcakes and whoopie pies. Heh heh heh…(what can I say? I’m predictable).

🙂

Date night at the Ogunquit Playhouse

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, Date night, family, local fun, relationships, restaurants, Someone's gotta say it

Summer of Love is the current show at the Ogunquit Playhouse. May I just say this: save your money. Skip this show and buy tickets to Legally Blonde instead, which stars Sally Struthers (among others) and runs from 8/24-9/17. I have seen Sally Struthers in two other Playhouse Productions and (both my husband and I agree on this) each one was excellent.

Summer of Love would have been better entitled Evening of Boredom. I liked some of the songs that the cast performed in this show so I tolerated it a bit better than did my husband, who was not a big fan (neither of most of the songs nor of this production). The actors were okay, but no one really stood out except for the singer who performed a cover of Janis Joplin’s Piece of My Heart. She did an excellent job; it was the highlight of the show.

Consider going to  The Blue Elephant  if you are going out for dinner before seeing a Playhouse. It’s close enough so that you don’t have to rush to get there and the service and food are excellent. I don’t have pictures of the dishes that we ordered for once because I decided to give my husband a break from having to wait to start eating (while the food cools) so that I can take pictures. We were out to celebrate our 20th wedding anniversary that night so priorities came into play. We ordered the Appetizers for Two, Drunken Noodles (which came with beef and chicken), and Hot Basil Stir Fry with beef (which came with way too many onions~and I like onions). Note to self: beware ordering menu items which mention onions in the future.

This picture is of me and Bill taken shortly before we got married…we really haven’t changed a bit.

🙂

All things cupcake

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, baking, friends, local fun, Midlife Crisis, quest for the best, restaurants
PB&J cupcake (CFB)

My friend Charlotte asked me a question today: ” Who has the best cupcakes?” On the surface, it seems an easy enough question, right?  Wrong! I tried to apply my “Keep it simple” philosophy to this question but found I was not able to.

I mean, come on!

So here goes my attempt to answer this question:

  1. Cupcake Fetish Bakery, Main St. in Sanford. which has the best variety and most interesting flavors. Hello, The Elvis? Peanut butter, banana and bacon? Plus Tiramisu, Pink Lemonade, Drop Kick Murphy, Chocolate Kahlua…and I’m barely even getting started here. Plus the store has a little window into the kitchen so you can watch the actual cupcaking process as it happens! And the inside of the shop is decorated with cute cupcake paraphernalia that gives it a very fun atmosphere.
  2. The Village Cupcake, Kennebunk. Owner Kristy Douglas was recently at the Keys to the Kitchen in Kennebunk to giving out cupcake decorating tips. She also brought along some mini cupcakes to sample. SO GOOD! Kristy sells her cupcake wares from her home so if you want to pick up a cupcake on a whim, this will not be your cupcake go-to person…I don’t think. Call her though; maybe she does keep some on hand for when the whimsy hits. Also, they have many interesting flavors (amaretto, hel-LO) and are open to creating new flavors at your request (Green Tea cupcakes? You betcha!).  They also offer gluten-free cupcakes. 🙂
  3. Tulips Cupcakery, Portland. These cupcakes can be purchased at Kamasouptra in Monument Square; check the website for other locations to buy. They describe themselves as  “from farm to cupcake”, since they are inspired by and use local, seasonal ingredients in their recipes. If you are a person who loves strawberry cupcakes with strawberry frosting but doesn’t want any of those annoying strawberry chunks in the batter–you like ’em smoooooth–then these will be the answer to your strawberry cupcake prayers.

This post covers the above 3 businesses because they are the first 3 that came to mind!  Apparently, I’ve never met a cupcake I didn’t like…

🙂

Of course, cupcakes made at home or by friends are really the best of them all!

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The day I ate whatever I wanted: Part 2 B (the day of)

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, fitness, Life in the cube, local fun, Midlife Crisis, restaurants, yoga
Chocolate Croissant from Standard Baking Co.

My friend Susan told me to have a: “Happy Birthday!!! Enjoy the whole day and do what YOU want!!”

My response: “Well, since I’m working it will be hard to DO whatever I want, but instead I’m going to EAT whatever I want!”

🙂

So here goes: Day 2B of “The day I ate whatever I wanted”…I’m starting to fear that this is a slippery slope…better reign it in after today. This is what I did on the actual day.

I decided not to go to the gym so that I could sleep an extra hour. Good decision. I decided not to do any laundry and not to stop to gas up the car. Those things could wait. My mantra for the day: “If it’s not ‘all about me’, I’m not doing it.”

Breakfast: Decided to wait until I got to Portland then sprinted over to the Standard Baking Company (no website, unbelievably) to get a chocolate croissant. Monument Square was packed with dressed up, suited up people at 8am; usually it’s a ghost town on the weekend at that hour. I heard there was some sort of a convention going on which almost made me late for work (reference: “sprinted” to the bakery!).

Note: Around noon I started rethinking the whole shorts thing;  may not have been the best idea…it barely made it out of the 50’s in Portland.

I continued to go where the whim took me. I didn’t follow any plan at all. I had two days to celebrate: the day before my birthday with my husband (which was awesome), and the birthday itself, which was kind of the icing on the (cup)cake after Friday.

For lunch, Micucci’s Pizza was a no-brainer. I was in luck too; they were just putting out the slabs of pizza when I ran up the stairs and grabbed one out from under the noses of the slower people assembling boxes to my right. When I ran down to pay I got to say “Hi” to the baker, Stephen Lanzalotta (author of  The Diet Code), who was just putting out the fresh cannoli…I resisted, since I had a piece of tiramisu from my son and a chocolate coconut cupcake from Two Fat Cats waiting for me for later on. A colleague at work, Laurie, handed me a chocolate shortbread cookie chaser after lunch, which enabled me to save the cupcake for later.

🙂

Had to miss my regular yoga class (with Kristen of Windsong Yoga)  in the morning so I was thrilled when a colleague Mary Ann said “Hey, want to do this yoga dvd with me at 2:00PM?”  I just happened to have my mat in the trunk, so that’s what we did.

To balance it all out, I ate half the Micucci’s slab for lunch then had the other half with a salad (with greens from the garden) for supper, followed by the cupcake and my favorite  (which is unfortunately seasonal) Keurig coffee that I saved from Christmas: Spicy Eggnog.

When I got home from work at 8:30PM I had a surprise waiting for me: gifts from the kids:

  1. An adapter that allows me to play my MP3 in the car from my son Anthony that I’ve been wanting forever and
  2. A handmade card with 3 dark chocolate covered cherries from my daughter Izzy.

What can I say? My kids know what I like. 🙂 My husband gave me my gift The Day Prior, but actually started it last fall. He got all of the raised beds ready for my fruit and vegetable gardens (not to mention most of the actual planting and watering thereof), and he bought many more lilac bushes for me (my favorite flower) and scattered them around the yard.  He knows what I like too. :D.

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This was the best birthday week ever.

The day I ate whatever I wanted…Part One

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, baking, local fun, Midlife Crisis, quest for the best, restaurants

What better day to do so than on your birthday? That was my thought process anyway.  As I started planning my day’s meals ahead of time, I recalled reading about this in a book by Elizabeth Berg, entitled (appropriately) The Day I Ate Whatever I Wanted. I was a little disappointed that the whole book wasn’t about this; rather, it was just the title of the first story what turned out to be a book of short stories. Oh well. The book is worth reading for that first story.

I’m interested in seeing how close to the plan the day ends up going, so I’m writing a “Before” and an “After” post.

One of the meals that woman in the story ate was doughnuts (her first stop: breakfast). Not just one doughnut…one DOZEN doughnuts. (Well, she didn’t actually eat all twelve, but you get the idea). I didn’t want to be overstuffed (read: sick) at the beginning of the day!

This would not be conducive to a  successful day of Eating Whatever I Want.

So here’s my problem: there are so many options!!! How to narrow it down? Darned if I know.

Breakfast: Amore Breakfast, All Day Breakfast (the one in Kennebunk), Omelette Factory, Congdon’s

Lunch: Anthony’s for tried and true good food. Maria’s for dying to try, rumored to be good food.

Afternoon snack: Bread and Roses for an amazing array of baked treats.

Supper: It’s gotta be Varano’s. My favorite Italian…unless I get Italian for lunch…decisions! One thing is for sure: it is totally all about the food, isnt’ it? At least these decisions are happy ones.

Late evening snack: Big Daddy’s in Wells or Brown’s in York for a Kahlua Brownie ice cream cone.

So, this is the before post. Will write Part 2 tomorrow to account for what I actually did end up doing for my birthday.

The Hayloft

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, family, quest for the best, restaurants
Fishermans Platter for 2

We recently returned to the Hayloft Restaurant in Moody, Maine after a 10 year (give or take) break. We used to frequent this restaurant with the kids but after getting a bad salad (not to be confused with the “big salad” of Seinfeld’s world), we stopped going.

Every summer when my son was small he would participate in their coloring contest and every summer he won. They would mail out a coupon for a free appetizer that we would look forward to using on our next visit.

Until we got the bad salad.

I recently saw a coupon on Groupon.com for the Hayloft, so after consulting my husband (and after learning that they were under new management), I bought it. We arrived, coupon in hand, expectations set reasonably at moderate level, on a Friday night. There were not many cars in the parking lot, but in fairness, we had received almost a foot of snow earlier in the day so people may have just been staying put.

We ordered the special: Fisherman’s Platter for two, which was plenty for the two of us and our daughter to split when combined with appetizers. Speaking of appetizers, we ordered the Buffalo Tenders and the Potato Skins with cheese and bacon.

Rolls were brought out for us after our order was taken. They were hot and crusty with soft interiors, and the three of us agreed that they were excellent.

The tenders did not come with celery, which would have been welcome (as well as a little less breading), but did come with blue cheese dressing. They were good and spicy. The potato skins were cut smaller than I usually see, but I liked them much better this way (they weren’t so overwhelming) and were delicious. The main course consisted of fried whole clams, large scallops, shrimp, and a good-sized piece of haddock, French fries, and about four onion rings. This was great; usually onion ring orders are much too excessive for anyone to actually appreciate them. Four large hand cut onion rings were perfect.

Verdict: the Fisherman’s Platter wasn’t quite as hot as it should have been, but was still good. Both appetizers were served piping hot, which made me wonder if the former was ready first and waiting for the latter. The real surprise was the cole slaw, which our waitress told us was made fresh daily. It was excellent.

Just a note on the soda: it had a nice, clean taste. You know how sometimes you order a Diet Coke and it has a metallic taste? You will not find that here.

For dessert we were persuaded to try the homemade (from a family recipe) hot apple crisp a la mode, which was also very good. We took  home a chocolate whoopie pie, made by Laura’s Pastry, for the road. We’ve had these before and know how good they are!

Our waitress, Rose, delivered the best service that we’ve had in any restaurant in some time. She is the reason that (although the food was good) that we will be returning to the Hayloft again soon.

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Lunch on the lam

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

Sometimes life in the cube can get overwhelming. Have you ever been at work and just wanted to take a break? I mean, really, take a break. Change the scenery for a half an hour? Not make small talk? Not force positivity for just a little while?

This is when an audio book can come in handy; it’s particularly conducive to hands-free eating. Okay, so the price of gas is prohibitive, I know. You wouldn’t want to sit in your car with it running for 20+ minutes every day (especially in the winter when you need to have the heat on, but once in a while it can be very restorative).

If you brought your lunch you will gain extra precious minutes of solitude in  your car (read: oasis of calm); just grab your lunch bag and go. Otherwise, try to choose a place from which to buy that is not known for its lunch time crowds. Standing in line for 10 minutes can make a serious dent in your alone time.

If you have to purchase your meal and you have any control over the timing of your lunch break, that’s even better. Choose a time that is off-peak: perhaps 11:00am or 2:00pm. This ought to get you out of the store and into your car more quickly. Don’t forget extra napkins. Eating in the car can be fraught with peril, what with the gear shift and the steering wheel to navigate and all. Also your choice of meal can make things more tricky (hel-lo, meatball sub?).

On this day I chose soup from Kamasouptra in Portland. The curried Pumpkin Bisque Soup won out over the other five options (so okay, maybe it’s winter-almost-spring, but it feels like fall-almost-winter). The real draw for me (even though the soup is excellent) is the bread, still warm from the oven. What can I say? The value of comfort food cannot be overstated.

Especially during the work day.

🙂

Oh, Rob! (Picnic date night)

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, family, local fun, restaurants

I admit it: I have crushes. All the time. My husband is pretty tolerant of them. He even produced a picture of Boston Rob for me for Christmas last year (downloaded from the internet and printed…in color!). I’m exceedingly happy now that Survivor is back with its new season, Redemption Island.

For date night this particular week we decided to have a picnic. What else would you do in March in Maine?

We had no babysitter, but then our daughter had plans for a couple of hours in the evening. At the last minute we decided that we didn’t want to go out (6:30-8:30 is late when you get up before dawn!) so here’s what we did instead:

  1. Dropped the tweens (daughter and friend) off at their movie.
  2. Called in an order to Pizza Napoli. March specials going on are pretty good. We took advantage of one of the March specials: “buy any large pizza get a free small cheese pizza”.
  3. Came home, rummaged in the fridge for a bottle of wine. The first one was vinegary, so we found a bottle of our favorite wine: Moscato D’asti…so what if it’s supposed to be a dessert wine? We both love it.
  4. Moved the coffee table and spread out our “picnic” on the rug.
  5. Find The Good Wife episodes that we DVR’d but had no time to watch. (Man, has it really been since February 8th??).

Then we had to both get our stuff ready for work, so we called a brief time out to see to that and to get our daughter settled (whom her friend’s parents were nice enough to bring home for us).

Oh, the “Boston Rob” thing? That’s just for laughs. The husband thing?  He’s the real thing. 🙂

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