Tag: food

Girls’ Night

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

On the (rare) days when the male members of the family are off at work, but the females have the day off, we have a Girls’ Night. Today, Girls’ Nights started early, at 7:24AM. The men were out for the day so the females were left to  our own pursuits. This is what my daughter and I did today:

  1. Breakfast: Cream of wheat for Izzy and egg white omelet with spinach, mushrooms, and roasted red peppers for me. OJ and coffee, respectively.
  2. Met up with friends at Cafe Perfecto in Kennebunk. We split a gingerbread muffin. We ate it too quickly to photograph it. It was goooooooooooooooooooooooooood. 🙂
  3. Next, browsing at Kennebooks. We bought some cards, some books, and a really cool mushroom shaped eraser with the sharpener built right in. 

    Coolest mushroom eraser/sharpener ever!
  4. Home for lunch: PB&H on homemade bread for me; grilled cheese and bacon on whole wheat bread for Iz. Then she caught up with a friend on the phone, while I caught up on the laundry, chicken tasks, and dishes. Yay.
  5. Next, North Berwick Farmers Market. My friend Rebecca was there so we got to visit a bit. Lucky for us, it was the day of their Pie Contest, and we got to try a piece of the winning pie, baked by a 9 year old girl; very impressive. Besides pie, we got some fudge, some granola, herbs to mix with oil for bread-dipping, oatmeal coconut cookies…hmmm, seems like something is missing. What is it? Oh! The (token healthy food that was the excuse for going to the farmers market) apple! I ate that at the next stop.
  6. Izzy had a riding lesson and I spent the time in the car catching up on the last 2 days of newspapers that I hadn’t gotten to yet.
  7. At 6Pm, lesson over, we headed to Johnson’s Seafood and Steak. This is our new favorite restaurant, partly because it’s right on the way home after riding, but mostly because of the pumpkin cheesecake. OMG. It’s worth going just for that.
  8. Finally, home for a movie night. We watched The Clique. Izzy had seen it before and wanted to watch it again with me. Great mother-daughter movie.

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That’s it.  She’s gone to bed; I’m getting ready to. We had a great day. 🙂

The garden’s last gasp

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, gardening, raising chickens

So I went out to see what was left in the garden, and was surprised to find that there actually was something left. A

October garden harvest

handful of cherry tomatoes, a japanese eggplant, and the sole orange bell pepper that was produced by that plant. There is also some basil, beets, carrots…lettuce and spinach coming up that was replanted last month. There are a few apples, but they have black marks on them, souvenirs from the hail. They taste great, but their eye appeal is zilch.

What else? Oh, yes…3 raspberries! There is also a cherry tomato vine that is kicking butt, covered with green tomatoes that showed up as a volunteer in the raspberry bed, a covert stowaway in the compost, I presume. I don’t think the tomatoes will ripen before the frost, but who knows? They won’t go to waste anyway. Chickens love tomatoes as much as they love pumpkins!

The herb garden is going strong still: a few different oreganos, probably a half a dozen varieties of thyme, rosemary, bay, lavender, lemon verbena, the sages. Will be bringing the rosemary and bay plants inside to (hopefully) live through the winter.

Even though the “pickin’s is slim”, there is still a lot to do in the garden, like: getting it ready for winter. How to do this? Not sure! Have to check with my husband…has something to do with compost, I think. And getting dirty. 🙂

Quest for the best fried clams

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

 

Tom’s Fried Clams

We recently read an article in the York Independent newspaper rating local restaurants by how good their fried clams were.

One of the restaurants mentioned was Tom’s Fried Clams, located on Rt. 1 in York, Maine. We’d never been there, so off we went.

We had a coupon to receive $4 off a clam platter. Good thing, too; even with the coupon, it cost us $18. Actually, first it cost us $36, because the cashier charged us for two platters instead of just the one that we ordered. Fortunately, my husband was paying attention, and we got the extra platter deleted from the bill before we paid.  We also orderd lobster rangoons, mozzarella sticks (after all, we had a tweenager with us; it’s the law) and a drink.

It was lucky for us that it was a nice day: the dining room is outside. There were a couple of tables inside the fish market, but no one was sitting in there.

The platter came with the usual suspects: fries and slaw. The food was great, actually.

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 I wouldn’t go out of my way to go there again, but if I was in the area and was hungry, I would go. I would also check my receipt very carefully. 🙂

Late, late summer (but feels like fall) date night

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, local fun, restaurants
Yia Yia Pizza from Jimmy the Greek

I took off early from work for a date night I planned with my husband last week. He said he wanted Thai food, so I was going back and forth mentally all day about where to go (Mekong Thai? Thai Rose? Thai 9?).

Since I couldn’t decide, I decided to let him decide. When I got home from work I said, “Okay, where are we going?”
He said, “We’re going to Jimmy the Greek’s“.
Well. All-righty then.
Portland Dine Around Club has some pretty excellent, useful coupons for Jimmy the Greek’s, so if you have one, check it out. We ordered a small Inferno Zeus wings and a large Yia Yia Pizza (that’s the leftover, for breakfast today that you are seeing up there). I thought it was a little over-feta’d but my husband did not.
Then we drove down to Old Orchard Beach…much different experience on a post-labor day evening than it is in full-swing summer. For one thing, we parked for free this time in the lot that cost $5 last time. For another, there were way fewer people. Both of these things were good. 🙂
We walked down to the ocean, then to Dolci Crema Cafe. This is the place to go if you are craving dessert, or anything sweet. The owner offered us samples of any gelato, and even suggested some and handed us the sample before we asked! We ended up trying almost all of them. We settled on “Almond Joy”.
What was great about this (well, you know, besides the gelato) is that my husband is not really a fan of gelato. He was trying something different because I like it so much. This is why we got the Almond Joy to split; it was his favorite of the bunch (mine was the dark chocolate!).
Then we drove back home to watch the Survivor season opener.
P.S. We got the Thai food 2 days later. Just goes to show you: cravings must be satisfied.

(Chicken) Food for Thought

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, family, raising chickens
The flock

 

To all my gardener friends and friends of friends local to Wells: 

Want to do a good deed for your feathered fowl friends? Give us your tired, wretched masses…of produce!
Reasons to bring your inedible, unappetizing, or otherwise unappealing garden food items to my house:
  1. Drive by and drop off! You don’t even have to get out of your car; just lean out and place your unwanted items on the bottom shelf of the egg stand at the bottom of the driveway.
  2. You will feel good because you will be supporting a local farm.
  3. Chickens LOVE most produce.
What to bring?
  1. Unwanted post-halloween pumpkins
  2. Baseball bat sized zucchinis or cukes
  3. Apples and tomatoes (of any color and ripeness) that fell to the ground before you got to pick them
  4. The tired looking, wilty lettuce from the bottom of the crisper that you forgot about
  5. Banged up produce of any kind that you are too nervous to eat..

The chickens say thank you for any and all efforts! 

Paying by check

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, shopping

I was at Hannaford’s in Kennebunk Saturday night, and after my transaction, I noticed that the (young, teenaged) cashier put aside my BLANK SIGNED CHECK next to the register. I asked if she printed my check (although I could clearly see she had not) and she said, “Oh, yeah; we usually do but it didn’t print this time.”

I’m thinking, “Well, she’s young. She doesn’t realize the risk of theft involved with a signed, blank check just lying around the store. Someone who is dishonest (not her! not her!) might take advantage of a situation like that.

So I said, “Well, give it back! I’ll write it.” She gave it back. I wrote it.

When i got home, I told my husband what happened. He said, “Did you tell the manager?” and of course, I had not. “Call there now.”

I called. I told the manager what happened. He asked me if I had the receipt with the cashier’s name on it. I did. I named her. He said that he knew it was going to be that particular cashier.

I had a similar experience last summer when the store was the Stop and Shop. I wrote a check, and then noticed that I was  charged $177 but the total was actually $117. I asked the cashier why she had overcharged me $60.  She just said, “Oh,” and gave  the discrepancy back in cash.

Lesson: Pay by credit or debit card! Check your receipt carefully!

Fall!

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, baking, restaurants
Dunkin Donuts Pumpkin Muffin

Fall is a time when a young(ish) woman’s thoughts lightly turn to…pumpkin muffins! What is a better harbinger of the new season? I ask you. 

Pumpkin muffin is a term that should be used loosely; more of a suggestion than an edict. There are many different versions of the pumpkin muffin. 

Here are a few: 

  1. Dunkin Donuts has a Pumpkin Muffin. You may want to know (if you are on Weight Watchers) that it has about 16 POINTS. Really. Almost my total allotment for an entire day. You might prefer to assuage your pumpkin craving with a pumpkin donut if you are at DD; they have about 6 POINTS. (Disclaimer: these point values were calculated last fall with nutrition info from the DD website using the online WW point calculator and I am recalling them to the best of my memory since the pumpkin products aren’t on the DD website at the time of this writing).
  2. Better yet, cheat: make them at home with this recipe from Copykat.
  3. Tim Horton’s version of Pumpkin Spice Muffin is “healthier” at only (count ’em) 9 Weight Watcher’s Points. Hey, it’s better than 16. Way better, actually.
  4. Your local bakery/coffee shop/breakfast place most likely will also have some pumpkin muffins of some sort, and most likely they will be very hard to resist, and probably better than #1 or #3 above.
  5. The local supermarket will probably have pumpkin muffins in their bakery section. Smallish, plain (as in unadorned by streusel topping and/or glaze), unappealing ones are offered at my local market.

The choice is yours. My choice was purely based on proximity; I was driving by DD and had a half an hour to kill before the football game started Sunday morning. I also had a DD card with some money left on it. Can you say DD combo with black french vanilla coffee and a pumpkin muffin??? 

So, only the 3rd day of being back to active weight loss and a pumpkin muffin knocked me off the wagon. At least my daughter split it with me…well, she had a bite of it. 

Tomorrow is another day. 🙂

Magical thinking (or: the 80/20 rule revisited)

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, baking, fitness, health, restaurants

This summer, for the first time since losing weight, I put some back on. In reviewing my behavior over the past 3 months, I realized what happened: I reversed the 80/20 rule of maintenance. Instead of staying on track with eating 80% of the time so that the other 20% I could eat whatever I wanted, I ate whatever I wanted 80% of the time, using magical thinking to hope that staying on track 20% of the time would balance the wild abandon of the other 80%. I did the same thing with exercising (ugh!).

Coffee gelato

What happened? Well, for one thing, I guess I got smug. For a while, it actually didn’t matter that I did that; my body compensated for the excess until it just couldn’t anymore. Also, I got lazy about portion sizes and, in many instances, doubled what I knew was the amount that I should have been having. What can I say? So much (goooooood food); so little time.

Plus, hello?  Tiramisu, gelato, sweet potato fries every week? Cinnamon buns and (just today, as I recall :)) blueberry muffins as big as your head? How did I think that would turn out?

Okay, time to put the 80/20 back in the 80/20 rule; time to lose the magical thinking. Goodbye maintenance; hello active losing: points counting, writing everything down, exercise of some sort 6 days a week for 30 minutes instead of 3…um, or 1.

It ain’t gonna be easy.

The foods of the summer of 2010 will not be soon forgotten. Here’s a (small) sample:

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Plans that don’t work out

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

We decided to head over to Shaw’s Ridge Farm Ice Cream, BBQ, and Mini-Golf a few days ago. I’d been wanting to go there for weeks and we finally had a day off together to go. I looked it up online, got directions, and saw that it opened at “11AM daily”, but somehow missed the part where it mentions that the BBQ part was only open at that time Thursday through Sunday. Of course, we were NOT going on one of those days. Since we were primarily going for the BBQ (since it is always, ultimately, all about the food) for lunch and it was 11:30AM, we did not stay.

So now, we were kind of stuck out there in beautiful downtown Sanford with a free day but without a plan or a clue about what to do next. My husband, always resourceful, is not directionally challenged (as am I) and so is unafraid to drive around unfamiliar streets until he finds something interesting, so that’s what we do.

Bowling (I always tend toward the familiar)? Nope, nixed by the fam. We wanted to try to do something outside since (for the moment) it wasn’t raining. We decide to eat lunch first. Ted’s Fried Clams in Shapleigh, coincidently another place we’ve always wanted to try, looms large.

Ted's Fried Clams

We go. The food is great. A bonus: The Rockhouse is attached; they serve, like, a million flavors of ice cream…well, make that 999,999 flavors. We wanted almond joy but they were out of (only!) that. We got coffee kahlua brownie instead, which was terrific.

Driving further, we found some walking trails along a lake and so found our outdoor activity after all.

Lessons learned:

  1. Always check hours of operation prior to going to a new place!!
  2. Know that Murphy’s Law is always lurking out there in the world of your favorite, “go-to” ice cream flavors, so have a Plan B.

Late summer date night

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

When you have a babysitter, it’s a shame to waste the opportunity to go out with your spouse.  We only had a little lead time (once we knew we had the babysitter) to organize the date, but we put our heads together and came up with a plan.

First, we headed to Scarborough Downs. We missed Family Fun Day this year, so this would be our annual summer visit. We arrived during the 8th (of 9) race, but it was fun to sit on the bench outside (weather was beautiful) and watch the horses…and the other people. 🙂 Cost: $4.

Next, we decided to see a show at the Old Port Playhouse. We called ahead to reserve our seats. Since we arrived a little early (and were starving) after we picked up our tickets at the box office, we ran around the corner to Federal Spice and split a large order of yam fries. Let me tell you: this turned out to be the highlight of the evening. Cost: about $4 (yam fries + can of diet coke).

The show was advertised as “a comedy…” .Well. There were some humorous parts, however there were also some dark and awful scenes that neither of us expected (Hello? Rape and incest are funny? not so much) which kind of put a damper on things. The ad was also misleading visually: the attractive people in the newspaper ad were nowhere to be found onstage. ‘nuf said. Cost: $44.

The audience unfortunately contained an annoying woman who would spontaneously break into song and dance during the “pre-show” (an endless loop slide show) and who was obviously impaired in one or more ways. Fortunately, she got up and left in the first 10 minutes or so of the performance, creating more distraction since the door to the street is right in the middle of the theater, but hey, at least she was gone.

I might give the theater another try at some point; right now I’m not sure; it could go either way.

So, where would you go for an impromptu late summer date?

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