“Out of the mouths of babes” - even if the “babe” is turning 38 this year – gave me a good laugh a few weeks ago. There is a wonderful annual fundraiser called Taste of Key West that is always a blast to attend. You walk (elbow) your way around dozens of booths along the waterfront, wine glass in hand, sampling delicious food from the islands’ best chefs. Inevitably, there is an impromptu gathering at one of the local watering holes after the “Taste” and as the wine flows, the conversation amongst all the foodies is always lively, informative and entertaining.
Continue reading “Entertaining Menu Plans for Serious Foodies” »
And what could be wrong with vanilla cakes smooshed together with a healthy dollop of chocolate filling? Just another alternative cure for the W-P jones.
That being said, I have to say that I’ll still vote my Mom’s original recipe that I recently posted as the BEST. But this one is a nice change of pace.
Continue reading “Inside Out Whoopie Pie Recipe” »
From all the whoopie postings I am reading, it appears that there must be W-P fever in the state of Maine. Here is an alternative “cure” in case you have the whoopie-fever. Now chocolate and peanut butter are most assuredly the perfect marriage of flavors (think Reese’s Peanut Butter cups…yum!)
Continue reading “Chocolate Peanut Butter Whoopie Pies” »
"Only two things in this world are too serious to be jested on–potatoes and matrimony."
This Irish quote totally resonates with me! We've been having some "chilly" days here in the Florida Keys (everything is relative, but chilly here on our island means 62°) so I've been hankering for comfort food. This gratin most definitely satisfied my longing.
Continue reading “Gratin of Yukon Gold and Sweet Potatoes” »
I am stepping up on my soapbox to discuss a social grace that seems to have gone by the board: table manners.
Continue reading “Table Manners in a Graceless Age” »
You can make a fabulous candy treat I call “Snapping Turtles” in jig time.
"Snapping Turtles"
Snyder's brand Butter Snap pretzels
Rollo chocolate caramel candies
Pecan halves
Top a Snyder’s brand Butter Snap (a square pretzel that resembles a small grid) with an unwrapped Rollo chocolate caramel candy. Top the Rollo with a pecan half. Place on an aluminum foil lined baking sheet and cook in a 300° oven for 3 minutes or just until chocolate begins to look shiny. Immediately remove pan from oven and gently press pecan down to squish the Rollo. Chill in freezer until firm. Sweet, salty, and caramel-y. Nothing better.
(Credit is due to my friend Nancy Hupp, who is my across-the-canal neighbor in Florida.)
Paula Anderson is a contributing writer to Maine Food & Lifestyle magazine, as well as a columnist for 3 Maine Newspapers with a focus on food, nutrition, and entertaining.
These are the Whoopie Pies that were an integral part of my life as a child growing up in Kittery in the ‘50s. I remember that in 3rd grade I figured out I had immense trading power at lunch time if Mom had packed a Whoopie or two in my Shirley Temple lunch box.
Continue reading “Mom’s Whoopie Pies” »
Paula Anderson's Portobello Mushroom & Garlic Mashed Potato Dish
4 Portobello mushrooms
2 teaspoons fruity olive oil
Salt and pepper
Fresh thyme
Cooked, warm garlic mashed potatoes
Grated Parmesan-Reggiano cheese
Saucer- sized Portobello mushrooms are a wonderful “dish” for mashed potatoes. Remove the gills and stems from 4 ‘shrooms and place on a rimmed baking sheet. Drizzle tops with fruity olive oil and season generously with salt, pepper, and a bit of fresh thyme. Turn over and repeat with olive oil and seasoning.
Bake (stem side up) in a preheated 375° oven for about 15 minutes or until tender. Mound caps with warm garlic mashed potatoes, sprinkle with a bit of grated Parmesan-Reggiano and run under the broiler for 2-3 minutes or until golden brown. Yummy!
Paula Anderson is a contributing writer to Maine Food & Lifestyle magazine, as well as a columnist for 3 Maine Newspapers with a focus on food, nutrition, and entertaining.
And so my random Snowbird Wisdoms conclude:
- Lemon shark is more fun on a skewer on your dinner plate than it is when you’re watching a whole school of them circling your boat and slurping up your chum.
- Store your green extract (brown bottle/red cap) in a separate cupboard from your vanilla extract (brown bottle/red cap). Need I say more than oops, green blueberry muffins?
- Cheap champagne is worse than no champagne at all.
- How come Ina Garten (The Barefoot Contessa) can slice into 3 avocados on her cooking show and every one of them is perfect on the inside? I buy 5 when I need 2 and sometimes I have 1 that is perfect.
- Savannah, Georgia, has the worst tasting water I’ve ever had.
- I do not like fresh coconut even after Peter spent an hour poking its’ eyes out and smashing its shell. (My hero.) Grate it and toast it and I am on it.
- One of my favorite gifts of all time arrived via my neighbor Joe (Shirley the parrot-sitter's hubby) who knocked on the door at 8 AM with a whole handful of Livingston bananas just picked from his tree. Cheerios and truly fresh bananas. Now that’s a breakfast of champions.
- Corn on the cob grown anywhere but New England is not worth eating.
- Arrogant, snotty wait staff makes me lose my appetite.
- Anchovy paste is one of life’s greatest conveniences—no smelly leftovers, no oil to spill all over the counter, and it keeps almost forever in the ‘fridge.
- A great Margarita is hard to find even in Margaritaville. Time to get out my blender. Cheers!
Paula Anderson is a contributing writer to Maine Food & Lifestyle magazine, as well as a columnist for 3 Maine Newspapers with a focus on food, nutrition, and entertaining.
Here is the next installment of my Snowbird Wisdoms, continued from yesterday:
- Basil that I grow here in Florida tastes totally different than the basil I grow in Maine. (Maine is better—of course.)
- An onion soup recipe that took me nearly half a day didn’t taste as good as my old tried and true recipe that I can whip up in an hour.
- There’s a wonderful thin, rubbery mat doohickey that you slip under your cutting boards and it prevents them from doing the hokey-pokey across your countertop. (Especially helpful with reckless abandon type chopping.)
- There is an entire cookbook (over 200 recipes) dedicated to cornbread—“The Cornbread Gospels” by Crescent Dragonwagon, Workman Press, 2007. I was fortunate to meet this fascinating James Beard award winning chef/author and participate in her Culinary Memoirs workshop in Key West.
- Parrots are picky eaters. Shirley, my across the street neighbor, was bird-sitting “Fred” and was amazed at his antics at feeding time. “CAAAW” he’d scream (translation: YUCK, don’t like this chow) and Fred would fling the proffered parrot chow across the room. (Izzy the dog would duck as these missiles whizzed over her head.) I let Shirley know that Crescent (see above) has a recipe for picky parrots in The Cornbread Gospels. (There wasn’t a move toward a mixing bowl and no request for the recipe.)
- I really like biscuits and sausage gravy, especially when my friend Kay makes it and invites us over for breakfast.
And I'm still not finished! Stay tuned for Part 3, coming your way tomorrow!
Paula Anderson is a contributing writer to Maine Food & Lifestyle magazine, as well as a columnist for 3 Maine Newspapers with a focus on food, nutrition, and entertaining.
I confess. I am known as a Snowbird. Six years ago Peter and I joined the ranks of the “Q-Tip Heads” (that is the latest term for folks of a certain age who may have lost a tad of pigment in their hair) that take flight (actually we drive the 1860 mile trek in the shiny red Silverado) and migrate after the holidays. We’ve landed at the winter palace on the tiny island of Big Pine Key, Florida, and have been busy feathering our nest.
Continue reading “Snowbird Wisdoms: Part 1″ »
Prime rib is always on the menu for one of the holiday meals in our house, and the half a beast (grass fed, organic) that I'll be roasting for a New Year's Eve dinner party is on order with Jeremy, our butcher extraordinaire, at Radley's Market in Old Orchard Beach.
Sweet, creamy onions have a definite affinity with hearty, robust beef and this melt-in-your-mouth gratin will be on the menu for our last feast in 2008.
Continue reading “Melt-in-Your-Mouth Onion au Gratin” »
Garlic. Either you love it or you hate it; I happen to be in the former category for sure. The Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel, has conducted two separate studies and their advice is "eat your garlic." The Institute has uncovered a molecular mechanism that may be the basis for some of the therapeutic effects long thought to be associated with garlic.
Continue reading “Garlic: Love it or Hate it!” »
My husband Peter and I recently sprung for an extra tank of gas and ventured out (picnic basket in hand) in search of a pick-your-own apple orchard. We landed at Randall's Apple Orchard at Route #25 near the Gorham-Cornish town line. What a glorious time we had checking out the working cider mill and the bounty of the Fall harvest: peaches, pumpkins, squash, and oodles of different varieties of apples. We were the only early-birds picking in the entire orchard and within a few seconds of hitting the first row, we simultaneously snagged an apple from the closest branch and with a quick shine on our shirtsleeves, we chomped away, juices running down our chins, feeling like kids again. (Not always an easy task at this stage of life.)
Within minutes, we had picked a bushel of “Macs” for eating out of hand, for making a batch of rosy-pink applesauce, and for a favorite entree of pork with apples, bacon and cabbage. We picked a second bushel of Cortland apples in jig time and those will find their way in pies, turnovers, and my favorite apple crisp recipe handed down to me from my maternal Grandmother, Genevieve Dodge Tucker. Keeping the doctor away is an easy task with one of these delicious apple-inspired recipes.
Continue reading “Keeping the Doctor at Bay” »
"Sex is good, but not as good as fresh sweet corn."
- Garrison Keillor, author.
One of my favorite musicals is “OKLAHOMA” and it always comes to mind when the time is ripe for the sweet corn harvest. When we drive by the cornfields I am absolutely compelled to break into song. My poor husband puts up with my less than melodious rendition of “Oh What A Beautiful Morning” and when I get to the line “The corn is as high as an elephant’s eye, and it looks like it’s climbing clear up to the sky,” I really hit those notes with great gusto. (Such a patient man, is he.)
Once a summer we sit out on the deck with the soundtrack from “Oklahoma” blasting (poor neighbors) and the dinner menu is icy cold white wine and corn on the cob. That’s it. Full stop. CORN for dinner, with lots of butter, salt and pepper.
For those who feel the need for something more than just the corn itself, here are some delicious recipes that are just begging to include Maine's sweet and sexy corn.
Continue reading “Sweet and Sexy” »
The lazy, hazy days of summer are upon us. This is Maine weather at its finest and some afternoons beg for a cool spot in the shade with your feet propped up, a glass of lemonade in hand, and that novel you’ve been itching to read all summer at the ready. Then this idyllic image is erased with the realization that guests will be arriving, and they will definitely be bringing their appetites. When it’s too hot to fuss in the kitchen, but there are still meals to prepare, let your local supermarket take the heat and help you prepare a meal. Cruise into the deli department for cold cuts and rotisserie chicken or turkey, hit the bakery section for crusty herb focaccia or a baguette, and make the last stop the produce department for fresh fruits and veggies. VOILA! A delicious menu can easily be put together and someone else did much of the work.
Continue reading “Easy Peasy Limey Squeezy Summer Salad” »
“Calgon, take me away!” The past 72 hours entailed writing deadlines, a case of the flu, 2 aging Moms needing attention, and a very sick 11 year old kitty whisked away in the middle of the night to the kitty ER. We’d crossed 3 state lines to tend to the Moms and conquered the Friday night northbound traffic on Route 95, arriving back in Scarborough just in time to comfort our kitty as she awakened from anesthesia and surgery. I am exhausted, hot, sticky, tired of running but feeling happy that I accomplished weeding my Mom’s gardens and also comforted my Mom-in-law who sadly has lost touch with where she is or why she is there.
Continue reading “Moms, Flu, Deadlines, and a Sick Cat: 72 Hours My Life” »
