3/21/09 Maine's seasons

Today I posted this as my Facebook status: "Sunshine today, sunshine all week. yea! Of course it does mean melting snow and a great mud season. (Maine has 5 seasons.) But then comes spring and summer."

I then received the following comments:

Misty: Technically, it's winter, mud season, black fly season, summer, fall ... no spring. But it sure is beautiful through all of them, whatever they are called, isn't it!

Wendy: 4 seasons - winter, mud, 4th of July, construction....repeat

Elizabeth: When I lived in Vermont I was amazed to discover this entire season that we missed out on in Texas!

Cassie: Back in the County we have two seasons - winter and potato season :)
[Note, the reference to "The County" is Aroostok County, which is the largest, northernmost county in the state. They're famous for their potatoes and very cold winters.]

3/18/09 Whoopie Pies make the New York Times!

March 18, 2009

Whoopie! Cookie, Pie or Cake, It's Having Its Moment

By MICHELINE MAYNARD

FOR generations, vacationers in Maine and visitors to Pennsylvania’s Amish country have found a simple black and white snack in restaurants and convenience shops and on nearly every gas station counter: whoopie pies.

They were found in other pockets of the country, too, from New England to Ohio. But in most of the United States, people could be forgiven for not knowing that the whoopie pie is not, in fact, a pie at all. (It is sometimes described as a cookie, but that is not quite right, either. The closest description may be a cake-like sandwich, or perhaps a sandwich-like cake.)

Now whoopie pies are migrating across the country, often appearing in the same specialty shops and grocery aisles that recently made room for cupcakes. Last fall, they even cracked the lineup at Magnolia Bakery in Manhattan, which helped turn cupcakes into a national craze thanks to the bakery’s exposure on “Sex and the City.” Under the name “sweetie pies,” heart-shaped whoopie pies showed up in the February catalog from Williams-Sonoma. Baked in Maine with local butter and organic eggs, they sell for $49 a dozen.

In their traditional round form, whoopie pies can be found at Trader Joe’s supermarkets, at Whole Foods in Manhattan and at small bakeries like Kim’s Kitchen in Evanston, Ill., outside Chicago.

Kim’s Kitchen (soon to be renamed Fraîche) was an early adopter, first offering its hockey-puck-size pies seven years ago. The cakes come in chocolate and pumpkin, which remains a popular flavor long after the autumn leaves are gone, according to the shop’s owner, Susan Friedman.

“If we took them away after it stopped being fall, there would be a riot outside,” Ms. Friedman said.

Whoopie pies have been on the rise for several years, and nobody can pinpoint the reason they finally broke into the national consciousness. But the snacks evoke a more homespun era that seems to provide some comfort amid the economic gloom. “Pure edible nostalgia,” the Williams-Sonoma catalog calls them.

“Especially now, when people are so stressed out, they are going back to whoopie pies,” said Emily Isaac, owner of Trois Pommes Patisserie in Park Slope, Brooklyn.

Ms. Isaac had never heard of whoopie pies before she was asked to make them as wedding favors three years ago. Entranced at first taste, she put them on the menu at her bakery when it opened in May 2007.

There are dozens of variations on the shape, flavors and fillings. Trois Pommes serves what seems to be the classic version: two round mounds of chocolate cake, about three inches across, with French vanilla cream filling.

The whoopie pie sold since last fall at Zingerman’s Bakehouse, in Ann Arbor, Mich., sports a chocolate glaze on its dense chocolate cake and is filled with Swiss buttercream filling.

The basic elements of the whoopie pie turn up in many other snacks that might be considered its far-flung relatives. Amy Emberling, a partner at Zingerman’s Bakehouse, grew up in eastern Canada eating a similar cookie called a Jos. Louis. Oreo sells a whoopie pie look-alike called the Oreo Cakester, while the Hostess Suzy Q is a square version that vies for space on some store shelves with whoopie-esque Little Debbie snack cakes.

Food historians believe whoopie pies originated in Pennsylvania, where they were baked by Amish women and put in farmers’ lunchboxes.

Tired from a morning’s work, the farmers purportedly would shout “Whoopie!” if they discovered one of the desserts in their lunch pails, Ms. Emberling said.

In parts of Pennsylvania, whoopie pies remain a celebrated sweet. The annual Whoopie Pie Festival at the Hershey Farm and Inn in Strasburg, Pa., features a whoopie pie eating contest and the coronation of the Whoopie Pie Queen.

The whoopie pie would probably be Maine’s state dessert, if the state had one. The filling is generally of one of two types: a thick, sweet frosting made from Crisco shortening combined with confectioners’ sugar, or, more conveniently, a dollop of Marshmallow Fluff.

The cake itself is typically not especially sweet, and is often on the dry side, since the frosting lends plenty of sugar and a gooey consistency, said Sandra Oliver, a food historian and columnist in Islesboro, Me.

How the cookies traveled to Maine is a mystery, however.

One theory holds that whoopie pies were brought north during the Great Depression through the Yummy Book, a recipe pamphlet first published in 1930 by Durkee-Mower, the Massachusetts company that makes Fluff.

Don Durkee, whose father co-founded the firm, discredits that notion. After checking the company’s collection of pamphlets, the earliest appearance of whoopie pies he found was during the 1970s. “I’m baffled,” he said.

Leslie Land, a Maine writer, said her research showed that the recipe might have been popularized by one of the many local radio programs aimed at housewives during the 1930s.

No matter how they arrived, they have been eaten by Maine residents for at least eight decades, said Ms. Oliver, who publishes Food History News, a monthly newsletter. Labadie’s Bakery, in Lewiston, Me., which sells whoopie pies as big as 16 inches across, claims to have sold them since 1925.

Many of the whoopie pies sold in Maine come sheathed in plastic wrap. Generally sold for less than $2, they can be found stacked next to cash registers, the dry cake growing moister by the hour. “If you peel the Saran off and half the cookie doesn’t come away, it’s not a real whoopie pie,” Ms. Oliver said.

Ms. Friedman, in Evanston, agreed that her whoopie pies have a rustic image rather than a luxury one, although they sell for $3 each.

“They’re not as perfect as a lovely cupcake that has a beautiful swirl of icing on top,” she said. “They’re a little more handmade looking.”

At Magnolia Bakery, maple-cream icing is sandwiched between two brown-sugar cakes. Sina Clark-Murphy, the head baker, said that the whoopie pie’s humble appearance may help it come across as less of a dietary threat than a frosting-piled cupcake or a serving of banana pudding. Unfortunately, they are no less caloric.

At the other end of the simplicity scale are the heart-shaped versions baked by the Cranberry Island Kitchen in Maine, which supplies Williams-Sonoma. The pies wound up in the catalog after a friend of one of the company’s food buyers sampled them at Bob’s Clam Hut in Kittery, Me., and recommended that the catalog stock them, said Carol Ford, one of Cranberry Island’s owners.

Cranberry Island’s whoopie pies, which start at $28.75 for six, are made with chocolate cake or vanilla and are available in shapes like scallop shells and pumpkins. Filling flavors include rum, peppermint, Cointreau, raspberry and espresso.

To Ms. Oliver, the food historian, that upscale approach misses the point.

“It’s like making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with almond butter,” she said. “It’s not meant to be fine cuisine.”

retrieved 3/18/09 from: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/18/dining/18whoop.html

3/15/09 Countdown to Spring

5 MORE DAYS until Gifford's opens for the 2009 season! A definite sign that spring is on its way (though they've been known to serve their free ice cream on opening night to folks standing next to 3 foot snowbanks). Looks like this year's opening might be wet and cold but not snowy.

3/14/09 What's on the horizon?

Today I went to the "Town Transfer Station" (can you say "The Dump"?) to drop off my recycling. If you look at the top part of this photo, you can see that even the dump has a gorgeous view. It doesn't matter where you are, there are mountains and trees and beautiful sky in your view. Now look at the bottom half of the photo and you'll see what mud season is all about. When you get a lot of snow in the winter, it melts in the spring, often before the ground is unfrozen, so the water can only soak so far down and then it just sits on top and makes mud. Lots of mud. But if it's mud season now, spring can't be far behind!

3/12/09 Moonlight Snowshoeing

The Fitness and Recreation Center (FRC) at UMF offered a free opportunity to community members: Moonlight Snowshoeing. I signed up! The event was postponed from its original schedule due to inclimate weather so we went on Thursday night instead of Tuesday night. The sky was clear but it was a bit nippy (13 degrees when we arrived, 9 degrees when we left--that's 23 degrees colder than the temperature at which water freezes). We met at the Fitness Center, had our snowshoes issued to us, and got in the van. There were only 11 of us, and I actually knew 6 of my fellow snowshoers! Three were former students, one was the brother of a former students, one holds the record for most appearances in my class videos than any other non-class member, and the other is the friend of a faculty friend whom I had met at a party.

We drove about 20 minutes from campus to the home of the director of the FRC. He lives on a lake and has his own snowshoe trail! There wasn't any moonlight, but it was a beautiful clear dark night. So it started out as "Starlight Snowshoeing". We used flashlights and it was actually very fun. The trail was easy to follow, even by flashlight. About halfway through the hike, the moon started to rise. It was gorgeous. The rest of the hike was by moonlight! And there was hot chocolate for all at the end. I tried to take photos of the moonrise but my camera wouldn't work. I got one faint message about needing to replace the batteries (which was odd because they were just fine earlier in the evening) and then nothing. Later that night, in the comfort of my own apartment, I took out the camera to see what was wrong and it worked just fine. I think it was so cold out there that my camera wouldn't operate! I've read that warning on technology before but I've never worried about it before. Wow. It was actually so cold out there tonight that either my camera or my batteries (or both) wouldn't function.

For me personally, I had a very hard time snowshoeing in weather that cold. Being out of shape didn't help but having subfreezing air in your lungs makes it very hard for oxygen to get to all the places it needs to get. At one point, I didn't think my lungs were going to work anymore, even going slow didn't help! Fortunately, it was only when we were going uphill. Flat land and downhill were manageable. And the trail was a nice mix with most of the uphill at the beginning. I don't want to admit that it might have been because almost everyone on the trip was half my age. I'm still 21 so it can't be that! There were three FRC employees in the group and they spread themselves out throughout the crowd. In the second half, Jennifer, the Aquatics Director just hung out with me and we stayed waaaaay behind the rest of the group. ;-) She's a very patient woman. The consistently slower pace along with the more even slope helped a lot. I felt badly for her but I had a blast. I just hope she wasn't looking for any kind of workout.


Here we are helping each other put on our snowshoes (well, I didn't help anyone...I didn't know what I was doing).




















These two photos were taken for Alison, my friend who introduced me to David, shown in these photos. She encouraged him to come and even 2 hours earlier they were on the phone and as far as he knew, she was planning to go. But she didn't show. That's okay, we had a great time anyway. Sorry to miss you Alison!!

2/26/09 Snowbound Hoedown

Now you can't get much better than this for a student event on campus. I received this notification via email today:

Make a Snow Sculpture! Win a Prize!

Snowbound Hoedown

Snow Sculpture Competition

Friday, February 27th 8:00 am-5:00 pm in the Mantor Library Green area

Awards Reception 5:00-6:30 pm at the UMF Art Gallery

Hot Drinks, Cool Music, Great Prizes!

Sponsored by The Ministry of Experimental Arts

This contest is open to the public.
Register at VAPA office in Merrill or in front of Mantor Library.

2/26/09 Maine's economy

There's no surprises in this newspaper article. These things were true about Maine long before the drop in the economy.

AUGUSTA (AP) -- A new report says Maine has some work to do to strengthen its economy but also finds areas in which the state already excels.

The Maine Economic Growth Council released an annual report Thursday that analyzes a number of indicators of progress toward sustainable, long-term growth.

Its report praises the state with gold stars in four areas: research and development spending, health insurance coverage, efforts to address chronic disease and a low rate of on-the-job injuries and illnesses.

But it also hands out red flags in several areas, including personal income, high-speed Internet access, manufacturing productivity, health care and energy costs, and state and local tax burden.

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
retrieved 2/26/09 from http://www.wcsh6.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=101199

2/24/09 Big snow storm

We had 27" of snow Sunday and Monday. This picture was posted by my friend Crystal who lives in Guilford, about an hour and a half north and east of Farmington.

2/14/09 February Break

I'm outta here again! I just got back and now it's time to go.

We have two breaks in the spring semester, one in February (a great time to go skiing or enjoy other winter sports) and one in April (a good time to get away from Mud Season). Our February break this year fell at the exact time as an exciting week at Our Cabana, one of four World Centres for Girl Guides and Girl Scouts, located in Cuernavaca, Mexico. Nine of the women that I volunteered with in Dallas and I are having a mini-reunion. It's going to be a blast. Follow the tales at http://texastheresa.blogspot.com/

2/8/09 Look closely . . . what's that on the roof?

Can you see it? It's in front of the pine tree that pokes out from behind the garage.

Can you believe it?! How does someone get a snowman on top of a roof? Did they build it on the roof or build it on the ground and lift it up? Of course the question we're all dying to know the answer to is why build a snowman on top of a roof. And to that we may never have the answer. Meanwhile, just enjoy knowing that someone's out there who thinks of these things.

2/8/08 full moon over Farmington

This picture doesn't do it justice but today there was an incredible moon, as big as a harvest moon, ascending from the horizon about the time of sunset. Wow.

1/31/08 Fish fry

Alan and Betty graciously invited me to their home for the big fish fry. Alan cleaned the first fish and I got to clean the remaining 6. It involves cutting (off the head), slicing (open the belly), scooping (out the innards), and washing (out the inside under running water and running some water on the outside, too). Don't remove the bones, though. That is much easier to do after they're cooked.

The rest of our dinner: pork chops ('cuz there weren't enough fish), potatoes, peas, and the skillet on the back right burner has bacon in it 'cuz we're going to fry the fish in bacon grease.

Dip them in egg, then in a corn meal mixture.

Fry 'em up.

Filet them and eat them. Alan and Betty gave me all 7 to eat. They're so small that 7 is a small serving. Oh were they yummy!!

Thank you Alan and Betty for a wonderful day of life in Maine, especially the gracious Maine hospitality!

1/31/08 More about Smelting

We paid $15 a piece for the privilege of smelting in these shacks. Inside was a wood stove and a big stack of wood. The fire was already going when we got there, so we took off our jackets to settle in for our 6 hours. Our bait was sand worms. The package of worms wrapped in newspaper was included in the price of renting the shack.

But ewwww, the sand worms are too big for bait, so you cut them up! And the small pieces of worm still wiggle after they've been cut and that's the bait. Betty offered to bait my hook for me, but I insisted that I do it myself. ewwww. But I did it.

This is the right side of the inside of the shack. Betty is checking the line. There were 10 lines on our side of the shack (boys vs. girls). The horizontal wooden bar from which the lines hang is suspended on springs so you can pull the bar and all 10 of your lines will wiggle just right. We actually only used 9 of our lines 'cuz the 10th line was missing a hook.

Alan built this "jig board" which is just a board with 3 lines that are similar to a jig pole. They use a finer line (the ones provided were practically string they were so thick) and hang from a piece of wire that creates a rather constant jiggle.

On both sides of the shack are big holes like this cut into the ice. In the middle of the shack there's room for the wood stove, 4 stools or chairs, and not much else.

The first bite came after we'd only been there about 5 minutes. And this smelt bit one of my lines! So technically, I caught the first fish! Betty coached me through pulling it in.

Alan took it off the hook. You can see that a smelt isn't very big.

In the next 4 hours and 45 minutes, we caught 6 more smelt. Alan caught all of those on his jig board. Often you can catch over 100 smelt and even as high as 300. But that wasn't for us on this trip. At least we weren't "skunked" and I had a blast hanging out with Alan and Betty and their friend Doyle who went with us.

I learned a bunch of new vocabulary but it's written on a piece of paper that I don't have with me. So I will make another entry later with those vocabulary words. In the meantime, know that this was a true Maine experience! I love my life with the Mainiacs.

1/31/09 Smelting!

I did it! I finally got to go ice fishing!! Alan, one of the wonderful custodians in the Education Center is quite the outdoorsman and he and his wife took me ice fishing.

First thing to know: there is more than one kind of ice fishing. Today we are smelting which is fishing for smelt (a kind of fish). The ice that we're fishing through is on a river and smelt are a salt water fish. You fish during the tides on the river! So much to learn!!!

We met at the Park 'n Ride in New Sharon. On a Saturday morning at 8am there were already 2 cars: mine and someone else's. Good thing I got there at 8 'cuz there are only 7 parking spaces at this Park 'n Ride. ;-)

We drove about 90 minutes to Bowdoinham to fish on the Cathance River. We had to take the toll road. The signs said it was $1.00 but it was really only still $0.60. Tomorrow the rates go up but today the signs are already up.

Here we are at "the camp". (Yes, this means that there is yet another meaning to the word "camp.") Note that there are cars here from New Jersey, Massachusetts, and New York. This must be quite the sport!

We cross the road from the parking lot to go to where the ice shacks are located. Yes, those shacks are sitting on the frozen river and they have no floors and have holes cut in the ice inside each one, yet they don't sink or break the ice. Wow. One of these (#17) is going to be our home for the next 5 hours.

Population numbers

I'm always getting asked questions about the population in Maine and I can never quite keep the numbers straight, so here are the actual numbers of the largest cities/towns in Maine, starting with the largest.

1. Portland 62,825
2. Lewiston 35,234 (a part of the metropolis of Lewiston/Auburn or Auburn/Lewiston)
3. Bangor 31,853
4. South Portland 23,748 (a suburb of Portland . . . just to the south . . . never assume logic in names of cities/towns, but in this case, the logic holds)
5. Auburn 23,203 (see #2 above)
6. Brunswick 21,806
7. Biddeford 21,594
8. Sanford 21,252
9. Augusta (the capital) 18,560
10. Scarborough 16,970
11. Saco 16,822
12. Westbrook 16,142
13. Waterville 15,605
14. Windham 14,904
15. Gorham 14,141
16. York 12,854
17. Kennebunk (I don't think that's counting Kennebunkport which is right next door and home to the elder President Bush) 10,476
18. Falmouth 10,310
19. Kittery 9,543
20. Presque Isle 9,511
21. Wells 9,400
22. Standish 9,285
23. Bath 9,266
24. Orono 9,112
25. Topsham 9,100
26. Lisbon 9,077
27. Cape Elizabeth 9,068
28. Brewer 8,987
29. Old Orchard Beach 8,856
30. Skowhegan 8,824
31. Yarmouth 8,360
32. Caribou 8,312
33. Old Town 8,130
34. Freeport (home to L.L. Bean and lots of great outlet shopping) pop. 7,800
35. Winslow 7,743
36. Rockland (home of the Lobster Festival) 7,609
37. Buxton 7,452
38. Farmington 7,410
39. Cumberland 7,159
40. Gray 6,820

http://www.citypopulation.de/USA-Maine.html

MAINE
Land area, 2000 (square miles) 30,861.55
Persons per square mile 41.3
http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/23000.html
Population, 2006 estimate 1,321,574
[Note: The population of The City of Dallas is 1.2 million. The population of Dallas County is over 2 million]

TEXAS
Land area, 2000 (square miles) 261,797.12
Persons per square mile 2000 79.6
Population, 2006 estimate 23,507,783