pumpkin whoopie pies from tasty kitchen/dinah

One of the most difficult aspects of living/studying abroad (especially for a significant amount of time) is that you start to miss American foods.  Seriously.  You wish it wouldn't happen.  You wish you could go on loving the local delicacies without so much as a second thought about the foods you'd left behind.  Unfortunately, (at least for me) this was not the case. I'm kind of embarrassed/ashamed to admit it, but after awhile I would have given anything for a good cheeseburger or pancake.

That being said, it should come as no surprise that some of my most vivid memories from my year in France involve American food.  Just when the homesickness really started to set in, Dinah and I went on a trek to find the rather elusive, potentially mythical American Grocery Store.  We probably could have looked up the address online, but there was some joy to be had in the hunt.  When we finally found it, we were overwhelmed by this funny mix of Lucky Charms and Fluff and Duncan Hines cake mixes set in a distinctively Parisian setting.  A small shop, with shelves filled floor to ceiling.

After spending a good while swooning over the American foods I wouldn't even consume in America, Dinah and I settled upon splitting a piece of carrot cake with cream cheese frosting.  (You see, American food in Paris also comes with a hefty price tag.)  And it was so delicious.  Probably not the best carrot cake I've ever had (my grandmother made a pretty mean one), but at the time I'm sure I would have told you otherwise.

As the year continued, we found a few more occasions to have American food.  In the spring, Mike, another student in the program, received a care package from his parents that included the biggest jar of peanut butter you've ever seen, fluff, and American bread.  He, extremely generously, brought it to school where almost all 40 of us joyously sat down to the most delicious pb and fluff sandwiches of our lives.  Later, there would be copious amounts of pizzas to go, which got Dinah and me quite a few stares in the metro, TexMex for my birthday (complete with Heinz ketchup---such a treat!) and vanilla milkshakes.

These memories are some of the best of my time abroad; remembering them will always make me smile.  The enjoyment of eating this food is amplified when you're abroad, because it always feels a bit sneaky or like you're breaking the rules.

So, when Dinah wrote to me from Italy (she's studying abroad again), asking me to make the Pioneer Woman's Pumpkin Whoopie pies, so could live vicariously through me, I happily obliged.  Of course, right now it's funny to think of what I wouldn't give to trade places with Dinah and get my hands on some delicious gelato and pizza.

Pumpkin Whoopie Pies
added to Tasty Kitchen by cakedutchess

For the cakes:
1 2/3 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp salt
1 tbs pumpkin pie spice
1 tsp ground ginger
1/2 stick unsalted butter, melted
3/4 cup packed light brown sugar
2 whole large eggs, at room temperature, lightly beaten
1 cup canned pumpkin puree
1 tsp vanilla extract

for the frosting:
1 stick butter, softened
8 oz cream cheese, softened
2 cups confectioner's sugar
3/4 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and spices.  In a large bowl, mix together the melted butter and brown sugar until smooth.  With a mixer on medium speed, beat in the eggs, pumpkin puree, and vanilla extract.  Fold in the flour mixture.

Drop 12 large mounds of batter onto each parchment lined baking sheets (mine didn't make quite this many).  Make sure to space evenly.  With floured fingers, gently press down on the center of each mound to flatten out a bit (I didn't do this).  Bake for about 10 minutes or until springy to the touch.  Transfer to a rack to cool completely (if you can wait that long).

Frosting: Beat the softened butter with the cream cheese. Add the confectioner's sugar, salt and vanilla and mix on low speed until blended. Then beat on medium-high speed for about 2 minutes until fluffy.

Spread the flat side of half of the cakes with the frosting and top with the other half of the cakes. Enjoy!

apple picking

On Saturday, Dan and I went apple picking at nearby Hope Orchards.  I actually used to come apple picking here sometimes with my grandmother and cousins when I was little.  At first I didn't recognize it, but when one of the women who works there was directing us on where to go, it suddenly came flooding back to me.

The orchards pick different apples throughout the apple season and when we went there were Northern Spies, Macouns, Empires and Spartans.   Dan was very excited to go apple picking for the second time in his life.  We took our apple picking duties very seriously and "sampled" each of the varieties before deciding which to pick.  Mmm. There's nothing like an apple fresh off the tree.

The Northern Spies were by far our favorite.  Learning about apples is kind of like learning about wines.  Here's what the Orchard's website has to say about Northern Spies, "The white flesh is juicy, crisp and mildly sweet with a rich, aromatic subacid flavor. Its characteristic flavor is more tart than most popular varieties, and its flesh is harder/crunchier than most. It is a good dessert apple and pie apple, that is also used for cider. Further, the Northern Spy is also an excellent apple for storage, as it tends to last longer due to late maturation and lower sugar conent."

So, we focused our picking efforts on the Northern Spies, but threw a few Empires and Spartans in our bag for good measure.  (The Macouns didn't make the cut.)  By the way, we picked two total bags and each one weighed approximately 17.6 lbs!! That's a LOT of apples.  Luckily, one of these bags is going to my mom....I'm running out of apple things to make! (Okay, that's a bit of an exaggeration, but still...seventeen pounds is a lot of apples.)

Dan also liked to use apple picking as a way to show how much taller he is than me (and the other 99% of the population).  We'd walk through the rows of trees and he'd keep walking past these trees with great apples on them and it took me awhile to figure out what he was doing.  It turns out that Dan just liked to find trees with apples up so high that nobody else could possibly reach them, like in the picture above and the ones below.

 

Here we both are reaching for that same impossible apple.  Yup.  Rubbing it in my face.  Can you tell how much Dan's enjoying it? 

Sigh.

Anyway, I hope you're excited for some more apple recipes...coming soon. Plus, there will be more from our weekend/week!  Haha, gripping, I know. But I'm excited to share it with you!

vinfest

We had so much fun at Vinfest this weekend.  Hosted by the Cellardoor Winery in Lincolnville, Vinfest was filled with autumn colors, wine tasting, farmer's market like food stands, and rickety (eek!) ferris wheel rides...oh, and who could forget, scarecrow decorating. 

I'm pretty sure I need to own an alpaca some day.  Their eyes are SO cute.  I don't have a good picture of them, but Katie does and I will get it from her. 

Carreau and me posing with Gary Garrison, the scarecrow, upon his completion.  They supplied clothes and hay to build your scarecrow and held a competition for the best one.  We were doing our wine tasting when they announced the winner.  We're pretty sure we won though :)

Dan needed me to remind him of this rule on several occasions....much to my frightened chagrin.  

View from the top of the ferris wheel.  Inside the tent were food samples from various local artisans/vendors, free barbecue lunch, and cooking demonstrations.  Behind the tent were antique tractors and cars, scarecrow supplies, vineyard tours and horse-drawn wagon rides.

Grape stomping a la I Love Lucy! It felt mushy and cold!

Creeeeeeepy post-grape stomping feet.  YUCK.  I think I have been too absorbed in reading about Lisbeth Salander.  Because this seriously looks like a bloody, skeleton foot to me.

historic mansions of wiscasset

Yesterday, my mom and I met in Wiscasset, the beautiful halfway point between Camden and Portland, to tour some of the old captain's mansions there.

First up is the Nickels-Sortwell House.  The house was built by Captain Nickels in the early 1800s.  Construction was completed in 1807, just before Thomas Jefferson placed an embargo on international trading and caused serious economic distress in the formerly wealthy seafaring town.  Because of this regional depression, the Nickels were forced to sell the home in 1814.  For about 70 years it was an inn, until a wealthy family from Cambridge, MA, the Sortwells, purchased the house in 1899 to serve as their summer home.  The Sortwells took great pride in restoring the house to its original grandeur throughout the early 1900s.  When the Sortwell's daughter, Frances, died in 1956, she deeded the house to Historic New England.  The house is still furnished with the Sortwells' belongings, with the exception of one of the downstairs rooms, which has been reinterpreted to reflect how Captain Nickels would have used the space.

Front view of the Nickels-Sortwell House

The home is built in the high Federal style, with impressively ornate mouldings, especially on the first floor.  As you work your way up to the third floor of the house, things become less and less fancy, because not as many people saw these floors.  The siding on the front and water side of the house was done in a way to give the feeling of expensive masonry, but is, in fact, wood.  On the inland facade and back of the house, the siding looks like the traditional clapboard. Also, the windows decrease in size as you go up in height to give the impression of grandeur, while having lower ceilings in the upper levels of the home.   In the front hall, a grand curved staircase leads up the three levels of the home.  Apparently, there was once a chandelier that hung in the stairwell.  It was set up on a pulley system, so people could raise and lower the chandelier as they went up and down the stairs.  

The other home we visited was Castle Tucker.  Located nearby and also constructed around 1807, the Castle Tucker was commissioned by a judge, Silas Lee.   He was very wealthy as well, however, had heavily invested in the local shipping industry, so was also financially devastated by Jefferson's Embargo.  After he passed away in 1814, his wife sold the house.  For about 35 years the house had various owners and entered into a state of disrepair.  In 1858, it was under foreclosure (or the equivalent of that in 1858), when Richard Tucker, Jr. was informed by his father (who also lived in Wiscasset) that he would be stupid not to take advantage of the opportunity to buy this house.  Richard Tucker Jr. was a retired, successful ship captain and had recently married Mollie, who was only 16 (he was 41). 

Side view of Castle Tucker

When they first purchased the house, Richard Jr. dedicated himself to decorating it in the Victorian style and bought many furnishings from Boston. Richard Jr. continued traveling the world for extended periods of time, while Mollie was left at home to care for their children and take care of the home.  She apparently often contemplated divorce.  The family hit rough economic times during the depression in the 1890s and did many things to raise money to keep themselves afloat.  Mollie raised pigeons in a back area of the house, which she then sold to nearby hotels as squab.  They also rented out rooms in the house during the summertime.  They would advertise in papers in Boston, specifically avoiding the fact that they had no indoor plumbing.  Because of their financial difficulties, the house remains largely the way it had been when Richard Jr. and Mollie originally purchased it in 1858.  One of their granddaughters, Jane Tucker, gifted the house to Historic New England in 1996.  She continued to live there and give tours of her family's home until 2003. 

Front view of Castle Tucker

In case you don't already know from reading my blog, I love, love, love old houses like this.  I had always wanted to go into the Nickels-Sortwell House (Castle Tucker is on a side street and I didn't even know it was there) and was so excited to finally get the chance to see inside these homes. It is just so fascinating to imagine a life back then and to learn about when different modern-day necessities were added, such as plumbing and refrigerators.  With your only source of heat being fireplaces and having 12 foot ceilings and a mansion.  Of owning dozens of beautiful tea sets imported from all over the world and actually serving tea every day at 4 pm to friends and family, as Mrs. Sortwell did.  Of having butlers and maids and cooks and nannies who all lived with you.  I really enjoyed my step back into time.   

It really interests me how the histories of these two houses start out so similarly, both being built in 1807 and being sold by their builders in 1814, only to go through various states of disrepair. I was so impressed by the world traveling they had done.  Both homes had a relatively large amount of furnishings from Asian countries.  They contained books in many languages and the Tuckers would actually translate books for extra money. Both have also now wound up in the hands of Historic New England.  Yet they both have such different feels to them and both wound up there in very different ways.   

the common ground fair

The Common Ground Fair takes place every September in Unity, Maine.  Confession: I didn't know where Unity, Maine was until I went to the fair yesterday.  It's put on by MOFGA, the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association.  The fair is filled with local craftsmen and organic farmers selling their product and also features many speakers who teach about everything from composting to low impact forestry to how to repair snags in your knitting.  I met up with my friend Cait and her boyfriend's mom, Kathy, which was trickier than you'd think because thousands of people go to this fair and you don't get cell phone reception there.

The above picture is from my drive to the fair (don't worry, I pulled over to take it).  The foliage was beautiful and I wanted to take a gazillion pictures as I drove over rolling hills of farmland and could see foliage for miles and miles.  Unfortunately, the skies were very gray and didn't do the foliage justice.

I took the picture of the Hobbit holes for Dan.  They're kind of a cute idea.  The pictures below are from the organic farmers section.  The produce looked so delicious: 

I was shocked by the number of kids at the fair.  Kathy said she was shocked by how well behaved they all were! Perhaps it was because there were so many fun things for them to do, like slide down a hill on flattened cardboard boxes:

Or participate in the children's parade.  Kids dress up like fruits and vegetables and sometimes bugs and carry amusing signs saying things like, "no pesticides on me!" and "organically grow."

Finally, there were many non-produce things to buy.  A yarn section made up a large part of the fair grounds.  Many people were spinning their own yarn in their booths, which I found fascinating.  Some even had brought their alpacas/rabbits/sheep with them!

All in all, a great, educational way to spend a gray Sunday.

more weekend pictures: friendship harbor

I took Dan down to the harbor in Friendship this weekend.  I had been there once before with my mom, (otherwise I never would have known it existed) and wanted to share its beauty with Dan.  Next weekend, we'll be a bit more adventurous and try to find a place that's brand new to both of us for our next photo op. (p.s. a friend of mine at Colby claimed that her uncle coined the term "photo op" not sure if I believed her, but it would be kind of cool if it were true.  She also said her cousin was Jared of Subway weight loss fame.)

The picture below is the only one I took.  I love this little scene.  The hydrangea tree that I find so beautiful and those blue bottles in the window, plus grey shingles and a fancy scalloped trim? Ugh, it's love.  We drove past and I freaked out, telling Dan to back up the car, so I could take a picture.  Psycho much? Perhaps. But it was worth it, don't you think?

Back to the water:

Seagulls, a lobsterman's number one enemy (well maybe number two after seals):

I love all of the colors on those buoys. Also, if you look realllllly closely, the sign above the door says "Wharf Unsafe."  Eeek.  People definitely still use that wharf.  Maybe since the sign was made, the wharf has been reinforced or something.  I certainly hope so!  Anyway we were on the next wharf over, because that wharf also had a "trespass at your own risk" sign on it, which frightened me just a little.

I did feel a little weird while we were walking around taking pictures.  It took me a bit to figure out what it was.  Even though my car has Maine plates, I felt like these people could still tell we were "from away."  We may not be Friendship harbor regulars, but we can still appreciate this idyllic view!