The Fosters take Maine!

RCF shows off the Farmer's Market bounty!

My parents generously drove 5 1/2 hours from Falmouth, MA to Orono, ME this week to pay me a visit. We visited Pat's Pizza in downtown Orono, which is an institution here, Mom and I played in the garden while Daddy did odd jobs in the house, and we all enjoyed a long visit to the University of Maine's Hudson Museum. During one of our walks across campus, we visited the Orono Farmer's Market, which - as you have seen in a previous post - is a wonderful source of fruit, vegetables, bread, meat, and other treats. Not to mention, a nice chat with some friendly Maine farmers.

MYF doing what she does best!

This week, we bought Pippen apples (an old English variety), oatmeal bread, celeriac, sweet potatoes, gigantic shallots, buttery lettuce...and little, tiny red and superior potatoes. Mom, who is a trained chef, helped me roast a chicken, accompanied by the tiny potatoes dotted with chives from the garden. Mom does a mean chicken - she roasted the 5-pound chicken in a cast-iron skillet for a couple of hours, then drained off the fat and created a pan sauce from mustard, soy sauce, white wine, and garlic. It was a spectacular family meal, enjoyed in the warmth of my little Orono kitchen. Come and visit, ayuh!

Postscript: RCF tells me he took his giant farmer's market onion, cut it in half, microwaved it 'til soft, then threw it on the grill - it was sweet and delicious!

Gnocchi, gnocchi, gnocchi...

Andrew has been agitating to make gnocchi for a while now, and we finally had the time on a recent Saturday afternoon. With our farm potatoes, Massachusetts eggs, Kate's butter, home-grown sage, and King Arthur Flour, we made the most succulent, fluffy, light, airy, yummy, delicious...gnocchi! With that string of adjectives, you know they must have been good. In fact, I think they were the best gnocchi I have ever had, hands-down. For those of you who have never had them, gnocchi are tiny pillows of potato pasta, which are traditionally served in a sage-butter sauce. For the best results, handle the dough as little as possible to avoid developing the gluten in the flour and creating a gooey mess. Our recipe came from The New Doubleday Cookbook, but there are many out there.

Recipe:

For the gnocchi:
2 cups mashed potato (simply mashed with no added ingredients! We rice ours to make them as smooth and fluffy as possible.)
1 cup all-purpose flour, sifted.
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 1/2 tsp. salt
1/8 tsp. pepper (it calls for white, but we used black)
pinch of nutmeg

For the sage-butter sauce:
2-3 T salted butter
4-5 leaves fresh sage (or more!)

Lightly toss the ingredients with your hands or a fork until the very sticky dough comes together. We let the dough sit for about half an hour and then, on a heavily floured board, roll the dough into 1/2" thick ropes. These we cut into 1" pieces and Andrew rolls them on a fork to create the classic gnocchi shape - the little grooves hold the butter sauce (mmmm).

When a large pot of water comes to a boil, begin melting the butter and sage together in a large skillet until the butter begins to brown - turn down the heat (or off). The gnocchi go into the pot of boiling water about 20 at a time, until they bob to the surface. I remove these with a strainer after they cook at the surface for 30 seconds-1 minute, and throw them in to the warm sage-butter sauce. Top with some grated parmesan cheese, and you have a masterpiece.

Margaret's Adventures in Clamming

...and my mother's adventures in clam digging continue...

"Today was the day several of us from the Service Center were meeting at Waquoit Bay to have a last quahog dig before the season closes. It dawned an overcast day but was mild and sprinkled only a little this morning. At 1:00 I got into my bathing suit and shoes and went to the garage to get the equipment. I put the bucket and rake on the driveway while I put on my shoes and said goodbye to RCF. I got in the car and promptly backed over the rake and the bucket, smashing the styrofoam ring into four pieces, squashing the bucket, and snapping the basket off the rake. It was now beginning to drizzle. I couldn't believe it, but RCF came to the rescue and straightened out the basket and attached the pieces of foam to it with wire. I went to neighbor Bill's and got his rake, and went on my way - very upset with my stupidity. I got there and my friends were all out in the bay, digging away in the drizzle. As I neared them I realized I didn't have my cap with the license on it. Oh well, I would plan to ask one of the men to marry me for an hour or so and squeak through on his license if the fish warden appeared, which is not unusual.


My friends had their buckets half full and I was getting going, thinking about the lovely end-of-season chowder I would make. My first quahog was the size of an orange and the pickings were pretty good. The ocean is still warm so it was very pleasant. The sun even peeked through for a few minutes and the drizzle stopped.

My friend Kathy filled her bucket and said she had to go home, so we said goodbye as she left the water. A ways down the beach she stopped and read a yellow sign that said the shellfish area was closed because of fecal contamination, and she came running back to share the news. How the rest of us missed the sign is beyond me! Maybe the lure of a pleasant afternoon at the beach clouded our vision. Some folks actually considered ignoring the sign, but the final decision was that we had to dump our catch. So we all left the water and sat on the beach throwing the quahogs back into the sea one at a time. :( Bob knows what a painful few moments that would have been. Retirement isn't all fun and games."

Empty Bowls

Empty Bowl...it sounds so sad, but it was a celebration! As Waltham Fields Community Farm members, we were able to attend a fund raiser this summer: we each purchased a handmade soup bowl (thrown by one of the farmers), which we filled with soup made by area restaurants from farm ingredients.

Catherine and Andrew eagerly await the soup!

Susan, Tim, Andrew, and I opened a bottle of red wine, sampled soup, and enjoyed meeting fellow shareholders. It was a perfect evening in the late summer sunshine, and we ate dinner at the edge of the fields that brought us all of our summer produce! Seems to me it was money well spent, and reminded me that belonging to this farm doesn't just mean getting veggies - but joining a community, supporting hard work, and nourishing ourselves in lots of ways.

WFCF shareholders gather for the Empty Bowls Dinner - can you spot Sue, Tim, and Andrew?