Wednesday, October 10, 2012

Early Fall in Maine


We went to Maine a couple of weeks ago to attend the beautiful wedding of a very sweet couple. Because we'd never been to the state, M and I stayed s few extra days in Portland to see the city. And eat some food.

The first thing we did was check out the Portland Head Light in Cape Elizabeth. Afterward, we dunked our feet in the Atlantic and watched a few dogs fetch sticks from the waves.

At a farmers market, we found some ground cherries, a treat I hadn't had since I lived in Madison, Wisconsin, several years ago. These were much more flavorful and piquant than the mellow fruit I used to eat. Ground cherries look a lot like gooseberries, but they're much sweeter. They have a papery skin, similar to the skin on tomatillos, that you peel back before popping the fruit in your mouth and popping the fruit, and then the little seeds inside, with your teeth. It's pretty fantastic.













Later, I had a glass of local blueberry mead on the patio of Portland Lobster Company while enjoying some live music on the dock. Warm for Maine, the 70-degree early evening was refreshing and gorgeous.


We had done breakfast at Hot Suppa, an excellent little diner. I had some baked Cheddar grits with an arugula salad and eggs. I love grits, and I've got to try to recreate this.

Between Portland and Rockland, we stopped by Beth's, a huge farm stand in Warren. They had these incredible bottles of grape juice with whole grapes inside. And of tons if other produce. But check out the grape juice!


And if course, we stopped a cute little chocolate shop. Sweet Marguerites had some unusual but delicious flavors like sweet potato caramel and fig and port. We bought a box of five and are them pretty quickly.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

What a wonderful trip! "L" and I are going to have to get up to Maine for sure now -- and I think we'll have to stop at some of these same places!! :-)

Christine said...

Oh, yes. I especially think you guys would love Beth's. The drive there was so beautiful, too.