Gifting. No Wrapping Necessary.

Here is a gift from Maine Crime Writers’ reader Mary Ann, and my story of the best gift ever. (My best gift ever.)

The Affordable, but Really Good Eats Quest.

Last month, (fed up with not-worth-it but expensive food), I asked readers this question. “How might we eat out one or two times a month and spend less than $40-$45 per meal? Hopefully less than $35. Hopefully, around $75 per month for two evenings out. The food has to be really, really good food.”

 Mary Ann (using the formula I suggested), generously sent this review for us to share. Thanks, Mary Ann!  (I plan to head there for the flatbread pizza and coleslaw and of course, a long browse at Shermans Books.)

Trackside Station, Rockland, Maine    (Reviewed by Mary Ann)

The Good: Trackside combines the best of pub food with touches of fine dining. On the menu are such appetizers as pretzel bites and chicken wings, perfect to go with drinks at the bar. On that same menu you can also find Lobster Scampi, complete with herbs and white wine for date night. The daily specials include favorites such as . . .
Read more >

Eat Well. Eat Cheap. Avoid Bloated Buns

In late August I was treated to a three-night cruise on the windjammer the Angelique. There was much to rhapsodize about. (Thank you, Leslie!), but this is a post about food and avoiding disappointment, financial or otherwise.

I was warned the boat food would be amazing. It was. And all cooked in two tiny, closet-like kitchens. I could smell the baking rolls, breads, and pastries by 6:30 each morning. A partial list of meals we ate helps explain my epiphany and my project.

Here goes: tarragon-curry chicken salad wraps with olive oil, lemon, chives, a touch of mayo, honey and pickled grapes and a crisp pink apple salad; breakfast, quiche made with lobster, Canadian bacon, and fruit salad; lunch on deck, freshly made fish chowder, green salad, and flaky biscuits . . . Read more >

Cooler Surprise. Deer Flies. Acres of Lettuce.

There’s a moment on every camping trip where you peer into the cooler to see what’s left floating around down there. A “Cooler Surprise” meal with a bit of everything often has us thinking over the whole trip’s memorable moments. Both the highs and the lows.

This post is kind of a cooler surprise: bits of my summer that might not have much to do with each other, but—to me—they are a rich dish of experience to savor …  and share.

Books On Tape in the Casita

My husband and I like to hunker down after dark (when the bugs are bad) and listen to audio books inside our tiny camper. C. J. Box opens Savage Run  with an exploding cow. (First lines are so very important! For sure.) Then after the cow, while investigating a string of bizarre murders, Wyoming game warden Joe Pickett is forced to flee across treacherous terrain with a brutal tracker on his trail.

In our tight space, dog Raven lying over our feet, we are clearly somewhere in Wyoming, even deep in the Maine woods. We have to force ourselves to stop listening at a reasonable hour.

Read more >

“Lumpy, Aged, and Wrinkled Bodies”

“They did not know that lumpy, aged, and wrinkled bodies were as needy as their own young, firm ones, that love was not to be tossed away carelessly . . .”

Today, I want to explore (just a bit) how an author might write about age. Not just write about it, but actually write age.  I was motivated by a very recent Maine Crime Writers post, “Never Too Late?” (Thanks, Maggie Robinson!)

I found lots of authors who paused in the story to have a character give us some aging philosophy—as if from on high. Nope, not what works well I thought. Breaks the story, the tone, the plot’s trajectory.

So I went back to the Pulitzer Prize winning Olive Kitteridge, Elizabeth’s Strout’s first Olive novel.

The novel still stuns me, but the first jolt happened many years ago when I read Olive’s lines about loneliness after her husband’s death. For the first time, I understood why my mother, alone after a long marriage, drove daily to the ocean to sit and stare at the water. With tears, I could feel her loneliness because of Olive’s loneliness.

Read more >