Low Priced Lobsters...Maybe.

You may have been hearing about record low lobster prices - reportedly as low at $1.25 a pound in some unnamed places - and figured it might be a good time for buying some bugs. But you need to be aware that these low prices are the ones being paid by wholesalers to the fishermen, and the savings aren't always being passed along the chain of middlemen to retail buyers like you, visiting the lobster pound or shopping at the fish market.

My wife Maryanne and I recently took a drive up the southern Maine coast from Kittery to a little north of Portland. The news had been reporting lobsters at record low prices, and we thought we'd combine a pleasant day trip with some bug buying (cryovac'd or packed tightly in freezer containers, cooked lobster meat freezes well, and if prices were really as low as the chatter indicated, I figured we'd buy a dozen or so lobsters to cook, pick, and freeze.)

Prices for lobsters vary widely, and if you're a New Englander hoping to get some really cheap bugs at the shore, you may be just as well off buying lobsters on sale at your local supermarket. In my area, over an hour inland, lobsters are running on sale at $4.99 a pound - and despite everything you might have heard on the news, that's about what you're going to pay at the lobster pounds in Maine.

There are three terms you need to be familiar with when you're buying lobster at a pound:

Culls - These are lobsters that have lost one of their large claws.

Soft-shells - Lobsters moult annually, losing their hardened shells and growing a new one. The new shell is thin and soft enough to be torn away with your fingers - no crackers needed! - but it is also much larger than the meat inside, because the lobster needs enough room inside the new shell to grow for the coming year. Just remember that when you buy a soft-shell lobster, there's not as much meat inside as it looks.  Check out the picture at left: I took a photo of a soft-shelled lobster claw against a bright light. The dark area in the shell is the shadow of the meat the shell actually contains.

Hard-shells - Lobsters contain the most meat when their shells are thick and hard - they have grown into the shell they created when they last moulted. Lots of meat, but it's more difficult to get out because the shell is thick and hard and needs to be cracked open with a cracker or even a crab mallet.  Here's a picture of the meat from a hardshell claw.  See how much larger it is, and how it fills the shell? But you can also see that the shell was about ¼-inch thick - I needed a hammer to get into it!

Okay, lesson over - back to the story about lobster prices. We found that the lowest prices - anywhere from $2.99 to about $4 a pound - were for small, soft-shelled culls weighing about a pound, and for small whole lobsters up to about 1¼ pounds.

Pound-and-a-half lobsters - the size you most often find in restaurant lobster dinners - were ranging from $3.75 to about $5 a pound for softshells.

As the sizes got larger, the prices increased steeply. One lobster pound in Portland, ME started their prices at $7.95 a pound for small softshells.

No matter where we were, hard-shell lobsters were about a dollar a pound more expensive.

Our biggest surprise, though, was the price of lobster dinners in restaurants, which averaged about $16.95 with a couple of places charging upwards of $24. Clearly, diners are not seeing the benefits of the lower lobster prices on the dock.

If you're heading for the coast in search of a New England Shore Dinner, welcome! You will find some good deals if you take some time and look around.

Berry Picking at Kuras Farms in West Suffield CT

It was a beautiful day on Sunday - sunny and warm, but with low humidity - and we decided sort of on the spur of the moment to go berry picking. We were hoping for raspberries, even though the season is just about over. As we drove through nearby Suffield, we lucked out: Kuras Farms on Mountain Road was advertising raspberries and blueberries, ready-to-go or pick-your-own. At many of the local farms and farm stands, the raspberry season has already ended. Last year's unusually warm winter gave perennials like berries an early start, and the recent hot and rainless weeks have not been kind to growers.

We pulled in the gravel driveway and stopped at the sales shed and were told that the blueberries were in full swing, and there were still some raspberries available in fields near the top of the hill behind the barns. Off we went, following the farm's dirt tote road on it's winding path to the berry fields.

Blueberry season is in full swing, and we passed row upon row of highbush blueberry plants heavy with fruit. But since we were totally focused on raspberries, we decided to return later in the week for blueberry picking.

The path turns steep as the road climbs the hill to the raspberry fields. I was grateful for the traction of our SUV though the roadway was well-packed and dry, so we never needed 4 wheel drive. The road does get rough in a couple places, though, so be careful if you come in a low-slung car - keep your speed low and watch for ruts carefully.

We parked on a level, grassy spot and started the short hike to the raspberry rows. On the way I noticed a single row of blackberries to the left, and headed over to gather a basket of them while Lynnafred and Maryanne went for the raspberries. It didn't take us long to fill three two-quart baskets with berries.

The view east across the Connecticut River Valley from the raspberry fields was breathtaking on such a clear day.

Driving the road to the fields is a delight to the eye, and the farm is truly a local treasure. There are meadows with wildflowers, ponds, and fields of crops.  Barn swallows flit along the grassy fields and dip into the ponds as they zip by. We felt somewhat honored that the farms owners choose to share their beautiful landscape with us by opening up the farm for pick-your-own enthusiasts, rather than just offer a roadside farmstand. The kids working the picking and sales shacks are friendly and helpful. Visiting here is just a wonderful experience.

Raspberry season is just about over, so if you plan to go you should do it very soon. It looks like the blueberries will be there for a little while yet. The Kurases also sell vegetables grown there. 

Kuras Farms LLC

1901 Mountain Road

West Suffield CT 06093

860.668.2942

Harlow's Sugar House, Putney VT

I can't remember the first time I visited Harlow's Sugar House, up in Putney VT on Bellows Falls Road (US 5.)  I think it might have been the first Spring after I got my driver's license.  Some friends and I were in Vermont doing some early-season camping (yes, we were insane at the time) and decided to stop on a whim.  The sugar house had the evaporatior running on one side of the barn, and a sales area right beside it.  The people running the place - the Harlow family - were friendly and inviting, and were happy to show us - three grubby teenagers who'd been living in the snowy woods for a week - how they turned maple sap into maple sugar.  I'd like to think it more than just salesmanship, even though I left with a jug of syrup and a box of maple candy for my grandmother (who adored maple sugar candy.)

 

That first visit of mine was back in 1977. This old postcard from the late 1960's is a fairly accurate representation of what Harlow's looked like when I was first there, though.  The picture was taken from the front yard of the big house across US 5 from the sugar house. At the time the postcard was printed, Harlow's really was still gathering at least some of their sap using sledges drawn by oxen and horses, though I don't remember seeing any teams on my visit.

Harlow's is somewhat larger these days.  The evaporator is now on an extension on the north side of the building, the original sugar house is a comfortable, rustic sales room., and there's a broad porch-like overhang running the length of the front.  But even if you've only seen the postcard above, you'd still be able to recognize it as you come around the bend from the south.  To me, the changes to the building have happened gradually over the years - I try to get up there at least once every sugar season - so I couldn't tell you when they added what.

Anyway, this past weekend I decided that a ride up to Harlow's would be a fun day trip for my granddaughters, so Maryanne and I shoved 'em along with their mother (my stepdaughter Jamie) into the back of the Exploder and we hit the road. I thought it might have been a bit early in the season yet, so we were relieved to see the steam from the evaporator pouring out of the vent on the roof of the building.  As it turns out, this was their first weekend of operation - they had just started boiling on Friday.

Harlow's is still a family-run operation, four generations on now from when they opened over 80 years ago, and everyone is just as friendly now as they were when I first stumbled upon the place back in the 70's.  They weren't too busy at the time - probably because it was so early in the season - and everyone had plenty of time to chat and make us feel welcome.  The two girls were invited in to see the evaporator running, and they stood in rapt wonder in an indoor cloud as the process was explained to them, culminating with a sip of still-warm syrup tapped right from the spigot at the end of the line. You can imagine how that made their day.  The kids each got a serving of sugar on snow and sat on the floor of the showroom getting the maple candy stuck to their teeth and watching a video about syrup production while their mom and Maryanne and I poked around the sales area.  I ended up buying a half gallon of first-of-the-season syrup and a bag of maple candies.  (My grandmother passed away a few years ago but sometimes I still find myself off on the road up north, holding a packet of maple sugar and saying to myself "Hey, I should bring back some sugar for Grandma Billie...oh, shit...")

Now, I know there are plenty of sugar houses in New England, and it would be easy enough for me to find one a lot closer to home. But Harlow's is kind of like an end-of-winter tradition for me, and it's one of the few places left in southern Vermont that still feels like the old, pre-hipster-and-douchebag-invasion true New England Vermont.  Also, US 5 north of Brattleboro is a fine and beautiful ride, even in winter.

You could do a lot worse for a day trip.

Sardine Cannery To Reopen Processing Lobster

Back in February, I wrote about the closing of the last remaining sardine cannery in the US.  Bumble Bee Foods, citing a reduction in US herring catch limits, shut the former Stinson Cannery in April.  It was a big blow to the town of Prospect Harbor, where unemployment is high.  It was big news at the time - sardine canneries were once a huge part of the New England economy, especially in Maine - and the story was widely reported at the time.

The former Stinson cannery is in the news again, although this time it's not attracting nearly as much attention (probably because it's good news this time.)  Live Lobster Company of Chelsea MA has agreed to purchase the plant with an eye toward expanding its operations into processed lobster.

For now,  the company wants to use the plant as a purchasing station for locally-caught bugs, and they want to begin operations as soon as possible with lobster buying and bait sales.  The company's primary business is live lobster wholesaling to customers in Europe, Asia, and the United States, but the availability of the cannery has presented them with an opportunity to expand into processed lobster sales.

Eventually, Live Lobster Co. expects to have about 130 employees at the Prospect Harbor plant (the same number of jobs lost when Bumble Bee moved out.)  And because the lobster catch is seasonal (June through November) they plan to expand into shrimp and crab canning as well, to keep their employees working year-round.

Links:

Bangor Daily News - Processing Lobster at Stinson Cannery a "Big Deal."

Bangor Daily News - Mass. Company to Buy Closed Bumble Bee Sardine Cannery

Stinson Cannery Sale Promises Jobs for Hard Hit Prospect Harbor

Pulled Pork at Backyard BBQ, Enfield CT

My hometown has a brand-new barbecue take-out place.  It's called Backyard BBQ, and it's at the intersection of Brainard and Washington Roads in the north end of town, close to the state line.

I drive by that storefront every day on my way to work, and because there's been some activity there in recent weeks, I was keeping an eye on the site.  Glad I did, too, because they opened their doors Sunday.

Backyard BBQ is take-out only - the store is on the small side and most of it is kitchen, with a service area up front.  They have an amazingly delicious-looking selection of pastries on one side of the store, and a mouth-watering hot food service on the other side.  The mains include Half BBQ Chicken, BBQ spare ribs, pulled pork, and Angus beef sliders. (a limited menu, perhaps, but I'm sure they're keeping it simple for the nature of the place and to see how well it takes off.)  For this first visit, I chose to keep it simple and order something that I knew would give me a good indication of their quality - a pulled pork sandwich.

The photo doesn't do it justice.  As served, the pulled pork is absolutely marvelous - tender shredded pork with the occasional gorgeous chunk, slow-cooked over a hardwood charcoal fire, perfectly proportioned to the sauce it was served with.  This isn't the kind of place that serves you a pot of sauce with some pork swimming around in it, you get the real deal here.  The pork is piled high on a soft bulky roll, and I ordered extra sauce which was liberally doled out on the meat before the sandwich is crowned with the top half of the bun.  Let me tell you, it was pigmeat heaven.  These guys know their pork.  The only thing  that was a bit disappointing was the lack of bread-and-butter pickles for a sandwich topper, but I bet they add that to the menu as more people ask for them (and besides, I had some at home so we added our own.)

In short, I was favorably impressed with Backyard BBQ, and I'll be going back to try some more of their offerings - this Friday, for example, I plan to pick up some chicken and ribs for supper.  I also saw some really good-looking Greek spinach pie in the display case.  Might have to get some of that as well.

Backyard BBQ

240 Brainard Road

Enfield CT 06082

Take-out only

860.265.3910

.

Vintage Sunday: Maple Sugar Time

The nights are cold and the days are warm as spring approaches in New England, and that means the sap is running in the maple trees.  This time of year is maple sugar season, and it's a busy time in the hardwood forests here from Connecticut on north.  All of the New England states, as well as our brethren in New York State and Quebec, have native maple syrup industries, and sugaring is an increasingly popular activity on "hobby farms" and other properties that might have a sugarbush large enough to be tapped.

This children's book, Maple Sugaring Time in Vermont, was printed in 1956 in Middletown NY.  It's a wonderful and engaging look at sugaring as it was commonly practiced right up through the early 1980's.  For many producers, tin buckets and wood-fired boilers have given way to collection hoses, centrally-located holding tanks, and gas-fired multiple-stage evaporators, but the basic process is the same:  Collect sap and evaporate it down over heat until it becomes syrup (it takes about 40 gallons of maple sap to make a single gallon of syrup.)

I don't know of any producer still using an oxcart to collect sap.  Most of the sugarmen I've met use 4x4 trucks or tractors in the woods.

There are precious few weeks in sugar season.  If you live near the north country, try to get out to a commercial sugar shack near you - you'd be surprised at how many there are once you start looking for them.  You'll get to see the syrup being made, and there will be freshly-bottled syrup and maple candy available for purchase.  Some places may even be offering sugar on snow (if there's any snow - this has been kind of an odd year for snowstorms here, what with Baltimore and DC and the Jersey Shore getting all the snow and leaving us with bare roads and brown grass.)

Sugar on Snow

Maple Syrup

Snow

Dill Pickles

Heat maple syrup in a pan to about 235 degrees F (use a candy thermometer to keep track of the temperature.)  As soon as the syrup reaches the proper temperature, pour it immediately and without stirring over a pan packed snow or shaved ice. It will form a thin waxy, taffy-like sheet over the snow. Twirl it up with a fork and enjoy!

Traditionally, sugar on snow is served with dill pickles - a couple of bites of dill pickles between servings of sugar helps "reset" your taste buds so you can eat more sugar without it getting "too sweet."

.

The Last Sardine Cannery In the US to Close

For a hundred years, sardines have been processed in Prospect Harbor, Maine, at the Stinson Seafood cannery.  It was once one of 46 sardine canneries that dotted the coast of Maine at the peak of the sardine fishery in the early 1950's.  Now the Beach Cliff Sardines fisherman sign - a painted cutout that stands as tall as a telephone pole at the edge of the building's parking lot - looks out over the town from the last remaining sardine cannery  in the US.

Last remaining until April, that is.

San Diego-based Bumble Bee Foods LLC,  the current owner of the plant, announced on 17 February 2010 that they were ending operations in Prospect Harbor and closing the cannery.  Federal catch limits for herring - reduced to 180,000 metric tons in 2004 and further reduced to 91,200 metric tons this year - are blamed by the company for the closing.  They claim that the tighter limits have made it uneconomical to continue business there - even though Bumble Bee had previously told workers that they were committed to keeping the plant open regardless of the reduced catch level.

Maine is losing another bit of her history and her heritage. Prospect Harbor is  losing a piece of its identity.  And 130 people living there are losing their jobs, forced out of work in a county already struggling with a 10.9% unemployment rate.  Tender-hearted Bumble Bee says that they'll offer laid-off employees jobs that open up at their other plants in New Jersey, Canada, California, and Puerto Rico.  Mighty big of 'em. Maybe they think we've forgotten that the Snow's Clam Chowder that is now canned in Cape May NJ was also once a Maine product before they moved production out of New England and changed the recipe to slop.

Prospect Harbor, a village on the Schoodic Penninsula about 45 minutes east of Ellsworth, doesn't have many jobs to offer, and this closing is going to affect more than just the 130 people directly employed by the factory.  Area lobstermen, for example, are already being squeezed by historically low lobster prices.  They were able to buy herring for bait directly from the plant at a good, inexpensive price.  After April, lobster bait is going to be more expensive, further cutting into their pockets.

And in the meantime, selectmen and other officials from the affected towns are working to help find a buyer for the cannery and explore alternatives to sardine processing.

.

National Clam Chowder Day! (Fishy Delights 30)

Today - February 25th - is National Clam Chowder Day.  I don't know who comes up with stuff like that, but it just so happens that not only do I really like clam chowder, but I also recently enjoyed  a can of Bar Harbor Food's clam chowder for lunch.

Although I prefer to make my own clam chowder, the condensed canned variety holds a special place in my memories; my mom served us New England clam chowder the way some other moms served chicken noodle soup.  Her preferred brand was Snow's, but after a series of moves, mergers, and buyouts since 1990, Snow's ain't what it used to be and no longer has a place on my pantry shelf.  I've tried a number of brands of canned New England clam chowder in the past couple years, and have found the big national brands (Snow's, Campbell's, and Progresso, to name a few) to be pretty nasty stuff.

Not so with Bar Harbor.   Stirring a can of the condensed soup with an equal amount  of milk (using the soup can as a measuring tool) over low heat just until the chowder is bubbling hot brings me back to Mom's kitchen when I was ten years old.  Rich and clammy, smooth and without any of the unpleasant gumminess of lesser brands, I've never had to doctor up a can of Bar Harbor with extra clams or potatoes to make it satisfying.  This is a canned chowder of choice.

Just like my Mom used to, I put a pat of butter in the bottom of the bowl before ladling in the chowder, and top it off with a grind of black pepper.  There's hardly anything more welcome when coming in from shoveling a snowy driveway than a steaming mug of clam chowder.  Well...hot chocolate comes close, I guess.

.

NECCO Wafers Get A Facelift

NECCO Wafers - the oldest continuously-produced candy in the US, dating from 1847 - have undergone a major remake.  The NECCO logo has been redesigned, the packaging has been revamped, and the colors and flavors of the wafers themselves have been reformulated and new flavors introduced.

From top to bottom in the picture above:

Original NECCO Wafers:  Eight flavors:  Pink (wintergreen), purple (clove), white (cinnamon), charcoal grey (licorice), brown (chocolate), yellow (lemon), green (lime), and orange (orange.)  I've been eating these since I was a kid and I never knew the white ones were supposed to be cinnamon.  I always thought the flavor was the same pepsiny stuff that's in Beeman's Gum and wax lips.  By the way, the purple ones are my favorite.

New NECCO Wafers.  There are seven flavors now, and the company says prominently on the label that they're all natural.  Lime flavor has been dropped, but the other seven are the same, though the lemon and cinnamon are more subtle, and the chocolate flavor more strongly cocoa-flavored.

NECCO Chocolate assortment.  Chocolate NECCO wafers used to be uniformly brown chocolate wafers. Now, they come in a four-flavor chocolate assortment: Moccha, White Chocolate, Milk Chocolate, and Dark Chocolate.  There doesn't seem to be a lot of difference between the Milk and Dark flavors to me, but Lynnafred says that the Darks are more like cocoa than the Milk.  The White Chocolate flavor is heavily tinged with vanilla, yet retains the cocoa-butter back taste of good white chocolate.  And the Moccha flavor does have some coffee taste.

NECCO Smoothies.  These were really interesting and had very distinct and enjoyable flavors.  Pale blue (blueberry) was surprisingly strong-flavored and very good. Yellow (banana caramel) had a full, sweet banana flavor with just a hint of caramel-vanilla deliciousness behind it.  Tropical was a pretty good pineapple flavor with a hint of coconut.  Orangey-pink (peach) tasted like gummi peaches, sweet and mouth-wateringly fruity. Pink (strawberry creme) was also very good.  Like strawberry syrup.

Link:

NECCO's official website.

.

SuperValu Selling All Connecticut Shaw's Supermarkets

Well, the rumors we've been hearing for the past few months are true:  Minnesota-based SuperValu Inc. is pulling out of the Connecticut market, announcing today that they are selling all of the 18 Shaw's supermarkets they currently operate here.  Most of the stores are being sold to New Jersey's Wakefern Food Corporation, which owns the Shop-Rite and Price/Rite supermarkets.  A handful of othes will be purchased by Stop & Shop, and SuperValu is still trying to find buyers for the remaining two that haven''t been spoken for, which will be closed by the end of March.

Here's a breakdown of the store locations being closed, and what will be opening in their places:

• Canton - Wakefern, will reopen as Shop-Rite
• Clinton - Wakefern, will reopen as Shop-Rite
• Darien - will reopen as Stop & Shop
• East Hartford - Wakefern, will reopen as Shop-Rite.  Wakefern already has a large Price/Rite on Main Street in the center of East Hartford, but there is no information yet what will happen to that store.
• Enfield  - Wakefern, will reopen as Shop-Rite
• East Hampton - will reopen as Stop & Shop
• Fairfield - Wakefern, will reopen as Shop-Rite
• Hamden - Wakefern, will reopen as Shop-Rite
• Manchester - No buyer found yet
• New Fairfield - will reopen as Stop & Shop
• New Haven - No buyer found yet
• Newington - will reopen as Stop & Shop
• Southbury - Wakefern, will reopen as Shop-Rite
• Stratford - Wakefern, will reopen as Shop-Rite
• Vernon - will reopen as Stop & Shop
• Wallingford - Wakefern, will reopen as Shop-Rite
• West Hartford - Wakefern, will reopen as Shop-Rite
• Windham - Wakefern, will reopen as Price/Rite

Shaw's has had a tough time competing in Connecticut; they entered the state in the mid 1990's and at their peak operated 26 stores here.  In about 2005, they started closing down stores that weren't doing so well.  At one time they were the only supermarket chain operating stores in all six New England states, but that distinction will be over soon.

Shaw's pulling out of Enfield also means that they will no longer be serving the Western Massachusetts area - the closet one to here will be Sturbridge, and unfortunately they've never had a special that was worth driving that far.  I'm glad that we've got a Shop Rite opening here, though - perhaps the employees affected by the Shaw's closing will be able to keep their jobs working for Shop Rite. 

.

Maine Cold Water Shrimp

One of the things I look forward to every year is the annual Maine shrimp season.  For a couple of months every winter, Maine fishermen bring in a harvest of delicious small pink shrimp (Pandalus borealis) from the cold, clean waters of the North Atlantic.  The shrimp are tiny but unparalleled in flavor, and most important to me, they're a seasonal New England product and fit my general philosophy of eating locally-sourced foods in season (when I'm not eating canned crap that no sane individual will try, like Banner Sausage or Pork Brains in Milk Gravy.)

Although these shrimp are on the small side, I favor them over most other varieties for a number of reasons.  The taste is one: they're sweet and tender with a clean shrimp flavor.  They're easy to shell whether you peel them raw for a recipe or wait until after you cook them.  And most importantly, I know where they come from.

The fact is, the more I learned about how imported farmed shrimp are raised, processed, and transported,  the less eager I was to want to eat them, until I finally just quit the imported southeast Asian prawns altogether. 

Over the weekend, I picked up a four-pound bag of shrimp at the local Shaw's, and we had a great time cooking with these little treasures.

• Fried Shrimp - After shelling a bunch of the shrimp, I ran them through a egg/buttermilk wash and lightly dredged them in flour seasoned with good Hungarian paprika and Old Bay Seasoning.  With a tossed salad and a basket of waffle fries, we had a wonderful Friday night feast.
  
• Leave the shells on and plunge the shrimp into a pot of boiling water for a little over a minute; chill with a rinse under cold running water, and you're ready for cold peel-and-eat shrimp.  Small but satisfying, the flavor even comes through when you serve them with your own homemade cocktail sauce.
  
• How about a delicious pasta dish?  Cook a package of spinach foglie d'ulivo (olive leaf) pasta.  Drain the pasta, toss it with some olive oil to keep it from sticking together, and set it aside.  Meahwhile, melt four tablespoons of butter in a skillet.  Add three small crushed and chopped garlic cloves, a sprinkling of mixed Italian Seasoning, a sprinkling of Hungarian paprika, and a grind of black pepper to taste.  Add about 2 pounds of shelled Maine shrimp and squeeze a fat wedge of lemon over them; shake and toss over medium-high heat until the shrimp is just done - about a minute and a half, and don't overcook them!  To serve, pile up some pasta leaves on a plate, top with as many shrimp as you like, and spoon over some of the sauce that will have formed in the pan as the shrimp was cooked.  It's awesome.

We're lucky this year: The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission's Northern Shrimp Section approved an extension of the 2009-2010 shrimp fishing season to 180 days thanks to abundant stocks and the absence of overfishing, and there are plenty of shrimp hitting seafood counters around New England.  Take advantage of it, and give the Maine shrimp a try. 

.

Fishy Delights 28: Bar Harbor Whole Maine Cherrystone Clams

Good canned clams are an essential in my kitchen. As long as I have them handy, I can make up a quick batch of clam chowder, or some mouthwatering buttery seafood stuffing, or some tasty clam dip. I particularly like Bar Harbor Whole Maine Cherrystone Clams - the quality is superb, and as a special bonus they're a New England product (buying locally-produced foods is important to me.)

Unlike some other brands' canned "baby clams," which are as small as a dime and come from who-knows-where, Bar Harbor whole cherrystones are decent-sized, all-natural bivalve meats, plump and briney and taken from the cold waters of the North Atlantic off the Maine coast.

Have you ever made your own clam dip? Homemade dip is way better than the premade stuff you find in the refrigerated section of the supermarket, and with a can of these clams you're halfway there.

Dave's Clam Dip

1 can (6½ ounces) Bar Harbor Whole Maine Cherrystone Clams, drained, reserve the broth.
4 ounces cream cheese
1/2 cup sour cream
2 tablespoons Hidden Valley Ranch Dip Mix
1 teaspoon McCormick Worcesterchire Ground Black Pepper Blend
1/2 teaspoon good Hungarian paprika

Blend the cream cheese with 2 tablespoons of the reserved clam broth until the cheese is the correct consistency for dip. If the mixture is too thick, add more clam broth a tiny bit at a time until the proper consistency is reached. Stir in the sour cream, Ranch Dip mix, Worcestershire pepper blend, and paprika and stir until well-combined. Chop the clams roughly and stir them into the dip. Cover and refrigerate overnight to allow the flavors to blend and bring out the delicious clam flavor.

Now, this recipe will result in some leftover clam juice. Lucky for you that the very best Bloody Marys are made with clam juice. Tomato juice with clam juice added to taste (I like about a 70/30 blend) with a shot of Tabasco sauce, a spoonful of fresh horseradish stirred in, and spiked with a good dose of vodka. Awesome.
.

Fishy Delights 27: Bar Harbor Wild Herring Fillets

I can't believe that it's taken me this long to write about Bar Harbor Foods' canned products; they are a pantry staple for me, especially the chowders and canned fish, and since this is the 27th entry in my "Fishy Delights" series, you'd think that I would have gotten to them sooner.

Anyway, today's review covers two of Bar Harbor Foods' Wild Caught Fish varieties: Wild Herring Fillets Seasoned with cracked pepper, and Wild Herring Fillets in Stone Ground Mustard Sauce. Both offer big meaty herring fillets and all-natural ingredients.

Wild Herring Fillets Seasoned with Cracked Pepper are delicious, with a lightly smoked flavor and lots of relatively fine-grained cracked black pepper. The pepper's natural fruitiness compliments the fish very well, and the spice comes through without being overwhelming. I loved them as is for lunch, but I'm betting these would be an awesome alternative to tuna in a salad-sandwich filling.

Wild Herring Fillets in Stone Ground Mustard Sauce are just as good. The mustard sauce wasn't harsh or obtrusive - again, it complimented the fish nicely without overpowering it. As with the cracked pepper fillets, I ate these as is for lunch, with some sesame flatbread crackers and paper-thin onion slices on the side. Excellent.

I've got some other Bar Harbor stuff to review as well, thanks to a sale at my favorite discount store, Ocean State Job Lot, and I'll try to get to them over the next few weeks.

Link:

Bar Harbor Foods website. The site includes a search page where you can find a store in your area carrying their products.

.

An Old Fashioned A&W - Greenville RI

I should have written this post a long time ago - like back in the early autumn when I first found the place - but there always seemed to be something else going on. Now, their season is winding down, and I'm not sure how much longer anyone will be able to visit the drive-up A&W Root Beer stand in Greenville RI before they close for the season.

When I was a kid, just about every town had an A&W stand. They were one of the first franchised "fast food" places, starting way back before 1920, and by the 1960's there were thousands of locations all over the country. They fell on hard times, though, and a lot of locations closed before they were finally taken over - and kind of rejuvenated - by YUM! Brands, the same company that owns KFC and Taco Bell.

Anyway, most recent A&W visits I've made have been to places that shared space with a KFC. But when I was a wee sprog, A&Ws were low-slung little buildings, sometimes with a big "wing" sticking out the front tagged with an A&W sign, where you drove up, a carhop came out to your car and took your order, and returned with your food on a tray that cantilevered from the window opening of the car. There was never any indoor seating, but some of them had outdoor picnic tables (and you could walk up to a window and order.) To be honest, I thought all of that was a thing of the past - the last A&W drive up local to me closed in the early 1980's.

We never expected to find this little place, which we stumbled upon when we were questing for a Rhode Island KFC in our search for the Double Down sandwich. But since that first time, we've been back for more visits. It's a nostalgic trip back in time for Maryanne and I, and we found that the root beer on tap is almost as good as it was back then (and it's still better than the bottled version in the supermarket.)

Like many of the A&W I remember from my youth, service is available both at the window and from your car, and there is a lean-to off the side of the building sheltering a handful of picnic tables. On a few of our visits (splendid and mild autumn days with the trees breaking out in full color) the picnic tables were crowded and the carhops busy, so we simply ordered at the window and brought our own food to the car.

Apparently, A&W places have a little more leeway with their menus than most fast food chains. There were many "non-standard" items, like fried clams, clamcakes, and both kinds of clam chowder (clear-broth, or "Rhode Island" style, and white "New England" style.) The clam cakes were great. Maryanne and I tried a bag of clamcakes, and they were great - big savory fried fritters loaded with chunks of meaty quahogs. The chowders were decent as well, though I admit to a slight preference for the Rhode Island style over the New England here, because the New England chowder was thickened with starch rather than a buttery milky roux. Be sure to get there early if you plan on getting the Rhode Island chowder. It's a popular item and they sell out by the end of the lunchtime rush.

As far as more traditional A&W eats go: The fries are decent - I know A&W's curly fries have a cult following, but I just can't bring myself to get all excited about spuds. The burgers are much better than McDonald's or Wendy's and would even have an edge on Burger King if they were flame-broiled. Still, we weren't at all disappointed by them. Onion rings are real sliced onion, coated in a tasty batter. Plain hot dogs were underwhelming, though the chili dogs - once upon a time my primary reason for going to A&W - were just as awesoome as I remember, though you need to take that with a grain of salt and remember that chilidogs appeal to my inner 8-year-old.

The service is fast and the food is decent, nostalgic fun. The carhop service and window trays are kind of cool, too - Zim thought so, anyway, when he hopped into the driver's seat to see what all the fuss was about.

If you're in the area during the season, I recommend you check them out - they're on US44 in Greenville (460 Putnam Pike.) They're open from March through October. Go on a Tuesday night in the summer, and you can check out the classic cars at their Cruise Night events.

Lobster Price Update

Back in June, I wrote about the lingering depression in the lobster market, with live-and-kicking bugs selling in southern Maine hanging at $4.99 a pound, the lowest price in years. Well, we were back in the south-of-Portland area again on Saturday the 17th, and I couldn't believe how much lower prices have gone since then.

Boston dock prices (the price paid to fishermen) are as low as $2.50 a pound, with most lobsters selling for between $2.75 and $3.00 a pound. The retail prices in Maine, from Kittery to Scarborough, was $3.49 to $3.99 a pound.

For some reason, though, restaurant prices in the area aren't reflecting this reality. At Fisherman's Catch in Wells, for example, a twin lobster dinner was being advertised at the "market price" of $21.99. Sorry, but when I can stop at any lobster pound and buy 1½-pounders for $3.99 a pound, there's something not quite right with that story. (End of season or no, I suspect that the reason more people weren't ordering lobster on Saturday had something to do with the price.)

Earlier this month, fishermen were selling lobsters on craigslist at $3.50 a pound - driven there because that direct-to-diner price was still a dollar more a pound than brokers were willing to offer them. It's a great time to buy lobster.
.

Cape Cod Potato Chips - New Flavors and Old Favorites

A short time ago, the friendly folks at Cape Cod Potato Chips sent me a box of assorted varieties of chips and popcorns to sample and review. The popcorn was a big hit with my friends and family. It took us a little longer to try all of the potato chip flavors - the package included old favorites as well as tasty new ones - but after sharing the deliciousness for the past couple of weeks, I'm ready to tell you about Cape Cod's flavors.

Classic and 40% Reduced Fat: When I was a kid, just learning how to cook, I heard the story about how potato chips were "invented." You've probably heard it too: George Crum, a chef in Saratoga Springs NY, was fed up with a restaurant patron who kept sending back his fried potatoes complaining they were too thick and soggy. Chef Crum, thoroughly pissed off, sliced the final batch paper-thin and fried them so crispy they couldn't be eaten with a fork. The diner loved them and "Saratoga Chips" were born. That story inspired me to try to make my own potato chips in the kitchen; they were pretty good but took a lot of work for an impatient teenager, so I only cooked my own a few times a year.

I was in my twenties when I first tried Cape Cod's Classic chips - thick cut and kettle cooked, with just the right amount of salt added to enhance the flavor. I think they were the first commercial "kettle" style potato chip I'd ever tried, and they were great. I'm happy to say that their quality has never wavered - every time I've opened a bag of Cape Cod Classic chips, they've been as good as the first bag I ever dug into in the mid-80's.

A couple of years ago, some friends suggested I try the 40% Reduced Fat version of the Classic chips. The Reduced Fat version is truly amazing; Cape Cod has managed to remove almost have the fat from their chip without any reduction at all in flavor, quality, or mouthfeel. Seriously, it is extremely difficult - if not impossible - to tell the difference between the two in a blind tasting. If you love your potato chips but need to cut down on your fat intake, Cape Cod's 40% Reduced Fat chips can help you.

Robust Russet: Russet potatoes, having a higher sugar content than some other varieties, cook up darker and more flavorful than regular chips. Cape Cod's Robust Russet chips are Lynnafred's favorites; she like the full-bodied flavor and strong crunch. I like them because the flavor stands up well and doesn't get "lost" when enjoying chips 'n' dips. If you're a fan of lightly cooked chips, leave these on the shelf. Cape Cod says people either "love them or hate them" and if you cant crunch into a darker chip without thinking "burnt," these just aren't for you.

New Buttermilk Ranch was an instant favorite with everyone who tried it. Not too salty with a delicious, tangy Ranch flavor, this was the first bag we opened (to accompany bacon-cheeseburgers for supper) and that bag never saw the dawn. I loved them with a simple sour cream dip - the chips magically turned it into Ranch dip! - while Lynnafred and my wife Maryanne enjoyed them right out of the bag. They were also pretty damn good added atop deli-sliced turkey in a turkey sandwich (adding both taste and crunch.) Don't give me that look - you know you're going to try it now that I gave you the idea.

Sea Salt and Vinegar: This is one of my all-time favorite potato chip flavors - I love the sharp, acidic taste of vinegar (and that's why I'm such a fan of all kinds of pickles.) Vinegar is a natural enhancement for potatoes, and Cape God gets the balance just right with these chips. There's just enough vinegar to "sharpen the edges" and not so much that the flavor overpowers the spuds. Probably my favorite of the flavored varieties.

Cheddar Jack and Sour Cream: These cheesy chips are one of Lynnafred's favorites. The combination of sour cream and cheddar works well together and give the chips a flavor very much like Kraft Macaroni & Cheese.

Sweet Mesquite Barbecue: Normally, I hate barbecue-flavored potato chips, and I can truly say that I would never - ever - have gone out and bought this variety if Cape Cod hadn't sent a bag for review. What a surprise to find out how good these were! Sweet and spicy, with a delicious tomato background, the smoky mesquite flavor is mellow and soft-edged. Smoke flavoring is too often applied with a heavy hand, leaving an "ashtray" flavor, but not with these chips. Maryanne mentioned that they'd be great with grilled burgers, and I agree. Sweet Mesquite Barbecue chips are winners.

Sea Salt and Cracked Black Pepper: There are a lot of flavor notes going on in these chips - sweet, salty, pepper, garlic I think, a hint of buttermilk - and I just don't understand why chip manufacturers can't simply make a chip with salt and black pepper and that's it. I would love a chip like that, but I haven't been able to find one (check the ingredient labels and you'll see.)

Parmesan and Roasted Garlic: From the instant the bag is opened, there is no doubt that mellow roasted garlic is the foremost flavor in this chip, and the parmesan cheese takes a back seat to it. I couldn't believe how polarizing this flavor was when I put them out at a party - people either loved them and went back for seconds by the handful, or they hated them - hated the very smell of them and wouldn't take more than a nibble for the sake of tasting a sample. I thought they were pretty good. They went great with a sliced-pork-roast sandwich.

Jalapeno and Aged Cheddar: I liked these. The cheddar flavor went nicely with the jalapeno heat, which gave a mild-to-medium burn and a long, lingering warm finish. (These chips weren't included with the review package I recieved, so I went out and bought a bag. Glad I did.)

I hope the new flavors are well-received and become as successful as the old favorites. Cape Cod makes great snacks and they're always a top choice when I'm looking for kettle chips.


Links:

Cape Cod Potato Chips website

Direct link to Cape Cod's potato chip page.

.

Foraging Suburbia: Sugar Plums

Forty years ago a shopping mall was built in my home town. It was anchored on one side by national discount retailer F W Woolworth's, and on the other side by local Connecticut department store Sage-Allen. Off to one side was a sparkling new free-standing First National supermarket. The architects designed a clean, modern-looking complex and planted the islands in the parking lot with beautiful flowering trees.

There have been a lot of changes at that mall over the past forty years. Woolworth's went out of business, and Sage-Allen followed. The supermarket building that once seemed so huge became tiny in comparison to the mega-supermarkets that have become today's trend, and First National abandoned it as they became Finast, then Edward's, and then sputtered into oblivion, absorbed by Dutch grocery giant Royal Ahold.

The mall saw some hard times. When most of the stores had finally closed, it was gutted and remodeled and turned into an open plaza with new tenants. The parking lots were repaved and repainted. New restaurants and buildings were added near the street and the new plaza thrived.

And through it all, the flowering trees prospered and grew. Their canopies spread over the freshly-striped parking spots. They budded and flowered in the spring, and the leaves fell and were removed in autumn, and the shoppers parked under them and brought out their parcels and went about their business, never really looking at the trees unless they were vying for a shady place to park in the heat of the summer.

Some of those trees are sugar plums. They're big, mature trees now and every summer around this time they're heavy with juicy little plums. So, every summer around this time, I park my truck under a couple of them and stand in the back so I can reach the fruit, usually picking six or seven pounds of sugar plums to munch or cook down into jam. People give me funny looks, but I don't care. The plums are "hiding in plain sight," so to speak, and they're only part of the bounty that's all around us if only we care to look.

Black raspberries should be ripening any time now. After that there'll be fat Concord grapes. And if I can get to them before the squirrels, I might be able to get a bushel of black walnuts soon. Stay tuned.

.

Frank Pepe Pizzeria Napoletana, Manchester CT

Back in October 2008, I wrote about the famous Frank Pepe Pizzeria Napoletana on Wooster Street in New Haven CT. It's an iconic pizza restaurant and a genuine "destination dining spot" for people all over the Northeast. And now I can get their great New Haven pizza a lot closer to home, at the new Frank Pepe Pizzeria Napoletana in Manchester CT.

The outside bears little resemblance to the brick storefront original, and the surroundings are certainly different, plopped upon a retail pad site in the Buckland Hills shopping development that includes dozens of stand-alone commercial buildings clustered around the mammoth Shoppes At Buckland Hill mall. Inside the door, though, the Pepe aura is strong.

Just as in New Haven, prospective diners wait in a small foyer until a booth becomes available inside, and when the foyer fills up (as it did the day we were there) one is required to wait outside. This caused a good deal of grumbling among the Northern Connecticut people who were unaccustomed to the way Pepe's does things, and who were left standing in the cold December air outside. But wait times here are short and no one had to spend very much time outdoors after all.

Inside, we found that they've replicated the New Haven coal-fired pizza oven, virtually brick by brick, right down to the cast iron doors and hinges. Spaghetti-board menus, roomy booths, white walls, and black tin ceilings all evoke the 1920's charm of the original restaurant. No one would ever be able to completely duplicate the original Pepe's with its patina of age and comfort, but the owners of the Manchester branch have done a very good job of capturing the atmosphere and ambiance of the original, right down to the old-fashioned six-ounce beverage glasses and Foxon Park birch beer.

But let's face it: Who cares about atmosphere when you're there to get a great pizza? And I am happy to relate that the pizzas from the the Manchester brick oven are every bit as delicious as the ones from New Haven. We had a pepperoni pie and a spinach and bacon pie, and they were perfect. Unfortunately, I was unable to get my favorite, the fresh clam pie, because a breaking winter storm that day had prevented that day's clam delivery. Maybe next time!

---

Frank Pepe's Manchester location is at 221 Buckland Hills Drive, Manchester CT, to the left of the La-Z-Boy showroom (they share a parking lot.) They're open every day from 11:30 am to 10:00 pm, and their phone number is 860-644-7333. Click here for directions.

.

Bistro Cuisine Chicken Pot Pie

I love pot pies. When I was a kid, it was always a treat when there were pot pies for supper, especially if they were the cheap-ass Banquet Pot Pies that we could get for something like 15c each.

Truth is, those cheap-ass Banquet pies are still my favorite, but every now and then I try other brands as well. Lately, our local Shaw's had a freezer full of these Bistro Cuisine Chicken Pies on sale as a "manager's special," so I brought a bunch home.

Preparation was a snap: The pie went into the microwave for four minutes, and I allowed it to stand for another three minutes as the instructions stated. (Although pot pies have adapted well to microwave "cooking," and it certainly is convenient, I sometimes get a little nostalgic for the little aluminum tins they used to come in. The kitchen always smelled so good when there was a tray of little pot pies baking in the oven. It's just not the same with the microwave.)

The top crust is a circle of puff pastry which comes out of the microwave flaky and tender. There are lots of large, meaty chunks of white-meat chicken, accented with veggies (peas, corn, and carrots) without allowing the vegetables to predominate. The gravy, while deliciously flavorful (made with chicken broth and finely minced celery, onion, and carrots) is a little on the thick side to my taste - and yet, it is never gluey or unpleasant; I just happen to prefer my gravy a little runnier. Bistro Cuisine has done a really good job here - the Nutrition Facts on the box shows good, honest ingredients without a bunch of additives or preservatives. It made for a satisfying lunch that tasted a lot closer to homemade than the average frozen pot pie.

Bistro Cuisine Chicken Pies are made by Budd Foods in Manchester, NH. Click here to visit their website.

Frank Pepe Pizzeria Napoletana, New Haven

Italian food is ubiquitous in American cuisine, having been quite thoroughly assimilated in the 150 years since the first great waves of Italian immigrants arrived here in the 19th century. And no Italian food has been more thoroughly Americanized than pizza, that savory flatbread which has taken a place beside hamburgers, hot dogs, and apple pie in the American Food Hall of Fame.

For many pizza lovers, the Northeast is the capitol of American pizza, especially in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island, with their large numbers of Italian-American residents. And there, almost central to this pizza-heavy region, is New Haven, where perhaps the best pizza in the US is made.

There are three amazing pizzerias in New Haven: one on State Street (Modern Apizza Place) and two on Wooster Street (Pepe's and Sally's.) Each have their strengths and weaknesses. On this visit to New Haven, we stopped at Pepe's because I'd been jonesing for a Clam Pie for months, and that's Pepe's specialty.

Pepe's is a busy place, and one nearly always has to wait in line to get in. Even though we arrived a little after 3:00 on a Friday afternoon, there were already two parties in front of us. We took a seat on one of the benches in the foyer, and it wasn't long before we were being shown to a booth.

It's not a fancy place. Founded in the mid 1920's, very little has changed in the eighty-some-odd years since Frank Pepe's first tomato pie slid into the now-famous brick oven at the back of the building. The walls are immaculate white, the roomy straight-backed booths finished in black, which matches the painted tin ceilings. Brass numbers on the walls identify each booth. And the menu is simple: pizza, in three sizes (small, medium, large) topped as desired from the choices posted on the wall.

Each of us ordered a different small pizza to get a taste across the spectrum. My wife Maryanne got a pepperoni/mozzarella, my daughter Lynn a spinach/bacon/mozzarella, and I ordered a clam pie with anchovies.

A small pizza at Pepe's is a 10-inch pie if you ask your waitress. What actually comes out of the oven is somewhat larger, however. New Haven style pizza has a very thin crust and is irregular in shape. At Pepe's, each pie is hand-formed, topped, and slid into the superhot coal-fired brick oven on a long-handled wooden pizza peel. Maryanne's pepperoni pie was topped with tiny, delicious slices of pepperoni, the perfect amount of mozzarella cheese, and the barest kiss of tomato sauce featuring pieces of flavorful fresh tomatoes. Lynn's spinach/bacon pizza was similarly perfect, with the same spare spread of tomato sauce, a touch of mozzarella, crisp pieces of thick-sliced bacon, and green stretches of chopped spinach. The thin crusts were soft near the center of the pies, but crunchy-crisp along the edges. Because of the high heat of the oven, crusts generally come out somewhat darker than the mediocre chain-store pizzas so many people order from huts or dot-covered tiles. The smokey, crunchy, almost-burnt crusts are a special treat all by themselves. Lynn, who has eaten pizza from NYC to Boston and all points in between, said that hers was probably the best pizza she has ever tasted. Maryanne praised her pepperoni pizza as well even though she prefers a thicker Connecticut Valley style crust.

As delicious as their pizzas were, however, I reserve special praise for the clam pie. There is nothing at all like it. The crust is lightly brushed with a bit of olive oil, then sprinkled with chopped garlic, freshly shucked clams, grated hard Italian cheeses, and a light sprinkle of dried herbs. It's simply amazing, and well worth the drive downstate from our home near the Massachusetts state line. I added anchovies for an extra fishy bump, but I'll leave them off next time; as much as I love anchovies, the salt kick was a little strong when combined with the grated cheese.

Link:
Frank Pepe Pizzaria Napoletana's website

.