Home Away From Home: Part 3

Because Veteran's Day fell on a Tuesday this year and eliminated the possibility of a long weekend, my mother and I had to rearrange the usual plan for our Veteran's Day shopping weekend in Maine.

I took a half day on Friday, and we decided to stop in Kittery for our first round of shopping instead of plowing straight on to Freeport and hitting LL Bean so late that everything else is closed, as we would normally do.

We arrived in Kittery around 3:30 p.m. and immediately stopped into the Crate&Barrel outlet. I scanned the store for any new gadgets, dishes, or cookbooks I might want. Somehow I only bought some boxes for giving away Christmas cookies and escaped without buying up everything in the place.

We went to a few other stores and decided to stop for a "snack." Unfortunately, there aren't too many options around. There's Bob's Clam Hut, which is great for fried seafood, if that's what you're in the mood for, but we weren't. There's Weathervane, which I really don't like. There's Burger King, which doesn't even count. And lastly, there's Robert's. I love Robert's. I make it a point to go there any time I'm in Kittery.

Thinking we would just pop in, sit at the bar, and have a couple of appetizers, we headed in that direction. Drinks were easy enough: The bartender said "raspberry cosmos," and we said, "OK." Then we started looking at the menu... and the specials.

Our order ended up being two Duxbury oysters, steamed mussels a la Howard, the fall salad, and the linguine with clams special. So much for a snack!

Soon after we ordered, the bartender brought over some crackers and an artichoke spread. We munched on these and sipped our cosmos until the oysters and mussels arrived. I wasn't in an oyster mood that day, so I didn't have one, but my mother said they were delicious.


The mussels a la Howard were definitely my favorite part of the meal. The steamed mussels are served in a bowl of cream sauce with fennel and sausage. I would scoop each mussel out of its shell, swirl it around in the cream sauce, and spear a piece of sausage to eat with it. I've had a lot of steamed mussels in wine sauce dishes before but nothing like this.


Then the fall salad arrived. Knowing we were splitting it, the bartender had asked the chef to put it on two plates, so we each got a dish of greens with cranberries and walnuts, topped with goat cheese and a roasted shallot vinaigrette.

By that time we were ready for new drinks. My mother ordered a blueberry martini made with Cold River potato vodka. We had been to Freeport earlier this year for a food and drink tasting and had sampled this particular vodka. I found the aftershock too harsh, but my mother didn't. I ordered a pumpkin martini, which I think had rum rather than vodka, as well as some nutmeg... and based on how I slept that night, possibly some espresso.

Our entree arrived, also split between two dishes. It was wonderful and was my mother's favorite. I loved it but didn't think it took rank over the mussels.


And to finish our "snack," we had bite-size desserts. I can't even tell you what a great idea this is. By the time I finish dinner, I usually want dessert but know most of it will go to waste because I'm so full. At Robert's you can get any of the desserts in a bite-size version. My mother ordered the blueberry crumble, and I got the mocha fudge cake. They came served in small ramekins. We had enough to sample our own desserts and try a little of each other's. It was the perfect ending to the meal.

Home Away From Home: Part 2

This October I went to the Cape twice -- on Columbus Day weekend (as is tradition) and also the following weekend (to finally check out the Wellfleet Oyster Festival).



I was looking forward to my annual visit to The Wicked Oyster. Unfortunately, things didn't start off so well and kept getting worse. I wanted to go the first weekend when my boyfriend was with me, but we had a group of 7 and couldn't get a reservation. We went next door to the Duck Creeke Tavern instead. While it was nice, it was no Wicked Oyster in my book. The following weekend when I returned to the Cape with some friends, we still had a large group that needed to be accommodated. My mother knew how much I wanted to go to the Wicked Oyster and made a reservation at the only time they had available to seat a party of 8: 9:30 p.m. When we got there at 9:15, we were told we would be seated soon. At 10:30 we finally had a table. If there hadn't been a Red Sox game on in the bar and delicious cranberry mojitos to sip, I might have just given up.

Our waitress didn't seem to think much of the fact that we had waited an hour for a table we had reserved. When I used to waitress, if I had an upset table, I would work my hardest to make my customers happy, even if I hadn't been the cause of their problem. She clearly didn't think that way. She continued our miserable experience by being somewhat inattentive and blase.

But on to the food... I ordered the butternut squash soup and the pan roasted catch of the day. The soup was just ok. My dad makes a better one. And the catch of the day was black cod, served with fingerling potatoes, leeks, and littlenecks in a cream sauce. The fish was nicely cooked and overall I enjoyed the dish.

My brother and my roommate both got the night's special, which was salmon resting on spinach vichyssoise with a cornmeal salmon cake. It would have been fine had the salmon been cooked. My roommate sent hers back in spite of the waitress's explanation that salmon is usually cooked medium rare. No, tuna is cooked medium rare. Salmon should be fully cooked, at least that's what I've always heard, unless you're having sushi. Has she not read this? (Of course I didn't bring it up as dinner, as much as I may have wanted to.)

Everyone else seemed to enjoy their meals (sole, fried calamari, lamb ravioli, veggie ravioli), but I think being seated so late and feeling so neglected left us all feeling a bit disappointed with the whole evening.

I've had other experiences there that have been wonderful, but this year just left a bad taste in my mouth, and I'm not sure I'll be able to go back for more than a cranberry mojito next year, but hopefully I can remember the good times and give it another chance.

Home Away From Home: Part 1

Isn't it amazing how sometimes you can go to a place and feel as though you live there even though you don't? For me this happens with the Eastham/Wellfleet area of Cape Cod and Freeport and Kittery, Maine. I go to the Cape every summer and every Columbus Day weekend, and I go to Freeport and Kittery every Veteran's Day weekend.

October is my favorite time to head down to the Cape because it's so peaceful, the weather is practically perfect (ok, so some years we've had rain, but other years it's been 75 degrees and sunny), and the traffic doesn't really exist. A couple of years ago, my mom and I discovered The Wicked Oyster, a restaurant in Wellfleet. After a cranberry mojitos each, we were hooked. The food is delicious, and we now go every year.

When the oyster cravings hit, we head to the Bookstore & Restaurant, where a man known as "the fossil" is always there, shucking away. My mom can stomach the Bloody Marys, but I find them spiked with just a little too much horseradish.



In Freeport, we discovered Conundrum. Being a bit farther down the road, it was a nice change of pace from all the restaurants in town. We first went there about three years ago, even though we've been having a shopping weekend in Freeport for much longer than that. November brings some colder weather, and one of my fondest memories of Conundrum is waiting out on the back patio, gathered around huge gas warmers with other patrons, and the cosmos we sipped to keep warm. We always think we can eat more than we can there. The beef stew is listed as an appetizer, but I eat it for my meal now. The shepherd's pie tends to sell out early, as it's a favorite there... and it's easy to understand why. The restaurant is dimly lit and might accommodate about 65 people at the bar, hightops, and regular tables. There's always a crowd.

When we tire of Freeport, we head down to Kittery to finish shopping and pay a visit to Robert's Maine Grill and Market. We've sat by the window and looked at the water with my younger siblings in tow. We've gone other times and sat at the bar drinking Bloody Marys and slurping down oysters. I've taken my boyfriend there as well. I've always had a wonderful experience and a great meal. Here, the atmosphere is a total 180 from Conundrum. You walk in to white and light blue and green and a stainless steel bar. Everything is bright in that crisp, clean way. After you place your order, the waiter or waitress will bring over crackers with different butters or spreads. Last time I had a salmon spread of some sort, which I really enjoyed.

And now I also have to add The Brewster House to my Freeport list. When we first started making this shopping trip a tradition, we would try a new bed and breakfast each year. Once we found the Brewster House, we felt no need to shop around anymore, so to speak.

Peanut Butter Pie

There is no greater combination than peanut butter and chocolate when it comes to dessert, so when I went to meet my boyfriend's family for the first time, I knew exactly what I had to make: peanut butter pie. And we're not talking PB pie like you get at a restaurant that's so dense it's almost cheesecake. And we're not talking one that's sprinkled with peanuts and drizzled with chocolate either. We're talking crunchy cookie crust; light, airy, and creamy peanut butter filling, and soft chocolate ganache.

Peanut Butter Pie

Crust
1 3/4 cup chocolate wafer crumbs
(I always use Nabisco Famous Chocolate Wafers)
3 TBS sugar
5 TBS melted, unsalted butter

Blend together and press into 9-inch pie plate. Bake at 350 for 10 min. Let cool.

Filling
8 oz cream cheese, softened
1 cup creamy peanut butter (I'm a Skippy snob)
1 cup sugar
1 1/2 cups chilled heavy cream

Beat cream cheese with peanut butter until smooth. Add sugar and beat until well combined. In chilled bowl with chilled beaters, beat heavy cream until soft peaks form. Fold 1/4 into peanut butter mixture, then fold in the rest. Gently mound filling in crust and chill 4 hours or overnight.


Topping
1/2 cup heavy cream
6 oz semisweet chocolate chips

Bring cream to a boil. Remove from heat. Stir in chocolate chips. Let cool 15-20 minutes. Pour over pie. Chill for 30 minutes.


I made a little whipped cream to go on the side, which isn't necessary, but it does help cut the richness of the cake if you don't make your cream too sweet. This pie was a crowd-pleaser, as it always is. My only regret was that I was too full from dinner to even have any. It's good that I was snitching some as I was making it, and licking the bowls, of course.

Roasted Pumpkin, Sage, And Goat Cheese Pasta

I'd never roasted a pumpkin before. Today seemed as good a time as any to try. I've made squash; this couldn't be much different. Also, the recipe I wanted to try was in Everyday Food. I knew it had to be fairly simple because that's a magazine I turn to for straightforward but full-flavored recipes.

So I set out all my ingredients and got to work.



The pumpkin just stared at me dauntingly. I could almost hear it taunting... you think you're going to peel me? Turns out peeling was the easy part. Trying to cut off the top and bottom of the pumpkin was the difficult part. I sharpened my 8-inch Wusthof chef's knife, but it barely seemed a match for the pumpkin's tough flesh. Out came my bread knife. I thought maybe I could saw the top off. At any rate, after a combination of the two, the task was finally accomplished.

 


Next up: peeling. My roommate has this really nice handheld peeler -- the whole thing sits in the palm of your hand and you just put one finger through a loop on the outside -- that was perfect for the task.



The rest of the recipe is beyond simple. Cut the pumpkin into chunks; peel and quarter some shallots; toss pumpkin and shallots with sage, salt and pepper, and oil; and pop it all in the oven.



While that was roasting, I cooked the pasta and mixed it with some of the pasta water, goat cheese, and butter.



And then once the pumpkin mixture was roasted and the pumpkin chunks nice and tender, I took it out of the oven and mixed it up with the pasta.




It was the perfect fall meal.



And because I had started with a whole pumpkin, I had a whole bunch of pumpkin seeds that could not possibly go to waste. I roasted those as well with a little water and some salt. Something else for me to snack on all day long!