It wasn't all misery

So, after four postings detailing what was wrong with my Christmas vacation, was there anything right about it? Certainly spending time with my brother and sister counts as a positive. Jeremiah and Ellen are both very funny people, so they kept me laughing.  Not everyone is lucky enough to have siblings they genuinely like and enjoy spending time with.  And they were properly sympathetic and supportive as regards my travel woes. On Christmas morning we got up and opened the presents under the tree, just like we did when we were kids. Three people in their 60s exclaiming with glee about this present and that, as if we were seven years old. There were even goodies in our stockings -- hung by the chimney with care -- thanks to Elf Ellen & Elf Jeremiah, who slipped things in at different times. (Elf Melody completely forgot about the stockings, as soon as she'd asked, upon seeing them when she first arrived, "Is there anything in our stockings?" "Not yet!" E & J both exclaimed. "It isn't Christmas morning yet!")

The dinner we had at the Broadmoor Hotel on Christmas Eve was lovely. This huge hotel, located at the lower edge of the foothills that lead up into the Rockies, is actually a AAA Five-Diamond luxury resort, ranked #1 among 104 hotels in Colorado on TripAdvisor. It naturally has several restaurants; we ate at the elegant Charles Court, which is in what they call Broadmoor West, the building on the other side of small, pretty Cheyenne Lake, which lies behind the main building. Both my appetizer -- Little lettuce with duck confit -- and main course -- Jumbo Lump Maryland Crab Cakes -- were excellent. E & J both had the Coconut Crusted Atlantic Salmon, which they also proclaimed excellent. (And note that we were all consuming perfectly prepared seafood, far from the sea.) Because Ellen was on her pain medication, and Jeremiah is essentially a tee-totaler, we didn't have wine, but I enjoyed a Rusty Nail, which soon had me feeling pleasantly relaxed, all thought of my missing suitcase banished for the moment.

The meal served to remind me of my former life, when such dinners out, with friends or my current Significant Other, were not that much of a rarity. I am someone who has never liked to cook, but has always enjoyed "fine dining," as the cliche goes. This evening at the Charles Court was a perfect example of that, with only a few negative notes sounded during the course of the evening (it was a little too cool when we first sat down, the main course took a little too long to appear on the scene). And the hotel was beautifully decorated, with a gorgeous Christmas tree in the lobby of the building we were in (I adore Christmas trees), and trees throughout the grounds covered with lights, turning the grounds into a true winter wonderland. It was also snowing, lightly, which also contributed to the magical look and feel of the evening.

But speaking of the Christmas lights reminds me of a surprising positive note that was sounded on my unfortunate flight back to Portland. On the bus ride from O'Hare Airport to the hotel, as we came off of the freeway, we were greeted by all these trees and shrubs and wire shapes covered with multicolored lights. Even from the depths of my black mood, I couldn't help noticing, and feeling amazed, particularly by the scale of the display. I haven't been able to find online any kind of explanation for this incredible display -- was it just the city of Des Plaines going all out? Something the businesses in the area did? -- but it was unquestionably something "right" about my Christmas vacation.

Playing host

My sister Ellen, who lives in Colorado, finally arrived for her visit, a couple of weeks ago.  It was her first ever trip to Maine, and she was properly impressed, though this was not one of our "glorious" autumns. I think it was too warm and dry too long for the trees to produce their usual flaming scarlets/salmons/ yellows. And naturally, after two solid weeks of absolutely gorgeous weather, the weather chose not to cooperate the week she was here. The first day after her arrival (in the dead of night) was forecast to be the only reliably sunny day of the week, so we raced off to the coast, as a coastline, dotted with almost obscenely picturesque towns, is one thing they do not have in Colorado. We hit Rockport and Camden -- lots of photo ops in both places, with their beautiful little harbors full of boats -- would have gone on to Rockland, but both of us had run out of steam.

At Camden we had lunch in a very pleasant little Greek cafe called Cafe Mediterranean. Adorable, tiny interior, but we ate out on the small terrace, which was lovely. I've since learned, at good ol' Tripadvisor and elsewhere, that the place has gotten very mixed reviews, and my own review would be mixed. Service was painfully slow, as several people mentioned (and we were hungry!), the dish we both ordered -- salmon kebob -- was o.k., to my mind, but not distinctive, which was also true of the tzatziki we shared. When properly made, this yogurt and cucumber dip is out-of-this-world delicious. Admittedly, I may have been spoiled by having spent six weeks living in Greece, years ago, and experiencing the real thing.

Actually, small disappointments were connected with most of our dining-out experiences. Another day we had lunch at Slates, located in Hallowell, and arguably the best restaurant in the Augusta area (see Note of Feb. 15, 2010). While the dish I ordered, crab and artichoke crepes, was excellent, when it first came to the table it was barely warm, and I had to send it back. And since, being "purists," Slates does not believe in having a microwave on the premises, it was a bit of a wait for the dish to be warmed up. This has happened to me more than once when I've eaten at Slates. Don't know if the problem is one of kitchen management, so that the multiple orders at a particular table are not ready at virtually the same time, or one of simply needing a better heat lamp (or maybe they don't have one of those, either!)

One day we "did" Portland. It was cool and very grey when we first got there, in the late morning, but the sun had come out by the time we finished our guided tour of the very interesting William Wadsworth Longfellow childhood home, which made it possible for Ellen to get some postcard-perfect shots of Portland Head Light, where we headed after lunch. For lunch we sought out a little-hole-in-the-wall place called Fisherman's Grill on Fore Street (not to be confused with The Fisherman's Net, which is just a few doors down from it) that I had found recommended online. This place is extremely hard to find/easy to miss. And there are few seats, so I imagine if you got there at lunch time (we arrived at almost-two) you would either have to wait for a seat, or take out. And service was very slow, with only one counter man, with whom you place your order, and one cook. Even though there was only one couple ahead of us, we waited over half an hour for our duplicate orders of the crab-and-swiss toasted sandwich and cup of clam chowder.

However, the sandwiches were delicious, and so full of crab that we both found we could eat only half, and so were able to take the other half home for a later snack. And we agreed that we'd never had a clam chowder with as many clams in it. An unusually thin chowder, more like a milky soup, to my mind. But very good.

Our one unalloyed lunch success was at the Riverfront Barbeque and Grill, located on Water Street in downtown Augusta (see Note of April 29, 2010). We both had the seafood and sausage jambalaya -- hot and spicy in true Cajun fashion -- and loved it. And they give you so much, we took home enough for another meal each.

For me being able to eat out is one of the pleasures of traveling. Ellen is pretty much as uninterested in cooking as I am, so I hope (and trust) our various gastronomic experiences were a treat for her.

Oh, yes, I forgot...

As yet further evidence that my memory is essentially useless: Ellen and I had two delays on our trip, not one. And the second was lengthy enough for us to sit down in a restaurant and have a leisurely lunch.

Friend Fae drove us to the airport at about 11 a.m. Saturday, for our 12:50 flight to Colorado Springs. Although we'd been blessed with sunny weather throughout our stay, the last ten minutes of the drive were in pouring rain, that had us all feeling nervous. Indeed, both Ellen and I were worried about Fae having to drive home in that rain, but she assured me in a later email that it stopped as soon as she'd left the airport (it would seem the gods didn't want people coming to the airport, but if you'd already dropped off your passengers, ah, what the hell). After we'd snaked our way through a longish security line that nonetheless moved at a reasonable pace -- and during which a smiling, very young, security guard reminded me that I'd have to dump that water bottle in my hand ("Or you can just dump the water in the bin and keep the bottle," he'd said helpfully, but, thinking about those annoying faucets in the ladies room, where you have to hold your hands just so to get the water to come on, and it can go off any time it likes, I decided against the refill-it-after-the-security-rigmarole substitute for having to purchase a $2.50 bottle of water post-security.) -- and after following the little old white-haired gentleman who had to all but undress (first they had to tell him to take off his belt, but then his suspenders set off the alarm. So then he undid them at the front, but of course that didn't help at all, since the metal clips that had attached to his pants were just as metal dangling down around his knees. Finally one of the security guards helped him undo them at the back and remove them. At least they didn't say, O.K., sir, you'll need to step over here for a pat-down.) through the security gate, we found a Departures monitor and learned that our plane wouldn't be leaving until 1:20. We had nearly two hours to kill.

So we opted for lunch. And not in a food-court kind of set-up, with overpriced fast food, but in a real restau-rant, where you sat down, ordered, and waited for them to cook your food. A first for me, in many years of flying. The place was called Yankee Pier -- more irony -- and served really quite excellent seafood. I had the fish and chips, and while the fish was fried, the flesh was cooked just right, not overcooked, not rubbery, and the batter was very light. Excellent fried potatoes made out of real (as opposed to pop them frozen out of the bag) potatoes. Ellen said her tuna melt was "real" tuna (as opposed to canned), and delicious. It was nice not having to rush, or take the food with us, to clumsily consume while waiting to board the plane.

Of course, this meal did not come cheap, $34 for the two of us, with only water to drink, and no dessert. Ah, well, we just pretended we could afford it.

By the way, re the very nice young security guard: throughout our various flights all TSA workers seemed to be bending over backwards to be pleasant and courteous, and Ellen and I were both wondering if the recent flap over the pat-down business had anything to do with that. At any rate, it was better than being treated like a potential criminal...

Jambalaya and a crawfish pie...

Last Saturday when I went into downtown Augusta to look for curtain material, I found hunger striking just as I was parking. I managed to get through my errand at Cozy Cottage Fabrics o.k., but knew I needed to eat as soon as possible. I had been wanting to go back to the Riverfront Barbeque and Grill, also located on Water Street, where I had eaten once before, with one of my staff and her mother. I had been favorably impressed with the food that time -- had had the blackened haddock, which came with one of the best restaurant cole slaws I've ever had (not too sweet, not awash with mayonnaise) as well as a tasty jalapeno cornbread -- and wanted to see if the place would stand up to a second visit.

It did. This time I had the seafood and sausage jambalaya, again accompanied by the cole slaw and cornbread, which seems to come with everything. The jambalaya was excellent, although one would definitely need to like spicy food to enjoy it. The seafood part was shrimp, small but plentiful, and two crab claws. Oh, crab meat is so delicious. I found the dish properly authentic tasting -- it could easily have been produced by some little hole in the wall in southern Louisiana. Indeed, the restaurant itself could easily sit on some corner in New Orleans' French Quarter: Big, dark wood bar, high, stamped tin ceiling painted a dark chocolate brown, a nice contrast to the vanilla-colored walls, very roomy, dark wood booths all around the walls; in the middle of the room a few small tables along a strip of highly polished black-and-white checked floor that I could see serving as a dance floor. Good blues playing on the sound system.

I have yet to try the barbeque, which comes in all guises, but I know that Barb really likes their barbeque ribs. The place isn't cheap -- my meal cost me $20 with the tip, and I had only water to drink -- but I didn't feel ripped off. As tired as I get of having to eat so often, as much as I dislike to cook -- and as bored as I get with my own cooking -- I do enjoy having a good meal at a nice restaurant. There is a real dearth of good restaurants in the Augusta area -- Slates, just around the corner from my little library in Hallowell, being one of the few -- so I'm pleased to discover another one, that I can recommend to people, and take visitors to.

Now all I need is some visitors.

A badly needed night out

Traditionally either the Board or the Friends organization at my library has given each of the staff a little Christmas bonus, usually in the form of a gift certificate. This year I had purchased fancy but cheap Christmas stockings at the Dollar store for each of us, put our names on mailing labels and affixed them to the stockings, then hung same along the edge of the checkout counter. People were amused...and put things in them! The Friends put in $25 gift certificates to what is probably the best restaurant in the Augusta area: Slates, located just a couple of blocks from the library, on Water Street. And a couple of weeks ago, one of my staff and I treated ourselves to dinner at Slates, courtesy of the Friends.

Slates is such a popular local institution that when it burnt down three years ago, there were numerous fund-raising events, aimed in particular at helping the help who were out of a job until the restaurant could be rebuilt. The restaurant, which is housed in one of the many old, three-story red-brick buildings that line Water Street, now looks better than ever, and everybody's working again.

I was the tiniest bit disappointed when I walked into the place and saw that Barb, who had arrived ahead of me, had us a table, but in the bar area, rather than the main dining room, or the smaller room beyond. Just not as much of a dining "event," when you have to eat in the bar. On the other hand, it was better than having to eat at the bar, and Barb assured me that she had been told we were getting the very last table in the place, so obviously I had to count my blessings (one really should make reservations on a Friday or Saturday night, which thought had actually passed through my head, but then I failed to follow up on it.) And as a matter of fact, our location proved fascinating, because the table beyond us was a nonstop people-magnet throughout the hour we were there. When we got up to leave I saw why: at the end of the table I had not been able to see, because Barb blocked my view (and she had not been able to see because her back was to that table), sat the newly-elected mayor of Hallowell, essentially holding court. Slates is that kind of place.

The food was very good. I've eaten at Slates a total of three times, over the past four years, and the food has always been imaginative, and perfectly prepared. I had the haddock stuff with fresh Maine crab, at $22 the second most expensive entree on the menu. The most expensive, at $25, was the haddock stuffed with lobster. I was very torn between the two, loving both crab and lobster. It is so typical of me to want the most expensive item on the menu; indeed, my champagne taste and beer pocketbook has been the curse -- well, one of the curses -- of my life. People who can only afford beer and pizza and like living on beer and pizza are the lucky ones; the rest of us must wait for gift certificates to indulge in what we really like to eat.

Barb had the Mahi mahi, which she also proclaimed excellent. She also ordered, as one of her accompanying vegetables, caramelized onion, moments after I'd been wondering aloud how they could think someone would want to eat a dish of just plain onions. I had pureed winter vegetables, which proved to be a little pile of pale green mush, disconcerting to look at, but quite tasty.

We both ordered a drink to start. I wanted to have something I couldn't get from my own kitchen cabinet (the drinks I most often drink -- Wild Turkey over ice or with coke, rum and coke, white or black Russians, Brandi Alexanders and Rusty Nails -- I have the fixins for all of those at home), but was also in the mood for something warm as it was very cold out -- something like ten degrees, with a wind chill value of minus something, and I'd just walked the two blocks from the library -- so I ended up ordering a hot buttered rum. That's something I could make myself at home, but never do, so it, too, was a "treat."

Barb and I are the same age, have a similar sense of the absurd and the ironic, and can talk intelligently about a myriad of subjects. So...a good meal with a good drink at hand, good conversation, in a friendly, if somewhat noisy restaurant (I decided when we were standing at the archway leading into the dining room, buttoning up for the trip out into the elements, that I was just as glad we hadn't been seated in there, since besides the conversation of all the diners, there was Friday night music.)...for a lovely evening, Friends, we thank you.

After a turn around the park...

The restaurant where Fae and Jim held their birthday/anniversary party was the Gramercy Tavern on East 20th, just off Fifth Avenue, and a couple of blocks from famous Gramercy Park, one of only two remaining private parks in New York City. In very London-like fashion the black-iron-fenced park sits in the middle of a residential square, with only the tenants of the buildings all around it able to purchase keys to the gates. Larry, Mary Beth and I arrived downtown a bit early for showing up at the party (and Fae had been firm: don't come early), so Larry had our cab stop at the park, and we walked two-thirds around it, admiring the handsome, elegant old buildings lining the four sides of the square. We were most taken with a rather hideous Victorian Gothic structure of dark red stone that, according to an information sign we discovered at the park, is one of the oldest apartment buildings in New York.

The place I would most like to visit is The Players Club, located at Number 16, in a building dating from 1844. (The 1840s is when the square was first developed. Townspeople were skeptical, but the developer knew people would soon be moving "this far north." Twentieth and 21st Streets! Yes, indeed, they kept moving all the way to 198th Street...) Anyway, Number 16 is where the actor Edwin Booth lived (a statue of him stands in the middle of the park). After his brother, the infamous John Wilkes, assassinated Abraham Lincoln, Booth's family, and actors in general (for John Wilkes had also been an actor) were held in very low esteem. In an effort to mitigate this negative attitude, Booth decided to form a social club in which members of the theatrical world would mix and mingle with successful businessmen and others. He had his home on Gramercy Park redone, so that it could be used as the "clubhouse," just reserving the upper floor for his personal use. Supposedly it is full of all kinds of theatrical memorabilia, and being a lover of the theatre as I am, I'd love to take a gander.

Some of the famous members of The Players have included Mark Twain (an example of how you don't have to be an actor... a "player"...to be a member), John Barrymore, playwright Eugene O'Neill, James Cagney, Gregory Peck, Jose Ferrer, Lynn Redgrave, Timothy Hutton (those last three were all president at one time), Walter Cronkite, Kevin Spacey, Judy Collins, Angela Lansbury, Sidney Poitier, Tony Bennett, Carol Burnett, Dick Cavett, Hal Holbrook, Robert Vaughn, Christopher Plummer, Ethan Hawke (one of the younger-generation members), Peter O'Toole and ex-James Bond Roger Moore (you'll notice a number of Englishmen in there, so obviously you don't have to be an American, either.)

A walk of a couple of blocks west on 20th brought us to the Gramercy Tavern. Online reviews of the place refer to it as "rustic but elegant," which seems something of an oxymoron to me, but it is quietly elegant, and I suppose all the pieces of old wood furniture scattered here and there could be called rustic. The walls are painted sand which makes a nice contrast with the brown-stained wood beams across the ceiling in the main dining room, the long, heavy brown drapes in the doorways between the several dining rooms. The color scheme also contributes to a sort of country feel. But the place is certainly not my idea of a tavern.

As to the food, of course it was good -- my sea bass in marinated cucumbers and yogurt sauce was gently cooked to perfection -- but in my nitpicking restaurant critic mode I have to mention that the drink the waiter brought me was not the Wild Turkey over ice I asked for but Wild Turkey with water over ice (this mistake astounded me). And the salad -- an attractive heap of arugula and turnip greens with sweet garlic-saffron dressing -- was a little bitter. The "sweet" dressing was not enough to offset the bitterness of the greens. This also surprised me, like an experiment that was not quite successful. And finally, I took issue with the fact that coffee was not served until most people had finished their dessert. Perhaps this is commonly done, but to me it makes more sense to provide coffee and tea with the food, rather than after. The warm chocolate bread pudding, by the way, was wonderful!

One thing that impressed the hell out of me was how many people they had serving. It made me think of those royal dinners, with a server between every two chairs. But ours were a little more informally dressed, no white gloves. All in all it was lovely party, beautifully done. The sort of thing one needs to go to every couple of years or so, to keep ones hand in.

Poli kala

One of the supreme pleasures of life for me is experiencing a new, good restaurant with friends, a pleasure I have enjoyed all too rarely here in Maine. I got to do it twice on my trip to New York. The evening of my arrival my friends and I, with two other friends of theirs whom I was meeting for the first time, had dinner at Periyali, a popular and acclaimed Greek restaurant on W. 20th, in what is called the Flatiron district (after one of the many architectural gems of New York City, the Flatiron Building).

The restaurant is housed in a not unusual NYC location, the basement of its building. You walk down a few steps from the sidewalk to get to the entrance, and they have a table in the tiny paved "yard." They asked us if we wanted to eat outside, but Fae and I agreed it was a bit muggy for dining al fresco. Instead, we were led down the length of the casually elegant, low-ceilinged, white-painted main room to what I thought of as the sun room. It seemed to have been built on, as one might add a sun or garden room, and had a skylight through which, I announced to the people at the table about halfway through our meal, one would expect a body to come plummeting from the building above, in a good thriller movie.

The food and drink were excellent. We were fussing about what wine to order, the wine menu having been passed to Fae's husband Jim, the resident wine expert, but I said we were in a Greek restaurant so really should have a Greek wine (reminiscent of my determination to have a German beer at Richard's German restaurant...after all, when in Rome...), and Jim professed he knew nothing about Greek wine. The waiter encouraged us to have a Santorini wine, but having been to a wine tasting at one of Santorini's wineries years ago, and having dumped all but one of the samples into the bushes, I was skeptical. However, the waiter assured us we need only try the one he was recommending -- if we didn't like it, it would go out to the kitchen (and, as Jim said, become the by-the-glass wine for the evening). So we all tried a sip, and all liked it. My present frustration has to do with not being able to specify exactly which Santorini wine it was. All I know is that it was pleasantly dry, with decent body, and "Santorini" could be clearly seen, written in an arch around the top of the label.

I had the lamb chops (I was disappointed that the waiter, who looked Greek, didn't understand me when I tried brushing off my pronun-ciation on the Greek name of the dish, paidakia thedrolivano) which were delicious, though I could have stood another chop. We were all eating off the Restaurant Week menu -- prix fixe of $35 for an appetizer, entree and dessert -- which may have resulted in slightly smaller portions. Perhaps when you order from the regular menu ($31, just for the entree) you get three.

Others had the swordfish, the charcoal-grilled shishkabob of filet mignon, the salmon in a flaky crust with spinach, and the lamb shank, all pronounced excellent. My appetizer was a small slice of spanikopita (spinach pie) with salad greens. It was better than any of the spanikopita I had in Greece -- and I had it frequently, since it was a favorite "fast food" item. This wasn't the least bit heavy, or greasy; really perfection.

As was the evening, even with the typically mad cab ride uptown to the apartment where I was spending the night.

Essen!

A couple of weekends ago I drove down to Windham to visit a friend of mine. Talline has health problems and doesn't get out much, so I thought I'd take her to lunch at a restaurant I'd been hearing about on my favorite radio station, WBAC. Located on Main Street in the town of Brunswick, the restaurant, called Richard's, features German food. Since Talline is about all things German the way I am about things French, I thought she would get a kick out it.

It's a pleasant, attractive place, rather dim inside, with the regulation beer steins all around the wall, some of them so large you can't believe people ever actually drank beer from them. I can't get terribly excited about all the wursts German food tends to emphasize (bratwurst, knockwurst, bauernwurst), so I had the Rheinischer Sauerbraten (German pot roast), which was quite good, although the accompanying small, German dumplings were a bit disappointing. They were flavorful, but a little dry, really cried out for a sauce, gravy or soup.

My friend ordered Wiener Schnitzel, but whether because the waitress didn't hear correctly, or because the other dish was slightly more expensive and she thought we wouldn't notice, she wrote Jager Schnitzel on her pad, and that's what Talline got. Apparently the only real difference is the mushroom and wine sauce that comes with the latter dish. At any rate, my friend found what was on her plate delicious, and it wasn't until I got hold of a menu, after receiving the bill and thinking that what we had been charged for Talline's dish was too much, that she realized it wasn't what she'd ordered! Both Weiner Schnitzel and Jager Schnitzel are traditionally made from veal, but are sometimes made with pork loin, which was the case here, which Talline also hadn't realized. I didn't make a stink about the wrong item having been written down and served up, since Talline had enjoyed what she got, and had not reared back at her first bite and exclaimed, hey, this isn't what I wanted!

Although I most often drink water with meals taken out, unless it's dinner, and I'm with friends, in which case I might have a glass of wine, I felt that since I was in a German restaurant, I really should have a German beer. Richard's has quite a selection, but everything on draft and most of the bottled beers were my idea of expensive – especially since I'm not really a big beer drinker – so I finally settled on a relatively cheap bottle of St. Pauli Girl dark (with beer I have found I generally prefer dark to light). It proved to be quite good, so now I know what I can safely, happily order, any time ordering beer is in order.

The bar is tucked away in the back off the main dining room, and you pass by it on your way down the little corridor to the restrooms. As I was making my way to the latter, I heard a familiar voice, the very voice that had encouraged me to come to "Richard's Restaurant" so many times on the radio. All those times I'd heard those ads I'd thought the fellow reading the copy sounded like a movie Nazi ("You vill eat your Veener Sneezle!"), and was sure he was not for real. But apparently he was! I poked my head around the partition and said, "Excuse me for interrupting, but you must be Richard." He smiled and nodded. "You sound just like you do on the radio," I said, "And you're the reason we're here today." Never hurts to let them know when their advertising is working. Richard seemed pleased.

In your own back yard

A few weekends ago I almost made another trip to Wiscassett, but found I simply did not have the energy. This is one of the reasons I “very rarely do anything for pleasure these days,” as I said in an earlier Note: I simply do not have the psychic or physical energy. This is a sad commentary on my life at present, but there you go.

However, I decided I had sufficient energy to pay a visit to the little art gallery in the town where I work, Hallowell, which is a ten-minute drive from where I live in Gardiner. Despite spending at least six hours every weekday in Hallowell for the past 2 ¾ years, I have partaken but slightly of what it has to offer. The post office – where I have my post office box – the cunning little card shop, Paper Kicks, that has a nice selection of cards a cut above the assembly-line selection at the local drugstores, Lucky Gardens, the Chinese restaurant where I get take-out about once a week, and where they know me by name (Mehody), and know to cut the sauces, Slates bakery, where I occasionally get a bagel and cream cheese and, during periods when I’m finding it a major challenge staying awake and alert, cups of coffee with enough cream and Splenda to completely disguise the fact that it’s coffee (which I don’t actually like), Boynton’s Market, a 70-year-old institution in the town, though there is really nothing special about it, it being your basic mom-and-pop corner grocery, where I get an all-but-daily candy bar in the never-ending battle to stay awake and alert.

These are the establishments in Hallowell that I frequent. But there is much more to this little town, which historically was a bigger deal (and was bigger!) than its next-door neighbor, Augusta, now the capital, and obviously both bigger and more important. Hallowell had at one time a thriving ship-building industry (it is located on the Kennebec River, which empties into the sea 25 miles away) and also exported huge quantities of ice, and of granite. My little library, built in 1880 to look like a English country church, is made of the local granite. There is still a Granite Hill, where you can still select a hefty chunk of granite, to do whatever with.

In the second half of the 20th century Hallowell was best-known for its many antique shops, but most of those have disappeared. Today it’s given itself over to a lively arts scene, including frequent live music at places like Higher Grounds (coffee house/bar) and The Wharf (good old fashioned bar); as well as several shops that feature jewelry, pottery, bags, woven wall hangings, etc. by local area artisans.

But on my Saturday afternoon outing I limited my dip into the arts to the Harlow Gallery, which as usual was exhibiting the work of Maine artists. I’ve seen a lot of excellent paintings at this little gallery, confirming in me the impression that there are lots of folks out there who are very talented, making beautiful/interesting/amusing art, who will never be rich or famous. I always wonder how these people survive. Do they all have day jobs?

I also visited John Merrill’s Book Shop, a second-floor walk-up. As you would expect of a writer and a librarian, I love books, and bookstores. John Merrill’s is everything a used bookstore should be: slightly claustrophobic with narrow aisles, crammed shelves reaching above your head, lots of little hand-written signs, the occasional nook with a chair where you can sit down and read. Traditionally, I’ve had to restrain myself when visiting a bookstore, but being in Starving Librarian mode, with virtually no discretionary funds at my disposal, and living in a very small house, with virtually no more room for bookcases, I didn’t find restraint so difficult. Still, I was glad to finally visit the place (after 2 ¾ years!), and John – whom I know because he comes to preview our books before we have a book sale at the library – encouraged me to use him as a resource, for those occasional items that I might want to add to our collection, but that are out of print.

Finally, I had lunch at the new restaurant in town, Joyce’s. It is on the river side of Water Street (Hallowell’s Main St.), and it was very pleasant, sitting out on the covered terrace, looking out at the water gliding by, at the tree-covered opposite bank. I splurged and had the lobster pie, which could more properly be called lobster soup. Very tasty – my God, I do love lobster – but the puff pastry topping was an annoyance. Why do chefs do such things? You can’t cut up the flaky pastry because it’s sitting atop liquid, and you can’t really eat around it. Had to lift it gingerly out and set it on my bread plate, sawing loose a bite every now and then, to accompany a spoonful of the sweet, creamy soup.

My experimental glass of wine was the perfect degree of dry. All in all, I was glad I had managed to overcome my torpor, and "do" Hallowell.