Yesterday, when I took my dog, Liam, for his afternoon walk, the day was again sunny and warm, the temperature was 50ºF, and maple syrup was still on my mind. (See yesterday’s post, Maple Syrup Alert.) Where I live, it is  wooded and rural, and… Read more

Yesterday, the temperature reached 50º F in central Maine, and it has been sunny and warm for well over a week. The snow banks are nearly gone, and the sides of the road are so dry that my dog, Liam, hardly has any mud on his feet when we come… Read more

A couple of days ago, my friend Alice Rohman came over for lunch, and I wanted to make something sweet to go with tea and coffee after the meal. After the whoopie-pie debacle, my mind turned toward anise-flavored biscotti, a recipe I received from… Read more

Weather wise, the past few days have been very odd. In fact, the whole darned winter has been a strange one. Parts of the eastern seaboard have been pelted by one storm after another, and surely New York and Washington, D.C., have received more snow… Read more

Last weekend, our friend Diane Friese came over for dinner, and I decided to fool around with a chicken (or sole) meuniere recipe and apply it to baked haddock. Instead of flouring and frying the fish, I put the haddock in a pan, sprinkled salt and… Read more

“Life is sweet when you’re addicted to the sap.” —Craig McInnis, the Ottawa Citizen A few days ago when my dog, Liam, and I were out for an afternoon walk, I noticed something in the woods that made me positively dizzy with… Read more

On Saturday we were invited to have dinner with our friends Bob and Kate Johnson. They live in New Hampshire—the banana belt to those of who live in central Maine. Indeed, there was a striking difference in the amount of snow around our two… Read more

In Maine, the middle of February means that we are on the backside of winter. The days are getting longer, and we’ve gained an hour of daylight since December. Instead of getting dark at around 4:00, it’s dark at around 5:00. What a wonderful… Read more

Every since I started this blog, in August 2009, I have been extolling the virtues of cooking from scratch. Homemade food tastes better, is more economical, and is better for your health. (See my previous post “A Christmas Miracle” ) As Michael… Read more

This Christmas, the one present my daughter Shannon really wanted was How to Cook Everything by Mark Bittman. (For more about this, read “Shannon’s Plan: Cooking with Mark Bittman.”) I am happy to report that this is one cookbook that’s not… Read more