connecticut maine-iacs
I realized I never finished the story of our East Coast trip (sorry about that!). Today is part two: Connecticut and Maine, next up will be part three (final swing through NYC). We spent a few lovely days in Ridgefield, CT, with our friends, Robin and Ruth (same best man who flew out for Paul’s birthday celebration). R&R have three adorable, crazy blond children (Nicholas, Schulyer, Xander), a big house and a big trampoline. We had a great time with them and their extended clan of friends.
The best experience, however, was the 6-family spontaneous BBQ at their neighbor’s house. Kevin and Donna were so sweet to host everyone at the last minute (thank you, Kevin and Donna!). Dinner was hilariously mish-mash: we were leaving for Maine the next morning, R&R were leaving for the beach (somewhere south, I can’t remember). Other families were either coming from or going on vacations. I think everyone brought odds and ends to help clean out their refrigerators!
Nonetheless, everything was delicious and the adults drank many, many bottles of wine and talked late into the evening. The boys held a party on the trampoline, the girls took over the kitchen for a while.
I spent a delighful hour in the kitchen with the pre-teen girls and tried to give them a little advice (the same advice their moms might give, but from an outsider, who they might listen to). I told them to hold a single drink all evening at a party (taking casual sips every now and then) and to play hard to get with boys: keep saying no, be nice but elusive. In short, use the ‘rules’ to maintain their self-respect (i.e., don’t give it away). I illustrated my point with a story from my UCLA days: Rob Lowe had once asked me out and I turned him down [technically, his assistant came over and asked me out (for him) while Rob stood about 10 feet away pretending to be interested in the books on the bookshelf – the primary reason I said ‘no thanks’ was that he was a well-known player but the very strong secondary reason was that I was insulted he didn’t think he needed to do it himself!]. Well, they didn’t listen much after that, they were too busy squealing that I had been asked out by Rob Lowe! I know my ‘cool’ factor had risen considerably but I wasn’t sure they really registered the message inherent in the story – oh well, I tried.
On to Maine, and… lobster! I might have mentioned before that our younger son, Tate, is obsessed with lobster. This was actually the impetus for the trip (that and his 25-page Maine state report). We had taken a similar East Coast trip two years ago when Dane wrote his 25-page Massachusetts report. I think I covered a bit of our Maine visit in the ‘dirt now on both coasts’ post (a week or so ago), but I don’t know if I mentioned the great lobster experiences we had. On this trip, we discovered mainenirvana: a warm lobster roll. The Lobster Dock in Boothbay Harbor is justifiably famous, not only for its lobster rolls. Their crab cake actually beat Bobby Flay’s entry in a ‘throwdown’ a few years ago. Paul ordered it and it was excellent. But Tate and I only had eyes for the warm lobster rolls. We went there every day of our visit and everyone got their favorites. Dane discovered a new brand of rootbeer (he’s always searching out obscure brands and trying them), and Paul explored the menu as much as he could. In short, happiness was all around.
We discovered another brand of happiness at the local gelato shop (Boothbay has a few amazing restaurants to counteract the proliferation of fried food offerings and 5-scoop minimum ice cream parlors). One was a relatively new gelato stand just down the hill from Topside Inn. One of the choices was actually a sorbetto and it was on par with anything you’d find in Italy. The flavor? Strawberry/balsamic! In the past, we’ve served really expensive, aged balsamic on strawberries and this was that, only frozen. Wow, wow, wow is all I can say.
If you ever plan a trip to Maine, you won’t be disappointed culinarily-speaking. There is a really strong movement among Maine’s talented chefs to use locally-sourced, sustainably harvested items. We didn’t venture outside Boothbay to try some of the incredible restaurants near Portland but maybe next time!