Destination # 16 - Maine

Maine! I've always been a little curious about Maine. To me, it's one of those states that you don't actually hear a lot about until you do and then you want to hear more because it's a peculiar little (only not so little at all as it turns out) place. My friend from RI has a family lake cabin up in Rangely, Maine that we were fortunate enough to be invited to visit on this recent New England adventure. We road tripped it from Providence RI up through MA, NH and deep into the back woods of western Maine to a little town by a big lake called Rangley. Rangely's tag line is "a quiet little drinking town with a big Moose problem." When said friend laid out our options for activities; "you can go fishin', you can go moosin' or you can go hikin'", I was immediately sold and insisted that we do all three. Due to the weather, however, which I will expound upon shortly, we were only able to do two of the three, for fear of sinking the boat. Wild moose (is there any other kind?) make up the primary resident population in Rangely, Maine. "Moosin'" involves getting up at dawn and driving down a road looking for moose that have come out of the woods to lick the salt off of rocks in the boggy areas. She guaranteed that we would see a moose on our visit and we did not fail. We saw two, in fact, and MAN those creatures are big (weighing up to 1,500 Ibs) and ugly, and as I understand it, rather ferocious, especially in the late summer and autumn seasons when the bull's massive antlers are fully grown (average 6.5-7.5 feet) and they fight each other for access to the female moose. I'll admit that it rarely surprises me how little we humans stray from the animal kingdom. I can't help but wonder if the male moose bulls fight over lesbian moose too or just the straight and particularly slutty ones?

We couldn't go fishing because it rained. A LOT! OH MY GOD DID IT RAIN! People! I have lived in Seattle, WA. for the past 15 years, arguably the wettest and dreariest state in the U.S. and I have never seen so much collective, non-stop, crazy ass flippin' rain in my life. It didn't just rain. It POURED buckets of water from the sky for 82 straight hours, without a single reprieve. I do not jest or exaggerate. We thus referred to the first half of our trip as "The Great New England Soakah!"

I did not, however, let the rain stop me from going on a quick jaunt along the Appalachian Trail (a.k.a. "the A T" if you're cool like that). It's always been a dream of mine to hike a piece of the AT and a sheet of water falling from the sky was not going to stop me. Bucket list item complete! It was a beautiful and wet 500 foot hike, indeed.

Maine is similar to our gorgeous Western Washington as it is lush and green and dense with flora and fauna. One of the most charming moments of our stay in Rangely, Maine was when our waitress noted that there must be hundreds of dead bodies hidden in the woods of Maine, "right outside this door" in fact! As if this were a very common, well-known thing. Like... DUH! Although I must admit that now that I've seen the back woods of Maine, I would totally hide a dead body there if the need ever arose. I'm just sayin'... ayuh!

Are you wondering if I'm ever going to talk about the damn food? Yah, me too. But first let me just give a quick commentary on the accents because they are FAN-FRICKIN'-TASTIC! For a blow by blow tutorial on how to speak like a Mainah, check out this site. "Ayuh" is the commen affirmation in Maine. As in, yes, agreed, sure, noted, uh-huh, etc.. You have to say it real low-key and monotone like though otherwise it won't work. "Wicked" is also a neccessary descriptor for most everything in Maine. Here is a sample sentence.

"Course that blizzahd they had the lahst night theyah was a wicked pissah, ayuh!"

But enough about that.

The obvious thing to do for Maine would be lobstah, however, we didn't wish to risk ruining a perfectly good and perfectly expensive lobstah in attempt to cook one when we really had no idea what-so-ever what we were doing. So instead we turned to the next thing down the glamour scale from lobstah; hot dogs! Seriously, people. Hot dogs! Red hot dogs to be exact which is specifically a Maine style hot dog with a natural casing and dyed a bright red/kinda hot pinkish color. Why? Because Mainah's are WEIRD! Red hot dogs are served in a quintessentially New England style top split bun which I must admit is a superior bun to our side split hot dog buns out here (or everywhere else for that matter.)

Recipe for Maine style red hot dogs:
Purchase red hot dogs from a grocery store in Maine
Cook them up however suits your fancy
Shove them into a top split hot dog bun
Eat yah face off, ayuh!

Maine is awesome! Lobstah, weird-ass hot dogs, top split buns, dead bodies in the woods pride, beautiful views, the Appalachian Trail, lobstah rolls (lobstah served in a top split hot dog bun, ayuh!) and lastly, the best accents evah!

Destination # 15 - Rhode Island

This will be our first "Culinary Road Trip" project destination where we actually cooked and ate the food while physically in the location featured here. Drake and I just returned from a whirl-wind trip where we basically ate our faces off through all of New England (Maine, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Massachusetts) and New York. We sampled many new dishes which I hope to capture here and in future blog postings and generally were entirely impressed with the cuisine of our New England friends. We were visiting a foodie friend born and raised in Rhode Island and therefore an expert as to the local cuisine of RI and all of the neighboring states. This stuff is about as legit as it comes, people. No research needed.

A dish absolutely unique to Rhode Island is “Johnny Cakes”. WTF are Johnny Cakes, you might ask? Well, lemme tell ya! Johnny Cakes are essentially pancakes made out of a cornmeal based batter. There are some differing opinions as to whether you serve them with syrup or simply with butter but opinions aside, they are definitely a breakfast food and a darn tasty one at that. Similar to our Aunt Jemima pre-made pancake batter here, you purchase a box of the dry mix (only to be found in RI) and mix it with a bit of sugar, salt and hot water to form a batter the consistency of regular pancake batter. Drop those by the tablespoon and grill them up on a hot griddle and top with butter and/or syrup. They both look and taste delicious! They reminded us a bit of a fried polenta cake; crispy on the outside and creamy and buttery on the inside. I love the name "Johnny Cakes." I like saying it a little fast with some pizazz and accompanied by jazz hands. Try it! "JOHNNY CAKESSzzzz!" I think I'll write a song on my Ukulele dedicated to Johnny Cakes. When it makes it to the top of the charts, I promise to host my first concert in RI.

Recipe for Johnny Cakes
Purchase box of Johnny Cake dry mix (which can only be found in RI)
Follow directions on the box precisely
Eat your face off






Other popular foods found in Rhode Island are non-cream based chowders, (a.k.a. "chowdah"), quahog clams (a Rhode Island essential), clam cakes (made with those same Quahogs) and "stuffies" which appear to be a twice-baked potato stuffed into a clam shell, but it's not! The uniquely Rhode Island clam stuffie is a bready mix of chopped clams, celery, onions, peppers, parsely, lemon, garlic, and at times, Portuguese sausage baked in a big quahog clam shell. Due to the prominent presence of Portuguese folk in RI, Portuguese sausage (a.k.a. chorizo) is another common food item. Our friend made us New England style BBQ baked beans with chorizo one night for dinner and it was to die for. Permit me to go back and spend a minute here on clam cakes. HOLY SHIT STICKS THOSE SUCKAHS ARE GOOD! If I were shameful enough to admit it, which I am, I'd say that that clam cake was the best thing I put into my mouth during our 10 days of eating some of the most amazing food ever. I should note that I am not a big fan of clams. I occasionally will eat them in chowder but never in the raw by themselves or in any other form. I would *never* have ordered these clam cakes on my own but we went out for a big family dinner with my friends' family and RI native dad ordered a dozen clam cakes for the table. I was immediately nervous, knowing that I was going to have to be an adventurist and try one and then figure out how I was going to spit it out into my napkin without 8 relatively sophisticated people at the table seeing me. When a plate of steaming giant fried dough-balls arrived at the table, I started to salivate. These things are made up of a special batter that makes for doughy, gooey, delicious balls of fried goodness. I didn't even taste the clams but was assured that they were in there. I made the rookie mistake of trying to cut into one with a fork and knife which is all wrong. The natives just pull them apart with their hands bit by delicious bit and the entire experience is just AWESOME!

For a tiny little state, a barely visible blip on the map, Rhode Island has a lot to offer. We visited the multi-acre "cottages" in Newport which are magnificent and stunning. We drove along Ocean Drive with the Atlantic to our left and sprawling mansions to our right. We had a pint at the White Horse Tavern in Newport, the oldest standing bar in the U.S., opened in 1673, and we feasted on some amazing seafood. In short, I dig Lil' Rhodie!