Articles
Journal of and Island Kitchen: Dandelions
When my down-the-road neighbor Lydia Rolerson was a child, there were lots of dandelions on our island, many more than today. Land had been cleared for agriculture, so there were expanses of grass where dandelions could poke their sawtoothed leaves out of the ground as soon as it warmed enough to encourage growth. And when
Journal of an Island Kitchen: The Mission is Lunch
Every Thursday morning around 9:30 or so, someone walks into the Fellowship Hall at the island’s Second Baptist Church, flips on the lights and starts cooking for a group of 45 to 60 people, varying seasonally, who begin to show up two hours later. This has been happening for three years now, with only a
Journal of an Island Kitchen: Thanksgiving
On the fourth Thursday of November, 97 percent of all Americans eat turkey. Most of them eat it with other people, accompanied by mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing (if you are in the North) or dressing (if you are in the South), cranberry sauce, and miscellaneous other vegetables, often squash, and that casserole made of green
Funny-looking Vegetables
One joy of the kitchen garden is growing funny-looking vegetables. The vegetables displayed at the grocery store meet a kind of regular perfection belied in the home garden where the gardener sees first hand what whimsical, unedited nature provides. Or where the gardener can grow the new and different vegetables bred by seedsmen seemingly weary
Shameful Eviction
I have read and reread the article about Malaga Island [WWF August 05] and its shameful eviction of the residents. Your article seemed to be the most comprehensive one I have read about the tragic event in 1912. James Eli McKinney was my second cousin, four times removed. My direct McKinney grandmothers were Jane McKinney
Journal of an Island Kitchen: Livestock
About three thousand pounds of pork is busily rooting through the rocky soil of our island, if you figure on 20 pigs dressing out at about 150 pounds each, plus or minus. Two of those pigs are in our backyard, turning up the patch of ground where we plan to set out raspberries next year.
Islesboro’s Boardman Cottage hires a new administrator
Maura Michael of Vinalhaven has been hired to be the Administrator of Boardman Cottage, Islesboro’s soon-to-open residential elder home built by The Beacon Project. Michael is a licensed Residential Care Facility Administrator and her training in business management with her four years of experience in being the first administrator of Vinalhaven’s elder residence, the Ivan
Journal Of An Island Kitchen – Taking Stock
Two sure signs that summer is coming: the storage container drawer is filling up and the potatoes are sprouting in the cellar. I just did an inventory of the freezer – counted all my pork chops and mooseburger packages, sized up the frozen corn situation and asked myself if I seriously thought I would actually
Journal of an Island Kitchen – Fresh
“Fresh” is an over-used food word these days. It sounds healthful, green and virtuous. It might even seem a little hard to come by on a Maine island this time of year. Restaurant menus say things like “we use only the finest, freshest ingredients,” as if everyone else, or even they themselves on a bad
A Few Good Tools
A few years ago, I saw an advertisement by some cookery website that showed several pictures of one fork under each image of which a caption described the fork as a garlic press, pancake turner, whisk, or barbecue brush. Well, I thought, using a fork for a barbecue brush is a bit of a stretch,