a post about Maine

I've been in Downeast Maine for the past week, which is why I haven't posted. I've survived the trip (literally!) and would like to share some things.

Maine is not fun when it rains for an entire week. I was hoping to get in on a pick-up ultimate game in Bar Harbor on Tuesday but no one showed up because they don't play in the rain. Bar Harbor was a nice little town from what I saw as I drove in and then out on my way to/from the ill fated pick-up game. It had small shops which looked very much like how I envisioned a New England fishing town would. This was wholly unlike the towns I drove through the rest of the week which each had one "store." One local I talked to called one such location a "trading post." I guess that's pretty close to the original use of the place. Now each of them is a gas station/grocery store/restaurant/hardware store/drug store/bait shop/etc. In each I felt completely out of place.

My notes on the food and drink in Maine:
I ate plenty of lobster on the company's dime, so that was nice. I drank blueberry lemonade twice and it was great. I'm going to experiment and try to recreate it. Expect a recipe for the drink in the future.

Rose and I together dropped $100 for dinner at the nicest restaurant in Ellsworth called Cleonice. It was a Mediterranean Tapas bar. Most notable parts of the meal: artichoke pesto bruschetta, a fiddlehead fern sopressata and ricotta salata salad and the 2003 Vox Populi Pinot Noir. I'll probably make the bruschetta also at some point because it was so good. I'll post the recipe, of course. The salad was really good and its always fun to seasonally. Right now is the only time of the year you can get fiddlehead ferns. Go out and eat some! Right now. The wine was nice. It is from Romania and I don't think I've ever had a wine from there. It was very round pinot with good mouth feel and taste. Nice and dry. I don't think it stood out very much though. Its a fine under-$15 buy.