lobster yin and yang, with chinese “squirrel” sauce [a carrot-ginger-soy sauce] and an asian sabayon at arrows restaurant.

lobster bruschetta at the vine café.

lobster pizza with spinach, caramelized onions, and ricotta at caffé prego.

lobster benedict with [...]]]> fresh boiled lobster with drawn butter at the ogunquit lobster pound.

lobster yin and yang, with chinese “squirrel” sauce [a carrot-ginger-soy sauce] and an asian sabayon at arrows restaurant.

lobster bruschetta at the vine café.

lobster pizza with spinach, caramelized onions, and ricotta at caffé prego.

lobster benedict with fresh fruit at the wild blueberry café.

chilled lobster with a mung bean crepe, vegetable slaw, garden herbs, and sweet and hot sauce at mc perkins cove.

When in Maine, well…

There are many elements of our annual vacation that feel quintessentially “Ogunquit.”  Ice cream cones the size of my head.  Seafood.  Naps on the sand.  Dips in 59 degree waters without complaint.  Attempts at real golf games and perhaps a round of miniature golf.  Long walks and short runs along the ocean.  A summer musical seen at the playhouse and a movie seen at the one-room cinema in town.  Hours spent reading in the sun.  Blueberry pancakes from the Maine Diner.  Chocolate from the candy store.  The breathtaking view of the Ogunquit River flowing into the Atlantic Ocean.

Also, lobster.  And most importantly: total, complete, utter relaxation.

I think the standout moment this year – though there were, of course, many standout moments – came on our final full day.  My dad and I had waded into the river, a balmy 63 degrees, and kicked up our feet to float on our backs.  As the tide goes out on this special beach, the current of the river will carry you all the way out into the ocean.  With the sun beaming down, I closed my eyes.  My ears sank beneath the water’s surface, and I heard nothing.  I was still.  Peaceful.  Calm.

Later, as I fought the strong current back to the sand, I thought, “I should feel this more often.”

I love my busy life.  My do-everything schedule suits my city surroundings and my overachieving personality.  But I can’t shake how foreign the sense of peace that came over me in the water felt.  That sensation shouldn’t come only once every year.  Could it be that, on occasion, I need to just…relax?

As I settle back into life in New York, I see my August calendar slowly filling.  It feels natural, easy, normal to make plans and buy tickets and book up my mornings and nights and weekends.  Ironic that relaxing should be the thing to feel so alien.

I think it might be worth my while to get a bit more familiar with this relaxation concept.

And well, if I still get too caught up in the city spirit: my sister and I have decided to make a return trip to Ogunquit this October.  It won’t be beach weather, but it will still feel like heaven.

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swordfish with pesto cream, steamed vegetables, mashed potatoes, and garden ratatouille

fudge pie with maple ice cream

When I was 9 years old, my family spent a single day in Maine in late November, during a time when we thought we might be finished spending [...]]]> wood-fired mushrooms with truffled butter and parmesan

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plank roasted wild salmon; tarragon dipping sauce; corn custard.

It’s no secret that I love to travel.  The sights, smells, and tastes of another culture; the mental high that comes from exploring the world; the self-discovery that occurs when you learn to function [...]]]> The traditional first meal of vacation at MC Perkins Cove:

plank roasted wild salmon; tarragon dipping sauce; corn custard.

It’s no secret that I love to travel.  The sights, smells, and tastes of another culture; the mental high that comes from exploring the world; the self-discovery that occurs when you learn to function in a foreign place.  Travel is excitement and challenge and everything that is new.  It makes me a better person: one who is more informed, more independent, more capable, more aware.

Since beginning my job a year and a half ago, I’ve been glad to devote a portion of my vacation days to real travel, making my way out to Colorado and down to New Orleans.  The destinations were on US soil, but the cultures were of a far different universe than my go-go-go New York life.

Right now, I’m using my vacation days, but I am not traveling.  I am on vacation.

Vacation is something different.  Vacation is not about challenges or meeting new people or trying new things.  Vacation is comfort.  It is long nights of sleep, lazy wake-ups, indulgent desserts, books read for pleasure, laughs shared with the people I never need to impress – my family.  It is a haven where calendars and appointments, bills and coworkers, responsibility and routine, life and time don’t exist.

I’m here in Maine, where I’ve been nearly every August since birth, and my Brooklyn apartment and New York adventures seem a distant memory.  I don’t know if I am 25 years old or only 5.  It doesn’t matter.  Nothing matters.

Late yesterday afternoon, my parents, sister, and I were sitting on the lawn in front of our hotel, soaking in the sun’s rays and gazing at the tide as it went out to sea.  We were all a bit tired: I had dragged luggage that seemed to weigh as much as I do through Grand Central early that morning, my sister had flown up north directly from a morning at work, my dad had driven for several hours, my mom had stressed herself out while packing the last of our bags early that morning.  Chatting on the lawn, our drooping eyelids leftover from our trip up here were the only reminder that we have lives beyond this place.

I don’t know what time it is or what day, whose email I have to return or what plans I want to make.  That is vacation.  I know I’ll come back with a renewed zest for life, all because I get to take this time to forget life even exists.  Truthfully, I think these 10 days might be the most important ones of my entire year.

I’m sure I’ll blog a bit while I’m here, and I’ll certainly be posting photos of our delicious meals over on Tumblr. [Oh, I started one of those.  I take a lot more food photos than I ever post, and they wanted a home.]  I wish everyone could be here forgetting life along with me.  But since that’s not possible, I’ll be sure to share, via internet, as much of beachside paradise I can.

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1.5 lb fresh boiled lobster.

Photography is a great way to live in denial.  As someone who used to go months “forgetting” that I owned a camera, it is ironic that I now keep such a photographic record of my life experiences.  I would say I manage to capture fifty percent of my life with that [...]]]> “denial.”

1.5 lb fresh boiled lobster.

Photography is a great way to live in denial.  As someone who used to go months “forgetting” that I owned a camera, it is ironic that I now keep such a photographic record of my life experiences.  I would say I manage to capture fifty percent of my life with that little silver box.

It’s nice to have something tangible to remember the little moments, and pictures serve that purpose well.  On the long, traffic-ridden drive home from vacation, I took a glance through my camera’s shots: the ocean, the family, the ice cream flavors, the fog, the sand, the dinners.  I stopped at the lobster.

Amongst all our gourmet meals up in Maine, this casual basket of boiled lobster is still the definitive vacation dinner.  It is quintessential Maine: when you are here, you dine on lobster. You forget tablecloths and heels for a night; you don’t forget the plastic bib.  You get your hands dirty, and you use your teeth to suck lobster meat out of lobster legs.  It’s sort of barbaric in the most delicious way.  

At one time, a family dinner at The Lobster Pound was a near-four-hour event.  My dad and uncle would start off the evening with a batch of steamers, followed by clam chowder, lobster and sides, and a rich chocolate-y dessert.  Changes come as life goes on: lobster is a thing of my now-kosher uncle’s past, and Dad now skips the steamers and dessert in favor of 2.75 pounds of lobster – typically, the biggest one in the pool outside.  Its size is always impressive.

If I stare at this photograph long and hard enough, I can pretend I can’t hear the dog wailing next door or my neighbors chatting upstairs.  I can almost taste the lobster, smell the ocean, and anticipate the ice cream that followed this meal.  The photo will have to last me until next year.

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plank roasted wild salmon with fresh herbs; corn custard; “mom’s sauce.”

You know a restaurant is good if my family goes to it twice. On our final night of vacation, the four of us had two goals: eat a relaxed meal together and end with ice cream cones.

We decided to [...]]]> “a repeat visit.”

plank roasted wild salmon with fresh herbs; corn custard; “mom’s sauce.”

You know a restaurant is good if my family goes to it twice. On our final night of vacation, the four of us had two goals: eat a relaxed meal together and end with ice cream cones.

We decided to return to MC Perkins Cove, the sister restarant to one of our favorite spots. We kicked off vacation at MC and chose to wrap it up in the same way, and I couldn’t help but break my foodie code [rule #1: always try new things] by ordering the same dish both times. This salmon was pure perfection, and the corn custard [an old recipe of Chef Mark's Mom's] is decadently rich. I had to do it twice.

The thing that I find most special about Ogunquit, Maine is its familiarity. Our summer trip up north is timeless – though I’ve made that car ride as a six-year-old losing her teeth, a new teenager waiting for high school, and a college grad ready to look at the world from the opposite side of the Atlantic, the town always remains unchanged. No matter my age or position in life, it is and always will be a tiny, picturesque, sleepy place, where all you ever need to do is walk, eat, and breathe in seaside air.

There is less need for excitement, for newness, for challenges in Ogunquit. And so we can go to the same restaurant twice – after all, my parents have been spending August days in this same town for thirty-three years. We even returned to a traditional old favorite wine: David Bruce pinot noir.

I finished up that final evening in exactly the way my six-year-old self would have: holding a chocolate ice cream cone rolled in chocolate sprinkles. My family and I licked our cones in the cool breeze of a late summer night, avoiding mosquitoes in the backseat of my dad’s car. The perfect goodbye night in paradise.

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olive oil poached tuna with chili flakes; chicken liver paté with grappa soaked raisins; heirloom tomato bruschetta; sweet and sour peppers atop grilled bread; skewers of tomato gelee and watermelon with local honey.

Not every meal can be spectacular.  While last summer, Five-O blew my family away with its creativity and quality, this season’s new chef dropped [...]]]> “still worth it.”

olive oil poached tuna with chili flakes; chicken liver paté with grappa soaked raisins; heirloom tomato bruschetta; sweet and sour peppers atop grilled bread; skewers of tomato gelee and watermelon with local honey.

Not every meal can be spectacular.  While last summer, Five-O blew my family away with its creativity and quality, this season’s new chef dropped the restaurant right off that culinary pedestal.  The family split these mini tapas to kick off our meal, and they were really the only good part. 

I notice that many people seem to believe restaurant meals should always be life-changing – otherwise, the meal isn’t “worth it.”  My mom, ever waistline-conscious, is fond of the phrase “not worth the calories.”  My grandma, always a miser, might say, “not worth the money.”  Personally though, I’m not sure food and worth ever go hand in hand.  

Really: what makes a meal worth it?  

Though the food at Five-O was generally unimpressive, it quieted my growling stomach.  Plus, the meal was part of my vacation in my favorite place on earth.  It was preceded by a long afternoon on the beach, where my family swam in the Atlantic and warmed up in the sun.  It was followed by a nice sunset walk down to the town playhouse.  Our table’s location in the restaurant put us right at the front window, overlooking Shore Road – the town’s main thoroughfare – which allowed for a nice amount of vacationing-people watching.  Put all that together, and it amounted to a one-hundred-percent-worth-it evening.

Sometimes a meal isn’t great.  It doesn’t mean we should be sad about eating it, or regretful, or annoyed.  Like the other elements of my night, life provides such a variety of opportunities for happiness.  There is no need to dwell on a single lackluster piece.

And hey, the appetizer was fun.

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almond-encrusted french toast; blueberry pancake; scrambled eggs with spinach, tomato, and mushrooms.

What do you do when you can’t decide between the best pancakes in the universe, almond French toast that you’ve never seen on any other menu, and a desire to always have vegetables in your life?  When in doubt: order [...]]]> “breakfast for a diner lunch.”

almond-encrusted french toast; blueberry pancake; scrambled eggs with spinach, tomato, and mushrooms.

What do you do when you can’t decide between the best pancakes in the universe, almond French toast that you’ve never seen on any other menu, and a desire to always have vegetables in your life?  When in doubt: order all three and share.  My sister, mom, and I split up these three dishes with sides of real Maine maple syrup, giving our palates eclectic flavor without missing out by choosing just one.

I’ll probably never tire of saying how much I adore sharing food, particularly when dining out.  The atmosphere was as casual as it comes: paper menu and paper napkins, plastic cup of water with a bendy straw [bendy straws makes me feel like a four year old, in a good way.]  This is diner food, but it is the best diner food.  Our three part shared spread was just the way to appreciate it.

My remark midway through my plate:  ”This is just as good as dinner last night.”  Dinner last night was a dimmed lighting, double bottle of syrah, freshly seared halibut, fudge pie with maple ice cream kind of affair.  And still, I stand by my statement.  Sometimes, a diner-style breakfast for lunch is all you really need.

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Escaping the threatening clouds and high humidity, we settled into our table and didn’t even open our menus for twenty minutes.  Actually, when our appetizers arrived, we noticed the table next [...]]]> On Monday night, the family drove a bit further than usual in order to reach a new [to us] dining destination: Kennbunkport’s White Barn Inn.  

Escaping the threatening clouds and high humidity, we settled into our table and didn’t even open our menus for twenty minutes.  Actually, when our appetizers arrived, we noticed the table next to us – who sat down after we did – already being served their second dessert course.  How and why people eat so fast, I just don’t know.

butter and olive oil: too cute to escape the camera.  also, note the bird in the background, which was made from silverware.  my mom is still talking about this centerpiece.

I can’t imagine rushing through a meal such as this one.  We treated it as a time to relax, to soak in the rustic decór, the muffled tones of dining conversations and food presentations, the candlelight on each table, the smells emanating from the plates being carried around the room.  Around our square table, we soaked in each other.  We shared an experience and made a memory around plates of exquisite food.  

amuse bouche: crab salad swimming in mango soup, with a dollop of crème fraîche and a bite of lobster alongside.  

We opened that memory with a bottle of wine.  There is a wonderful union that occurs when everyone is sipping from the same bottle, tasting the same flavor, enjoying the same light buzz.  As my dad perused the wine list, I spotted a cabernet franc out of the corner of my eye and immediately put in my vote.  The choice ended up a hit: we went through two bottles.  It’s always nice when my companions enjoy a recommendation I make [and vice versa].

appetizer: yellowfin tuna three ways.  seared with ponzu salsa; raw with nori, daikon, and sweet egg sauce; poached and topped with coconut and cucumber.

As we ate, my mom and I reminisced about the food we had prepared for my good friend’s bridal shower last month.  We tossed around ideas for our next big home-cooked family spread – Rosh Hashanah.  We discussed the food we would all taste and enjoy.  I thought about the experience my extended family would share around my parents’ dining room table, the way we would all come together over that feast for the new year.

intermezzo: chilled pea soup with lobster crème fraîche and lobster oil.  i must must must learn to make this soup.

There are, of course, other activities aside from eating through which bonds of family and friendship can be forged.  On this vacation, we go on beach walks together, we lay in the sun [or hide in the beach umbrella's shade], we play cards, we see plays, we shop and schmy, we collectively psyche ourselves up to throw our bodies into an icy ocean.  Life goes beyond food, and it is important to partake and enjoy events that don’t involve a fork and knife.

entree: sautéed halibut with braised fennel “risotto,” sweet corn beignets, and chorizo pureé.

But food is a necessity in ways that an evening at the playhouse or afternoon at the J. Crew outlet [some of yesterday's activities] simply aren’t.  I think that is what makes sharing food with others so much more special.  

pre-dessert: cranberry gelee and chantilly cream.

A meal doesn’t have to be an “event” in the way that my family’s gourmet excursions tend to be.  It can be take-out and Netflix, or picnic sandwiches and a park bench, or a homemade soup and candlelight at the kitchen table.  Whatever the atmosphere, the point is: we sit with companions and share in that basic human necessity for nourishment.  

dessert: rhubarb tart with maple poached plums, lemon mascarpone, rhubarb sorbet.

Of course, if you’re a member of my family, you might be a bit more intense.  You might need a seven-course meal.  You might still be talking about that meal 48 hours later.  You might already be planning your next trip back.  You might be a little sad that it outdid Arrows.  

petits fours: blueberry brownie, raspberry dark chocolate truffle, white chocolate coconut fudge, strawberry gelee, pistachio dark chocolate.

Mostly, though, you’ll smile about the wonderful memory: an evening with a mother, a father, and two daughters, reclining around a white tablecloth, enjoying bite upon bite of fascinating flavors and sip upon sip of spiced red.  If there was ever a reason to love food, well: I think this is it.

What are your favorite ways to share time with companions?  

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Flow can mean many things.  For instance, it can signify how much time we’ll have between a day’s activities. [...]]]> One of the most common words to arise in conversation on this family vacation is a simple one: “flow.”  We don’t like to plan, as that is too similar to real life and its schedules.  Instead, we flow.

Flow can mean many things.  For instance, it can signify how much time we’ll have between a day’s activities.  While strolling back to our hotel at 5 PM on Friday, we deemed 7 PM an appropriate time to reconvene for dinner.  My dad responded, “Yeah, 7 seems like a good flow.”

The flow might help us decide on which day we’ll partake in a certain activity.  For instance, thinking over the days we have here and the weather forecast, I mentioned, “It seems like it would be a good flow to get pancakes at the Maine Diner on Wednesday.”

Sometimes flow represents the entire idea of our vacation.  For instance, when my mom made the silly suggestion of skipping one of our restaurant outings in favor of staying in for homemade sandwiches and salad, we all looked at her and said, “That’s not really part of the flow.”

Yesterday, our flow took us on a low-key evening, where we traded white tablecloths for BYOB.  We can lower the intensity when we need to.

We visited Black Sushi House, which is a little Ikea-furnished spot next door to the town’s old-fashioned one-room movie theater.  We brought in two bottles of wine [Mom and Sister wanted riesling, Dad and I went for petite syrah], and we held onto the corks with the intention of drinking half of each bottle.  If I ever wondered from where I get my wine consumption abilities, well – we finished both.  

I started with seaweed salad, because I can’t eat sushi without it.  

My parents don’t have much sushi experience, but we helped them attack the menu with the same foodie passion that this family brings to every restaurant table.  In the end, we all shared a few pieces of nigiri and the six most-interesting-sounding specialty rolls on offer:

“double j”: granny smith apple, seared tuna, avocado, seaweed salad, green tobiko

“sweet jesus”: hamachi, lemon, shiso leaf, avocado, citrus tobiko

“mango madness”: spicy tuna, mango, asparagus, avocado

“lobster x2″: lobster and avocado topped with baked lobster and crab, lobster roe, eel sauce, and green onion

“flaming roll”: spicy tuna with jalapeño, avocado, red tobiko

“veggie bling bling:” cucumber, avocado, sprouts, asparagus, unari, carrot

I shockingly forgot to ask for brown rice, so we got traditional white.  It was fine, but brown rice has so much more flavor – I can never figure out why people choose white.  Regardless, big thumbs up to Black House.  I think this will become a regular part of the Ogunquit dining flow.

Dessert is always part of the vacation flow, so dinner was of course followed by ice cream cones [with sprinkles, obviously].  My flavors of the evening were coconut and triple chocolate ecstasy.  Yes: Triple. Chocolate. Ecstasy.

Life in paradise continues.  Now, I’m beach bound and considering an attempt to get more than my ankles in the 56 degree water.

What are your vacations like?  Do you do lots of planning, or do you just flow?

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Yesterday, I woke up with sunlight streaming into my sister’s and my shared hotel room [I'm sure I've mentioned that [...]]]> Hello from paradise, otherwise known as Ogunquit, Maine!  I’ve been here for just under 48 hours, and I am in literal heaven.  Relaxation never feels as good as it does by a sleepy New England beach.

Yesterday, I woke up with sunlight streaming into my sister’s and my shared hotel room [I'm sure I've mentioned that my bedroom in the city has no windows.  Natural light is something to be savored.]  I lazily stretched out of bed, changed my clothes, walked down to the beauty that is the beach, and went for a run.

Weird, I know.

This is maybe my fifth run this summer – I’ve gone when I’ve felt like it, which isn’t often.  My desire to get on my yoga mat is usually stronger, but when you have a beach, you run on it.  Or at least walk.  Am I right?

My knees haven’t fallen apart, so I hope to go on another before the end of our stay here.  But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

My day yesterday was highly taxing.  I accomplished a lot:

• I laid on my beach blanket and started reading a new book.
• I laid on the lawn in front of my hotel and read some more.
• My parents returned from a golf game, and we all went back to the beach and read more.

It was a really tough day, so a leisurely dinner out was clearly well-deserved.

Our restaurant itinerary up here is always partially planned: we’ll never skip fresh lobster, for instance, or the the two homes of Ogunquit’s dynamic culinary duo, Mark and Clark.  This year, we’re adding a few new places to the rotation, and we began the new visits last night at a little bar called Tapas and Tinis.

my martini: gin, muddled cucumber, touch of vermouth.  mom’s: bloody mary straight up.

We’re a family that shares all our food regardless of where we dine.  Bread plates always remain on the table so we can pass around bites of our appetizers and entrees, and when dessert arrives, we pick up our plates and pass them clockwise around, making sure to never miss out on a single flavor.  Sharing is a key aspect of dining: if you are only interested in your own dish, well, you can’t dine with this family.

My family has never done a meal of tapas together, which is ironic considering tapas are designed to be divvied up.  This new-ish restaurant gave us the opportunity to remedy that, and over the course of the next hour and a half, we sipped our drinks while enjoying a steady flow of small plates.  Highlights are pictured:

crostini with lemon-pepper-mascarpone spread and roasted artichoke hearts

salmon with vidalia onion and fig sauce

grilled corn on the cob with manchego

ribs with barbecue sauce and paprika

fried artichoke hearts with horseradish dipping sauce

Unpictured: spicy garlic scallops, grilled asparagus with lemon, spicy chorizo with cannellini beans and roasted peppers.

I was very much in my foodie mindset of “I want to experience every flavor, ” so yes: I tried everything, ribs and chorizo included.  I’ve had chorizo before and remembered again that I’m not a fan; the ribs, on the other hand, were my first experience.  They were good!  

All in all though, the food didn’t blow us away.  The experience of sharing tastes of this and that, however?  Truly wonderful, as expected.  That’s half the battle.

We left the table sans dessert in order to make the first of several necessary visits to The Secret Ice Cream Place.

I needed a scoop of pumpkin and a scoop of graham cracker.  Best. Ice. Cream. In. The. World.

I conquered 170 pages of my book yesterday, and I plan to finish the next 170 on the beach today.  Life is grand.

Do you like sharing when you go out to eat?

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