Friday Favorite: Seafood
I love seafood and fish, really any kind of thing that lives in water. If I have the choice, I’ll always choose fresh seafood over any other kind of protein. Here in our small town it’s tough to come by good seafood. I would drive to Cleveland on the days it’s delivered at West Side Market, but it’s still not quite as good as it is closer to the ocean and it would be 3 hours of driving.
I grew up eating really fresh fish. My grandpa had a boat and we’d go fishing on Lake Erie often, we enjoyed lots of walleye and perch when it went well. When we lived in Colombia we ate all kinds of different fish and seafood, huge river fish and seafood when we were up on the coast.
One of the things I’m super excited about when we move to Maine is the fresh seafood. I was talking to the people we bought the property from and they said there’s a seafood CSA close, which I’ll be joining as soon as possible!
While in Maine we stayed at the house with the couple we purchased it from and they fed us all kinds of great fresh seafood. After signing the closing papers we went down to Youngs Lobster Pound to get lobster & steamers for dinner that evening.
Wednesday for lunch we had leftover lobster on a salad. That night for dinner we enjoyed Maine shrimp in a stir fry of local vegetables. We only ate 6 meals in Maine and 3 of them contained something from the sea – sounds like the perfect ratio to me.
The chickens seem to enjoy seafood just as much as I do.
Are you a fish/seafood lover or do you prefer something else (or are you vegetarian)?
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Quote of the Day: Melissa Coleman
The pulse of material needs began to slacken. The less they satisfied the urge to buy things, the more the craving – as with sugar, carbohydrates, and alcohol – began to wane. The drugs of the modern world were only a mirage of need easily forgotten in the absence of fulfillment.
Melissa Coleman – This Life Is in Your Hands: One Dream, Sixty Acres, and a Family Undone
A fitting quote as I spent the day yesterday getting rid of the stuff we no longer wanted/needed. No doubt as I’m packing all of our belongings up in boxes I’ll be happy that we’ve simplified!
Even though Mr Chiots and I live fairly simply we still have so much in comparison to many others around the world. Though I appreciate the simplicity of having fewer things I’ll always have my computer, my camera, and a few good books – Oh yeah and a good cup of coffee!
What is one thing you’d never want to live without?
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So We Bought This House….In Liberty, Maine
If you’ve been reading here for a while you know Mr Chiots and I have been searching for a home in Maine. We put an offer on a house with 20 acres back in February but things didn’t work out. At the beginning of May, a blog reader (now a friend) who works at a land trust sent me the link to a nice property that was going to be coming on the market. Mr Chiots and I drove up to see if it might be the future Chiot’s Run. We spent the entire day there, looking at the house, the gardens, walking the miles and miles of trails that wind through the 147 acres of woods and wetlands. (correction, after closing we found out it’s 152 acres – BONUS)
There’s a house, a garage/workshop, a sauna, a couple nice edible gardening areas, the headwaters to a river, a huge wetland area and lots and lots of trees.
We had lunch and dinner with the current owners and got in our car that evening with a gentleman’s agreement to purchase the property. It’s been a long road trying to get all the paperwork finished up, but finally, this past Tuesday, as in the day before yesterday, we signed the papers, handed over a HUGE check and it’s ours. We’re not moving until late September, we have work scheduled in Ohio and they are building a house and won’t be able to move out until then. It ended up working out perfectly for all parties involved. More details about the gardens & property in the coming weeks.
How big is your garden in acres?
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I Have Chickens
After wanting chickens for years, I finally have some. Yesterday, I bought some chickens; a whole flock of them, ten hens and a lovely rooster.
They’re a cross between Rhode Island Red and Rhode Island White. According to their current owners, they’re great layers.
Oh Yeah,
they also came with a lovely coop,
a house, a sauna,
and 150 acres
in MAINE.
More about that tomorrow…
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Beauty in all seasons
There is beauty, certainly, at all seasons: in winter, when the skeletons of the standard currants and gooseberries, the espaliered apples, show cleanest against the snow-covered rows, all plastid like seersucker; in early spring, when the rows, fecund and mellowed from their winter sleep, lie ready for the seeding of the first crops–radishes, lettuce, board beans, and mesclun; in late spring, when neat green lines of sprouted seed give further definition to the rows and the promise of so many good highs to come; in high summer, when the integrity of those rows, their pattern on sprawling stem, creating a maze to wander through; and in autumn, when frosts threaten and all the work of the growing year must be hastily undone, stripping tomato vines, gathers potatoes, searching for squash and pumpkins, trundling all under cover in the hurried exhilaration of final harvest. But in high spring and early summer, when the pea vines produce their wan, white mothlike flowers, the garden is at perhaps its most beautiful. It is then, most certainly, that we know why we are here, and what we are doing.
Joe Eck & Wayne Winterrowd in Living Seasonally: The Kitchen Garden and the Table at North Hill
While I do appreciate and enjoy all the seasons of the garden here in NE Ohio, I especially love the exuberance in the this time of year. I have to agree with the authors above, it truly is the most beautiful time in the edible garden.
What season do you think is most lovely when it comes to the garden?
