Stealing from my own blog...

Down on the farm...

It's been pure chaos recently, and the best kind of friends to have when things get tough are farm friends.

Turkey Hill Farm is a beautiful piece of land, complete with alpacas, an attack duck, rows and rows of vegetables and a wood fired oven. We shared delicious beer, home made pizza dough and garden fresh toppings: it was beautiful, relaxing and inspiring.

Take that farm to table movement,
we brought our table to the farm!

Food Art

What artists do if given wire and household objects and too much time on their hands! You say tomato, I say tomato.  You say potatoes, I say zombies. Fruit with life experience Zombies are nuts about brains Modest pear Literary interpretations Paper training our little dog, Frank.

the 5 commandments of cole

Having decided to take upwards of twenty jobs, watching my face and resume get plastered about town in a weak attempt to become a local celebrity, I've ignored my sweet sweet blog of the Banana Omelettes variety...you'll most likely find me blogging now at Decadent Maine, promoting my cooking classes, foodie trolley tours and various workshops featuring cheese, herbs, and wine.  Though it's been fun, and has been a nice transition from not working to overworking, I miss my sarcastic, embittered, "witty" fun on my original blog.

I've realized that my cooking style follows certain guidelines...commandments if you will...

1. Simplify, simplify
I stole that one from Henry David Thoreau.  Food doesn't need to be complicated.  Keep it simple, which leads me into my next commandment
2.  Keep it fresh!
This allows you to better apply rule 1, if you have the best product, then you don't need to do much to make it delicious.  A perfect fresh scallop only needs a little sea salt
3. Keep it local
The farther your food travels, the more tired it tastes, the more chances it has of being less delicious.  We all have had that experience of something fresh from the garden, warmed by the sun...few things are better.
4. Respect the food.
This ties into my earlier rules, I've gotten to know a lot of farmers, foragers, and fishermen in my day, and these guys take such pride in their work and their product that it seems downright rude to disrespect their efforts by an overly complicated sauce.  Keep it simple, honor your producers.  The farmers are the true chefs.
5. Read. Study. Learn.
If you're SO determined to do something with effort, beyond proper seasoning, then study, know your stuff.  One of the best ways to approach a new style of cooking is to study the history of the ingredient, find it's origin and then follow it around the world, it will allow you to rethink preparations, I call it true fusion.  Look at how the history of the world has had an impact on different cuisines, look at how they've influenced one another, don't be random. Be smart.

Snobbery and tastings

Allagash "Victoria" Belgian Ale tastes like Welch's Grape Juice.  I've said it before, I'll say it again.  I actually announced this loudly during the brew tour, one of those awkward moments when everyone goes silent and you can't control the volume of your voice. I took a sip "TASTES LIKE WELCH'S", a murmur ran through the crowd, "oh it does..it really does", the tour guide denied me any more tastings, and refused to answer any and all questions I may have had.
Note, this isn't necessarily a bad thing...some people might like their beer to be fruity, reminiscent of snack time, or peanut butter sandwiches, I don't, but some might.

Cold River Gin tastes like Pine-sol and maple syrup.

I once ate Foie Gras sauce that tasted like pizza goldfish

Cranberry bisque that tasted like Christmas

Blueberry Lavender Ice Cream just tastes pretty

I don't use the fancy terms, the high end definitions, I use what I know, I describe in truths, not snobberies.

and I don't judge my boyfriend who was craving foie gras, promised to take me on a date for foie and wine, and ended up ordering a whopper at lunch declaring it cured his craving.

Foie + Gras = Fat Liver

Unknown animal biproduct (possibly liver) + Fat = Whopper

Ergo

Foie Gras = Whopper

I'm lovin' it.

Chocolate Lime Wine Coolers continued...

After my boyfriend finished his second wine cooler (chocolate wine, limade and strawberry fizzy water), and his second plate of fatty foods, with a side of espresso chip ice cream...


I asked, "hey, do you wanna watch 'sex and the city', you're kinda eating like you're pregnant"

He said no, and went back to watching the Red Sox destroy the Yankees, 

and I went back to my beer and painting my toe nails mauve.

Summer lovin' had me some (fried) clams

Girls spent their spring obsessing about what they were doing/eating/not eating/etc. in order to look omg super hot come bikini season. I took it all in and I listened with a grain of salt (pork), and a beer.

I listen to the latest diet craze during the morning news about what makes you fat, what makes you thin, and what makes you feel your best.  I usually have a Mrs.Dunster's doughnut hole wedged between my cheek and teeth as I slurp down coffee so strong I have to stir it with a fork.

These trendy diets are mostly a pain in the ass with no results.

I'm no Twiggy, but I'm no Ms. Piggy...some kind of happy medium, and most of these girls complaining about their diets are closer to the Twigster than the Pigster.

All I'm trying to say is this:

Summer foods are awesome!

There are few times during the year that fried clams at Two Lights taste so damn good! Especially on a hot day, with a cold beer, looking out over the open ocean and sharing laughs with friends that I wouldn't trade them for a butt load of Bunchen. No Giselle? Oh well.

Nothing hits the spot like a cold beer, red hot hot dogs with grilled onions and French's yellow mustard...

Who can say no to inch thick burgers with onion rings, BBQ sauce, bacon, swiss cheese and dill pickles?

Summer is not the time to fast! Summer is the time to feast!  

I'm not saying you should eat these foods all day, everyday, but enjoy them when you do and stop counting calories (math is hard).
I'm not endorsing the 'Man v. Food' diet, when the food always seems to win, and all he seems to win are a couple of added inches to his waistline (I also find this show to be everything that is wrong with American culture, but that's a post for another time)

Time to get off my anti-diet soap box, and back into the pool...

with a six pack and a Whoopie Pie.

Like chocolate wine...17, with limade and ice,

Like chocolate wine and seventeen 

The mix of limade changed everything 

My first taste of love oh bittersweet 

Green in the face

It was the chocolate wine

I wrote this song (stole this song) in honor of my boyfriends dinner:

Pirogies, salt pork, bbq sauce, all washed down with chocolate wine and limeade

The song is an attempted mockery of Strawberry Wine by Deana Carter
Note it's 85 degrees, who isn't craving hot potato pirogies and salt pork?