johnnyd

It was actually okay, temperature-wise - 68-70°F and very little wind - but the rain was coming down like I saw when I was in Brasil. Tropical. Jeff is a tough one - however, while we were off-loading our lobsters a big pool drained off the roof and down his back. His unprintable comments about his sodden nether-regions had us laughing our asses off. My boots are still soaked inside. Mrs johnnyd thinks there's a herring stuck in there somewhere...

Thank you for the clarification, BB. They must have finished because there was a lot of opinion being thrown around when I snapped that pic; "this one was too charred - I couldn't taste it," and "too much fat/sugar/sauce on this one," and "this one was the best thing I've had all weekend," rang a lot of bells.Hey, Tedlor70 from Norwich! Glad you joined in. Do you have a list of winners in all, or some, categories? the BBQME website hasn't been updated with the winners yet. There actually was plenty of BBQ and other food for sale away from the contestants but if you took the initiative to go visit the competitors they were eager to offer samples to anyone who showed an interest. There were exceptions - a couple guys were all business and focused entirely on their entries - "No talking, please!" - but after all entries were in, there were buckets of awesome brisket and pulled pork in trays at every table. I was border-line 'Q-coma, man.

There is a place on the way out of town that eG member CSASphinx suggested I try as their fried clams are his favorite: Susan's Fish & Chips That is a mystery. I'll have ask Jeff. We wandered around a patch of ocean off Clapboard Island for most of the day but I was too busy baiting bags to notice any pattern. On territories, there is a fascinating book out there called The Lobster Gangs of Maine by Anthropologist, James M. Acheson, that delves into the territorial machinations of lobstermen from neighboring towns. Then there is the maxim, "No one 'owns' the ocean," that plays into it all. Poaching is hard to conceal despite the fact there are thousands of islands and hundreds of square nautical miles of ocean. You'd think you could get away with it. When I was downeast, things would "happen" to a boat or some gear and it never took long to figure out who was behind it. Naturally, repercussions were felt by nearly everybody. There is also that mysterious reasoning that goes along the lines of "Maybe the seagulls took it?" The force of the foodblog makes one do things one doesn't normally do... The tail of a lobster is the main propulsion unit. They actually swim backwards. I've been wanting to get a picture of that ever since. Stay tuned. So do I. Still regrouping from my sea saga but don't worry, I've a long list of food-centric objectives and a few surprises. The one thing I've had to delay is my attempt at creating three dishes with my friend, chef Josh Potocki, involving sea snails, or periwrinkles - known around here as just wrinkles. I found a million of 'em at low tide one day and I thought, hmmm... possibilities here, so I saw my chum Josh and we were going to do something last night but the massive rainfall run-off on Monday makes the shoreline a bit on the unsafe side from a bacterial perspective - even for me. For those who missed it, check out my trip out to The Bangs Island Mussel Farm in Casco Bay last May. Great pics and a good look at shellfish aquaculture.

Twice a week or so, I drive Mrs. johnnyd over the SoPo bridge to work in Portland. Our neighbor's cat, Thomas, greets us as we leave every time. He was found in a dumpster in Old Orchard Beach years ago. Thomas keeps order among the other street cats around here, and is great at tormenting the dog next door who is put out on a leash every morning. We always stop at our corner gas station cum variety store for coffee and maybe a take-out breakfast item. These places are the life-blood of towns in Maine - everywhere, really - but I've always appreciated their essential place in the community as a source for fuel, fast food, beer, cigs, help with a jump-start, snow plow hire, small boat tips, tall tales, big-fish stories, and gossip. Wes and Pete are there every morning. They have an opinion on, well, everything, and not always the same opinion, as you can see. This, I think, is a New England novelty. Set me straight if it's offered elsewhere. Behold the Breakfast Pizza. This has scrambled egg, cheese, sausage, ham and bacon. Usually there are two or more pies on the pass but we were "late" at 7:45 (the place is jammed at 5 in the morning). I ignored it for a year or two then tried it on a whim. It is the most delicious creation known to man.

Boy, I have some catching up to do. All that excitement on monday threw me off my game. That, and the big storm cut off power and I can't get my other desktop to boot properly. I have considered going diving - a friend has a proper underwater camera and I have been trying to charm it away from him for this week - still working on it. Also my chums in the seaweed biz [add link] need a diver to harvest this week. So many cool things to do and no time to do it all - I'll keep you posted. My take is that tomatos have no business being even near a chowder, yet I caught myself enjoying a spanish-style seafood bouillabaisse [add link]a few weeks ago so I do have to revisit this. Thanks, Aaron - this is definitely political and the two sides are at loggerheads. I received a fiery email from someone recently on one side that I will add to a brief discourse on the issue. Word! I didn't know that. The separation from Massachussets is well known (and welcomed... to say the least ) around here. One plan for our state quarter was the slogan: "183 Massachussets-free years", and an etching of a seagull on the hood of an SUV. It wasn't picked.

Fog, a nemesis to boaters, casts a mysterious and beautiful veil on Maine's coast, especially in the summer. There is a local fellow in our neighborhood that has been standing stones of all sizes on the boulders down on the beach. I don't know who it is but I love it when I come across his work on my daily bike ride. They offer a peaceful reminder of our planet's natural rhythms.

I steamed the other two lobsters. We had to use hamburger rolls for this classic roll, but one has to adapt, yes?, I am starving after so huge a day anyway. I used the tomalley as a spread then poured melted butter over the lobster roll-base and capped it. It was awesome. That's a lobster roll, baby

So out of this lot - about half of the day's haul... ...johnnyd gets these handsome critters, ... who go into this pot of bubbling pale ale to steam, and then into an ice-water bath for later, While that was going on, the single-clawed fellow decided he'd had enough and started climbing off the plate onto the cutting table: sending Mrs. johnnyd into shriek mode! Sorry, dear, but after what I'd been through it was highly entertaining. Somebody create a movie title here - C'mon, it's begging for it!

We sell 52 lobsters at $4.10 per pound and keep eight for ourselves. Jeff made $213.20 but paid Jim $100, bought $125 worth of salted herring, $115 worth of sow's ears and paid forty bucks in gas. Granted, the bait expense actually goes to the next harvest result, but still... Those sixty traps we left will help out, I hope. Not wearing a single dry thread of clothing, we went to our favorite bar and had a few beers. As you may imagine, the story got woolier the more pints of ale that got poured and consumed. You guys get pictures - the straight dealio - and, thank you, dear readers, for accomodating this completely unplanned chronicle of Terror and Bravery... okay, Luck and Stupidity is probably more like it. Portland, Maine got two and a quarter inches of rain in three hours. Another one of those storms is forecast for Wednesday. I think I'll stay on shore this time.

Finally, Mackworth Island was to our starboard aft and Munjoy Hill began to loom dead ahead (Munjoy Hill is the eastern "promenade" part of Portland's peninsula - more on Portland later, I promise!). Jeff suddenly got on his phone and through the roaring din of the Chevy at full throttle I could make out "Flash your lights now," and suddenly two little beacons flashed on and off, on and off, from the part of the Eastern Prom where, on a better day, you can pull over and watch the boats go by in the Bay. It was his Dad's car. At last, we tie up to the dealer and prepare the lobsters for sale. Seconds after I shot that picture, I swear, a lightning bolt hit one of those buildings in the background. I don't know this fellow's name but I couldn't decide whether he was amused at our sodden state or amused that we were out there at all in that torrent. All I know is that he was amused. We all agreed the vessel above is a fine choice for the next time we head out.

After lunch we gamely pulled a couple trap strings and got drenched doing it. We had two slickers between us so the Captain toughed it out in his T-shirt. We still had sixty traps to do. Then we heard thunder, l-o-u-d thunder. We looked at each other and Jeff said, "Well, I think we should go in now," Understatement of the year. " Maybe I can get out tomorrow and finish up with my Dad," Just then we saw lightning but it was raining so hard we couldn't see where it was coming from. We all switched into clean-up mode and stowed everything in a hurry - neatness was suddenly not important anymore. Jim was not smiling anymore. Neither was Jeff... We motored as fast as we could. Jeff's motor is a 1970 Chevy 252 straight-six, one year older than he is. We huddled under the roof hoping that it would make it into Portland harbor without conking out. That, and the battery, the bilge pumps, etc.etc. We were soaked to the bone. More lightning. This time the thunder came from Portland, dead ahead. We were going right into it. At this time I began to think about if it was really, really possible to actually get hit by lightning. Well, we were the tallest thing between Clapboard and Mackworth Islands - an area of about three square miles. Hmmm... What if we were hit by lightning? We would probably get knocked right out of our boots and into the water. The boat would be found later, a floating, charred wreck. Would they find my camera? A record of my final hours? Would Mrs. johnnyd remember to post my last pictures on eGullet??? At this point there is a tremendous flash of light and a click-clackety-BOOM that prompts me to claw open my camera case and take this ridiculous picture: It's Jeff's GPS monitor showing our position. It's covered in herring spooge. I figure if someone finds the camera, they'll know where we were when we lost consciousness...

As the morning drifts into afternoon we settle into a rhythm. Each quartet of traps is separated by a little squirt of distance in between, all within sight of the inner islands of Casco Bay. I have been busy filling bait bags with beautiful, smelly, salted herring. When Jim sets the traps on the transom, I spray them with white vinegar to try to keep vegetative growth from attaching to the trap grid. The miniature kelp growth draws nutrients from the bait. Then as we mosey over to the next string, I'm back to bait bagging. The first bags were tidy layers of fish, their tails sticking out of top. "This will tempt a few into the parlors," I said to myself. But at this point in the day I'm thrusting my gloves into a dark stew of fish parts and fist a handful into the little nets, then yank the sucker closed. I wanted to take more pictures but my gloves were so frrreakin' gross and hard to pull off and put back on it just wasn't going to happen. Hours went by. I began thinking to myself how far Jeff had come since his Captain Splash days. Even though he always said he was selling the boat and getting out of the business I just knew he loved lobstering too much to go through with it. Besides, we had all agreed during a break that morning that we were the luckiest guys on the planet. When we stopped for a sandwich ( Mrs. johnnyd made a pile of smoked ham & swiss on marble rye), we didn't notice that it was raining... raining pretty hard. We all knew that the forecast called for it [did anyone listen?] but what's a little rain in the summertime? Oooooooh, crap!

When Jeff finds a lobster in his traps he measures it using a special gauge. A legal lobster in the State of Maine has a carapace or body shell length that measures between 3 1/4 inches and 5 inches. The measurement is made between the extreme rear of the eye socket to the end of the carapace. This one's a "keeper". Anything smaller, or larger, must be thrown back in the water to either grow to size or contribute to the breeding of more lobsters. Rubber bands (with the wholesalers license number) keep lobsters from attacking each other in their holding pounds.

After Jeff removes (hopefully) any of the World's Favorite Crustacean from his trap he slides it along the washrail to Jim, who takes out the bait bag - which is usually empty, but might still have a herring spine or two - and replaces it with a freshly-filled bag and a sow's ear. Jeff was up until 11pm the night before drilling 3/8inch holes into the ears so Jim would have no difficulty pairing the two bait on the same line. When that's done, Jim closes the parlor door, and slides the trap aft to the transom for redeployment. Once all four traps are re-set, Jeff steers his boat to a spot he thinks has "good ground", and tosses the first bouy out in the water, holding the first trap of the string on the washrail until he's ready. He looks intently at the depth-finder, then at the surrounding proximity to islands or visible shoals, then back to the depth-finder, and when it feels just so, the trap splashes into the water. As I watched him do this, it reminded me of a water diviner I saw once. We are dowsing for lobsters here, I thought. As he motors slowly forward, there is a coil of pot warp feeding over the transom and into the water, drawn by the water-borne trap as it settles on the bottom. In short order the next trap gets pulled off the transom and more rope feeds gently over the side. It's like those cowboys who trap crab off Alaska on the Discovery channel - only much, much less dangerous. To be clear, it is dangerous. Just like the TV show, if your ankle gets tangled in that warp-feed, you are going to get pulled in the water. The difference here is that Jeff would throw the engine hard in reverse, throw you a life-ring (assuming you are still on the surface), then grab the line and start hydro-hauling you out of the water and back in the boat. Once you've wrapped up your bruised or bleeding ankle, you light a cigarette and listen to everyone laugh and trash-talk your sorry ass. If it happens to you on a crab fishing boat off Alaska where things are ten times the scale of operation I would expect far worse consequences. Anyway, suffice to say we kept an eye on the deck when the trap-strings went back in the water. Once the last trap slips off the boat and disappears, Jeff let's the end-bouy loose and there they float until he comes back in a few days to see if he's caught anything. After this trip he doesn't plan on returning for a week, thus the combination herring & sow's ear bait strategy.

We arrived at the dock about seven armed with take-out coffees and breakfast sandwiches of dubious nutritional value but enough calories to catapult our little team of three into a morning of lobstering. The goal today was to check 300 traps, retreive any lobsters within and re-fill bait bags that were certainly empty after a week. Jeff and I have been friends for twelve years. He's been lobstering part-time for a few years longer, with the help of his Dad. When I was urchin diving in Casco Bay five years before I met him, we would hear over the radio about requests for a tow nearby, an equipment failure perhaps, a vessel taking on water or a man overboard. Word spread on the waterfront that it was always the same guy. With typical New England working waterfront flair, the name Captain Splash was afixed to the hapless fellow. Years later I started chatting with the barkeep of my local hangout and found we shared some fishing experiences. As the stories kept flowing I put it all together and realized that Captain Splash had been pouring my pints all winter. It was Jeff. When I left full-time fishing I regularly checked in with Jeff at the Bar to catch up on all-things marine. Knowing I am reasonably nimble at sea he has cheerfully offered a spot on deck for a day out trap-hauling anytime. This week's foodblog was the perfect opportunity. And here we are. Joining us is Jeff's regular stern man, Jim who is enthusiastic as the day is long (see pic above with bait herring). The marina is way down the Fore river, in an industrial waterfront area. Pretty soon we are motoring under the big bridge out into the harbor. While we steam out to Jeff's trap strings, we fill soft-ball sized, bait nets with salted herring. These are hung inside the lobster traps and ooze delicious decay into the surrounding seawater, attracting just about everything with a mouth. The first set of strings are fairly close by the Portland peninsula, so Jeff and Jim start hauling traps. Jeff approaches one of his individually color-coded bouys at idle speed and snags it with a boat hook. He wraps it's line (or pot warp) around his hydraulic winch and up comes the first trap of four on the string.

Thanks so much, everybody, for your kind welcome. I've been pumped up to do this blog for weeks. I will do my best to answer all queries as they arise, or shortly thereafter. As I mentioned, I am pooped after a day I won't forget any time soon. Those who took the trouble to log-on to the weather link this afternoon will know what I'm talking about. I need a good night's sleep and then I've a story to tell about three fishermen.

Bingo. Dried Sow's ears have a long shelf life underwater as bait in a lobster trap and apparently won the trials some years ago as the de-facto long term bait over leather pieces and other odd items like jerky thingies. The short term bait-of-choice is herring. These are fished, netted actually, specifically for lobstering here in Maine. They are salted down in blue barrels and sold by the box, or "tote" to lobsterman on the way out to their trap-strings. They produce an unholy smell when the weather is warm.

It's been an interesting day. Much to tell, but I am, as you may imagine, pooped. In the mean time, who can identify these?

Welcome to Portland, Maine, at the mouth of the Fore River on Casco Bay. I, johnnyd, will be your designated foodblog pilot for the next seven days. The teaser photos are taken from Spring Point Battery, one of three fortified defense points for Portland built in the 19th century. Some members might recognize the following shot from my first foodblog: Dining Downeast I The forts were fitted with giant gunnery... ...which, these days, are a perfect setting for Shakespeare and Wilde... We had beautiful weather this weekend so I took these photos to introduce the area to members and visitors of eGullet who may not know or have heard much of our part of the world. Hey, you never know - I knew zip about Surinam (and it's fascinating foods) exactly one week ago - hats off to Mr. Morse for his soon-to-be legendary blog. This a view of Portland from "Ferry Village", where I live, in South Portland. Momentarily, I am headed out on my friend Jeff's Lobsterboat to help him lay a few strings, re-bait a few traps, and hopefully bring home some you-know-what for dinner. I won't be back at the computer for at least ten hours. You can come along on our day by listening in on the NOAA Marine Forecast for Casco Bay: ** Clickity ** choose "open with" If you are patient enough to slog through the terrestial forecast and conditions, you eventually hear the current ocean buoy readings - wave height, wind direction and speed - and what the weather has in store for people foolish enough to agree to haul traps on a drizzly day in Maine. Jeff, however, has been a friend for a very long time, and his charm won me over. Pics to come.

After many hours, this brisket is ready Outstanding - and delicious. You better believe I got samples! Here's a chef's choice entry: Lobster tail wrapped in bacon We left before the winner was declared but were promised a detail on Tuesday. A great time was made better by a variety of good bands. I encourage all near and far to check it out next year.

At the judges tent, entries were considered on appearance. I never knew there was a New England Barbeque Society. Rib deadline looms. The contestants get cracking... I realized that a couple people cooked six or so racks with a slightly different rub mixture or finishing sauce strategy, then picked the best one for the entry. Plating begins The judges argue merits of rib entries, And a close eye is kept on the results.

Saturday's competition was grilling specialties - today was the 'Q which was divided into Chicken, Pulled Pork, Ribs, Brisket and a chef's choice which had to include 50% lobster. This is Ted Aggeler from Kansas City. He's a project manager in Connecticut at the moment. He and his wife couldn't resist entering the competition. Here's a custom rig from Texas, These guys from Norwich, Conn - like a lot of the contestants - had a styling camper that fit all the gear and three people. Pulling Pork before the entry deadline...

New England's top BBQ specialists converged on Zach's Farm in York, not far from the New Hampshire border for the 2nd Annual Great State of Maine Barbeque and Grilling Championship. We arrived early to beat the crowd... Contestants to the left - judges tent at right. Below, the Music Stage and vendors. The Farm House is tucked in the trees, In between was a vast beer tent supplied all weekend by Portland Microbrewer Gritty McDuff's. Most of these guys were up all night...

That's awesome. What quantity do you order and who's the vendor? That guy in, I think, Bristol that you mentioned upthread this winter?There does seem to be a lot of Maine Shrimp on menus this summer. How about that?!

The new Local 188 opened on August 1st. I stopped in yesterday for a beer and to visit the indomitable Mr. John Meyers, aka fatdeko here on eGullet. As I suspected, the proprietors saw immediately the currency in a top notch barkeep. The place is vast, resplendent in riotous decor (The gallery is curated by Garry Bowcott and Patrick Corrigan) and offers a killer menu. Stop in sometime at 685 Congress St, Portland ME.