johnnyd

Jeez, MzD. Sounds like college.

I take it that's some kind of milt in the middle?!

Awww, Jason, you are killing me! I haven't had those pasteles in a long time.

Daniel, you road-tripin' fool! Just goes to show you can't keep a hungry man in one town for very long! Made that Tillamook run some years ago and I remember Barnicle Bill. You are right about the smoked seafood trend, tons of it up there, and the hanging greyness on the coast is most eerie. You must have breezed through Manzanita, a neat little town. This is a trip I've always wanted to make. Thanks for the diary, my man! I have to go find some crab and some fried oysters now...

I had no idea kiwis grew on vines. That is a cool pic, thanks!

Stunning report, Adam! The baked lamb and potatos reminds me of my time in Portugal where I was served some really unattractive meals that ended up tasting incredible, most notably cuttlefish "em su tinto", a black stew of heinous appearance but one of my favorite dishes in the whole world. The island looks idyllic. I assume the waters were quite clear for snorkling?

Hi Brooks, Following your journal closely. WWOZ was destroyed along with some priceless local music heritage. Our community station here in Portland, ME is holding a one-day fundraiser to help their staff and to help finance the acquisition of recordings such as the few you've mentioned as they are all that's left. WWOZ DJ Reddy Teddy is here in Maine with five other displaced NO residents and he hopefully will stop by the station on that day. The nation-wide effort to help those on the Gulf Coast in all aspects is most compelling. May the cities there rise again in re-newed splendor.

Batidas are cachaca drinks made with available tropical fruit in Brasil. Batida de coco includes a dab of sweetened condensed milk. Batida de caju substitutes lime juice for cashew fruit juice. I had a small bottle of it during my blog last week and added it to the limes leftover from a traditional caipirinha. Not as hot as I thought but if I made it properly I might think otherwise. Go here for my meyer lemon caipirinha made with Fazenda Mae de Oro!

Spectacular feast, moosh! ...Cantonese... mmmm!

I'm sorry! I popped in here expecting a punchline... [ba-dum, bum!]

So I just have to ask why this was not done. Even I, at twenty one, perpetually hungover and essentially clueless, knew enough to use kitchen rags for a hand-guard when opening the many bushels of oysters that summer long ago.

Aren't the piripiri peppers used for the molho grown in Portugal? I thought they were brought over from Brasil a couple hundred years ago, and originally from Africa.

What a riot! Everyone looks great! Good job everybody! I wish I could have been there. One of these days I have to organize a lobster bake on a Maine beach. You folks down there can't have ALL the fun!

Okay, you've got me. I see the honey tempering the gorgonzola but the two of them could overwhelm the fig. That's not going to keep me from trying this though, bravo. I lived in Portugal where we had a couple hammocks in a giant fig tree. They ripened in August so we had fun pairing them with odd things. Honey seems like overkill, though Great photo!

It's my pleasure HC. Come up when the gas frenzy subsides. We'll do a chowder crawl. That goes for the lot of you, by the way!

Oh. My. Gawd! When my mom stayed at the camp in mid-august, we kept the stress to a minimum by, constantly talking about, shopping for or preparing food! I recommend it!

Thanks viva! Coming from you, a frequent visitor to Brasil, that means a lot. Abraços!

Hi, Pan. Loved your blog too. I do eat a great deal of seafood and get cranky if I don't have it after three or so days. In general, I usually don't plan meals until I go to the markets. If some pork tenderloin is on sale, I start building around that, apps, starch, veg, wine or beer inclusive. I try to shift focus everyday because I don't think it's healthy to have the same dish more than two days in a row. After pork, I'll go fowl, to fish, to red meat, not necessarily in that order, but just so a variety is maintained. This week I got a mess of fresh mussels so they were in two dishes, one of which incorporated a peculiar cooking device, the cataplana, a perfect choice for my fellow food enthusiasts. Had I not blogged, the second day might have been a pork-based menu with mussels as a starter, steamed the same way but with a different mix of herbs and such. Or I might have gone the tapas route, cooked off in advance and marinaded in EVOO, capers, roasted red pepper, shallots and herbs. There isn't any lull in seasonal seafood here. Scallops, shrimp and sea urchin seasons are in winter. Soft shell lobster are a summer thing, but hardshells are available from pounds all year. I actually had sushi (with incredible toro sashimi) for lunch yesterday, and more tuna and the remaining oysters in a home-made ponzu for dinner. So for me, there is no such thing as too much seafood... well, we are having a beef stir-fry this evening, but my freezer is packed with a quart of chowder, a quart of mussels/squid/cod cataplana, a quart of lobster stock, a quart of maine shrimp-shell stock, not to mention four quarts each of chicken stock and feijoada! Coming up here anytime soon?

Good if you like winter. Bad if you don't. This is a Golf Course on Cape Elizabeth last January.

Oh, my pleasure! I suppose had I come upon the much-feared mutant sea urchin, it would have quite a score to settle since I and my colleagues were responsible for removing more than 50 million pounds of it's relatives from Maine waters... I have decided that stories about sea urchin diving is better told in a different area of eGullet. After all, I didn't do any urchin diving this week and I am no longer licensed to do so. But the story of doing it is compelling. Stay tuned. I think a look at lobsters, lobstering and lobstermen would also deserve a thread of it's own. I'm sure as the weather get's worse, my boat-owning pals will reinstate their offer for a day out pulling traps or at least go check on them and since most of us love lobsters, and I live here, I will happily take one for the team and dutifully report on the state of that fishery, and others in the Gulf of Maine.

The last day of foodblog: johnnyd - Dining Downeast sees fewer flowers at the fort, the grass is starting to look a little like autumn, and the New England summertime humidity is retreating to the south. Today we are going downtown for lunch and maybe poke around the Old Port of Portland. We haven't been in town all week, nor have we visited any of our restaurants. But that leaves something to look forward to. I also came up empty in the underwater blogging segment of our program. I tried in vain to line up a trip and some equipment I needed, but I think my friends understandably took advantage of the great weather and made a little money instead. Damn... I actually put on what gear I had and snorkled off Whaleback Rock at the Cape in an attempt to snag a mutant sea urchin or wrestle a giant lobster into submission, but no such luck. I got a couple murky pix of a crab and some plantlife, which didn't make the cut.... next time!

A bikeride was in order this morning. So much has happened this week. Who knew such a calamity would befall our friends to the south? That gas prices are sixty cents more a gallon since I started this foodblog? Other happier coincidences include a tip of the hat to seafood chowders in Wednesday's New York Times, and The New Yorker's Food Issue, two of my regular reads seemingly in-step with what is now an institution at eGullet.org. So I pedaled over to the little bakery on Willard square called One Fifty Eight which is owned and operated by eGullet member KeysToVt and her partner, Bob. We chatted about Vermont, the recent devastation in Louisiana and Mississippi, and how it seems we all have absolutely no time for anything these days. Sonya, Bob and the crew produce an impressive array of goodies each morning. Bob has a discriminating taste in cheese. I bought a terrific chimay (I'm sure I left a trail of it's scent as I biked home), and a Tomme from the French Alps. Their wine selection is comprehensive. Here are more of the season's first heirloom tomatos.

We serve this with a Casal Garcia - Vinho Verde, a "green" wine which is slightly effervescent. As such, it is a quandry to wine aficionados but it is just one of those peculiar Portuguese creations. It just so happens that it is really good with those pork/shellfish dishes so good for them! I always look for it when I have a cataplana on the brain and I invariably find it for about $7.