Nick

The cooking is the same no matter the season. Mediocre, but better than many other diners. It is different now than in the '80's. Back then Percy Moody, the founder was still alive (in his eighties) and active in the operation of both the diner and the rental cabins up on top of the hill. He was a still a dynamo well into his older age. One day in the late '70's when I was living in town (and he was well into his seventies) he came to my door and asked if it was okay to lay some plastic pipe across my land as the cabins' well had run dry and he needed to bring water from further down in the village. I said to go ahead and later in the day he and another man of his age came through laying down coiled plastic pipe faster than I could, though I was thirty years his junior and had laid some myself. The '80's were also different at the diner than the '70's. Glenys Burnhiemer retired as the main cook then. She had cooked at Moody's for decades and between her cooking and Percy's drive to have the best place possible, Moody's reputation was established. I'll have to check out the Crossroads. It's a ways down the road. I've never been that far down the coast but have been wanting to go there and see the big tides. Around here we have 12' tides, but they're much bigger down there. If you go far enough down the coast (maybe you have to go to the Canadian Maritimes) there are 50' tides. I've heard that if you're way out on the flats when the tide starts coming in, you can't outrun it. Don't know if that's true - and not planning on trying it out. For comparison, I think the tides where you are run three or four feet. I'll maybe try out the Crossroads this summer. I sure would like a fried clam like they used to be. Last night I got to thinking that maybe the difference is that they used to be cooked in lard or beef tallow instead of oil. Anyone got any thoughts on that?

Moody's Diner is six miles down the road from me. It's such a landmark on Rt. 1 that it's how I give directions to my shop or house. As in, "take a left at Moody's and go six miles." I don't eat there very much, but between five to seven in the morning it was the place to go for breakfast. A real meeting place where you could get the latest news (and gossip) from around town as well as a good breakfast. For dinner, the fried clams used to be excellent but, like so many other places in Maine, they've gone downhill. I haven't had an excellent fried clam in years. I don't know if it's because the batter/breading has changed or if they don't keep the oil hot enough. All in all though, for diner eating, you won't find a better place that I know of on Rt.1 in midcoast Maine.

Here you go.

Decadence Supreme. I'll stick with Jason and cold pizza from the fridge first thing in the morning. A more rational decadence if you will.

If you happen to have some thin sliced roast beef, Claussen dill pickles, and Swiss cheese in the fridge - wrap a thin slice of pickle and a piece of the cheese in the roast beef. There's nothing like a good yang hit to counteract the yin of the alcohol.

That would be impressive. But, I doubt we'll soon see that.

Er, not! "You're an asshole, motherfucker!" Easy as pie. Same sentence, even! Maggie, you're a woman to be reckoned with.

Well, there was that gallon of cheap sherry of which I consumed the better part back in the fifties when I was around seventeen years of age. The vomiting that resulted is still somewhere in the recesses of my memory. Then there were the two bottles of "Flame Tokay", a cheap wine of that name, that a friend, my future wife, and I consumed on our way to help butcher a beef critter a friend of mine had slaughtered. I remember losing the driver's side door to a snow bank backing down a hill that I hadn't crested on the first try on our way into my friend's place. Then, once there, I remember giving my father's meat saw to John where we were to do the butchering. The next thing I remember is being upstairs on the couch with a good friend's woman. That part was okay, my friend had never hesitated to partake of the pleasures of some of my "girlfriends" in the past. It was when my future wife Katie came upstairs and found Martha and I in a somewhat heated state of affairs that things turned for me. I reluctantly left Martha and resumed my place at the cutting table with Katie at my side. The moral of this story is not to drink cheap wine and, if you must, beware of the consequences.

I wasn't refering to the pic. I was refering to the text when I said she could get it on. It takes a special woman to be able to use "asshole" and "motherfucker" in the same paragraph.

Julie gets it on.

Most of us (some of us?) know about Julie Powell's blog, "The Julia/Julia Project". I hadn't checked in there recently so when I came across this article in today's Christian Science Monitor, I thought I'd check it out again. "You know what’s worse than being a secretary? Being a really bad secretary. I spent all day in a mad rush yesterday preparing for The Meeting, and really very much almost didn’t make it, my hair was a mess, I bashed my shin in on a recycling bin, everyone could see what a moronic crazy person I was, and I wound up paying 265 dollars of my own money after a crazy stupid catering problem that was all my fault and that I don’t want to go into........" The Julia/Julia Project

"The real question is, what was I thinking? "I should have established a set of guidelines long ago. That all potential boyfriends have to be willing to travel to the far reaches of a city to seek out that dark little bar that makes the best fried oysters; that they must like going to restaurants, expensive restaurants." See full excerpt at SauteWednesday .

Yep. He lived in the next town over (Cornish, NH) and came to Plainfield for gas and supplies. Most people didn't care much for him. After the kids were grown Salinger's wife left him and moved away. He then bought the old Ed Day farm in the late sixties, built a new house on the property up on the hilltop, and let the barn and farm machinery fall into serious disrepair. One day Samuel Kayman (later co-founder of Stoneyfield Yogurt) stopped at the farm to look at the barn and machinery and Salinger came down from his perch and yelled at Samuel, "What right do you have to be on my property?" Samuel shot back, "What right do you have to let things go to hell like this?" Maxfield Parrish, the artist, that I'd also mentioned in my post was as well-liked as Salinger was disliked. He was a true gentleman who was always friendly with whoever he happened to be talking with. A happy man with an agreeable eye that had made his mark on the world with some of his work and yet was as happy talking with a local farmer as I'm sure he was the elite of NYC. Around town, Salinger was refered to as Salinger. Maxfield was refered to as Mr. Parrish.

Try putting the stuff in at a lower temp and then turning it up. Easier done with gas than electric. It took me awhile to get used to All-Clad, but now that I have there's no going back.

Salinger is just about the least fun person I've ever met. An egocentric, cold-hearted SOB would be an apt description. Maxfield Parrish, on the other hand, was about as delightful a person as one could ever hope to meet. Dining with Maxfield would be about as good as it gets. I think Tim (did you mean Tim?) Robbins would be great to have dinner with too. Though the food would have to be light as the talk would probably tend toward the heavy side.

Don't plant horseradish in your garden unless you're ready to have it around for a long time. Very hard to get rid of once well established.

I've been using cast iron for about thirty five years. I have many cast iron pots and pans of all sizes and shapes; some of them belonged to my grandmothers and are probably seventy five years old or so and all are still in good shape. But then I discovered All-Clad stainless and now have many of them. Stainless took some getting-used-to, but now I use it for everything except pan frying steak, some braises, heating tortillas, and toasting bread. (I toast my bread in an old cast iron bacon press.) All-Clad stainless is great! Especially when it comes to deglazing.

I don't have one - never have. I guess I can get along without one for a few more years.

If only we had a place like that in Maine.

I was going to say the Dalai Lama, but in view of recent events, I think I'll now say Nick Gatti.

Not likely. And I doubt they measure their daffodils - the true measure of any serious gardener.

Did a google (that usage will be in the next Websters ) and came up with this. Gardenweb

The last snow has melted and I measured my daffodils. They're up a good 2 1/2" - 3". Snowangel - what have you gotten me into? I've never measured daffodils before now.

Paul, I hope you're jiving - or that you know enough about the case, that you know he was guilty as accused. Otherwise, I have to wonder where you're coming from.

Nick I never would have thought of tongue. Smoked or plain? My friends usually only have plain, but as they also do smoking at their shop..... I will pick up a tongue when I get the corned brisket. But then what does a single fella do with the rest of the tongue? That's a lot of tongue sandwiches. Thanks, Nick II