Bumbleberry Pie

I don't do pie. I have a love/hate relationship with the crust.  All my life, my mother was the expert pie baker.  She taught me everything I know about cooking and baking and yet, I could never really master pie crust.  Oh, I can make one and it's edible but I have angst.  When I met Sean and discovered he was a pie baker extraordinaire. my angst increased.  Emma says Sean and my mother need to have a pie bake-off with her being the judge.  Because, of course, Brian does not eat pie.  Or cake.  Or any other kind of dessert expect vanilla ice cream and the occasional chocolate chip cookie.  "you can't make me eat that piece of pie mommy".  Ok honey, you don't have to eat that piece of pie.  More for your sister.

Years ago I read a very nice little book about pie.  Humble Pie, Musings on What Lies Beneath the Crust.  The author, Anne Dimock, writes about how pie has been  part of her life from the day she was born.  She writes about New Englanders loving pie for breakfast (of course, that and baked beans).  She writes about no matter what is going on in her life, there will always be pie.

Every summer, when we go to Maine, Emma and my mom make Blueberry Pie.  Sometimes Bumbleberry pie.  The berries in Bumbleberry are blueberries, raspberries and blackberries.  The recipe comes from the King Arthur Baking Book.

Emma loves pie.  Emma was also sick with a cold this weekend and I had the ingredients for the pie in the freezer.  So I decided to make it.  It came out pretty good and high praise from Emma when she said the crust was flaky.  I'll bring Sean a piece tomorrow and get the ultimate opinion.

I used blueberries (picked from Butler's Orchard), Blackberries (picked from the community garden), Sour Cherries (picked from Homestead Farms) and Peaches (Farmer Allan).  The pie is pretty tasty.

Fruit, with sugar, lemon juice and tapioca, ready to be cooked and thickened.

In the bottom crust

Top crust added

Yum, Bumbleberry Pie

Maine vacation - Part three

The rest of our week we spent doing some usual things and some new things.  On Tuesday, we headed to Freeport for school shopping.  It's about an hour east of Peru and if you didn't know, home to LL Bean.   Freeport is also home to many outlet stores and the ones we usually hit are The Gap (really cheap prices) and The Jockey Store (really cheap underwear).  We have lunch at a little place called the Corsican Restaurant and after lunch, I buy a pair of seaglass earrings at a local jewelry shop.

We are creatures of habit.  In years past we have also visited the Desert of Maine (yes, there is a desert in Freeport) and The Harraseeket Marina to purchase our lobsters and steamers (now there is a market in Dixfield, next to Peru to buy the lobsters).  This year, after shopping, we headed to the Winslow Memorial Park and Campground to go swimming.    Even in a cove the water is COLD in Maine.

On Wednesday, the kids and I headed north to Byron, Maine to go to the Coos Canyon Gorge.  This is a beautiful place to go swimming although the water was low due to no rain all summer.

Wednesday night, we also went north (the other way) to South Carthage, ME to hear some Celtic Music at the Skye Theater.   This theater is a labor of love for the owner and his wife - he bought an old junk yard and barn and is slowly rebuilding the barn to house the musical venue.  It's basically sitting on the top of a mountain.  The night we went, we saw a family named the Celtic Spring - 6 siblings plus parents - playing fiddle and other instruments and all of them doing Irish Dancing.  They were amazing!

The beanies - on top of the mountain, waiting for the show to start

The view

Skye Theater

Inside

Grammy, Emma, Brian and Grandpa J.R.

Maine vacation - Part two

Day one in Maine: Monday

Sleeping in - okay, my mom gets up at 5:30 or something like that so when I woke up and finally got out of bed I thought it was late - only to discover it was 6:30am.  That was my routine for the rest of the vacation - get up at 6:30, chat with mom and her partner J.R., have coffee, read paper, do crossword puzzle, sit on porch.  Monday was spent relaxing and getting reacquainted with the chickens.  Last year, mom let the chickens run free so they would come up on the porch and peck my red toenails, thinking they were juicy bugs.  Unfortunately, one of her chickens was snatched last summer, the theory being it was a fisher.   One of her cats was also killed last summer, presumably the same fisher.  Fishers are a member of the weasel family.  There was an article in the Boston Globe this summer about increased attacks by fishers on house pets in the Boston area.

Back to the chickens.  I painted my toes pink this year hoping to ward off the chickens and their pecking only to discover that they are no longer allowed to roam free.  Mom takes them out of their coop every morning and brings them down to the lower yard to be in their pen.  They don't seem to mind.

Mom, spreading lettuce for the girls.  This is their coop.  It's attached to the barn

The girls are so spoiled - carried back to their coops.

Emma and Clara.  Emma is the human

This is either Clara or Chloe.  They are twins and hard to tell apart

Mom also keeps bees.  Here are her hives. I came home with several jars of honey

My honey

Mom owns the house next door too so she's created her gardens in between the two properties

Garage with greenhouse and gardens

The chickens the next morning, ready to fly the coop

These girls lay brown eggs - the color of the eggs is determined by the breed of chicken.  In New England, the eggs you buy in the store are primarily brown so that is what I am used to.  I buy brown eggs and pay more for them for some reason.

Emma and mom, leading the girls to the lower yard

Run away girls!!  Be free

Their pen in the lower yard

Girls in their daytime pen

Mom's vegetable garden - bigger than mine

New greenhouse being built

Maine vacation - Part one

My mom lives in Maine.  I grew up in Connecticut and Massachusetts but my mom grew up in Northern Maine.   Over 20 years ago, she stumbled across this house in the Central Mountain region and decided to buy it as her retirement home.  She's been fully retired for a couple of years now so our vacations are in Maine every summer.


I keep telling Emma that I can't wait until she turns 16 so she can help with the drive.  It's too far for me to drive in one day so we stop in CT at my aunt's.  Our drive is always the same.  Leave Sat at 9am and head north on 270 in MD until we pick up Rte 15 in Frederick.  This will take us to Harrisburg, PA where we pick up I81 to Scranton.   This is actually the longer way to go but I hate driving up I95 on the New Jersey Turnpike.  Driving through PA we get to go through the Poconos and there are no tolls.


Around noon, we make it too Frackville, PA.  It's the home of the Dutch Kitchen and the place we always stop for lunch.  It's in fact the only place to eat on I81 between Harrisburg and Scranton!  If anyone knows of another home cooking place, let me know.  I always have the Chicken Pot Pie which doesn't have a crust but contains big fat egg noodles on top of the filling.  I need to get a recipe for this.


After lunch, we head north to Scranton - there is never enough time but one day we will stop at the Steamtown National Historic Site.


In Scranton, we pick up I84 and this road takes us into CT.  In Waterbury we head north on Rte 8 to Harwinton which is where my aunt lives.  It's very rural and in years past we have seen bears, wild turkeys and various other wildlife in her backyard.


The next day we leave on Rte 6 into Bristol, CT.  I was born here and lived here for several years while in elementary school (I should have been born in MA as my parents were living on Franklin, MA but I was early and was born during their Thanksgiving trip to my grandparents).  I decided to show the kids were I went to Middle School since they are always hearing stories about how much I hated it! I went to a tiny Lutheran run school and I wasn't even Lutheran!  At least I met my friend Suzanne and she was more miserable than me.  After passing the school, we drove past my old house, the one my grandfather had built (they retired to CA and we moved into their house).  My children were not that interested.


Leaving Bristol, we picked up I84 in Farmington.  Drove to the end and got on the Mass Turnpike, then I290 through Worcester, then I495 to the border of MA and NH and we picked up I95 to the Maine Turnpike.   At lunch time we got off in Kittery and ate at the Weathervane.  Clam chowder, yum yum.


Once back on the Maine turnpike, we take the exit for Lewiston- Auburn.  My mother lives in Peru and it's about 40 min North West of the exit.  Peru is next to Mexico and north of Norway and Paris and south of Madrid.



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Total drive time:  8 hours the first day, 6 hours the second day.

Mom's house

The side porch where I drink wine and read my book