Camden harbor on a sunny day: The Mercantile, a two-masted schooner built in 1916, once
served as a cargo vessel. It is now a National Historic Landmark and cruises along the Maine shore.
My idea of a dream vacation: lobster everyday. At $7 a pound, it was almost a throwback to
the time when the crustacean was so abundant it was considered junk food. We ate these sweet, succulent 1-1/4 pounders with saffron and shallot butter sauce.
We wanted to cook the lobsters in seawater, but filling the pot at high tide would mean
clambering down these rocks with ropes and pitons. We made do with water and sea salt...
I spent mornings on the beach, clambering over barnacle-crusted granite "pebbles" and slippery rockweed exposed at low tide. Rubber soles were definitely required!
I discovered a cache of these subtly hued shells in a crevice between huge boulders where they were probably cast up by winter storms.
Here's the sleeping porch in our cottage. Some of us napped and caught up on our reading...
...while others kayaked out to Curtis Island, named for the publishing maven who started The Saturday Evening Post. The 1896 brick lighthouse still flashes its green light every night.
On Wednesday we went to the small, but bountiful Camden Farmers Market. We scooped up a huge paper sack of these delectable English peas at the Peace Farm stand...
...and then discovered these gorgeous mushrooms at Oyster Creek Farm. Chanterelles at $2 an ounce? Dinner was beginning to take shape...
"That's all you need for dinnuh!" enthused Jeff Bellmore at Spear Farm. Actually he was raving about his buttery Kennebec and Norland potatoes, but we also snagged the last basket of these fragile Late Glow strawberries.
We were too early for the Maine Lobster Festival, but found this giant specimen lurking in a garage on Elm Street...
Naturally B and I did daily research into the lobster roll. The perfect roll, we determined, has a 2 to 1 ratio of lobster to lightly toasted bun, with just a whisper of homemade lemony mayonnaise. We ate this one at the Mariner Restaurant on Main Street in Camden.
The garden shed of my dreams: I stumbled across this secret cottage at a farmhouse in Lincolnville Beach on the Camden Garden Club Tour. Nestled amongst ferns and astilbe, it's just the place to while away a lazy afternoon with a stack of books and iced lemon verbena tea.
Here's the vegetable garden at the same farmhouse, erupting with giant cabbages. At the back of the plot, the three sturdy green tuteurs support tall tomato plants.
On our last day B and I sipped mojitos as the fog rolled in and Camden harbor, became ghostly and silent. We fell asleep later to the sound of waves crashing against the rocks and rain spattering on the roof.
If you eat at only one restaurant in Portland, let it be Duck Fat. We unexpectedly ran into some friends there: we were all on our way home, but had to get a Belgian frites fix first.
The to-die-for frites are twice fried in duck fat, sprinkled with seasoned salt and served hot in a paper cone--crispy on the outside, velvety within. They're even more addictive with the garlic aioli or Thai chili mayo dipping sauces.