Return to Maine - 2008

Porcupine has been spending time in the Great, not Terribly White, North - opening the hut for summer. Only three weeks ago, the summer burrow looked like this -


Now, despite a few patches of snow in the shadows, the ground is clear, the rivers are running strong and the great melt has begun. It was still a little chilly, so Porcupine chose to stay across from the Lighthouse Museum and travel over to the hut. Also, there were entertainment opportunities in Rockland, which Porcupine will detail in another post.

Still, Porcupine worries about Maine. It's getting citified, less rural. It saddens him, as he has watched the same process gradually transform Cape Cod over the last few decades, and he hopes the same sort of suburbanization won't afflict Maine as well.

But perhaps not all is lost. Porcupine was eating lunch is the most excellent Brass Compass Restaurant - enjoying the Daily Duo. Wee fried Maine shrimp paired with tiny fried bay scallops - and the taste of bay scallops is unmistakeable, as the sweet juice explodes in your mouth when you bite down, so unlike the grotesque chopped-up spongy sea scallops that get palmed off on you sometimes - with hand-cut french fries which taste like...potatos. A heaping plate, all for $7.50.

While enjoying this splendid meal, a whiny lady from Noo Yawk was snivelling to her bored husband that she couldn't finish such a huge portion, it would be cold and greasy, and did her new nails make her look like a high class prostitute (Porcupine was of the opnion they did, but thought the lady was a little optimistic about her success in such a career)? Unbidden, a slender teenaged girl who was a waitress went to the table and said, "Here. Let me give you some tinfoil, to keep the food fresh and warm so you can take it with you."

The child came of her own accord. And she called it 'tinfoil'.

Maine is still Maine. Porcupine was so cheered that he had that Lemon-Blueberry bundt cake with the crumbled maple topping after all....

More To come...