Foodie friends

The house was sorta clean and the grass sorta mowed. Time to welcome some friends over!

It just figures that Russell French would show up wearing the same groovy logo for the Rosemont Market that I was. Lucky me, I won my apron sporting his wife, Mary Anne’s logo at last fall’s Folio Feast. He probably had to EARN his products, providing tech support or photography, or maybe even cooking! Never a chore for Russ, who is a premier food photographer, slow food afficionado, organizer of MOFGA, and all-around fun guy (who loves funghi…)

Feeding a good cook can be intimidating. But good wine helps.

We favored zin and cab for the evening, starting out with some Torta spread and baguettes from Rosemont Market, courtesy of our guests. Word has it there will be one in my orbit, which is within a walking radius of the ferry.

While Marty and Russ were grilling eggplant and polenta outside, Mary Anne and I could gab over the shrimp in the pan, inside.

I would like to say I sketched this while buying shrimp, but actually it’s from a seafood cookbook I illustrated awhile back (The Great American Seafood Cookbook.) At the time, I went to Haymarket in Boston for reference. Now I ferry past fishing boats on a daily basis, but merely bought the shrimp down at the island market.

While the adults were catching up, the girls were playing with a recently inherited Ouija board.
Will there be dessert?

YES!!! Green tea and something sweet.

Actually I made gingerbread men for dessert, paired nicely with some Lowfat Latte ice cream. Russ regaled us with tales of a recent outing to an undisclosed island for a sheep shearing photo shoot. Stay tuned for the views.

People may think Mainers eat a lot of lobster, but we (mostly) leave that to the tourists.
A table of nine islanders recently had the delicious chore of tasting 5 varieties of quiches baked by Rhonda and neighbor, Eleanor, for a possible new venture called Ha Ha Pies. We dined by candlelight, rating the appearance, texture, depth of flavor. Fun to be in on the ground floor of a culinary adventure.

We discussed ingredients, amount of salt, (nothin is too salty for this taster), crust products, density….prices. Lots to consider.
The key piece is timing and location: a cart parked at the top of the hill for islanders coming off the 5:30 boat would be sure to snag those too tired to cook. Right?

At any rate, the pies disappeared before I got a photo.

Anybody hungry?