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May. 22nd, 2006 09:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
livingdebAfter my lovely walk this morning I drove through some more beach area on my way to the big highway. For breakfast, I stopped at a place called Jake’s Seafood. Normally I wouldn’t do that, but I didn’t see the name of the restaurant, because in much bigger letters it said Restaurant, Take-Out, and Ice Cream. And I saw a full parking lot, which I decided was a good sign. And all the cars had Maine license plates, and even better sign.
You could get a scrambled egg, toast, and fried potatoes for only $2.10. So I also sprung for some orange juice for $1.15. What a bargain!
Then I drove up to Freeport, to check out the exciting LLBean flagship store. There's also a pretty good set of outlet stores in the area. It’s not exactly an outlet mall, with each store in in a separate building, usually some sort of cute little house.
The first outlet store I went to was the one for LLBean. Who knew? Although I am not usually a very good consumer, I actually bought two things there. I got a $30 button-down yellow shirt for $20, not that exciting to me. But it replaces the one I got as a hand-me-up from my sister which does not technically have any holes in it, but which does have translucent, well, everything that has only one layer of fabric. So now I have a shirt I can wear under my favorite sweater even on days when I might want to take the sweater off at some point.
Also, Robin won’t cringe every time I pull it out.
But my real treasure is a navy blue linen camp shirt for $13. A purchase that needs no explanation.
Then as I was going through the other stores I realized I was doing that thing I hate--I’m doing stuff Robin likes when he’s not here to be able to do it. So sad. But Freeport is too far away, and he won’t be making it.
The LLBean store was huge. My favorite part was the indoor trout pond, even though the trout were hiding. I want one in my house, now. Then leaves won’t fall into it all the time.
I didn’t find the indoor climbing mountain, but it may have been in some other building. They’re opening up a new building for bicycling and stuff next weekend (and it looks totally not ready!). And there’s another building already open that I didn’t go into; I forget the theme.
I also went to a sandwich shop and got a “turkey toasty” or something like that. It’s like a regular toasted turkey sandwich, only totally bad for you. You start with a white sub roll and slather it with mayonnaise. Then put a trivial amount of turkey on there, for show, plus thick tomato slices. But then add three kinds of cheese. Then pepperoni! And secret spices. And then toast it into a gooey, delicious mess.
After my Freeport experience, I turned around and went back to Portland, which I had passed on my way to Freeport this morning. I was going to start at the tourist information place and then make my plan for the day. But I couldn’t find it. I got all the way to the sign that said it was 100 yards ahead, but I didn’t see it.
No biggie, I could just park and walk around, looking more closely. Except there was no parking. At all. And I am not one of those people with magical parking powers. So I made a command decision to blow that popsicle stand.
I found my way back to the highway and headed for Portsmouth, New Hampshire, where I found Strawberry Banke at about 3:30. They were open until 5:00. Mission accomplished.
Strawberry Banke was named after wild strawberries found growing there. It’s a collection of forty buildings that were slated for destruction, but then became a historical site instead. Only a few of the buildings were imported from other sites. And the buildings span 300 years of history. And they’re full of people with funny accents! Well, three anyway.
The most interesting thing I learned from observation was that stairwell building practices have changed over the past three hundred years. There was a staircase built in the 18th century. Each tread was shallower (from front to back) than my foot is long. We were not allowed to climb the staircase, but we were allowed to look at it from the bottom. And from the top. From the top it looked like a laundry shoot you could just jump down. The entire hole was maybe six feet by six feet wide, and the steps took only half the space until they turned 90 degrees for the last three steps.
The most interesting thing I learned from a docent is how many foods can be dried. She enjoyed handing around samples of dried-up foods for us to ooh and aah over. She started with salt cod. (“Sawlt cawd.”) New Englanders cook it up with mashed potatoes and I don’t remember what else because I was distracted by an irrational disgust at the whole concept. I think you can turn it into chowder.
For a while, salt cod was Portsmouth’s second-largest export (after lumber). Some of the principle buyers were slave holders in the West Indies, looking for cheap protein to feed their slaves. Little did they know it was actually a very good food source. Nowadays, people from the West Indies cook salt cod with tomatoes.
New Englanders would never cook it with tomatoes. Back then, they were convinced tomatoes were poisonous. I always assumed that was because the tomato is a relative of deadly nightshade. But someone else proposed that if you cook it in a lead pan, it’s not so good for you. I guess the acid in the tomato could release some of the lead?
We also got shown dried apples. You just cut up an apple, sew a string through the pieces like cranberries for a Christmas tree, and hang it up to dry. I don’t know how you keep the flies away, or if flies are even a problem. But just one apple necklace is enough for a whole pie.
(I had trouble getting my questions answered because I had trouble being understood, with my thick non-New-England accent. I started talking more slowly and clearly, and that helped some, but they still never quite got me. I didn’t feel like I could fake the accent enough to be of any help, either.)
You can also dry pumpkin. Starting with a layer an inch thick, you get a pumpkin leather, a small handful of which is enough to make a pumpkin pie. Just reconstitute it with milk. And we were assured that the pie is very delicious because the docent had tasted some herself.
Then she and the other two folks talked about how you could also use a dehydrator. Or cook it overnight in a very cool oven. Or set them on racks under the back window in your car. All three of these people (the docent and the visiting couple) live in very old houses themselves.l With my 1955 house and 1947 gas stove, which you don’t even have to light yourself, I felt excessively modern!
Five o’clock came quickly. I went to my car and tried to figure out what to do next. I had already used up all my plans.
So I chased the sun west and decided just to get as far as I could without risking passing another site I wanted to visit. I chose to stop in Lebanon, New Hampshire, near the Vermont border. Four exits. Which do I pick?
Around here, they design freeways (at least the good ones I’ve been on) to get you where you’re going quickly. There are no distractions (billboards), just trees, and the occasional creek or mountain view. But each exit has little pictures showing what amenities are available at a reasonable distance from that exit.
So, the second exit had a little picture of a bed, so that’s the one I chose. Then little arrows continue showing you the way. It turns out there were two hotels. The first one was Days Inn.
Okay, we’re in the middle of nowhere, I’m really hoping for a good price. No. It’s $89. Grr. But it has free internet access. And so here I am.
The restaurants in this area are all on the other side of the freeway through a maze of streets. Which I am not in the mood to deal with. So I am having a bad dinner to hold me until I have a good breakfast the next day. The hotel has a continental breakfast, but it is going to include raisin bran (and just enough sugar frosted flakes to make it yummy enough) plus skim milk, juice, and fruit. See? a good breakfast.
Which will make up for my supper. First, there is a little goody bag in the hotel put together by the people from Emer’gen-C. It’s full of free samples to brainwash me into liking them. One of the samples is a granola bar. Calories! A hint of fiber! Another of the goodies is a Vitamin-C drink. Vitamins! And downstairs? The alluringly scented popcorn completes the meal. And if I get hungry later, there are peanuts in the vending machine.
I’m watching the two-hour final episode of “Alias,” which I learned about from the radio. I may have never seen an earlier episode, but I figured they’d probably explain a lot of things. And I was right. Of course I wasn’t quite as shocked about some of the shocking surprises as people who have been following the show all these years, but it was still a good show.
You could get a scrambled egg, toast, and fried potatoes for only $2.10. So I also sprung for some orange juice for $1.15. What a bargain!
Then I drove up to Freeport, to check out the exciting LLBean flagship store. There's also a pretty good set of outlet stores in the area. It’s not exactly an outlet mall, with each store in in a separate building, usually some sort of cute little house.
The first outlet store I went to was the one for LLBean. Who knew? Although I am not usually a very good consumer, I actually bought two things there. I got a $30 button-down yellow shirt for $20, not that exciting to me. But it replaces the one I got as a hand-me-up from my sister which does not technically have any holes in it, but which does have translucent, well, everything that has only one layer of fabric. So now I have a shirt I can wear under my favorite sweater even on days when I might want to take the sweater off at some point.
Also, Robin won’t cringe every time I pull it out.
But my real treasure is a navy blue linen camp shirt for $13. A purchase that needs no explanation.
Then as I was going through the other stores I realized I was doing that thing I hate--I’m doing stuff Robin likes when he’s not here to be able to do it. So sad. But Freeport is too far away, and he won’t be making it.
The LLBean store was huge. My favorite part was the indoor trout pond, even though the trout were hiding. I want one in my house, now. Then leaves won’t fall into it all the time.
I didn’t find the indoor climbing mountain, but it may have been in some other building. They’re opening up a new building for bicycling and stuff next weekend (and it looks totally not ready!). And there’s another building already open that I didn’t go into; I forget the theme.
I also went to a sandwich shop and got a “turkey toasty” or something like that. It’s like a regular toasted turkey sandwich, only totally bad for you. You start with a white sub roll and slather it with mayonnaise. Then put a trivial amount of turkey on there, for show, plus thick tomato slices. But then add three kinds of cheese. Then pepperoni! And secret spices. And then toast it into a gooey, delicious mess.
After my Freeport experience, I turned around and went back to Portland, which I had passed on my way to Freeport this morning. I was going to start at the tourist information place and then make my plan for the day. But I couldn’t find it. I got all the way to the sign that said it was 100 yards ahead, but I didn’t see it.
No biggie, I could just park and walk around, looking more closely. Except there was no parking. At all. And I am not one of those people with magical parking powers. So I made a command decision to blow that popsicle stand.
I found my way back to the highway and headed for Portsmouth, New Hampshire, where I found Strawberry Banke at about 3:30. They were open until 5:00. Mission accomplished.
Strawberry Banke was named after wild strawberries found growing there. It’s a collection of forty buildings that were slated for destruction, but then became a historical site instead. Only a few of the buildings were imported from other sites. And the buildings span 300 years of history. And they’re full of people with funny accents! Well, three anyway.
The most interesting thing I learned from observation was that stairwell building practices have changed over the past three hundred years. There was a staircase built in the 18th century. Each tread was shallower (from front to back) than my foot is long. We were not allowed to climb the staircase, but we were allowed to look at it from the bottom. And from the top. From the top it looked like a laundry shoot you could just jump down. The entire hole was maybe six feet by six feet wide, and the steps took only half the space until they turned 90 degrees for the last three steps.
The most interesting thing I learned from a docent is how many foods can be dried. She enjoyed handing around samples of dried-up foods for us to ooh and aah over. She started with salt cod. (“Sawlt cawd.”) New Englanders cook it up with mashed potatoes and I don’t remember what else because I was distracted by an irrational disgust at the whole concept. I think you can turn it into chowder.
For a while, salt cod was Portsmouth’s second-largest export (after lumber). Some of the principle buyers were slave holders in the West Indies, looking for cheap protein to feed their slaves. Little did they know it was actually a very good food source. Nowadays, people from the West Indies cook salt cod with tomatoes.
New Englanders would never cook it with tomatoes. Back then, they were convinced tomatoes were poisonous. I always assumed that was because the tomato is a relative of deadly nightshade. But someone else proposed that if you cook it in a lead pan, it’s not so good for you. I guess the acid in the tomato could release some of the lead?
We also got shown dried apples. You just cut up an apple, sew a string through the pieces like cranberries for a Christmas tree, and hang it up to dry. I don’t know how you keep the flies away, or if flies are even a problem. But just one apple necklace is enough for a whole pie.
(I had trouble getting my questions answered because I had trouble being understood, with my thick non-New-England accent. I started talking more slowly and clearly, and that helped some, but they still never quite got me. I didn’t feel like I could fake the accent enough to be of any help, either.)
You can also dry pumpkin. Starting with a layer an inch thick, you get a pumpkin leather, a small handful of which is enough to make a pumpkin pie. Just reconstitute it with milk. And we were assured that the pie is very delicious because the docent had tasted some herself.
Then she and the other two folks talked about how you could also use a dehydrator. Or cook it overnight in a very cool oven. Or set them on racks under the back window in your car. All three of these people (the docent and the visiting couple) live in very old houses themselves.l With my 1955 house and 1947 gas stove, which you don’t even have to light yourself, I felt excessively modern!
Five o’clock came quickly. I went to my car and tried to figure out what to do next. I had already used up all my plans.
So I chased the sun west and decided just to get as far as I could without risking passing another site I wanted to visit. I chose to stop in Lebanon, New Hampshire, near the Vermont border. Four exits. Which do I pick?
Around here, they design freeways (at least the good ones I’ve been on) to get you where you’re going quickly. There are no distractions (billboards), just trees, and the occasional creek or mountain view. But each exit has little pictures showing what amenities are available at a reasonable distance from that exit.
So, the second exit had a little picture of a bed, so that’s the one I chose. Then little arrows continue showing you the way. It turns out there were two hotels. The first one was Days Inn.
Okay, we’re in the middle of nowhere, I’m really hoping for a good price. No. It’s $89. Grr. But it has free internet access. And so here I am.
The restaurants in this area are all on the other side of the freeway through a maze of streets. Which I am not in the mood to deal with. So I am having a bad dinner to hold me until I have a good breakfast the next day. The hotel has a continental breakfast, but it is going to include raisin bran (and just enough sugar frosted flakes to make it yummy enough) plus skim milk, juice, and fruit. See? a good breakfast.
Which will make up for my supper. First, there is a little goody bag in the hotel put together by the people from Emer’gen-C. It’s full of free samples to brainwash me into liking them. One of the samples is a granola bar. Calories! A hint of fiber! Another of the goodies is a Vitamin-C drink. Vitamins! And downstairs? The alluringly scented popcorn completes the meal. And if I get hungry later, there are peanuts in the vending machine.
I’m watching the two-hour final episode of “Alias,” which I learned about from the radio. I may have never seen an earlier episode, but I figured they’d probably explain a lot of things. And I was right. Of course I wasn’t quite as shocked about some of the shocking surprises as people who have been following the show all these years, but it was still a good show.