This was our last purchase before the Maine trip. Allow me to introduce you to the Coleman 40 quart Powerchill thermoelectric cooler. It was a great deal at Walmart online (US$70 or so including the car charger as well as the wall outlet adapter--most places charge you extra for either). It held way more than we needed for the week, and with freezer packs, it kept the food cold for long periods without a power hook up. John and I were pretty impressed with it. As far as size goes, it took up half of John's back seat (he has a Jetta). The really useful part about the cooler is that you can switch the hinge position of the door to open it from the other side. We mainly used it like a cooler, and not like a wee fridge as shown here. The only caveat is that if you're going to use it on a road trip, bear in mind that you have to keep the side with the fan (shown here as the top) well ventilated. It significantly heated up the car, so we drove with the windows open often during the trip.

John and I drove up to Maine for a week-long vacation from 10-18 Sept. We stayed in Freeport for our L.L. Bean pilgrimage and shopped heartily. We knew it would be a long drive to Bar Harbor, but didn't know there would be road construction from Ellsworth to Bar Harbor. Ellsworth had a Bean factory store, which we also visited, of course. The gas there (and mostly everywhere else but NY) was US$0.20 cheaper or less than in NJ. When I arrived home, I sent an email to acting governor Cody about it. I have yet to receive a reply. In the photo above, you can see that we stayed in a lovely cabin in the woods. Our idyllic spot was in the Southwest Harbor neighborhood of Mount Desert Island. The Maine residents pronounce it Dessert Island. You can also see that we tried out John's new bike rack that held the front of the bike without the wheel. Having to replace the wheels each time we wished to ride was a bit of a pain, but it wasn't that bad. We biked three times and hiked most days. It rained a couple of days, and one day we rested due to my overestimating how much biking I could handle. The hills aren't for people who are out of shape. Overall, it was very relaxing. We would go back and hike and bike places we hadn't seen.

On our first day at Acadia, we drove the Park Loop Road to get the lay of the land. The prime attraction of the park is the 1530 ft. peak of Cadillac Mountain. This view is northeast from the top of the peak. It was very windy at the top.

More views from the Eagle Lake Carriage Loop Trail.

That's me biking away on the carriage trail at Eagle Lake.

Eagle Lake, and one of the many mountains of the park in the background.

We hiked what seemed to be a thousand granite stairs cut into Homan's Path on our way up the steep trail to Dorr Mountain. We started at the Wild Gardens of Acadia, which were much smaller than I had thought they would be. We also visited Sieur de Mont Spring, which was underwhelming as well.

This is the view from the Dorr Mountain Trail. We chose not to climb to the peak, but took the Ladder Trail instead.

One of the few examples of wildlife we saw on our Maine trip.

John captured this snake on film. We have yet to identify it. If you know what it is, please let us know.

This is no trick of photography or funny angle. There are two sets of iron ladders built into The Ladders Trail that descends 1270 feet from the peak of Dorr Mountain to sea level at The Tarn (a large pond). The railing gives hikers the impression they should take the descent facing away from the ladder, like a set of stairs. We chose to use it as a ladder and found it easier than some of the granite staircases cut into the mountain.

This is the narrowest space I wish to traverse. We had to remove our hydration packs in order to pass through. Thankfully, it was a short squeeze.

Remember Poe's "The Bells?" Each successive set of stairs reminded me of the mind-numbing repetition of the poem.

In each shoreline view, we could see tiny white, yellow, and red dots on the water. These are the identifying bouys from the thousands of lobster traps in the shallower parts surrounding Maine's coast and coastal islands.

Ah, the famous Thunder Hole. Rumor has it while the tide roles in and there's some chop to the water, thunderous noise rises from the half-covered arch. We visited it three times, each during the predicted noisy hours, but to no avail. Just the lazy lapping of the waves and the voices of many elderly tourists complaining about the lack of thunder.

This boat made the rounds in Bar Harbor, carting wealthy tourists between Bar Island and the Porcupine Islands. The island directly in back of the boat is Burnt Porcupine Island.

The textural contrasts from the surf tumbled rocks to the granite cliffs to the lush, dark evergreens make Newport Cove a particularly attractive hiking destination. The water is so clear you can clearly see the shapes of the stones in the tidal waters.

A view of Sand Beach on the Ocean Path hike northeast from Thunder Hole.

Up here, the coastline is rocky and the water blue and cold. However, even on a foggy, drizzley day like 15 Sept., it's still beautiful.

On the ascent to the top of Great Head, we used our trekking poles to hike through the white birches. Wouldn't this make a great Camelbak ad? We should send them the photo. For those who need to know, he's wearing the Rim Runner.

At the top of Great Head, it was rainy and foggy. On the right, you can just make out the edge of the surf on Sand Beach below (about 150 feet down).

On the hike back to Otter Point from Sand Beach, we fought off the thick fog for a good photo here and there. This was one of the best.

We didn't see many birds except the seagulls and some blue herons. Oh, and there were the crows or ravens. Nevermore...

We biked around Witch Hole Pond and Eagle Lake, so I'm not sure which one this is. But the last day at Acadia, it rained lightly, but didn't stop us from riding probably the least strenuous carriage roads in the park.

We didn't see many of the leaves changing, but during our bike ride on the Witch Hole carriage road, there was a small grouping of trees. The grasses at the bottom of the photo were red at the roots when they were growing in the water.

On our way home from Vermont John took this photo from Hogback Mountain at sunrise. By the time we were in upstate New York, the sun was out and shining brightly

The arrival of the Deni Scoop Factory Compact

My lovely little Deni frozen dessert maker arrived last week and I have put the thing to work with the two recipes below. Both were taken from the Deni instruction booklet that came in the box, but I altered both considerably to fit my dietary restrictions. The first is a recipe for frozen yogurt and the second is for ice cream. I really liked the frozen yogurt and would definitely do another version, but the ice cream was pretty icky--and I trashed it. The machine itself worked really quickly on the chilled frozen yogurt mixture, and was done in minutes. It churned the losing apricot ice cream for a long time to no avail. I will try again, but for now, enjoy the recipes and photos below.

The frozen yogurt recipe from the booklet that came with the machine was for Peanut Butter Chip. I altered it significantly by adding sugar-free white chocolate chips (something I will not repeat), sugar-free caramel (also something not so be repeated), and chunks of carob cashew coconut bars (would use these all the time--hard not to just eat the three pack while I'm making the frozen dessert). Here's the recipe:
2 cups plain or vanilla flavored yogurt (I used fat/sugar-free Dannon plain)
1 cup sour cream (again, I opted for fat-free because fat makes you fat)
1/4 cup light corn syrup (I omitted this)
1/4 cup sugar (I used NutraSweet's equivalent)
1 tsp. vanilla
1 cup mini peanut butter chips (as I mentioned above, I used my own substitutions)
The additional items were added as the machine was mixing the wet ingredients and NutraSweet.

I can't eat chocolate due to extreme allergies, so I chopped up some carob bars that had cashews and coconut in them. If you're ever in New Brunswick, NJ, you can pick them up a the George Street Coop.

Love that hand blender! It's just the best. I may never use the food processor again for liquid stuff.

I really mucked up the recipe for French Vanilla Ice Cream in the Deni book. It called for:
3 egg yolks (I used three whole eggs)
3/4 cup sugar (I used the equivalent of NutraSweet)
2 cups milk (did that)
3 cups heavy cream (only 2 cups in the little container)
2 tsp vanilla (I used the powdered vanilla that has a little sugar)
Then, I added three pulverized, rather large apricots.

My favorite new kitchen tool makes quick work of three reasonably ripe and unnaturally large apricots.

Looks pretty all swirly and apricot-y.

Inside the wee contraption is churning away the apricot ice cream. It turned out pretty icky, frozen to a rock later, and ceremoniously dumped in the sink for a watery burial. I won't mess with that recipe again.

This is how the yummy frozen yogurt ended up. Unfortunately, when I stuck it in the freezer, it was so hard, I had to set it out to thaw a bit (30 minutes) before snacking on it.

We have a new tenant. This friendly praying mantis has been cleaning up a bit of the garden lately and we caught the bug on the siding one night after watering. Too bad these don't eat the wretched Japanese beetles that have been going to town on my roses and primulae!

Here's where our friend was in relation to the garden. He or she likes the bed by the door. Previously I spotted the praying mantis on my pink carnation plant to the left of where the gladiola is in this photo.

Pizza Night!

On Friday, John and I made our own pizza again, using a Basic Dough recipe from Emeril (BAM!) We kicked it up a notch by adding some vital wheat gluten. It greatly improved on our efforts of the past. So did the fast rising yeast. However, I forgot to add the salt, and the crust ended up tasting a little yeasty. Didn't stop me from eating it, though. We doubled the recipe and used almost 2 cups less flour than what was asked from the recipe, but the dough was really easy to work with and gave us light and airy crust. Next time, we're going to add some romano and parmigiano cheese to the mix and see how it comes out. Below are a few photos John took during our Pizza Night.

John prefers a lighter dusting of chese and less sauce.

Here's a bird's eye view of my finished creation with the vegetarian sausage and several kinds of shredded cheese on top of my red sauce.

Popping them into a 375 degree oven for approx. 20 minutes. Because I have an old, rickety oven that heats inconsistently, after 10 minutes, we switch the positions of the pies. John added some more oregano on top of his and made the kitchen smell fantastic. I'm a copycat, so I added some yummy oregano too. It really made a difference.

Here's John's finished pie. He is so good at making round pizzas with perfectly cut slices.

Here's my finished pie, fake sausage and all.

I finally started making earrings again. It's very rewarding, and sometimes a source of gas money. The detail in the glass bead reminds me of the Murano glass from Italy. Years ago, I was fortunate to travel to Murano to see the glass blowers and all the milleflora beads fresh from the factories. Ah Venice...

I've had these beads for a good long while, so it's time to sell them for a reasonable price. Someone with a long neck and short hair would find these very flattering.

Slightly out of focus. I think the camera was going for the blanket in the background. Interestingly, the blanket is in the mint green family. Here it shows up as khaki. Go figure. I intend to sell these if I can part with them. They're just my style.

They're out of focus, but you get the idea. I made these for Mom. Hope she likes them.

The latest candy job I've had is for Mom's colleague, Ronit. Her son's bar mitzvah is coming up and she wanted some simple Jewish symbols for favors in dark and milk chocolate. Mostly dark chocolate. Here you can see how I would display them on the fancy 3 tiered trays. The photo was taken in my dining room, where I do most of the fancy work. However, I did the detail on these in the kitchen, mostly on my feet for time it took me to make the 150 candies in the order.

In a pretty large error of judgement, I underestimated how much space the candies would take up. Consequently, I had to drive to Somerville to Candyland Crafts to pick up the largest tray bottoms they had. You can see the peppermint ones wrapped in green.

At Ronit's request, I made four different types of candies for the bar mitzvah: milk chocolate, dark chocolate, dark chocolate filled with dulce de leche, and dark chocolate flavored with peppermint. Here are some of the dulce de leche filled ones.

This is a sampling of the milk chocolates without the fancy decorations.