Bacon Madness

From time to time I experience all-consuming food cravings. Generally they are for foods that fall into the savory, the salty, the fatty, and more often than not, the porky categories. I refer to this phenomenon as my madness. They’re not normal cravings because actually getting the desired food item does not satiate them. I once craved Buffalo wings for a whole year or carnitas for a whole month. Portion after portion would not satisfy the craving, maybe I wasn’t getting enough animal fat in my diet. Yeah right! I have no explanation for it. It’s like getting a song stuck in your head. Yes that has happened to me too for ridiculously extended periods of time, wonder what that says about my personality?

For some reason it’s never enough to simply go to the store or to the restaurant and just get what I want. Maybe the craving is best satisfied if I’m consumed with creating that which I desire. Or maybe I have an idea of exactly what it should taste, look, smell, and feel like and unless I make it myself it won’t satisfy me. Being a cook, a tinkerer and lover of gadgets, appliances, and good old-fashioned ingenuity, this process usually involves elaborate contraptions and repetitive preparations in search of perfection. Hence the necessity for items such as deep fryers, handmade tortilla presses, or plumbing supply cold-smoke generators.

Of course one of my greatest culinary loves and the focus of much obsession is bacon. Everything is better with bacon. I want it, I need it, I have to have it. So the only natural recourse is to make it myself.

It started with a phone call to Liehs & Steigerwald:

“Hi, I’m calling about pork belly, is that something you normally have or do I need to special order it?”

“You have to order it, it comes in every Thursday.”

“Great, can I order any amount?”

“Just tell us how much you need and whether you want bones removed.”

“I’ll take five pounds, no bones.”

“OK, give me your name and phone number and it will be ready on Thursday.”

“Perfect”

The next week I had five pounds of pork belly burning a hole in my pocket and was one step closer to that porky grail, bacon. First step was to rinse, dry, and pack the meat with cure. I searched around and found a recipe for a basic bacon cure. Only problem was that it was enough to cure five whole pork bellies so some adjustment was in order. The final recipe looked like this:

1 lb salt (I used pickling salt)

.25 lb brown sugar

2 tsp pink salt (Prague Powder #1 – sodium nitrate – I ordered some online at the Savory Spice Shop).

2 tbsp black pepper

Once the pork was tucked in to the cure I put it on a plastic rack and stuck it in a pyrex dish uncovered in the fridge. It sat for a couple of days and lost a lot of its water weight. After about three days I drained off the water, repacked it with cure and put it back on the rack uncovered. It spent the next three weeks in the fridge curing.

Once I was certain that the pork had given up all of the liquid it could, I brought it back out of the fridge for the next phase. At this point it was hard to touch and dense, the outside had the consistency of jerky. It could go right into the smoker, but there is so much salt in the meat that it’s best to soak or “freshen” it. I soaked it for about four hours and then removed it and patted it dry. After this step it is necessary to dry everything out again and have the meat form a pellicle, a tacky sealed surface that helps keep in the moisture and aids the smoke in adhering to the meat. I put it back on the rack and returned it to the fridge for about three days.

When the weekend rolled around I fired up the cold smoke generator with hickory chunks (newly fitted with an air brush compressor to force enough air into the chamber to keep the smoldering wood from choking itself out) and got the meat into the smoke box. The pork spent about four hours in the smoke and then I returned it to the fridge to bloom, which apparently finishes off the process and lets the smoke settle in to the meat.

I left the meat alone for awhile until I finally got around to dealing with it again – slicing it was a big job and I knew I’d have to vacuum seal and freeze most of it so I put it a off for a few days – I can’t believe I left it alone for that long.

After I sliced a mountain of bacon, I finally got some in the pan and cooked it until it was slightly chewy and a little crispy. I anxiously pulled out a piece and after setting it on a paper towel for only a few seconds I had to have a taste. It looked like bacon, it smelled like bacon . . . I bit into it and the smokiness was definitely there, it tasted porky, and a little sweet, and SALTY! Uh oh, it was way too salty. I guess I didn’t soak it long enough. Well, I guess I’ll be using this batch of bacon as ingredients in other recipes for a while. I plan to soak some of the sliced stuff next time I thaw some out and see if that reduces the salinity some, maybe I can salvage this batch for eating out of hand after all.

Lesson learned, but in the end I was still pretty proud of myself and will happily choke down the salty goodness if for no other reason than to enjoy my accomplishment. All-in-all even though it takes quite a long time for the whole curing process, the actual time invested was not too bad – ten minutes here and there so I think I’ll be trying this again. It fits in nicely with my obsessing until I reach perfect technique, and hell, it’s bacon so it’s definitely worth it!

Low Country (Jersey) Boil

We lived in Northern Virginia for a few years while Carrie went to grad school and shortly after arriving realized that no one was really from the DC area. It seemed like everyone was a transplant from another part of the country or another part of the world. For the general population in the DC area this seemed to be true and for Carrie’s grad school classmates and their families this was almost completely the case.

The really great thing about this diversity was that everyone brought their own perspectives and backgrounds and even better, everyone brought their own food culture. The thing I miss the most about the DC metro area is all of the great ethnic restaurants. Virtually anything you could imagine was a car or METRO ride away and we tried to take advantage of it as much as our grad school budget would allow.

The world cuisine that we were able to experience in DC was remarkable, but even among our grad school friends, our dinner parties became a place to share our own regional American food cultures. If our friends hadn’t shared their own food cultures with us, we would never have been introduced to Cincinnati Chili, had a mint julep at a real Kentucky Derby Party, or experienced a low country boil.

Now admittedly, our dear friend Stephen is not from the low country, if I remember correctly he grew up mostly in central Georgia and in Mississippi and now resides in Memphis, but he is our guru when it comes to southern food ways and has introduced us to many wonderful southern delights. Stephen and his wife Katherine are not known to do anything half way and their dinner parties in grad school are fondly remember for not only having been great times shared with great friends, but some fairly elaborate undertakings with fantastic meals.

One of the most memorable dinner parties was a low country boil they hosted for about a dozen guests. An outdoor affair, they actually moved their dining table into the courtyard outside their townhouse and we enjoyed a lovely summer evening by candlelight. I had never heard of a low country boil before that evening, but was delighted to learn that it involved dumping a steaming pot of shrimp, corn, sausage and potatoes directly onto a newspaper covered table, adding some crusty bread on the side and having-at with nothing more than your hands and maybe a knife.

Ever since that first low country boil we’ve been hooked and even tried a few on a small scale at home. It’s really a great way to have a casual, leisurely, delicious meal shared with family and friends and it’s always reminded me of a similar pleasure -- picking blue claw crabs on the Jersey shore. Growing up, my family spent every summer’s vacation “down the shore” and the past time of picking crabs at the picnic table on a hot summer’s day is a cherished memory. So, during a recent vacation spent with my family we decided to marry the two traditions and have a low country Jersey-style boil!

First to source the crabs – you got to have them in order to eat them and the cheapest way to get them by far is to catch them yourself. We started out first thing in the morning digging through the fridge for anything to stick in the crab trap as bait because I failed to plan ahead and actually go to the bait store. I had little faith that we’d get ourselves enough crabs for a boil but figured maybe we’d get a few to add to the pot. Of course I ended up heading out later to the fish market to buy a dozen crabs. In the end we actually got one OK sized crab from the trap and were able to steam up a baker’s dozen.

I rounded out the ingredient list at the grocery store with fresh Jersey corn, kielbasa, small red potatoes and shrimp, oh and let’s not forget the Old Bay! As this was the Jersey shore, the rental house came equipped with a giant pot that fit nicely on the side burner of the gas grill for steaming crabs. Unfortunately it was missing a perforated insert for straining out the contents of the boil so I had to remember to pick up a bamboo spider at the grocery store to use along with tongs to retrieve everything from the pot -- a bit of a hassle, but we survived.

The order of operations dictates that the things that take the longest to cook go in first and so on. This meant that the potatoes were first in the pool followed by the corn and kielbasa about seven minutes later, then the crabs for few minutes and finally the shrimp. The crabs ended up taking longer to steam than expected, so the potatoes were a little worse for wear, but let’s be honest, no one was interested in them anyway, they were obligatory at best.

Once served everything was great. A few small bumps in the road didn’t lessen the enjoyment at all –- when the sun went down we had to move everything inside due to mosquitoes the size of humming birds plus the adults spent most of their meal picking crabs for the kids. But the food was excellent –- succulent crab and shrimp married nicely with vinegar and spice infused boil as did the corn, sausage and potatoes. Washed down with some Magic Hat Wacko and Leinenkugel’s Sunset Wheat, it was a great meal and a great union of two fantastic regional traditions.

Don’t want to kick my smoking habit

I’ve got it bad, real bad. I guess it’s been going on since we moved into our first house and I got my first charcoal/gas grill as a Father’s Day present. It started out with those little charcoal smoke pellets, you know, the Jack Daniels ones. I realize now that those were just a gateway. I’d toss a few on top of the coals while I was grilling dinner – just for the flavor. It wasn’t long before I discovered that I could set up the grill to do some ribs or chicken with indirect heat and I switched over to actually smoking low and slow.

By that time I’d moved on to the heavier stuff, wood chips sometimes even chunks. Mostly hickory, I crave hickory. A couple of years later I got myself a Brinkmann cabinet smoker and was getting a little more serious – pork butt, brisket, a whole turkey. I couldn’t help myself, it tasted so damn good. (this is where the madness creeps in)

I was never really satisfied with the results I got from the cabinet smoker – the design just didn’t work right for me – no ventilation to the charcoal pan, it was always either too hot or too cold. I found myself ripping apart the side burner from my gas grill to retrofit a propane burner in the bottom of the cabinet. After too many ruined pieces of meat I decided that I needed to get serious. So for Father’s Day this year I asked for some better hardware, a Char-Griller Smokin’ Pro with a side fire box. Now I can burn whole pieces of wood and use all 830 square inches of grill space to cook a hell of a lot of meat.

You might have noticed that I’ve neglected publishing posts here for a while, that’s because ever since I got the new pit I’ve been on a sort of a smoking bender. But don’t worry, I’ll bring you up to speed. The first weekend out I smoked some chicken and figured while I was at it I’d make some chicken kielbasa and hot smoke it. Both came out great although I had a bit of a learning curve on controlling the temperature of the pit so I burst the kielbasa casing. No worries – instead of freezing all of it like I planned, we ate half of it next night for dinner and froze the other half.

I’ve been disappointed using ground turkey, even the less lean stuff for sausage as it always comes out kind of dry and rubbery. This time I tried a pretty standard kielbasa recipe: salt, pepper, marjoram and lots of garlic with boneless chicken thighs that I ground with my trusty KitchenAid sausage grinder attachment. It worked out pretty well except for the fact that the chicken was not quite cold enough during stuffing and was a sloppy mess to work with. With the intense garlic and smoke flavor I would even say that I couldn’t tell the difference between pork and chicken and despite using less fat than I’d get with pork it was pretty moist. I’ll definitely be using chicken thighs for sausage again as they’re a slightly healthier alternative to pork.

I’ve had the idea of curing and smoking rolling around in my head for a while. While I didn’t have any sodium nitrate on hand, I figured I could tackle a wet cured ham pretty safely since I was going to hot smoke it anyway. I was a little concerned about not using nitrates but after scouring the web for a while felt reassured that since I wasn’t going to leave the thing hanging around in my basement for a year I’d be OK. Plus a lot of people seem to be foregoing nitrates nowadays without killing themselves with botulism. (They are more afraid of the cancer that might come from the nitrates.)

I went with Ruhlman’s basic ham brine (minus the pink salt) (BTW really WANT his book Charcuterie) and soaked the ham for about three days. After that I dried it out for a couple of hours and smoked it with with a mixture of hardwoods (I started out with apple chips and ended up just using some unidentified hardwood firewood I had around after I realized that I’d never make it seven hours on chips alone).

When I pulled the ham and brought it in to the cutting board (I couldn’t wait long enough for it to rest) I was floored – I actually made ham! It tasted like ham, and pretty good ham at that. I guess the brine really did the trick because I figured that worst case scenario I’d have barbeque, but it really was a ham! I couldn’t stop eating it, salty and sweet with perfect smoky balance. Granted, after slicing, the inner most depths were a little more porky than ham flavored - I preferred the charred smoky outside the most. I think that more time in the brine would take care of the flavor throughout. Also, I had never realized up until then how much of the flavor profile of ham comes from the smoke itself. This is definitely something I’ll be doing again.

OK, so I’m starting to get a little cocky. Fresh off making ham I decided that I need to make bacon (of course). But I understand that I needed to learn some more before I tackle it. The first thing I needed to figure out was the cold smoke situation. I’ve looked around and discovered that a lot of people are curing pork bellies and hot smoking their bacon. But to me that’s just not right, it’s supposed to be cold smoked, not pre-cooked. A while back while poking around ebay I came across this guy (WARNING – he’s got loud music on his homepage) who is selling a cold smoke generator that bolts on to just about anything you want to use as a smoker. The drawback was that he wanted $100 for one. Since I just laid out a bunch of cash on a new pit I figured now was not the time to buy this guy’s contraption too. But I really want bacon so I studied what he’s selling and realized that I could make one myself (OK, maybe not as pretty or lightweight as his). So I headed off to Lowe’s to browse the plumbing section. I was able to cobble together 2” diameter black pipe and some heavy screening for the inside with a 1/2 x 5 inch pipe for the outlet tube. After a few nights in the shop I had something ready to bolt on to the smoker, so out came the drill and I blasted a 1/2” hole through the side of my brand new pit.

I’ve finally learned over the years that I can’t just jump right in to doing something as complex as making bacon without ruining $20 worth of meat and potentially poisoning myself in the process so I figured cheese was safe practice for cold smoking – it is pretty forgiving – the worse case scenarios consisted of: a) melted, b) ashy, or c) over-smoked. I got my hands on some cheddar and gave it a try. The result was pretty decent. The cold smoker kept choking itself out and required several re-lightings so I probably ended up smoking the cheese for way too long but it gave me a chance to tweak the design and work out the bugs and I think that only downside was that it was a little heavy on the smoke flavor. I decided to practice more on some gouda and more cheddar and it all came out pretty respectable so I felt confident enough to move on to something a little harder.

When Carrie and I first got married we struggled with figuring out what holiday traditions we’d adopt. Since my most salient childhood food memories of Christmas revolved around some Norwegian foods that my grandmother made, we’ve landed on those traditions over the years. In recent years I’ve attempted to branch out from my grandmother’s repertoire and add some new Norwegian dishes to the tradition. Last Christmas this experimentation led me to my first curing experience - gravlax.

I’ve never been a big salmon fan, but I know that Carrie loves it and thought since it fit with the Norwegian theme I’d have a go at it. Naturally I was concerned with the raw fish and the curing process but found a really great tutorial here and ended up with a surprisingly tasty product that didn’t poison us. Long story short, I’m no longer as worried about curing and since it went so well last Christmas I figured I’d extend the experiment to cold smoked lox.

I did some research and found some good tips at Kasilof Seafoods on how to make lox. Since I dry cured the Gravlax and plan to dry cure my bacon I decided to try a more Scottish approach of dry cured salmon rather than the wet cure many use for lox. I followed the same basic process as the gravlax tutorial above for packing the fish with salt and sugar and wrapping it in plastic wrap and putting it in the refrigerator for about three days. After that I pulled it out, rinsed it and soaked or “freshened it” in clean water for a few hours. Next I put it on a baking rack and placed it back in the fridge for another 24 hours to dry out again.

Last night I got the fish in the smoker and smoked it with some apple chips for about six or seven hours. When we got up this morning we had some pretty great lox with cream cheese and red onion on bagels for breakfast. And guess what, even I loved it!

I’m feeling pretty confident in tacking bacon now. I called Steigerwald’s last week to place an order for five pounds of pork belly. Stay tuned for more . . .

Grab a Bite at Sharkey’s

I recently got to take a quick road trip with the missus minus the munchkins which means that we got the opportunity stop at a less family-friendly roadfood destination. Living in Central New York, we’ve traveled through Binghamton dozens of times and even lived in the Southern Tier for about a year but never seemed to get a chance to sample many of the various interpretations of spiedies available from the local establishments. Most famous of these are Lupo’s and the Spiedie and Rib Pit although many people make them at backyard barbeques too using store bought marinade, often Salamida’s Original State Fair Spiedie Sauce.

However, Sharkey’s is an altogether different experience. The provenance of spiedies is unclear and locals dispute whether Peter Sharak of Sharkey’s invented the spiedie or not. But one thing is certain, stepping into Sharkey’s is like stepping back in time and you know that the food and the experience today is close to what the patrons who first tried the spiedies there in 1947 must have encountered when this family-run establishment first opened.

The place itself is the best of breed, what anyone would describe as a dive - barroom in front, dark cavernous dining room in back with ancient wooden booths and scarred formica tables. It’s a working class bar in a working class neighborhood and you can’t get any more authentic than that. But the best part of course is the food. If spiedies are what you came for, then spiedies you can have. Order them from the menu by the skewer and you’ll get them chargrilled and served on a paper plate with a slice of bread to make your sandwich.

Although the menu differentiates between speidies, pork spiedies, and chicken spiedies, it’s not clear to me whether the standard “spiedie” is made from pork or lamb. Traditionally, the first spiedies in the Tri-City area were made from lamb only but that has changed over the years. To me, my spiedie tasted more like lamb than pork but I’ve read that Sharkey’s stopped serving lamb a while back due to its high price. Whatever the case, with the strong flavor of the marinade, it is difficult to tell what kind of meat you’re getting, but what really matters is that they tasted amazing - tangy, juicy, and seasoned to perfection.

Sharkey’s is well known for it’s fresh seafood too with mussel and clam steamers on the menu. Other notable menu items include “City Chicken” which we did not get to try but the waitress described it as a spiedie skewer deep fried which sounded pretty good. They also have some nice Polish selections including a platter with pierogies and holupki. We decided to split the platter, served with a pre-buttered dinner roll and were glad we’d made the decision. The pierogies were good, but the holupkis were melt-in-your mouth awesome!

I’m glad we finally decided to stop and sample some of the fare at Sharkey’s. Whether spiedies were invented there or not, it is certain that they have a home at Sharkey’s and are here to stay. Personally, I will make sure that I don’t let too much time go by before we stop at this great roadfood shrine again.

Sharkey's

56 Glenwood Ave

Binghamton, NY 13905

(607) 729-9201

Betty Crocker I Ain’t

I can’t bake. I cook. I can deal with something that I can mess with while it’s going from raw to done – adjust the heat, adjust the flavors. If it starts to go south, I can pull it back from the brink and usually unless I burn it I can save just about anything. But I can’t handle baking. You mix it up, put it in the oven and pray. There’s no, “I forgot the sugar” or is it getting too dark on the bottom. I just can’t handle it.

This is generally not too much of a problem for me as I’m as savory kind of guy. I can generally live without and should probably try to live without chocolate cake, cookies and brownies. But there’s always been one baked good that I really wish I could accomplish: bread. Unfortunately, my troubles with bread and all of it’s cousins - rolls, biscuits, pretzels, bagels, even pizza, go deeper than the fact that I can’t “set it and forget it” with any success, the problem begins before the oven, it begins with the dough.

I just have never been a heavy winner when it comes to dough. I mix it, let it rise (probably never long enough), knead it and promptly screw it up. Generally the result is over-worked dough or improperly rested dough or who-the-hell-knows what the problem is dough. What I do know is that once I stick it in the oven and and leave it there for the requisite amount of time it’s too tough, or too chewy (not in a good way), or too hard, or just plain bad. I’ve even bought store made pizza dough and had bad crusts as a result. Yes, I turn my oven up all the way and use a stone and stand on my head and every other thing I’m supposed to do to make good pizza at home.

But my friends, I am here to tell you about a revelation, an epiphany, something that has changed my life for ever – restored my confidence, helped me leap tall buildings in a single bound, made me a bread baker.

About a month ago we took a drive to visit some friends. It happened to be one of those drives that was long enough to let the kids watch a movie in the car. When that occurs we get the treat of listening to podcasts because with their headphones on, the kids don’t complain about our listening choices. We decide to listen to a back episode of Splendid Table and caught a segment with Zoe Francois and Jeff Hertzberg about their new book, Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day: The Discovery That Revolutionizes Home Baking. I was instantly intrigued. If I believed what they were telling me, all I had to do was follow their simple water, flour, salt, yeast no-knead recipe, mix up the dough (I didn’t even have to fire-up the KitchenAid) and after the initial rise, stick it in the fridge for up to two weeks and I could have perfect, fresh bread whenever I wanted!

When I got home, I found the recipe and made a shopping list: big bag of flour, yeast and a five quart container. I finally got the chance to mix up the dough a few days later (five minute job), let it rise (couple of hours), and stick it in the fridge.

Now I’m not always what you’d call conventional when it comes to recipes. I generally use them as suggestions instead of following them exactly, and a few days later when I needed some pizza dough for dinner I decided to give the new dough a try. After I let a lump sit out on the counter for about a half an hour I found that it was easy to work with, it stretched the way it was supposed to and cooperated well. I made the kids a pizza with no rest after I shaped the dough and it came out pretty good. Although I didn’t let the bottom get dark enough, the texture was near perfect – chewy, but not tough. I decided to shape our pizza and let it rest for an hour or so before baking it and that one came out even better, with lots of bubbles in the crust - the best!

A few days later I decided that not using the dough for bread was working out pretty well for me and since I needed some bagels and not bread, I thought I’d give it a try. I checked a few recipes online for bagel making technique instead actual dough recipes (after all, I already had the dough) and gave it a shot. Overall, the process was pretty easy and the dough proved again to be simple to work with. Not a five minute a day process to make bagels but considering I didn’t have to spend time making the dough it wasn’t too painful. They actually came out decent – the flavor was right but they weren’t quite dense enough for bagels, more like bagel-flavored rolls, but tasty none-the-less.

Finally, I was making Sunday dinner and needed bread! I worked for a few hours on some cioppino and figured a nice crusty bread would compliment it well. I followed the recipe directions fairly closely with the exception of shaping the dough into more of a batard than a boule, but other than that I stuck to script. The result was a revelation – crunchy outside; chewy, doughy (a little dense maybe) inside, with little effort. I had done it! I finally baked bread without screwing it up!

This dough has become the new standard around the house – we use it for bread, dinner rolls, pizza dough, you name it. We’ve been through about three batches in as many weeks and I’m starting to feel guilty for not buying the book yet. From what I understand, there’s more than the standard recipe in there and since I’m starting to feel kind of cocky I should give it a try.

Maine Street

I recently got a chance to visit my good friends Drew & Zsofi for a weekend in southern Maine. During my visit, Drew and I were lucky enough to cruise Route 1 from Kittery on the New Hampshire border up to Portland in search of some roadfood that gets right to the soul of Maine.

I understand that some call Maine the land that time forgot with its mix of period architecture alongside new construction that is regulated by zoning to match the original style of the quaint towns and villages. But I like to think of Maine as a state that understands what is important and respects tradition. Mainers don’t shun modernity, rather they uphold tradition while finding ways to adopt modern things that make sense. For instance, I saw way more solar panels on roofs of those quaint colonials than in any other place I’ve visited recently.

I think that this sense of tradition is what makes food in Maine great. Sure there are bistros and ethnic fusion restaurants aplenty especially in Portland, but there are also time-tested bastions of Maine’s food heritage around every corner whether it’s something that’s been around for fifty years or three hundred years. They don’t get rid of things that make sense, instead they cherish them and keep them alive. I wanted to try as much of this great food as I could in a weekend, so with friends in tow, we set off on a whirlwind roadfood tour.

Flo’s Steamed Hot Dogs

Rt. 1, Cape Neddick, ME

At the southern most point of our food tour sat a little old shack by the side of the road (yes I’ve got the B-52’s playing inside of my head) that is home to perhaps the most famous hot dog stand in Maine. Flo’s has been family-run and in business for over 50 years. They do one thing and do it right – steamed hot dogs. As evidenced by the trays of business cards and the ones stuck over the counter, this has been a must-try destination for visitors from around the country.

We tried two Flo Dogs, the house standard, which are steamed to order with sweet relish, mustard, mayonnaise, onions, celery salt and Flo’s signature hot sauce. The sauce from as near as I could tell seemed to be sweet relish mixed with chili powder and maybe some cayenne. The dogs were small and hand made with an excellent snap. Wrapped in a napkin and served on a steamed New England roll, these were outstanding dogs. All of the flavors blended together perfectly - sweet, sour, salty, savory – it was the whole package! Of course I needed a beverage to wash it down and as this was my first opportunity I had to try the beloved soda of Maine – Moxie! Warned in advance, the woman behind the counter looked at me and said “have you had it before?” I was slightly hesitant to try it. However when I took the first sip I was pleasantly surprised. It reminded me of a strong PA Dutch birch beer. What I didn’t expect was the slightly antiseptic aftertaste and slight numbness in my mouth and throat for a while afterward. I suspect that because of this medicinal quality Mainers don’t necessarily love it so much as are addicted to it. Overall, Moxie wasn’t too bad, but I don’t know if I’ll be ordering it over the internet.

Tempted as I was to eat five more Flo dogs, I knew I had to watch my intake if we were going to make it through the rest of our day so we got back in the car and moved up the road to:

Karen’s On A Roll

Rt. 1 Wells, ME

There are a lot of lobster roll stands dotting the roadsides of Maine. I can’t say that we chose Karen’s over the others for any particular reason. Drew seemed to think they’d been there for a long time – eighteen years as the owners told us when we inquired. Parked on a corner lot, they serve the standard roadside fare but lobster rolls seemed to be their specialty.

As I understand it, there are two ways to prepare a lobster roll: the standard – chunked lobster served with butter ladled over it on a grilled New England Roll, or chunked and mixed with mayo (ala tuna salad) served on aforementioned grilled roll. Guess there’s quite a debate about which is the proper or even acceptable way to prepare a lobster roll. Many say that the lobster salad approach is not correct. In either preparation anything less than hearty chunks of lobster meat are not acceptable.

I love mayonnaise and it has it’s place as a complement to many a thing, but I was hoping to get more of the pure lobster taste of the standard butter-only preparation. Alas, it was not to be, Karen’s serves the lobster salad version. That being said, what I got was really excellent. The roll was buttery and crisp and the lobster salad had the requisite large chunks of sweet lobster meat. All-in-all, if I didn’t know any different, I would have enjoyed the roll and never been the wiser. In any case, this is a great roadside stop that by rights has been in business for many years.

Maine Diner

Rt. 1 Wells, ME

Before we were too stuffed to move, we headed up the road a little ways for a bite of dessert. The Maine Diner is a southern Maine institution that just recently served its five-millionth customer. I wish I had an empty stomach to sample the breadth of their menu but we were there for one thing in particular – blueberry pie. From what I understand, the blueberries weren’t in yet so the pie must have been made from last summer’s frozen berries but that in no way diminished its flavor!

The local berries are small and sweet not like the larger Jersey berries that I’m used to. Those can sometimes be kind of tart when not quite at peak, but the Maine berries were sweet and flavorful. I opted not to have the pie heated and served ala mode since I figured ice cream was not part of the agenda for the day - I was here for the blueberries damnit. The pie had a firm but flaky crust and even at room temperature it was an excellent treat.

I got a chance to give the menu a quick look and some notable items included lobster benedict and lobster pie, a casserole of lobster and bread crumbs baked – as I understand it, this is their signature dish. Next time I return to Maine I’ll need to make the Maine Diner a full-course stop on my agenda!

Run of the Mill

100 Main St, Saco, ME

OK, so it’s not actually on Rt. 1 and truth-be-told we went to Run of the Mill for dinner the night before, but seeing as how it is geographically located at this spot in the tour I decided to put it here.

This year-old brew pub in a converted textile mill has got some great things to offer – daily soups made from house beer and cheese for one. On the night we visited I sampled the Jack & Dunkel, a Monterey Jack and dark beer soup that was outstanding. We also enjoyed locally harvested mussels steamed and served in a garlic butter sauce. A paddle of two ounce sample brews is available for tasting. Many were good and not too hoppy which is something I find with many craft brewed domestic beers. I quickly singled out their Bug Zapper Super Lager which had a hint of lemon and seemed extra fizzy – a great summer beer. Other notable menu items recommended by my hosts were the meatloaf and the beer marinated pot roast. Unfortunately I was too stuffed to take on either of these hearty choices.

$3 Dewey’s

Commercial St. (Rt. 1), Portland, ME

After a few hours of site-seeing we were back in the saddle for more roadfood. We’d finally hit Portland and couldn’t decide to have another run at a lobster roll (without mayo) or try something else. When we found a parking spot right up the street from $3 Dewey’s (right across from the ferry station) a beer sounded like a better idea. I figured maybe we’d have a couple and get a plate of steamers to share so we headed for a table in what passes for the dining room in this popular watering hole. There was a nice selection of summer brews highlighted and although I was tempted by my new summer standard, Leinenkugel’s Sunset Wheat, I reminded myself to stay on message and “eat Maine” so I took Drew’s recommendation and tried the Allagash White. A look at the menu verified that I could get clams but they’d be fried as no steamers were available so I decided to give the lobster chowder a try.

When the beers arrived I was happy to find out that the Allagash was great. Although it’s a Belgian-style white, to me it had a more decidedly hefeweizen flavor. The lobster chowder arrived and I have to say of all things I tried that weekend it was the most disappointing. I would best describe it as lobster flavored milk with lobster chunks floating with it. I quick grabbed the hot sauce and salt and pepper and went to work. The result was more flavorful and ultimately the chowder went down OK. Next time I think I’ll stick to beer and people watching if we hit this tavern again.

Sunday came and the weekend was drawing to a close but I had one stop left. I needed to grab a couple of lobsters to bring home for dinner. A quick trip to one of those great over-priced resort town general stores netted me two 1 1/2 lb lobsters to put on ice and rush home. Fast forward to Sunday evening in my kitchen and those guys went in the pot to steam. I always feel like it’s too much work and too much of a mess disemboweling my lobster at the table, so once I pulled them from the pot and showed them an ice water bath I got to work on disassembling them. Armed with a bowl full of lobster meat I thought to myself that I could finally get that buttered lobster roll – and it was great!

Thanks to Drew and Zsofi for a great trip!

Sausage Party

Our friends invited us out to their camp for a cookout over the weekend and when it came time to offer something for the meal my first choice was naturally sausage (what else would I bring?). Now I love Hofmann hot dogs and coneys (Snappy Grillers), pair them with some salt potatoes and you've got the taste of Central New York in the summertime, but when I want something truly special, a treat that I reserve for every now and then, there is only one place to head -
Liehs & Steigerwald.



Tucked away on the north side of Syracuse in what once was a mostly German neighborhood, Liehs & Steigerwald has withstood the test of time for the last 70 years. Even as many of their customers moved away from the neighborhood, they've managed to keep them coming back by providing them with the finest quality, craft-made specialty meat products. Always a family run operation, they are a full service butcher shop with choice cuts of meat, house cold cuts (including such delights as German-style blood sausage, tongue and head cheese), smoked meats and sausages. You'll find over eighteen different types of bratwurst alone in their repertoire - all based on original family recipes. They don't only limit themselves to bratwurst though, you'll find Italian, Kielbasa, Chorizo, Andouille, the list goes on. . .



Don't let the out of the way location fool you, on a recent Saturday the place was packed and I had to wait in line to get my hands on some dogs and brats. When it was finally my turn, I chose German franks, coneys, Bavarian brats and chicken wing brats. I've sampled several different varieties of their bratwurst over time and I still haven't put a dent in all eighteen. You'll usually find a healthy dozen or so varieties available at any given time and they change based on season.




Liehs & Steigerwald carries their own prepared foods such as sauerbraten, potato salad, pierogies and cabbage rolls and also offers a wide selection of imported grocery items from spaetzle mix to curry ketchup and digestive bitters. Additionally, they have their own private label horseradish and horseradish mustard that is not for the faint of heart, but a real stand-out specialty if that's your thing (I happen to love them). The wide array of items they carry is impressive given the size of their shop.


What can I say about our selections? After firing them on the grill and bringing them in to the table they were as amazing as always. I think I got at least one bite of everything and even a whole chicken wing brat to myself. I'll say this, they were as good as any sausage I've had in Germany, maybe even better.


Liehs & Steigerwald
1857 Grant Blvd.
Syracuse, NY 13208
315-474-2171