Some restaurants age well. Others just get old.
Consider then what makes such a restaurant as Espo’s so inexhaustibly disappointing. Yet it’s always full. Lines of diners out the door are panting to get in for its family fare of ersatz Italian-American cooking in a setting that’s meant to look like a trattoria but is really nothing more than a glorified pizzeria with table service.
Espo’s famous meatballs
In a world of exotic, expensive and irreplaceable kitchen gadgets, one has eluded me for years. I remember it from my childhood as something that my mother used to make an unremarkable egg salad for sandwiches. But because of its proficiency in dicing hard-boiled eggs it resulted in the perfect consistency.
It was a sort of grater that was a rectangular piece of stainless steel with half-inch square holes through which she pushed hard-boiled eggs to achieve perfectly cubed pieces of yolk and white to make into the proverbially homey egg salad.
The grater
I’ve looked for it casually for years in kitchen stores without much success. But I longed for it and I’m not sure why it took me so long to do an internet search. I can’t remember the search words that I used but the search phrase must have had the word “grater.”
I spent 24 solid hours in Rockland earlier this week for three reasons: to stay at the uniquely stylish 250 Main Hotel; to visit the very compelling Center for Maine Contemporary Art and to dine at the town’s newest restaurant, Sammy’s Deluxe.
Scenes from Rockland, clockwise: the Plaza at the Center for Maine Contemporary Art; dining room at Sammy’s Deluxe and the lobby at 250 Main Hotel
The most significant, obvious differences in the newly acquired Caiola’s are two-fold: Its long-running chef and owner, Abby Harmon, who has been considered one of Portland’s most creative chefs, has departed the scene—temporarily, probably—selling the restaurant to one of Portland’s most accomplished chefs, Damian Sansonetti and his wife, pastry chef Ilma Lopez , who are stepping into Caiola’s spotlight while maintaining their fabulous Piccolo.
Brunch specials of the old Caiola’s: Clockwise: pancakes, Hot Brown, Bird’s Nest, special French Toast
What they do and how they do it will be closely watched.
Where do you go when you’re on a Maine island 12 miles out to sea to wind down the week that was on Friday night? On North Haven, the several year-old Calderwood Hall is the place to be for some of the finest pizza anywhere on the Mid Coast, even if it is on an island.
Friday night at Calderwood Hall, North Haven
Certainly the Turner Farm barn dinners held on Thursdays throughout the summer are a heavily attended event. Diners come by boat from the Mainland on a special transport and summer residents and visitors reserve their spots early where the barn can accommodate nearly 100 enthusiastic diners.
The farm table is set for some 60 diners at Turner Farm
Over the years I’ve been to many of them, and this one being held in the first week of July was somewhat different from past experiences. Besides the brisk weather, with requisite Maine fog and temperatures never rising above the 50s, the barn remained cozy and inviting.
At last Saturday’s farmer’s market on North Haven, there was a wealth of produce, meats and cheese to stock up on. There was also a table filled with home-baked pies and cakes; but since I was extensively doing my own baking, I didn’t choose any of those luscious looking desserts even though they were all very tempting, especially the chocolate cream pie (center).
Standout goodies at the market included a selection of pies, Sheep Meadow’s wonderful honey and lamb and display of yogurt and flowers from Turner Farm
Summer in Maine and the dawn comes early and dusk comes late, especially on an island such as North Haven where time and space are so precious. Island life has its idiosyncrasies, too, such as a glitch in my internet and phone service hookup under the shaky hands of Fairpoint Communications. Keeping in touch here to share my North Haven diary has been tricky business.
Daily rites of summer begin on North Haven Island: (clockwise: trimaran anchored in the Fox Island Thoroughfare; the daily arrivals on the North Haven Ferry and scenes of the Saturday farmer’s market, the first of the season
