Foggy Meadows Farm

Summer’s finale: a labor day odyssey on North Haven Island and Casco Bay Dinner Cruise

September 7, 2025 / / Baking & Desserts, Discoveries, Mains, Restaurants, Starters, Travel

By all accounts it was a booming summer season in Maine with the state’s restaurants, hotels, waterways, mountains and coastal plains chock-a-block with the lolling tourist brigade. I chose to end the summer’s calendar season over Labor Day weekend in the peaceful hamlets of North Haven Island where this coastal idyll didn’t escape the summer crowds basking in perfect weather.

Clockwise, Brown’s Coal Wharf, Ames point, picking corn at Foggy Meadows Farm, Main Street

Pulpit Harbor was crammed with boaters, both local and summer residents. The little village of North Haven was a bustle, too. Of course all things being relative, you could still hear a pin drop as the typical quiet of island life prevailed beautifully, with pristine weather-a balmy humidity-free 75 degrees.

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The bounty of a fine barn supper takes place at the inimitable Turner Farm on North Haven

July 10, 2025 / / Restaurants, Travel

The food world is under siege with trendiness. Fried chicken has become an artisanal super-star. The rarest tomato, the sustainable fish fillet, the rigors of omikase and Asian panache-even pizza are elevated to otherworldly stardom. Canned food is left in the dust unless you can it yourself at a farm table in the middle of your highfalutin country kitchen. Then there’s the whole wide world of farm-to-table as though it were something really novel when in fact it’s how the world used to eat simply and well: food from the field—unprocessed, unadulterated, fair and fresh.

At table at Turner Farm supper

Then there’s the barn supper, a hot ticket nowadays where we pay up well over $100 per person for a famous chef who’s taken off his gloves and toque to get down and dirty with “real” food sent simply to the table in a setting that looks tailor made for a Ralph Lauren ad.

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The infinite pleasures of cooking local using the bounty of North Haven farms

July 8, 2025 / / Discoveries, Recipes

When you’re on an island you have to adapt to what’s available. I bring a lot with me such as a Cuisinart, my favorite rolling pin, spices, good butter, a hand mixer and even stored items such as last year’s sour cherries, which I had stashed in my freezer.

Grazing sheep at Sheep Meadow Farm on Crabtree Point, North Haven

After that you’re at the mercy of what’s available. Fortunately for the locavore minded, North Haven offers a plentiful lot of local provender within limits. When, for instance, I bought eggs from Foggy Meadows Farm I hadn’t realized that they were duck eggs, which farmer Doreen Cabot uses in most everything instead of chicken eggs. I beat them into the batter for a pound cake, thinking they were chicken eggs until I looked at the box that was clearly marked “duck eggs.” I’ve made this pound cake countless times and have featured it here (see Pound Cake for recipe). But with the richness of these eggs, with their large yolks, this was the best version ever, making the cake extremely fluffy. I’m totally converted and will use, as Cabot does, duck eggs in baking and custards for ice cream.

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