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
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.
Maine’s coveted crop of wild blueberries are trickling into the markets now. On my way home from North Haven to Portland I stopped at my favorite farm store, Beth’s Farm Market on Western Road in Warren. She’s generally the first with many crops, her indefatigable green thumb giving a magical boost to most everything she grows. There, in the front of the store, were boxes of Beth’s wild blueberries. The accompanying sign said that they were early berries and needed to be picked over carefully to remove any green or unripe berries.
With my early crop of berries in hand and my recent stay on North Haven I turned to my file folder of pie recipes to make a recipe called North Haven Blueberry Pie. It was contained in an articled in the New York Times by Camden based cookbook author and food writer, Nancy Harmon Jenkins, and published in August of 2008.
On 300 acres of sprawling meadow and woods cascading down to the water’s edge, Turner Farm is the mainstay for produce, beef, pork and cheese of exquisite quality from the tender nurturing by the farm’s growing practices. It helps to have such conservation-land-conscious keepers tending to such a farm. It had been fallow for years until owners US Representative Chellie Pingree, who has deep roots on the island, and her husband, financier Donald Sussman, revived this historic island property to all its glory.
The barn at Turner Farm
The produce finds its way into the kitchens of Nebo Lodge, owned by the Pingree-Sussmans and in high season even the local little island supermarket carries the bounty from their fields.
When you’re at a precious summer colony, whether on any of Maine’s iconic islands or in coastal communities on the mainland, local dining is a key element of time well spent. On North Haven that puts you squarely at Nebo Lodge and its superb kitchen with cook Amanda Hallowell at the helm.
Destination North Haven, Maine, was not immune to the flush of July 4th weekenders on Thursday jamming the lines at the Rockland Ferry Terminal that takes travelers to North Haven or Vinalhaven, the two very distinctive islands along the Fox Island Thoroughfare of Penobscot Bay.
That was my destination to spend time there for the next 10 days and fortunately the North Haven boat, which crosses the bay only 3 times a day (compared to Vinalhaven’s 6 crossings) is much less crowded for travelers and residents to the smaller island.
Boarding the ferry for North Haven
Setting up a house on an island has its idiosyncrasies, and it’s best not to make assumptions. The local store is fairly well stocked with groceries and food, with frequent deliveries from Beth’s Farm Market in Warren for berries and produce, or meats from Curtis Meats as well as the produce from the island’s Turner Farm. Though the shelves empty out fast by the weekend.
Note: This was originally published on July 10 2015 and I was reminded of it in a memory on Facaebook. I thought it was still so relevant today that I’ve posted it again. It said so much about our food world then and now with all the hoopla of cuisine, chefs and daring restaurants teasing us with greatness and triple digit tabs.
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.
