When Fall Comes to New England

Last week, as I drove through the northwest corner of Connecticut, I noticed that the foliage up there was just beginning to turn colors. Yesterday, I looked out of my office window and saw a tree next door, covered with golden leaves. Walking out to my car after work, I noticed that the church's lawn was speckled with orange and brown leaves.

In the spring of 2000, my family left Connecticut and moved to Pennsylvania. Since then, each autumn has brought wistful thoughts of my adopted home state, many of them echoed in Cheryl Wheeler's song When Fall Comes to New England. After nine years away, it feels great to be home.

Summer's Conclusion

Lately, I've been busy trying to make the most of the waning days of summer. I spent September 11-13 as part of the "Saints and Sinners Barbecue Team" competing in the Bar-B-Q Pit Competition at the Norwalk Oyster Festival (an event that had remarkably few oysters in evidence). This was the first time out for the team, which consisted of several members of the First Congregational Church of Norwalk, several people associated with the Norwalk Children's Foundation, and several other friends. Overall, we did very well, coming in 6th or 7th place in most events, out of a field of nearly 30 competitors, many of whom are either restauranteurs and caterers or "professional" barbecue contest competitors. Our team took third prize for booth decoration and tied for third place in the "Iron Chef" competition.

My three big accomplishments in the competition were the Iron Chef competition, where we prepared tequila-lime marinated skirt steak with a vidalia-chili finishing glaze, grilled asparagus with olive oil and sea salt, and fire-roasted garlic mashed potatoes. My mesclun-stuffed swordfish with ginger-lime-soy marinade turned out quite well and took sixth place in the seafood competition, and the hot wings came in sixth in the "People's Choice" competition. All in all, the team did very well and we're planning on a second appearance at next year's oyster festival and are even thinking about entering some other competitions, too!

Last week, I traveled to Sharon, CT, to attend the General Association of the Connecticut Conference of the United Church of Christ. (Say that five times real fast...) General Association is the longest running clergy gathering in the United States and dates to the bad-old-days when Connecticut was a theocracy run by the Congregationalist churches. Originally, the General Association would pass all sorts of resolutions and make decisions regarding the government of Connecticut, including electing the governor. These days, it is is a continuing education and fellowship event for UCC clergy. This year, we celebrated the 300th anniversary of the General Association and had the Rev. John Thomas, who is concluding his second term as General Minister and President of the UCC, as our guest speaker. Over the two days we had together, John shared many remembrances from his ten years as GMP and discussed the evolving role of pastors in our society.

This past Saturday, Ian and I, along with our friend Eric Anderson, spent the day at the Pipes in the Valley festival in Hartford. It was a gorgeous day and we got to hear several fantastic musical groups. The day started with a massed pipe band that marched across the Founders' Bridge and then there were continuous performances on two stages for the rest of the day. We were all quite impressed with The Wicked Tinkers, whose high-energy music incorporated didgeridoo, an electronic repeater box and a bronze age horn along with the traditional pipes and drums. The evening finished up with a two-hour concert by Gaelic Storm.

Two amusing tidbits from Saturday: We saw what has to be the world's smallest tugboat, which only appeared to be about 12' long, zipping about on the Connecticut River, just behind the stage. Second, I've been wanting to have a kilt for some time and, because Norwalk hosts the Round Hill Highland Games each year, I'd been thinking that I now have an actual excuse to own one. I tried one on at one of the vendor's tents and Ian decided that he wants one, too, so now we're sort of seriously in the market for kilts. That may well become its own post, later.

Fun With Salmon, Part II

In these waning days of summer, I've been grilling a lot. Part of it is because I'm going to be competing next weekend in the Norwalk Oyster Festival's Bar-B-Q Pit competition and partially because, well, it is pushing the end of summer and I figure that there's a lot of food out there that deserves to get grilled before the snow starts to fly.

In peparation for the the Barbecue competition, I've been practicing up on wings and seafood. Of course, since I'm using those recipes in competition next week, I can't divulge them here at this time because, who knows, there might be spies from the other teams scanning the internet to find out what their competition is up to. Of course, it is really flattering to believe that the professional contestants in the competition would be so worried about me that they'd be reading my blog, so I'll just take idea and go with it.

On Friday night, however, I was grilling something just for the family, so I feel I can safely share that information with you, but don't go telling the competition or I shall have to become very cross. On Friday, I made a (Shhhh.) cedar-planked salmon.

Earlier in the summer, when I was a Costco to pick up some ribs, I happened to see a package of cedar planks and I remembered reading in a cookbook about the Native Americans in the Pacific Northwest who flame-cooked salmon on cedar planks and how the wood added a smoky-spicy taste to the fish. Since I was only spending plastic money instead of real money, I tossed a package of the planks into my cart, figuring that I'd get around to trying them out eventually.

"Eventually" arrived on Friday when Kimberly came home from the grocery with a nice looking side of salmon (Wild caught, Atlantic salmon, of course...) I started looking for a recipe and found several fairly nasty looking ones that involved a whole lot of mayonaise. I found some that were very similar to the maple-soy salmon I made a while back, but I wanted something that was simpler than that and that would let the flavor of the cedar be a major part of the final product. Eventually, I gave up and decided to punt, coming up with my own recipe based on very little other than a desire for simplicity.

I started by soaking one of the cedar planks in water for a couple hours. You'll see in this picture that this is a high-end, gourmet cedar plank because it has a picture of a fish branded on the wood. Of course, a plain (untreated!!) cedar shingle or a cedar board from the lumber yard would have worked just as well. It just wouldn't have had that "I paid plenty of good money for this board" feel.

After soaking the board and getting the grill going with the coals banked to one side, it was time to prepare the salmon. A quick rinse and pat-dry, a half-hearted check for pin bones (who ever actually finds pin bones in their salmon and who really cares if there's one in the piece of fish, anyway?) and I was ready to season the fish. A bit of kosher salt, a generous grinding of black pepper and a (as it turned out slightly too big) smear of brown sugar, and the fish was ready to walk the plank. As you'll see in the picture on the right, I'm getting a substantial kickback from Morton's Salt and Domino Sugar for my creativity...

I had found plenty of different sorts of instructions for using the planks, so I went with the idea that seemed to make the most use of the cedar for flavor. First, I placed the plank good-side-down on the grill for a couple minutes until it started to smoke, thus releasing its smokey-cedary goodness. After flipping it over, I brushed on a bit of olive oil and scooted the salmon onto the board, which I placed on the cool side of the grill. With the grill cover back on, it was twelve minutes (Or maybe 13. You know how exact a science grilling can be...) of cook time before I checked the salmon and turned the plank around so that the other side was closer to the fire. Things were progressing nicely and the brown sugar was beginning to caramelize, running over the board, a process that I had counted on to give the fish an even coating of the brown sugar). After another 12 minutes (or 13) I declared the fish to be done and brought it in and served it with the broiled, sliced potatoes from the "Emma's Favorite Cod and Potatoes" recipe in Mark Bittmann's The Minimalist Cooks at Home, and steamed brussels sprouts. Yum!

Jack Benny Ain't Got Nuthin' on Me

Perhaps you remember Jack Benny's classic schtick, here in a sketch with Grouch Marx... which reminds me of my son's first aquarium, where we named the fish after the Marx Brothers: Grouch, Harpo, Chico, Zeppo and Karl, but that's really not what I want to write about today...



When I was growing up, Jack Benny (1894-1974) was already a thing of the past or, more accurately, he was a thing of the past by the time I became aware of him, since he passed away when I was four years old. Benny was, of course, famous for his comedic vices of bad violin playing, tight-fistedness, and vanity. I became aware of his comedy through the persistent references of senior citizens in churches I served who would always claim that they were the same age as Jack Benny.

Well, as of today, I can claim to be everything that Jack Benny was. I'm a lousy violinist, having had only one semester's worth of instruction from a friend when I was in college. I'm fairly aggressive in not spending money -- in fact, I've never quite outgrown the "grad-student mentality," though I have, at least, stopped buying only generic groceries. And now, I can finally join all of those elderly church members in saying that I'm the same age as Jack Benny.

Oh, Rochester...

Back from Vacation in Maine

Last week, the family piled into the station wagon and made a pilgrimage to America's second-most-visited national park: Acadia on Mount Desert Island. Over the years, we've been several times, camping in various campgrounds and coming to the conclusion that our absolute favorite one is Mount Desert Campground because it is right at the head of Somes Sound (said by some to be the only fjord on the east coast of the U.S.) and because it has hardly any mosquitos, partly due to the elevation and the breeze and partly due to the fact that it isn't surrounded by salt marsh, I suspect. The only real drawback is that you have to bring along plenty of quarters (U.S. only!) if you want to take hot showers.

During our week on MDI, we stayed busy with agressive outdoor recration. We spent our first day, Sunday, hiking Cadillac Mountain which, at a little over 1500 feet is the highest mountain within 25 miles of the US Atlantic coast. We took the free Island Explorer Bus right to the trailhead and hiked up the North Ridge Trail, with Ian zipping ahead on a one-man race to the summit while Kimberly and I moseyed up, stopping to enjoy the views and to eat lots of wild Maine blueberries. When we reached the top, we decided to take the West Face Trail back down to catch the bus back to town. As it turned out, we missed our turn and ended up having to take an alternate route down the Featherbed Trail, which may be the most ironically named trail in all of traildom, with a steep boulder-hopping descent before it joined the Jordan Pond trail, which took us to the Jordan Pond House, where we caught the bus back to Bar Harbor for dinner. (Lobster & blueberry pie!!!)

Having used our legs on the first day, we switched to using our arms for day two. We went to Long Pond, where we spent a good part of the day paddling our canoe and kayak. We stopped on a small island for lunch and Ian swam for a bit, even though the water was quite cold.

Tuesday was a "town day" and we spent a lazy morning in camp before heading in to Bar Harbor to wander through the various shops and making a run out to Ellsworth to buy groceries and to stop at the L.L. Bean outlet.

On Wednesday, we had a lazy morning in camp. In the afternoon, we went to the Wild Gardens of Acadia, where we saw many of the native plants in a botanical garden in a beautiful botanical garden at the Sieur de Monts spring. From there, we went to the Jordan Pond House, where we enjoyed midafternoon tea and popovers. After returning for dinner to our campsite, we drove up Cadillac Mountain to see the stars and to watch the Perseid meteor shower. The night sky was breathtaking and we watched for nearly an hour as the meteors streaked across the sky, sometimes as often as every thrity seconds. It was an awesome sight!

Thursday we started out early and went to Bar Harbor, where we walked out to Bar Island at low tide. It was a much shorter walk that we had imagined, since half of the island is privately owned, so we were back in the village in more than enough time to wander around for a bit before boarding the Friendship V for a whale watch tour. Though the day began cloudy, it had cleared by the time we left the dock and the Gulf of Maine was as smooth as glass, which gave us ideal conditions for watching a pair of humpback whales for a long period of time and for spotting two otthers before we had to head back in to shore. Dinner was at a lobster pound just opposite the Seawall campground outside of southwest harbor.

On Friday, we rented bicycles from the Bar Harbor Bicycle Shop and riding from town out to the carriage roads, built by John D. Rockefeller. Once on the carriage roads, we rode along the Eagle Lake and Jordan Pond loops. stopping back at the Jordan Pond House for some seafood chowder and popovers.

Saturday, we broke camp and loaded eveything back into the car and set off for home, stopping for lunch at a pan-asian bistro in Maine for lunch and then pushing on for a late dinner in New Haven at our favorite Mexican restaurant, Guadalupe La Poblanita.

For those of you who might want to see the photos from the trip, the album is here.

Editor's Note: After I posted this blog entry, Kimberly noted that I made a mistake in the paragraph about Wednesday. We did not, in fact, have a quiet morning in camp. Instead, Wednesday morning was spent at the Mount Desert Island Biological Lab, where we heard all about the lab's historical and current work with medical research, using marine animals for modeling. We also got to play with Lego models of DNA that were designed by folks at MIT and had the chance to go to the "touch tank" where there was a wide variety of sea-life from the Gulf of Maine, including lobsters, urchins, starfish, sea squirts, and many more.

An Unexpected Gem

Today, Kimberly and I traveled up to Sharon, CT, in the northwest corner of the state, to pick Ian up from summer camp. I've been driving to Sharon for years, first from the New Haven area when I was volunteering as a dean at Silver Lake, leading a conference on clowning, and then just as a camper's dad, driving from New Jersey, but this is the first year that I've made the trip up Rt. 22 from Norwalk. It is a pleasant drive, about two hours each way, past plenty of beautiful scenery.

Going to Silver Lake is always a chance to catch up with friends. When we took Ian up this past Sunday, I found out that Chris Hale, one of my confirmands from when I was at the Naugauck church back in the late '90s is now the "Camp Family Dad," or the manager of the camp's summer staff, while Jillian Dufresne, who was too young to be in that confirmation class, is now one of the deans of Ian's conference. Today, I spent a bit of time with Eric Anderson, who is up as one of the high ropes course facilitators, as well as touching base with the camp's directors, Anne and Tim Hughes, who also happen to be members of my church in Norwalk.

On our way home from Silver Lake, Kimberly, Ian and I stopped at the Sharon Craft Fair, and wandered around for a bit (buying a new turtle for Ian's collection, of course) before continuing to Paley's Farm Market in Amenia, NY. Paley's has become a regular stop on our Sharon trips and we sometimes buy local produce (often fresh peaches) when we're there. Another of our favorite buys is sheep's-milk yogurt from the Old Chatham Sheepherding Company in Chatham, NY. (Kimberly likes the maple flavor and I'm partial to the ginger.) Having purchased our yogurt and some herb and cheese focaccia, we were back on the road toward home.

As luck would have it, we were driving down Route 22 through beautiful "downtown" Wingdale, NY just as we were all starting to think serious thoughts about food. We drove past the Star 22 Diner and made a quick U-turn to come back to the delightful little glass and chrome restaurant that looked like it came straight out of the 1950s.

The Star 22 Diner's menu wasn't nearly as extensive as many of the "big" diners that try to serve every kind of food imaginable (and so rarely do any of it well), but we all found something that appealed to us. Kimberly opted for breakfast -- blueberry pancakes and sausage links -- while Ian went for the chicken fingers and french fries. I ordered the open-faced hot turkey sandwich, with mashed potatoes and veg, which turned out to be carrots. The turkey was actual sliced turkey breast and not a processed turkey roll. The carrots were fresh-cooked and the mashed potatoes had little bits of unmashed potato in them. Some folks might derisively call them "lumps," but I believe that, in moderation, potato bits are just fine and they're also definite proof that the potatoes didn't come from a box. The food was good, of very good quality, was fairly priced and we all left full and happy.

Scotch Flyer

For the last couple weeks, I've been spending my Wednesday evenings doing what I love: sailing.

One of my parishioners, Bob McGregor (pictured at the helm), knew of my addiction to boats and invited me to join his racing crew, so I've been going out with him and a collection of his friends each week and we've been racing his 34-foot C&C yacht, Scotch Flyer, out of Norwalk's Shore and Country Club.

I'm having a lot of fun sailing with Bob and am enjoying being out with his friends, as well, even though they're really power-boaters who are just helping out a friend instead of being true sailors.

I find that sailing on Bob's boat is an interesting learning experience for me, particularly given my other sailing experiences. While the principles of sailing are the same regardless of the size of boat, I've only really sailed on Amistad (129') and my own micro-yacht, Boojum (12'), who takes her name from Lewis Carroll's poem The Hunting of the Snark.

I'm finding that the hardware involved is a bit different from either of the boats I know, as one is too small to need things like winches and travelers and the other is an historical recreation, so doesn't have any such modern frippery.

Scotch Flyer is a somewhat venerable vessel and has the added charm of having well-loved (read "kind of old and bagged-out") sails, which puts her at something of a disadvantage against some of the other boats in her class, which are outfitted in brand-new, really expensive kevlar sails. Bob still does remarkably well and, while we haven't come in first, we've always finished in the first half of our division. Tomorrow night (July 29), though, we've got an added challenge: with the exception of Bob and me, the rest of the crew are unavailable, so we'll be racing with novice sailors. At the moment, we've only got my Deacon Chair, Joseph DeRuvo lined up, and we still need another hand or two, so let me know if you'd like to sail with us. Really. Call me at church at 203-847-9551. We'll be leaving the dock at about 5:45pm.