Holy Donut.

Before leaving Maine, we stopped at The Holy Donut, a Portland treasure, and good enough to grace at least one of the thousand "best donut shops in the nation" lists.  Are we sure glad we did.

  

Apparently these doughnuts are made with potatoes.  This is what gives them such a soft, moist, bread-y texture.  Who knew the humble potato would be the secret ingredient in the Best Doughnuts in the Land?  (Well, I think they are the best...If I had to rank, I'd give them a 10/10.  Al gives them an 8/10.  This is pretty good: his highest ranked goes to the Doughnut Vault with "9.something/10".  I suppose he hasn't found his Beatrice Doughnut yet.)  

This was our selection: an old fashioned, a chocolate sea salt, a berry cannoli, and a holy cannoli.  Oh, the deliciousness.  Rich, yet light.  Sweet, yet mellow.  Perfect combinations of flavors that sent us reeling from their freshness.  Yum yum--they were truly exquisite.  I really can't bear to think about them any longer.  

Don't mock us for how many we ate.  There were three of us (Evangeline basically ate two herself), and we did go straight from the doughnut shop to the airport.  The only thing to make you even the least bit happy about cramped legs for four point five hours is the fact that you might have four of the most delicious doughnuts in the world, and definitely the best snacks on the plane.   

Next time we're in Maine, we just might have to go in and buy the whole shop.  

Maine Photo Journal

We were so lucky to spend two weeks in Maine with my family.  It was such a delightful visit: lots of baby kissing (Eve is my parents first grandchild, so naturally they were ridiculously excited), lobster eating, seashore-ing, farming...did I mention lobster eating?  (Apparently, there are two camps of Lobster Roll Eaters:  the first swears by mayonnaise as dressing, the second by butter.  I'd only eaten lobster rolls with mayonnaise until this past trip, but I think I'm now a firm member of the second camp.  Butter and lobster it is.)

Early September is such a beautiful time to visit Maine--a month both bold and tremulous.  Everything is just beginning to tumble into autumn, but those last bright shreds of summer still remain.  The sky is bluer, the colours are brighter, the smells are richer than any other time of year.  Oh Maine, I miss you already.

Oh, ye! who have your eyeballs vexed and tired,      Feast them upon the wideness of the Sea;          Oh ye! whose ears are dinned with uproar rude,      Or fed too much with cloying melody---          Sit ye near some old Cavern's Mouth and brood,  Until ye start, as if the sea nymphs quired!  -John Keats, On the Sea 1817

Snow Queen.

Alex and I spend last week in Maine with my family.  It was such a lovely visit; so quiet and cold outside and so noisy and warm inside.  We didn't want to leave!  I have a feeling that we'll end up there one of these days, living in some shack on the ocean.  How nice that would be...

ice cold sun.  

frosty window panes.  

Alex went skiing with my brothers and my Dad.  what cool kids. 

remember that lobster roll I mentioned I'd been craving? I got one.  and it was good.  damn good.  

one early morning in Maine...

for Mom.  

freaks and geeks.