apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

This is a great post - thank you! I live in New Hampshire, and last year put a major focus on squirreling away food for the winter. I grew beans for drying, made 15 gallons of hard cider, canned all sorts of tomatoes and apple chutneys, and purchased 100 lbs of hard squash, potatoes, beets and carrots to store. It was all locally grown!

My stash lasted well into winter, and it was a wonderful experiement. I still had to go to the grocery store, but it was nice extending local food well into winter.

(pulls up chair and sits down -- I grew up in Eastern Connecticut and Cape Cod.)

There are some other things to know about New England, actually -- what you say of produce is indeed true. But -- something should be said about New England summers, and the whole culinary institution of the clam shacks and lobster pounds that grew up around them. Yeah, it gets cold -- but for the brief shining moments of the summer, especially along the Cape, people want to bust out and get to the beach, because finally they can. And since 90% of New England's states have coastline, they have ample opportunity. (I think in Rhode Island you have more coastline than you do STATE in some places...)

When you're that close to the beach, you want something nice and fast and tasty, but casual. And when you're that close to the beach, you can get the absolute freshest seafood ever. No, EVER. And that is why going to New England in the summer you will find scores of tiny little places selling fried clams or lobster rolls out of a window, and the only seating is a picnic table or two out in the yard. Fried clams and lobster rolls are quick, simple, and tasty -- fried clams are nothing more than clams, rolled in fine cornmeal, and deep fried. Lobter rolls? Chunks of lobster meat, drizzled with butter, stuffed into a hot dog roll. And nothing more. Usually you don't NEED there to be anything more, because the lobster was swimming only three hours ago and is just that good.

And then there's the clambake, the NE PLUS ULTRA beach picnic. Clams you dug up on the beach that morning, maybe a couple lobsters someone was able to pick up, sweet corn that was picked just an hour earlier, maybe some potatoes and hot dogs for the people who aren't into "all seafood all the time", all layered together in a pit on the beach (or, in my family's case, a huge steel drum over the barbecue pit in Grandpa's back yard) with seaweed to provide the moisture, and you wait while everything steam-cooks -- nibbling on appetizers your dad's made using hardshell clams he just pulled out of the water five minutes ago and shucked on the spot -- and then it all comes out and everything is infused with this wonderful brininess that perfectly suits the sea air that's been giving you a whale of an appetite. All you need is watermelon for dessert.

When some friends, Vermont transplants, took me to visit New England for the first time a few years ago, it was at the beginning of March, and it was still snowing. It was a treat for a kid who grew up at the beach and then moved to the desert--the first time I ever got to see snow fall. While we didn't really have the opportunity to try a lot of local produce, my friends did take me to eat in more diners than I've ever seen in my life. It was awesome. I had a lot of good clam chowder and that stuff they call "chop suey," Lake Champain chocolates, and some amazing local cheese from one of Burlington's co-ops. I'd love to go back and have my first lobster roll!

O.k. empresscallipygos,

that's enough. I'm thoroughly jealous.

Point Judith has really cheap live lobster for sale there. I used to drive up there to get lobster and along the way there is great place to pick mussels.

Don't forget the Quahogs.

...Sorry, I got a little carried away. *blush*

(I live in New York now, and it isn't QUITE

(Arg: I meant to say, "I live in new york now, and it isn't quite the same.")

My husband and I honeymooned in Maine, which was the beginning of the end for my wedding figure. I ate my weight in lobster and clam chowder. We stayed at the Captain Lord Mansion in Kennebunkport, and every morning they served a communal breakfast of local berries, breads, yogurts and granolas. Fabulous! Maine, I miss you!

AAAAAGGGGHHHHH!!!!!

You guys are killing me!

I must make a pilgrimage.

As I sit researching my future home-to-be of Nashville, this lifelong New Englander's heart is breaking...

A Californian friend of mine once said to me that the only things that grow in New England are apples and rocks. (In a fit of frustration after not being able to find the ingredients for a meal he wanted to make, including the only supposedly local, fresh fish). This article proves him wrong ;)