The Maine-style “Italian” sandwich doesn’t always get a ton of respect, primarily, it seems, because there is very little about it that has anything to do with Italy. In fact, an investigation into the sandwich’s history reveals that referring to these sandwiches as “Italians” may have less to do with the ingredients, and may simply be a reference to the nationality of the inventor. In 1902, in his tiny bakery on Portland’s working waterfront, Giovanni Amato allowed local dockworkers to talk him into splitting his bread loaves lengthwise, then piling them with meat, cheese, and vegetables. The resulting sandwich, which today typically includes a thin layer of boiled ham, sliced American cheese, sliced tomatoes, green pepper, onion, olives (black or kalamata), and a finish of oil, salt, and pepper, is one of the last true “regional” food specialties. Travel South of Kittery, and you’ll continue to see lots of sandwiches for sale at gas stations. You’ll find lots of hoagies, grinders, subs, and heroes. But you’ll be hard-pressed to find a real Italian.

Throughout Maine, to order a “Ham Italian” would be redundant; the ham is implied (the best ham always is), and included automatically, unless you were to specifically request a “Turkey Italian” or a “Roast Beef Italian.” This can get confusing in some shops, where ordering a sandwich made with a combination of meats using this naming convention would require you to (somewhat awkwardly) ask for a “Italian Cold Cut Combo Italian,” which will almost certainly baffle the person you are talking to.

After eating hundreds of versions of this sandwich (not to mention naming my favorites in Portland), I knew it was finally time to work on my own version. I’m sure most of you realize how fraught with peril such an idea is; Mainers are protective of their Italians, and too much mucking around with the ingredients would make the resulting product a perfectly good sandwich, but not a tried-and-true Maine Italian.

I’m serious. You should see how much hate mail I continue to receive for suggesting that our readers put sausage in their American Chop Suey. I had to find a way to tweak the original, without changing what the sandwich fundamentally is.

Here’s what I’ve come up with, broken down by ingredients:

The Bread
The bread on a traditional Italian is nothing like the crusty, chewy loaves you’ll find South of the Sarah Mildred Long Bridge that links Kittery and Portsmouth. Instead, the bread used for a Maine Italian can be thought of more as a giant New England-style split-top hot dog bun. It’s the kind of loaf that is so tied to the sandwich’s identity, that to change it would mean changing the sandwich itself. It’s also the kind of loaf that I suspect is out of reach of most home bakers; these things need to be mass-produced, made of hyper-bleached enriched white flour, and slurped dry of any nutritional value.

For our sandwich, I went with something off-the-shelf, a bag of four 12-inch giants from the supermarket bakery that were helpfully labeled “Italian Sandwich Loaves.” If you live in a part of the country where these aren’t available, which I suspect is anywhere outside Maine, I would make “mini Italians” using hot dog buns. Changing up the texture of the bread in any way is simply not going to offer the same experience, and you’re better off eating two smaller, hot dog-sized sandwiches.

The Cheese
I considered swapping out the traditional American cheese for something with a little more flavor, like provolone, but the weird properties of American cheese are such a major part of the Italian sandwich eating experience that I just couldn’t bear to do it. In a Maine Italian, the American cheese liquefies, presumably in response to the moisture from the vegetables and oil, forming a thin protective layer that guards the bottom slice of bread against too much oil-seepage, especially when wrapped in butcher paper and stored overnight. Stripping the sandwich of these unique properties seemed almost criminal, so I left the cheese alone.

The Meat
For our signature version of this sandwich, I had to part ways with tradition just a little bit. The meat is a great place to get creative; the boiled ham on a Maine Italian is such a minor component of the finished product, that you can make some substitutions here without raising too many eyebrows. For our sandwich, I went with fatty mortadella, and a few slices of Genoa salami for texture and just a hint of spice.

The Vegetables
Again, there’s not a lot of room to muck around here. If you’re making a Maine Italian, you’ve gotta include tomatoes, onions, and green peppers. I like to use tart sour pickles, sliced into thin spears so that you get a little pickle in every bite. Rather than choose between black and kalamata olives, I prefer to buy a mix of different pitted varieties, and then chop them in a food processor with a few banana peppers into a kind of poor-man’s tapenade, which I spread on one side of the bread. If you don’t like olives, or if this seems too crazy, by all means, feel free to skip this step.

A final word about vegetables: Stack them vertically in the sandwich, so that it can be closed and eaten normally. The Amato’s chain doesn’t do this, which makes eating an Amato’s Italian sometimes seem more like eating a soft tray of oily vegetables.

The Oil
Opinions vary here; Amato’s uses a blend of vegetable and olive oils. I prefer the stronger flavor of a good olive oil, particularly a garlic or chile infused oil.

The resulting sandwich breaks from tradition here and there, but honors the original. And like the original, our version of the Maine Italian is pure junk food addiction that pings all of your pleasure receptors: Salty, sour, spicy, crunchy, oily, and messy. It’s food meant to be eaten either at the beach where you can clean off afterward with a dip in the frigid ocean, or more likely, to be eaten by yourself in the middle of the night while standing over the sink, washed down with half a bottle of Moxie.

The Maine-Style “Italian” Sandwich
Makes one sandwich

Ingredients:

• 1 twelve inch soft white sub sandwich roll
• 2-3 slices American cheese, cut in half
• 4-6 slices mortadella
• 4-6 slices Genoa salami
• Sliced tomato, green pepper, onion, and sour pickles
• 1 cup assorted pitted olives (green,black, and Kalamata)
• 1/4 cup banana peppers
• Olive oil
• Salt and pepper, to taste

Method:

Slice bread 2/3 of the way through. Line bottom half with cheese, then sliced meat. Top with vegetables, arranged vertically for easy eating.

In a food processor, pulse olives and peppers into a coarse paste, and spread on top half of bread. Drizzle liberally with oil, and finish with salt and pepper. Serve immediately, or allow everything to melt together in the fridge overnight.

24-26 minutes. That is how long I held my breath in the living room, far from the kitchen, while the souffle was baking and starting to pouf. Violet was clinging to my legs as I melted the chocolate in a double boiler and watched as the mixer whipped the eggs into a froth, wondering how you are sure if peaks are soft or stiff. She is cranky and needy after her nap. So I popped the chocolate concoction in the oven – it’s really nothing more than chocolate, sugar, and separated eggs – and we sat down on the couch, to snuggle and be quiet and watch Gilmore Girls. In the middle of this busy life, between music class and work and running errands around town, a cozy 24-26 minutes is deep pleasure, an oasis of calm. We both felt better, shared a snack of butter on crackers, and cheered when the souffle came out risen high and glorious. It is amazing what you can do when you practice patience.

Chocolate Souffle
Adapted from a recipe on Epicurious

Ingredients:

• 5 oz bittersweet chocolate, chopped
• 3 egg yolks, room temperature
• 6 egg whites
• Pinch salt
• 1/3 cup granulated sugar
• Butter and sugar for the dish

Method:

Generously grease a 6 cup baking dish with butter and sprinkle with sugar. Preheat oven to 375. In a metal bowl over simmering water, melt chocolate, stirring frequently. Remove from heat and stir in egg yolks. Mixture will thicken. In the bowl of a stand mixer beat egg whites on medium-low with a pinch of salt until soft peaks forms. Slowly add sugar and turn the mixer up to high; beat until stiff peaks form. Stir in about 1 cup egg whites into chocolate. Fold chocolate into egg whites. Spoon into prepared dish and bake. Run thumb around the perimeter of the dish, so the souffle rises evenly. Bake 24-26 minutes.

For a couple of thirtysomething parents from Maine, spending an evening all dolled up at a gorgeous event space in Chelsea with beautiful people, elegant cocktails, and lobster rolls as far as the eye could see, was, in a word, delicious. We had such a blast tasting, talking, and representing Maine during the Tasting Table 2013 Lobster Roll Rumble. And we could not be prouder of all four Maine teams, two of whom were big winners at this year’s competition.

Malcolm and I arrived early, along with other members of the press to meet with the chefs and volunteer staff and preview a few rolls before guests came swanning in.

This was not a minor event.

Imagine your prom, but with significantly better food, drinking in the open, and no cheeseball DJ playing too much Santana. There was a fun photo booth area, ladies in their summer dresses, good music blasting, and cute seating areas. The space was part nightclub, part quaint outdoor tableau, with a Don Julio tequila bar at its center and picnic tables around the perimeter. Some partygoers set up camp at a table and surrounded themselves with as many of the twenty lobster rolls as they could fit, while others mingled, perched at cocktail tables, and sipped crisp whites and roses from real stemware.

Brooklyn Taffy-Pulling Girl was there.

Bajillionaire Barbara Corcoran was there.

There were big corporate sponsors, like Evian, who filled strategically-placed washtubs with still and sparkling water and served little cups of smoky tomato soup and fresh salad to complement all the seafood and Haagen Dazs who presented two creamy gelatos, as well as little local sweets purveyors, adorable girls from Brooklyn pulling salt water taffy and serving fanciful doughnuts. In addition to the Don Julio cocktails, VIP Lounge, and wine station there was a beer garden serving enormous glasses of Hoegarten, plastic party cups of Stella Artois, and a light, crisp cider in bottles. It was intoxicating!

Asian Winnie Cooper was there.

Our first order of business upon arriving was to make contact with our fellow Mainers. We were sure to immediately get a taste from last year’s winner, Kennebunkport’s The Clam Shack, who went ahead and did it again this year, defeating chefs from both coast’s big cities as well as the other stellar Maine rolls. These guys prove why Maine has the best lobster rolls in all the land, bringing what we do so well. This winner consisted of nothing more and nothing less than a fluffy potato roll, super fresh lobster meat, and a thin swipe of mayonnaise. We immediately recognized its greatness and are thrilled that it was awarded another prize up against so many terrific chefs and cosmopolitan contenders.

Next we met with the understandably proud team from The Galley in Naples. They were stoked to be there, having driven all night to deliver their Zest Lemon roll, which was named “The Best Sandwich in New England” by Ivy-league educated TV host Adam Richman. We loved the way they represented with lobster tattoos, wit, and above all, a super tasty product. It had bite! We are definitely planning on making the pilgrimage to quaint, lakeside Naples as soon as we can to hang out and get fed and drink beer.

Malcolm and his Female Doppleganger were there.

The cool guys and girls from Portland’s upscale Eventide won the Editor’s Choice award with an elegant little sandwich: a Japanese inspired bun filled with lobster meat mixed with homemade brown butter vinaigrette. I overhead a lot of New Yorker’s mentioning how impressed they were with the creativity and sheer deliciousness of this audacious little taste. I love when a slightly irreverent twist on a classic is so magical.

Bite Into Maine brought the slaw. Packed with sweet meat, on a bed of snappy coleslaw, all that was missing was the picturesque view of Casco Bay. (For that, we’ll have to meet them on any afternoon in Fort Williams Park in Cape Elizabeth). After wishing all of our new friends well, we set out to see what other competitors were presenting. We sampled the novel (a hot dog topped with lobster mac and cheese!) the good, and the supremely excellent. I spoke to chefs from Los Angeles, Chicago, Baltimore, San Francisco, Manhattan, and Brooklyn, almost all of whom confirmed what I already knew – Maine lobster is consistently the sweetest, freshest, meatiest and best.

As VIP guests began drifting in, we were glad we had napped and slicked up a bit after we winged in on a Cessna from Rockland’s tiny Owl’s Head airport. New Yorkers work hard and play hard and have an opinion about just about everything, which made the rumble a great place to meet people and find out what others think about Maine food and culture. Every single person I spoke with, from guests to chefs to press, with wore a wistful expression when talking about time spent in Maine. Whether it was a childhood vacation or a spontaneous road trip with college friends, everyone, it seems, has a Maine experience they wanted to recall and share. This state has a magic, magnetic quality on visitors.

What a great way to spend a spring evening in the city. I think that it has been definitely proven, as it does time and again, that Maine lobster is perfect, iconic, and completely delicious.

Want to see more pictures of the festivities? We’ve got at least 50 more, over on our Facebook page. Take a look!

As of this writing, we’ve written somewhere North of 600 posts for From Away. While there’s a ton of content out there on the site, and we hope you’ll get to read it all eventually, we realize that it may be tough for new readers to digest it all at once. As a way of introducing ourselves, we wanted to put together this roundup of the 20 most popular posts on our site of all time, as determined by the total amount of traffic per page. Here they are, starting with our most popular posts ever:

1. How to Make American Cheese
This little post is the gift that keeps on giving, with over 250,000 shares so far on Pinterest. Readers love this recipe for what I always thought of as “American Cheese,” but which I have also been told is more of a “Velveeta Clone.” And who can blame them? Made with real food, and not a hint of “hydrolyzed soy protein,” or any other weird chemical additives, this classic melter is perfect for burgers, grilled cheese sandwiches, or eaten straight off the block.

2. Copycat Chik-Fil-A Chicken Sandwiches
Love Chick-fil-A’s fried chicken sandwiches, but feeling a little squeamish about the company’s politics? Or maybe you just need your Chik-fix on a Sunday, when the restaurant is famously closed? We’ve found the perfect substitution. And no, commentors, the fried chicken isn’t brined in pickle juice. Sorry to disappoint.

3. Homemade Cheez-It Crackers
Our addiction to Cheez-It brand crackers at From Away World Headquarters is legendary. I’ll typically blast through a box in one sitting, and then spend the rest of the day feeling terrible about myself. Not anymore. The homemade version are light, flaky, and made with real cheese, for the satisfying cheesy crunch readers know and love.

4. How to Cook a Steak Perfectly Every Time
Are you tired of plating up steaks with no clue whatsoever about what their internal temperature is? Are you sick of slicing into a perfectly-seared steak, only to find a bloody mess or even worse, a flat grey slab over overcooked cardboard? This simple technique will allow you to cook your steaks to a perfect medium rare, every single time.

5. The Blazin’ Wing Challenge at Buffalo Wild Wings
The continued popularity of this photo post is a puzzler, even to us. I have to assume that there are more people interested in this food challenge, than there is actual content online about it, leading anyone interested into competing to our site, where they post their own personal best times. Carry on, you wing-eating maniacs.

6. Extra Crispy Spicy Fried Chicken with “Delta” Sauce
I’d never eaten at the Popeye’s chain, until I found myself stranded in an airport with only moments to quickly shoehorn any food item I could find into my gullet before my next flight. It was under these auspicious conditions that I discovered the wonders of Popeye’s “Delta” sauce, and my life hasn’t been the same since. Here’s how to make the famous chicken and sauce yourself at home, without having to risk being a part of an armed robbery at an actual Popeye’s.

7. General Tso’s Chicken
Here in Maine, the total dearth of decent Chinese takeout is well-known. Each January, we recreate some of these classic dishes at home, in our “Chinese New Year” series, which suffers from having a more clever name, than any chronological accuracy. At any rate, our recipe for General Tso’s Chicken has been by far our most popular, and every time we make it, we’re happy we didn’t bother venturing out of the house for takeout.

8. American Chop Suey
Whether you call it “goulash” or “macaroni and beef,” it means the same thing: Elbow macaroni, tomato sauce, and ground beef cooked together in a big pot on the stove on a weeknight in thousands of kitchens in Maine. It’s a kid-friendly comforting classic that you can eat all week. We hope you’ll forgive us for adding a little spicy Italian sausage to the mix.

9. How to Make Mexican Chorizo
Mexican chorizo is a raw ground pork sausage, often uncased, that must be cooked before you eat it. Bright red, fatty, spiked with vinegar and hot chile peppers, and intensely flavorful, I’ve come to think of it as “Mexican bacon.” It improves almost everything it touches, providing a greasy, spicy, porky hit to anything dish you can imagine. If you can’t find it where you live, here’s how to make it from scratch.

10. No-Bake Peanut Butter Marshmallow Squares
Believe it or not, this recipe almost didn’t make it to the website. We thought it was too simple, too sweet, too sugary for the refined sensibilities of our readers. Boy, did we get that one wrong. This no-bake dessert rose to become our number ten most-trafficked recipe of all time, proving just one thing: From Away readers sure love their sugar.

11. A Comparison of Fast Food Fried Fish Sandwiches
This is it: The definitive comparison of  the fish sandwich offerings from each of the major fast food chains. Never let it be said that we don’t suffer for our art.

12. Homemade Marshmallow Fluff
If you have even a passing fond memory of opening your lunchbox and finding a Fluffernutter inside, that classic sandwich made with peanut butter and smooth, spreadable marshmallow creme, you owe it to yourself to try making Fluff at home at least once. Here’s how to do it.

13. Crispy Oven-Roasted Potatoes
As with a properly cooked french fry, the secret to these potatoes is in the par-boiling. A few minutes in some boiling water, followed by a finish in a hot oven yields a fried potato that is golden and crunchy on the outside, with a soft, fluffy interior. I like to use Yukon Gold-style potatoes; their yellow flesh is particularly creamy and ever-so-slightly sweet. Dipped in a little Sriracha-spiked ketchup, these potatoes work equally well as a side at dinnertime, as they do at breakfast.

14. Homemade Hostess Sno-Balls
With the future of Hostess uncertain, how can you be certain you will be able to get your fix of chocolate cupcakes filled with frosting and covered in a layer of marshmallow and bright pink coconut? With this recipe, that’s how.

15. How to Start a Food Blog
This is it you guys. Everything we’ve learned about food blogging so far, in one handy volume. It’s a great read whether you are new to the food blog world, or have been obsessively photographing your meals for a while now. Heck, even David Lebovitz likes it.

16. Brown Ale and Cheddar Soup
Save this supper for a night where your only major obligation is to continue the basic intake of oxygen and the expulsion of carbon dioxide from your bloated lungs and maybe, just maybe, to make sure “Teen Mom 2″ is set to be DVR’d. Anything more involved than that may be entirely too ambitious.

17. Maine Lobster Dip
There’s something about this dish that has a delightfully 1950s vibe to it; something that makes me want to put on a ruffled apron with a pair of high heels, pop a benzedrine, and wait patiently for my husband to get home to discipline the children. What is that something? It’s cream cheese. Specifically, cream cheese mixed with seafood and served hot.

18. Brown Ale, Cheddar, and Bacon Mac and Cheese
It’s insanely rich, comforting stuff, that will require you wear sweatpants the day after you eat it. Serve with a sprinkle of diced tomato.

19. Fried Mozzarella Sticks
Ah, fried mozzarella sticks. The toddler silencer. The fairgoers’ midway snack. The fuel of the currently drunk, or the consolation prize for the recently drunk, these little nuggets of crispy, melty, gooey heaven are a sure-fire crowd-pleaser. But why make your own, when the frozen food isles are chock-full of sacks of hundreds of mozzarella sticks, and there’s a TGI Fridays sludge-station on every street corner? Because ours are better. That’s right.

20. Irish Car Bomb Cupcakes
You may take issue with the insensitivity of the name. But you certainly can’t find fault with the cupcake itself, a chocolate Guinness cake filled with a Jameson-spiked dark chocolate ganache, and topped with a Bailey’s-infused buttercream frosting.

As with most of Dunkin’ Donuts new offerings, I approached the new “Glazed Donut Breakfast Sandwich” with more than a little bit of a raised eyebrow. The sandwich, part of the recent trend in fast food to shock-and-awe the consumer into a purchase, follows KFC’s infamous “Double Down,” the Taco Bell tacos made out of giant Doritos, and whatever that thing is from Denny’s that has all the fried mozzarella sticks jammed into it, down the hallowed halls of fast food excess.

The sandwich, no doubt inspired by Paula Deen’s own experiments with glazed donuts stuffed with meat, consists of a fried egg, bacon, and – wait, did I say regular-old bacon? I’m not doing this description justice. I’d better give the marketing wizards at Dunkin’ Donuts their propers:

“We’ve gone and changed breakfast forever. Again. Bite into this smorgasbord of bacon slices and pepper fried egg, sandwiched by a Glazed Donut.”

You see that? I was eating breakfast history, and I didn’t even know it. Breakfast history, served with a smorgasbord of bacon slices (which according to my inspection, presumably must mean “one slice of bacon cut in half”), and a pepper-fried egg, whatever that may be.

My first impression was surprisingly positive. The microwaved heat from the sandwich’s ingredients had liquefied some of the glaze on the donut, allowing it to coat my fingers and give the donut more of a “freshly-baked” feeling. I was prepared to be utterly turned off by the combination of sweet and savory, the excess of food science run completely amok right inside the otherwise comfy confines of my car. After all, if this sandwich wasn’t going to dropkick my tongue into my face with a stunning explosion of flavor, what would be the point? It is a sandwich that is, after all, CHANGING BREAKFAST FOREVER. AGAIN.

Let’s make something clear. This is a totally fine breakfast sandwich. And in a way, that’s kind of where it fails. Because Dunkin’ Donuts so clearly wants to start The Next Internet Sensation by shocking us with unexpected ingredients, the fact that the sandwich is somehow not at all shocking feels like kind of a letdown. The donut was light, flaky, and very sweet. The bacon was smoky. The egg was barely a factor. A’ight.

In fact, at a comparatively sane 360 calories and 20 grams of fat, it’s not even the worst thing on the breakfast menu, in terms of “healthiness,” a term I use very loosely. The “Big ‘n’ Toasted,” for example, clocks in at 530 calories with 28 grams of fat, and  the “Sausage Egg and Cheese Croissant” is even worse, with 620 calories and 26 grams of fat.

The only reason for this “meh” reaction to what is clearly (at least on paper) an OUTRAGEOUS idea is this: Dunkin’ Donuts has made ALL of its food into Glazed Donut Breakfast Sandwiches. Everything on the menu tastes like this. The bagels are weirdly sweet. The muffins taste like giant donuts. The croissants taste like giant muffins. The coffee is either mint chocolate chip flavored, or is served as a milkshake, topped with whipped cream. Every item of food on the menu has been turned into big microwaved bags of pre-chewed, sweetened pablum, baby food for us to eat in our cars on the way to work.

It’s all such total sugary sensory overload, that the “Glazed Donut Breakfast Sandwich” barely even registers. In today’s fast-food climate, a breakfast sandwich would HAVE to be served on a donut, for us to even be able to taste it, or notice that we’ve even eaten something.

It neither shocks, nor inspires, nor ever needs to be eaten again. It only exists, because of course it does.

[Top photo: Dunkin' Donuts]

When we were eighteen, my best friend and I started going on summer adventures. We would pack White Lightning, my intrepid Toyota Corolla with all the essentials and start driving South on 1-95. The plan was always – loosely – to camp near the beach, get tan, meet boys, and drink beer. We learned how to build fires and cook over them. We had our fortunes told in the middle of the night by strangers. We had my car towed when we foolishly followed some locals in their truck onto the sand. We ate hush puppies and tile fish. We napped in the sun on a tapestry and jumped in the great Atlantic waves. We confronted and photographed wild horses. We slept in a one-man tent. We explored the water by kayak and with fins.

We’ve since run out of gas on the lonesome highway that connects Merida and Cancun on the Yucatan Peninsula, and spent an afternoon at a lake in Camden dunking baby Violet in the water, initiating the newest member of our group into the ritual of our endless summer. Many times we discovered a place worth staying and almost didn’t come back.

On one such occasion, we were driving home from the Outer Banks and wandered onto Ocracoke Island. It was a paradisaical garden of surfers and artists and lovely, shoeless Bohemian weirdos. In a coffee shop that sold bongs and bongos, patchouli and Reiki, pottery and bells, hemp necklaces and flowy filigree tops, we had the most amazing sweet rolls filled with fruit.

Fueled by coffee and pastry, sun and youth and Luscious Jackson, we made it back safely to Connecticut with a car full of sand and trinkets.

Raspberry Sweet Rolls
Adapted from a recipe on Food and Wine; Makes 16 rolls

Ingredients:

For the dough:

• 1 cup whole milk
• 2/3 cup granulated sugar
• 1 1/2 tablespoons active dry yeast
• 1 stick unsalted butter, softened
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 teaspoon Kosher salt
• 4 cups all-purpose flour

For the filling:

• 1/3 cup granulated sugar
• 1 teaspoon cornstarch
• 1 10-12 oz bag frozen raspberries, not thawed

For the glaze:

• 1 teaspoon half and half
• 1/4 cup confectioner’s sugar
• 1 tablespoon melted butter
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Method:

For the dough:

In a small saucepan, warm the milk until it is more or less 90 degrees. (One minute in the microwave about does it). Stir the warm milk and sugar together in the bowl of a stand mixer and add the yeast. Let mixture sit 5 minutes until foamy Add butter, eggs, and salt, and, fitted with the hook attachment, begin to mix at a low speed. Add flour and mix at medium-low speed, 3 minutes. Increase speed to medium-high and mix for 10 minutes. A soft dough forms first, then comes together rather loosely. Form dough into a ball and transfer it to a greased bowl. Cover with plastic wrap and let the dough rise in a warm place, at least an hour.

Prepare a 9 x 13 inch baking pan with butter or cooking spray. Turn the dough out onto a floured work surface. Roll into a 10 x 24 inch rectangle. Combine sugar, cornstarch, and frozen berries. Spread evenly over dough. Roll the dough into a 24-inch long log. Working quickly, cut the log into quarters. Cut each quarter into 4 slices and arrange them in the baking pan, cut sides up. Scrape any berries and juice from the work surface into the baking pan between the rolls. Cover the rolls and let them rise in a warm place until they are puffy and have filled the baking pan, about 2 hours.

Preheat oven to 400 and bake for 20 minutes. Allow them to cool before drizzling with glaze.

For the glaze:

In a small bowl, whisk powdered sugar with the butter, vanilla, and half and half until the glaze is spreadable.

The last day of May has descended on Maine with the hot fist of oppression. Two days ago, I had the heat on and we were watching the new Muppets movie under a blanket all day while it rained and the wind howled. And now, I’m pretty sure it’s 140 degrees where I sit typing at the top of the stairs.

I think maybe we don’t have Spring anymore? Forward to the future! I strapped Violet into the jogging stroller just before nine am, and we started to march around town. We walked toward the water behind The Time Out (only somewhat affectionately referred to as “The Tooth Out”) Pub, and saw that The Pearl was getting a Sysco delivery. I wonder if it’s opening soon. We peeked under the boardwalk promenade, which looks like a set location for The Lost Boys IV: Rise of Feldman. I wished Jaime Gertz was there with her wild, tousled hair. They were the original sparkly vampires.

We walked past Sandy Beach, where the same old lady in a floppy hat picks up garbage or shells, I’m not sure. And past my favorite cottage art studio/potting shed set against a white picket fence and the Rockland marina. The South End of Rockland is full of eclectic funkiness, rickety houses, snug houses, plants, sleeping cats, a cement monolith, boats being built, The Sail, Steam & Power Museum, train tracks, and marina park. Violet and I ran in the tall grasses there and got muddy. We picked flowers and looked in tide pools and chased birds.

There is no sea breeze, all is hot and still. Walking back toward town was sticky work. I took off my shoes due to blisters. I don’t mind being barefoot and bare shouldered all summer. Our cheeks were flushed, and we stopped and begged for water at Archers on the Pier. Finally, after a few errands, we arrived home to an herb garden in need of watering, and lavender to be re-potted, fragrant lilacs that I cut for a vase, an excitable dog, and a baby who wanted a cool bath.

It’s a day for cartwheels on the lawn and wine from a skin like a Basque in a book about bullfighting, then to sleep in the shade under a straw hat. I settled her down in her crib eventually, with the fan blowing and a book about snow to keep her cool. I went downstairs to make lunch. Of course, I cannot think of cooking. But I am still starving, for some reason.

The only thing to do is eat cool fruit and cheese. Cherries, because I will buy them every time I see them until they’re gone. Sweet, tart, juicy. Excellent fatty prosciutto from Maine Street Meats, thinly sliced, of course. I cut each slice in half, because it is so salty and rich. A loaf of their elastic, crusty bread. Fresh mozzarella. Because we have, oh, a little. I love the cherry sized pieces. Basil, both purple and green. Olive oil and aged balsamic vinegar from Fiore in Rockland.

I sat under a tree, sipping bubbly water, reading a novel, and feeling thankful for my good fortune. This is why we love living in Maine.

[Photos: Jillian Bedell]

In spite of the rain (or because of it), few souls were out on the salty streets of Camden Saturday night. On the unsteady, dock a group of kids stood looking out at the irregular slate gray swells. A parliament of people in rain boots and coats stood under the awning of Camden Cone, waiting for a double scoop of coffee. Inside Peter Ott’s Steakhouse, middle aged couples in nubby sweaters were sipping well-oaked chardonnay and waiting for their turn at the salad bar. Malcolm and I parked under a streetlight by the harbor master’s house and hurried together toward the shelter of Seabright, the third in the acclaimed trio of restaurants by chef (and James Beard award semifinalist) Brian Hill that round out Camden’s Francine Bistro and Rockport’s Shepard’s Pie.

Outside, cords of wood were stacked to feed the pizza oven within. It was already cozy and hearthy and we were swept inside the open door of the space most previously occupied by the now-shuttered Paulina’s Way. The sea-level space is a casual urban grotto, with exposed brick, stone, and metal elements. We were sat snugly between a hutch holding dishes and the kitchen. From the oblong plates, to the house-made vinegar on the table, it was all just so, exactly right. It smelled right. Their menu is simple, which is all we are ever hoping for anywhere, but especially when it comes to pizza.

Malcolm: Sitting in between a rack of dishes and the kitchen door, I felt a twinge of jealousy at the other customers who were more comfortably spread out with friends and family in booths or along the bar. This feeling was quickly soothed by the soft light, the brick walls, and the perfectly chosen finishing details of the restaurant. The only thing to break the spell was the insistent, mind-scrambling scratch and thump of dubstep music that was loud enough to be out of place even in the terrifyingly dark recesses of an Abercrombie and Fitch, let alone at an inviting pizza restaurant priding itself on the elegant simplicity of its ingredients.

I started with a vodka martini, up with olives, a fairly civilizing drink, and moved on to a stemless glass of Umberto Cavichiolli and Figli Lambrusco, a fizzy red wine that’s fun like a peasant with his pants off. Every time I took a sip I did a little chair dance, and it was perfect with the charred plain pies. I found it for sale at Rockland Food Service, if you’re local. The crust was bubbled and black in places, irregularly shaped and cut into squares and triangles. The first pizza arrived on a metal pan, then the second was perched on a second level above it. All I need in life is this: homemade mozzarella, San Marzano tomato, and basil ($10.99). Oh, and also, this: One of the evening’s specials, topped with shucked cherrystone clams, garlic, oregano, hot pepper, and Parmesan cheese ($14.99), which was sprinkled with bright, fresh parsley after it cooked.

Let’s take a minute to talk about clams on pizza. Clams on pizza. Bad idea jeans, right? It’s possible you think this is gross and offensive. And I understand you. Especially if you don’t live near the ocean, this probably seems borderline post-apocalyptic. But, like anchovies in a classic Caesar salad dressing or fish sauce in Thai food, it has that thing. I’m not going to use the “u” word, but you know what I mean. Salty, savory,  it strikes a note that satisfies by adding a briny bit of fish, adding depth of flavor without reading fishy. At least, it shouldn’t. Fish pizza sounds bad to me too, yo. I’m not a monster.

But this pizza, oh my word. It was buttery. A little spicy. But mostly supple and divine. The crust was a little weak to stand up to all the heavy topping, but I would eat this slice with knife and fork or resort to using every napkin I am given. I don’t know much about many things, but I know this: you have to try this pie.

And then, there is the fresh mozzarella. It is classic; it is holy. When it is good, we speak of it in hushed tones as when we invoke the almighty Modern Apizza on State Street in Ye Olde College Town, Connecticut. The distinguishing feature of the fresh mozzarella pizza at Seabright is the fat dollops of mild, milky cheese, made there. The sauce was acidic and sweet. And there was lots of green basil, wilted by the heat of the pizza. It was almost a transcendent moment of happiness. The only obstacle standing in my way was, as Malcolm mentioned, the driving beat of some unnerving dubstep which was incongruous with the place and not very much fun. And I’m saying this as a 34-year-old mother, so you know I have my finger on the pulse of cool.

Malcolm: I didn’t grow up eating pizza, because I grew up in Maine in the 1980s, where I came to think of pizza as giant chewy donuts topped with sweet overcooked tomato mush and piled with pounds of cheese that snapped when you bit it, the way Silly Putty breaks when you pull it apart quickly rather then letting it slowly stretch out. It wasn’t until I went away to school in New Haven that I learned about the pizza the rest of the world (and Jillian) was eating, Neapolitan-style pies cooked for just a few moments at absurdly high heat in ovens that left big blistered black bubbles of char on their surface. It’s the kind of pizza that can be mucked up with silly ingredients and toppings, but only if the pizzaiolo also truly loves his plain mozzarella pies first. It’s the kind of pizza I keep hoping to find here in Maine, and Seabright is the closest we’ve come so far to finding it.

My experience at Seabright was thoroughly enjoyable. It is a warm, artfully-crafted but not too self-conscious or precious pizza place. On the water. With excellent wait- and bar staff. I liked it. A lot. Order one pizza a person, and take some home. As our server noted, it is excellent with a fried egg on top for breakfast, or, if you don’t make it that long, as a late night snack when you get home from the bar. It is the first truly outstanding pizza I’ve had in Maine. I will be back there again very soon.

Seabright: 7 Public Landing, Camden, ME 04843; (207) 230-1414; Website, Facebook

On May 19th, on the Terrace at the Royal Sonesta Hotel in Boston, Massachussetts, we were invited by BostonChefs.com and the American Lamb Council to participate in the 2013 Boston Lamb Pro-Am, a competition celebrating American lamb in a special cookoff event. Ten food bloggers from Boston MA, Providence RI, and Portland ME (well, us) were first selected online via popular vote, then paired with chefs from their respective cities to refine their recipes and compete in one epic lamb throwdown.

We were matched with Chef Mitch Gerow of Portland’s East Ender restaurant, who refined our Indonesian Lamb Rendang and scaled the recipe up to feed the over 200 attendees of the event. Together with Meg, Nick, and Emmett, also of East Ender fame, we knocked out 200 tasting-sized plates of the dish to throngs of happy guests.

Ultimately, however, victory simply wasn’t to be ours that day. First place went to the Boston-based team of Chef Tiffani Faison of Sweet Cheeks BBQ, and blogger partner Samantha Tackeff of “The Second Lunch” for their Lamb Mechoui & Moroccan Marinated Carrots.

We may have only placed second, but we had a great time meeting everyone, working with the team from the East Ender, and eating until we were more lamb than human. A huge thank you to BostonChefs.com, the American Lamb Council, the Royal Sonesta Hotel, and of course, everyone at the East Ender.

[Some photos courtesy BostonChefs.com]

I’ll tell you up front: this isn’t a story about chicken wings. When we were in college, TK’s American Cafe, now long gone, was a sports bar in the ash world of lower New Haven, near the entrance to I-95. They sold beer and chicken wings that were scrawny but good. Some would say very good. They came in at least two dozen flavors, including “Jamaican Jerk” and “Pterodactyl.” And on Tuesday nights, they cost just ten cents apiece. On your birthday, you were entitled to as many free wings as your years, as well as a bottle of $2 “champagne” that accounted for at least 2/3 of the day-after hangover.

Our group of friends would leave the safety of our embowered college campus and start walking down the hill toward downtown in a loose knot of boys and girls, almost all of us at least twenty-one. We were not a particularly sporty gang. We ran the literary magazine and did debate team and art projects and web sites. On Tuedays, though, we rolled into that towny dive as if we owned the night. Each table boasted a tiny TV, ostensibly for watching the game, possibly The Big Game; instead, we would change the channel to History or Charlie Rose. We were loud and skinny and funny and drunk. Malcolm was always teasing me. We went for my birthday. We went for his. One year we all wore “Malcolm” masks and sang “99 Luftballons” in his honor. On another occasion, we went home to our dorm and ran past security up to the roof of the former psychiatric facility and proceeded to throw off pressboard furniture and other disposable items. This act was cathartic and out of character.

This year promises to be a somewhat quieter birthday. Dinner and a big, explody movie. A slow drive around by ourselves, and sneaking pulls from a flask of whiskey in the darkened theater. A night out, just for us. We’ve been together for at least a dozen birthdays. Year after year, so many things have changed, won’t stop moving, but our love, this friendship that started fast and steady and grew into family following romance, has remained the same. It is the best thing in my life. He is a marvel to me, still. Wish him a happy birthday, if you get the chance. And make these trifles, because they are awesome, and based on his favorite birthday cake.

Black Forest Brownie Trifles
Serves 4

Ingredients:

For the brownies:

For the cherry filling:

• 2 cups fresh cherries, pitted
• 1/2 cup orange juice
• 2 teaspoons cornstarch

For the whipped cream:

• 8 oz mascarpone cheese
• 2/3 cup cold heavy whipping cream
• 1/4 cup powdered sugar

Method:

For the brownies:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour a 9 x 13 inch baking pan.

Combine butter, cocoa powder and coffee in a small bowl and place over a pot of simmering water. Stir until melted. Remove from the heat.

In a large bowl whisk together sugar, eggs, and vanilla. Slowly pour in the liquid chocolate. Stir in the flour, baking powder, and salt.

Pour the batter into the prepared baking pan. Bake 18-25 minutes. Let brownies cool completely before turning them out of the pan. Chop into smallish squares.

For the cherry filling:

In a medium saucepan over medium heat, combine cherries and orange juice and cook down, about 5 minutes. Stir in cornstarch, turn down the heat and cook mixture another 5 minutes. Cool cherry filling in the refrigerator, at least 1 hour.

For the whipped cream:

Using an electric mixer, whisk together mascarpone, whipping cream, and powdered sugar until stiff peaks form.

Putting together the trifles:

In a large wine glass or jam jar, layer brownie pieces, cherry filling, and mascarpone whipped cream. Top with a cherry. Pop them in the refrigerator for at least an hour before serving.