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An enchanting bed and breakfast in the heart of Camden village that Fodor’s considers “An elegant and sophisticated retreat and culinary destination,” this Mansard style Victorian built in 1835 offers a unique experience in pampered luxury.
Archive for the ‘Fun for Foodies’ Category
Sunday, August 29th, 2010
 Mary Jo and I spent the afternoon and early evening exploring Belfast, Maine, a short 18 mile trip north of Camden on Route 1. Belfast is a small seaside village (population of around 7,000) and it has some very interesting stores, restaurants and scenery. A few years ago Belfast ran a “bearfest” in the village, where people decorated fiberglass bears in various ways and they were then displayed around the community before being auctioned off. There was a bear riding a bicycle, one up a telephone pole, a
flying bear, picnicking bears, hulu dancing bears and the list goes on. Every time you turned the corner, another bear appeared. The bearfest continued for three years from 2000-2002 and they are currently in “hibernation” but a newer exhibit is currently on display where the artists
use bicycles and bicycle parts. The fish bike was a favorite of ours so I had to take a picture (look for my little red convertible in the background).
Next, we crossed the large bridge over the Passagassawakeag River (try saying that!) and headed a mile up the road to Young’s Lobster Pound. We had 2 pound lobster’s on their outside patio (right on Belfast harbor) and sipped Gruet (it’s BYOB) sparkling wine from New Mexico. The seagulls sang, the sun was sinking in the sky and we had our own little moment of heaven. They do lobster’s well here.
Stay tuned for Belfast part 2 where we will explore “Darby’s Restaurant” and some of our other favorite Belfast attractions.
Posted in Art and Galleries, Driving Tour, Fun for Foodies, Things to do in Camden | No Comments »
Tuesday, May 4th, 2010
Michael and I have created a foodie adventure… we’ll be exploring the scenic Farms & Villages of Southern Tuscany this fall. If you have the desire to learn something new, would like to explore several beautiful villages in Tuscany and like to cook – or just eat, then this may be the adventure you’ve been looking for. We planned a single trip for this fall and it filled up in three days…so we added a second week and it filled in two more days. We are very excited by our guests interest in the trip. If this sounds like fun to you, we are planning to add two weeks to the same region in Italy in the spring of 2011. Once we have the dates for the spring trips established, we will include the information in our next newsletter. Please sign up for our newsletter at the top of our home page where it says email signup, and click on the Foodie Adventures and Travel checkbox. Arrivederchi.
Posted in Chef Michael Salmon, Cooking School, Fun for Foodies | No Comments »
Monday, February 15th, 2010
 We hope you had as much fun on Valentine’s Day as we did here at the Inn. The weekend was bustling with activity from private “Chef for a Day” cooking classes on Friday and Sunday to a chocolate cooking class for 14 people on Saturday with Kate Shaffer from Black Dinah Chocolates. We made chocolate truffles: white chocolate filled with a Key lime ganache and dark chocolate filled with a raspberry ganache. There were heart shaped sugar cookies with tea in the afternoon and a full dining room for dinner each evening. It was great welcoming back returning guests and meeting new guests.
Last night we served our Roasted Sweet Potato, Rutabaga and Green Apple Soup and one of the guests requested the recipe (which is in my second cookbook), so here it is. s recipe serves six.
 Roasted Sweet Potato, Rutabaga and Green Apple Soup with a Maple Cream
1 large sweet potato
1 Tablespoon olive oil
1/2 cup (8 Tablespoons) unsalted butter
1 cup chopped yellow onions
1 cup peeled, diced rutabaga
1 Granny Smith apple, peeled, cored and diced
1 quart chicken stock
1 cup heavy cream
1 1/2 Tablespoons Maine maple syrup
Kosher salt and white pepper to taste
Maple Cream (recipe below)
1/4 cup croutons
1 Tablespoon sliced scallions
- Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
- Peel the sweet potato, slice into 1/2-inch-thick slices and lay on a foil-lined baking sheet. Drizzle with the olive oil and season with kosher salt and white pepper. Roast in the preheated oven for 30 minutes.
- Place the butter in a large saucepan and place over medium heat. When the butter melts, add the onions and sweat for 3 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add the rutabaga and Granny Smith apple and continue to cook for 3 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add the chicken stock and the roasted sweet potatoes and simmer for 20 minutes.
- Remove from the heat and blend the soup with either a handheld immersion blender or in a regular household blender until smooth. Add the cream, maple syrup and season with salt and white pepper. Bring back to a simmer and serve with a dollop of whipped maple cream, croutons and finely sliced scallions.
Maple Cream
1/3 cup heavy cream
1 Tablespoon pure Maine maple syrup
Small pinch of white pepper
Large pinch of kosher salt
1. Place the heavy cream in a cold mixing bowl and whisk on high speed until stiff. Add the maple syrup, salt and white pepper and whisk to combine.
Posted in Chocolate, Cooking School, Fun for Foodies, Holidays, Recipe | No Comments »
Sunday, January 24th, 2010
 Written by Meghan Small
The building itself is modeled after a classic New England barn framed in Maine hemlock. It’s open design and tall ceilings are perfect for their year round indoor market of vegetables, fruits and other Maine products. In addition, Farmer’s Fare has a real honest to goodness, old-fashioned butcher shop stocked with local meat and poultry. They are currently supplying all the beef for the Camden Rockland Elementary School so the students are eating local hamburgers! Not to be missed also is the café which serves breakfast and lunch daily. The long pine tables are great place to meet up with friends and enjoy a latte, pastry, soup and many other dishes made with local ingredients of course! A commercial kitchen is located downstairs that services the café and community rooms which are open to the public and used by Farmers Fare for educational classes and community events.
Anytime something new opens that we think our guests would enjoy, we post it on the blog. Farmer’s Fare, located on five acres of beautiful, organic pasture and farm in Rockport should not be missed! Their website says,  “We at Farmers Fare believe in bringing people together to share food, stories, knowledge and information. We believe in supporting our local farmers by buying the food they grow and selling it, thereby keeping our farmers on their farms and our community members healthy and satisfied.”
In addition to the building, half of Farmers Fare’s five acres of land is devoted to growing food. They plan to plant unusual crops such as heirloom and green zebra tomatoes, Italian salad greens, and long pie pumpkins. In the future, their nursery will offer new and old varieties of Maine fruits and vegetables, such as green gage plums. A wetland in the middle of the property will be used to grow plants that have been cultivated by Native Americans for medicinal aids, such as high bush cranberries and cow parsnip.
We encourage our guests to stop bury and see Farmer’s Fare for themselves. They are known to host fun community activities like pumpkin carving or ice sculpting contests. Local vendors are often present offering tastings or demonstrations! Stop by hungry so you can enjoy their delicious food! Nothing tastes like local, Maine cuisine and Farmer’s Fare does it well! Visit them online at: http://www.farmersfare.com
Posted in Fun for Foodies, Things to do in Camden | No Comments »
Saturday, November 28th, 2009
Another fun filled pasta cooking class at the Inn. This past weekend our guests learned how to make pasta in their own kitchens. Techniques included making the dough, coloring and flavoring different pastas (green from spinach, red from beets and yellow from eggs), rolling out and cutting various shapes of pasta, filling pastas such as raviolis and tortellini and cooking pasta. The dishes we made were: Spaghetti with a Creamy Prosciutto and Roasted Pepper Sauce, Pappardelle with Grilled Tiger Shrimp, Pesto and Oven Roasted Tomatoes, Sweet Potato Ravioli with a Pine Nut and Sage Butter Sauce, and Three-Cheese Tortellini with Chicken and Pesto. Thank you to all of you who participated, hopefully you went home and dusted off your pasta machines.
Posted in Chef Michael Salmon, Cooking School, Fun for Foodies | No Comments »
Monday, November 23rd, 2009
 On Saturday and Sunday, November 14th and 15th we had our first “In the Kitchen Dinner” and it was a great success. The idea behind the “In the Kitchen Dinner Series” is to open up the kitchen and allow the guests to interact with the kitchen staff and watch the food being prepared (some guests even rolled their own sushi!).
The dinner started with a sampling plate (pictured at the left) of three pieces of sushi paired with three different “Hitachino Nest” Japanese beers. At the top of the plate is a Nigiri-sushi (finger sushi) made with Zeph’s Sous-Vide“Japanese braised” short ribs which we paired with the darkest beer, Hitachino Nest Sweet Stout. The next pairing (clockwise) was the Flash-Fried Nori and Tuna Roll with a Ginger-Wasabi Butter Sauce which we paired with the Hitachino Nest Real Ginger Brew. The third pairing was the Hitachino Nest Red Rice Ale which we served with an Uramaki roll (inside out) which was filled with spicy Maine crab meat and grilled asparagus.
After the pairing plate was cleared, guests were invited into the kitchen where we had platters of different sushi made up and Zeph (my Sous Chef) and I rolled sushi as fast as we could and barely kept up with the demand. For dessert we made some “sweet sushi,” a dish I created when we lived in Aruba for a culinary competition called “sushi dushi” (dushi is Papiamento for sweetheart). Sweet rice is cooked with coconut milk and sugar and is formed and rolled like sushi with fresh fruits. It’s a fun way to end a sushi party.
The “In the Kitchen Dinner Series” continues this winter with a great variety of tastings and pairings including: Cheese and wine with hors d’oeuvres, Dim Sum and beer, Spanish Tapas and wine, and another chance to experience our Sushi. For the complete schedule click here. Hope to see you in our kitchen!
Posted in Chef Michael Salmon, Dining at the Inn, Fun for Foodies, Things to do in Camden | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, October 20th, 2009
 This winter we are offering a number of specialty dining experiences to excite your palate.
Lighter Fare – Monday & Tuesday Evenings - “Bistro” nights are back! We are going to change things up a little this year by alternating our weekly menus between French Bistro and Italian Trattoria fare. Available every Monday and Tuesday evening all winter long.
Save the Airfare! – Travel to foreign lands this winter without ever leaving Camden. Join us for our series of specialty “ethnic” five-course dinners featuring some of our favorite foods from a variety of exciting destinations.
In the Kitchen Dinner Series – Join Chef Michael Salmon and his team in the kitchen at the Inn for an evening of mingling, beverage pairings or tastings and plenty of great food. Click here to read more.
Upcoming Holiday Menus – Review upcoming Holiday menus here.
Posted in Dining at the Inn, Fun for Foodies, Holidays, Things to do in Camden | 2 Comments »
Wednesday, September 30th, 2009
 A few weeks ago I went out with a group of mushroom enthusiasts and we came across a patch of beautiful black trumpet mushrooms (Craterellus fallax) also known as “black chanterelles.” Black trumpets can be very difficult to see, since they grow on the floor of hardwood forests and they blend in beautifully with the dried leaves that blanket the ground. Once you find one, and your eyes know what to look for, you are bound to find many more. Black trumpets are very thin and fragile so it takes quite a few to amount to anything, but WOW, do they pack in an enormous amount of flavor. If you are fortunate enough to find some, I recommend you saute some finely minced shallots in a hot pan with a little butter until translucent, add the cleaned black trumpets and saute for a few minutes (you always want to cook wild mushrooms thoroughly) to cook through. Season with salt and pepper and enjoy.
Posted in Fun for Foodies, Mushrooms, Things to do in Camden | No Comments »
Tuesday, September 29th, 2009
 My friend Sharon and I went foraging for mushrooms last Saturday and she has written about our adventure on her blog “delicious musings.” It’s a nice story with some great pictures from our exploration of the Maine forest.
Click here to read about our mushroom hike on her blog.
Posted in Fun for Foodies, Mushrooms, Things to do in Camden | 1 Comment »
Sunday, September 27th, 2009
Mary Jo and I recently took a weekend trip aboard our sailboat into Penobscot Bay and did a little island and shoreline foraging. On shore we collected wild blueberries, chanterelle mushrooms and raspberries. We waded along the shoreline at low tide and collected mussels and sea urchins. Dinner that evening started with sea urchin roe, followed by steamed mussels, seared New York strip steaks with sauteed Chanterelle mushrooms and vanilla ice cream with island berries.
Posted in Chef Michael Salmon, Fun for Foodies, Mushrooms, Things to do in Camden | No Comments »
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