Cool Enough to Bake

Don't hate me because I'm wearing a sweater right now. We've even got the woodstove cranked up this cool gray cloudy morning, up here on the coast of Maine.

Outside, it's the bloody,whining climax of When Mosquitos Attack, but behind the screen doors, all is peaceful, with the scent of spiced chai tea and salt air drifting through the knotty-pine lodge rooms. It is so beautiful up here, and NOT HOT, that I am grateful every minute for the convergence of luck and opportunity that brought me here. I've never been so happy not to have a day job as when my old pal Brian told me that one of the the writers at this little colony had flipped out and fled, and they now had a little 10x10 pine cabin just waiting for a chipper writer-baker like me. In gratitude, I have been baking like a piequeen, making coconut cupcakes, blueberry muffins (from wild berries picked just outside), chocolate chip cookies, and three kinds of pie--blueberry, raspberry custard, and last night, to go with the thanks-for-the-memories Thanksgiving dinner of turkey, stuffing, butternut squash, and gravy, good old all-American apple pie. Cool, peaceful, mossy and sprucey...we went out on the boat yesterday on a little excursion to the mile-long sandy beach on Roque Island, a beach lined with the best skipping stones ever made. On the way back, though Pig Gut (the narrow inlet running past Pig Island) and Ram Islands, we saw frolicking porpoises and curious dog-faced seals, leaping salmon (in salmon-fattening pens, out in the bay) and sleek black cormorants, maybe even eagles and herons in the distance.

Saturday or Sunday, we'll be leaving this little muddy paradise, on to the diversions of Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island, ending up at Brian's friends' goat farm in Vermont, where the most prolific milker has been dubbed Joyce Carol Goats.