Belmont Inn’s FIELD TRIPS FOR GROWNUPS! on MAINE MAPLE SUNDAY WEEKEND

I’ve loved maple syrup my whole life but until I moved to Maine in 2008, to buy the Belmont Inn, a Camden Maine Bed and Breakfast Inn, I had never tasted maple syrup made by cooking maple sap over a hot wood fire.  The taste of wood smoke is in the syrup and it’s absolutely wonderful!  That’s the syrup I use at my inn for French toast, pancakes and muffins although syrup cooked in closed containers over a propane fire has a clean, pure maple flavor which is particularly well suited to refined preparations like Maple Crème Brulee.

On Maine Maple Sunday, the 4th Sunday in March every year, maple syrup producers all over Maine open their sugar shacks to the public and offer us the chance to learn about how maple sap is harvested and turned into maple syrup.  The problem is, whether you’re from Maine or “away” (a phrase Mainers use to refer to everyone not born and raised here), it can be next to impossible to figure out how to get the most out of that one day a year when the sugar shacks open their doors and offer us this unique glimpse into the lives and work of Maine farmers and their families.

Enter, Field Trips for Grownups! I’ve researched the nearby maple syrup farms, driven out to meet the farmers and to see their sugar shacks, and chosen a cluster of 4 farms within easy driving distance of each other, and the Belmont Inn, for you to visit on MAINE MAPLE SUNDAY, March 27, 2011.  Combine 2 nights lodging at the Belmont Inn on Friday and Saturday, March 25 and 26; a day exploring Camden on Saturday; a wonderful 4-course gourmet dinner at the Belmont Inn on Saturday evening prepared by Ken Paquin, chef/owner of Atlantica Restaurant in Camden, featuring Maine maple syrup used in some creative, and perhaps surprising, ways; and directions to these 4 very different and interesting Maine maple syrup farms.  And take home with you experiences that you’ll never forget!  Package prices range from $169 to $219/per person based on room choice and double occupancy, tax not included.  Full made-from-scratch breakfast each morning.   BYOB (at dinner!).

Camden ME Bed and Breakfast Innkeeper Talks French Toast

Well, I never thought I would write a blog but here I am, sitting down at the computer sometime between checking guests out and checking new guests in, to write my first blog.  What to write about?  It seems to me that the goal of writing one blog post a week is going to call for more things to talk about than I can imagine but this first topic is easy.  Food!  I’ve loved feeding people since I was a kid and now I get to do it every morning during Maine’s busiest travel months of July through October.  Cooking may be a small part of my job as an innkeeper at this Camden, ME Bed and Breakfast, but it’s the way I get to start my work days.  Nice.

There will be other inn breakfasts that I’ll talk about over time but I’ll start with this one because it is almost entirely made of things Maine.  The recipe is Gracie’s French Toast from Linda and Martha Greenlaw’s cookbook Recipes from a Very Small Island.  There’s a lot to know about Linda and her mom, Martha, who live on Isle au Haut (the ferry leaves from Stonington, Maine, and in 2000 the year-around population was 79) but you’ll have to read it elsewhere.  Maybe even in their cookbook.  They each wrote an introduction to their book and throughout the book they talk about their lives on the island, their family and friends, and food.  As you read through their book, you can feel the quality and depth of their relationship with each other.

Gracie is a good friend of Martha’s and her French toast recipe, which I make with the dried apple and cranberry sourdough bread from Borealis Breads, a Maine company dedicated to wholesome food made as often as possible with local ingredients, is just wonderful.  Last summer a fairly quiet guest of mine, a man of a certain age (in other words, he’s had time to get around) said, after breakfast on his third day here, “You don’t know this about me but I am a connoisseur of French toast.  I try it everywhere I go.  And this is the best I’ve ever had!”  Thanks, Gracie!   Thanks, Borealis Breads!

Gracie’s recipe calls for soaking the bread in the batter and then freezing it.  That kind of recipe is great for me since I can make up a lot of French toast ahead of time, double bag and date it, and keep it on hand until I need it.  The frozen slices of French toast are basted with butter and then baked.  When it comes out right, the outside is slightly crispy and the inside is oh so tender.  I serve it with tiny frozen organic wild Maine blueberries picked at nearby Beech Hill Preserve; maple syrup I buy from a farmer in Warren, 20 minutes from the inn; and bacon from a local market.  When possible (which is only in peak summer months), this breakfast starts with fresh fruit grown in Maine.  And the coffee is always from Rock City roasters in nearby Rockland, Maine, because it’s the best locally roasted coffee I’ve tasted.  Actually, it’s the best New England roasted coffee I know of.  Send me samples if you think you know of something better.

Until next time, my best to all of you,
Anita