Boating Season Comes to an End.

My weeks start on Tuesday. (They don’t really, they actually just never end. You know, no weekends and what day is it anyway?) But it feels like Tuesdays because that’s the first Gas & More of the week. I make sure the & Sons are on their way to school and then spend Tuesday on island prepping food for the week, baking cookies, decorating for the season, and more. This is primarily why soups and stews are the culinary anchor of the off-season menu. They keep well and even gets better as the days pass. Also Ron can take the soup out of the fridge and reheat it on the stove with minimal effort.  

Gas & More Menus

Good: I’m going on vacation! Never have I ever had a vacation like the one I’m jetting off to this week—an all-inclusive, adults only, on the beach, four-night trip. Meeting Matt in Houston where he works, and then onto Cancun. I’m labeling it a birthday trip. Matt’s not usually around for my birthday, so we have been trying to plan a thing like this around this time each year. It’s after the summer kitchen closes at the Bakehouse, and about the time of year when day trippers slow down for Gas & More. No & Sons come on the trip. We started with Greece for my fortieth. Matt’s best friend from high school in Pittsburgh is from a little island in the west seas of Greece called Ikaria ikaria greece - Bing Maps. Then we went to Old San Juan, PR old san juan - Bing Maps. And now Cancun. playa de mujeres cancun - Bing Maps.

Bad: Had to haul in the boat. The daily commuter. My little red boat. An eye catching 20-foot Mitchell Cove lobster skiff called Contentious. How Matt, & Sons, the huskies, and I get to the island from April to October. Some years it’s until November, but the 2025 calendar did something funny and all the holidays are early. So everyone is pulling their floats and denying access to the waterfront.

Notice from the town of Falmouth Harbor Master

Way back when, I squawked at purchasing yet another tiny boat (we upgraded from a FOURTEEN FOOT WHALER), Matt claimed this new boat was the biggest small boat you’ll ever find. Only 20 feet long, but a 9-foot, 1-inch beam! Like a bathtub. I was skeptical, but now I’m in love.

Good winter’s night, little red boat. Rest up and I’ll see you in the spring.

Unexpected: The fish plate. I have a set of plates that I got from a discount salvage store. (I LOVE a good thrifty deal, and I equally love having something that no one else has.) They are large, strong white plates and have an offset design of crabs and anchors. I purchased an even number of each design. While sifting through the choices, there was one fish plate. I loved it, and obviously everyone else did, too, as there was only one left. I got it, nonetheless. 

Home they came and into service they went. Offhandedly one night, I mentioned, “Oh, look! & Son Number X got the fish plate! Lucky you.” Mistake. Nightly ownership of the fish plate got so contentious that I had to remove the chore of setting the table from ANY of the & Sons’ list for quite a while. I think I even hid the fish plate sometimes. Unexpectedly, twelve years later, if the fish plate shows up in the handful of dishes grabbed for a table seating that night, you better believe the setter will be eating off it.  

What I’m reading: Poems. Barbara Guest, Frank O’Hara, James Merrill. I attended the PMA Mornings at the Museum. I have been—Byers & Sons Long Island Bakehouse has been—a business partner of the Portland Museum of Art since 2022. My family tree has a strong streak of art running through the branches, and I believe it is important to support. I always drag the & Sons to museums and performances and other cultural centers whenever I can, albeit begrudgingly on their part as adolescent American males. (I know it will change! *fingers crossed*). 

Back to the poems. It’s always refreshing and inspiring to be pushed outside of my comfort zone and strike up conversations with other local Greater Portland business professionals like Maine Public Radio employees, Maine biz journalists, local politicians, diplomats, tech industry entrepreneurs, major hospitality groups, etc.  Sure, I may feel awkward and sweaty and a little out of place, since I  own only a small restaurant on an island off the coast of Maine, but anyway. 

The highlighted exhibition, Grace Hartigan: The Gift of Attention Grace Hartigan — Portland Museum of Art, was equally refreshing and inspiring. She was quite the force as a woman artist in the mid-twentieth century. According to the invitation to the event, her poet friends’ “bold lyricism and critical support deeply inspired Hartigan, playing a crucial role in her success.” Her works are large and bold with bright colors. Never pigeonholed into any style of art—not impressionism, not cubism, not realism. But I see a relaxed confidence in her work that I hope everyone can be so lucky to achieve. Is that how you attain success?        

What the & Sons Are Asking For: Crepes. When are they not asking for crepes? They’ve stopped asking on school days because they roll out of bed 15 minutes before the bus arrives and have to run out the door. I hold my crepe recipe dear. It came from a friend in time – Constance, from France. When I was finishing business school at Trinity College Dublin, she and I had a marketing class together. She mostly wanted to use me to practice her English, but we became fast friends and did the fun things as one does when you’re an international student in a foreign country. Like make crepes! We bonded over being a little older than other classmates and having boyfriends who weren’t there (Matt. I like to say this was our courting period.) 

I had this crepe recipe I found in a cookbook and had written down. She quickly correctly my error. It was ridiculous with too many ingredients. She told me the recipe that everyone knows back home in France. And I’ve used it ever since. I think when you are born a French girl, causal elegance and culinary perfection must just be in your DNA.

Pay no attention to the recipe in green. It’s written in pencil.

Brass Tacks: Melt the butter, get your whisk. Use hot tap water to warm the milk. Whip your eggs, hopefully not cold from the fridge (which mine always are because I’m never expecting to make crepes), but at room temperature. Whisk all the wet ingredients and then add flour and salt. Crepe batter should be thin and you want your pan hot. Spray oil will give you the perfect amount of grease to spread your batter, and not let it slide out of the pan.

Make all the crepes before calling anyone for breakfast because crepes are just thin flappy vessels for all the rich good decadent ingredients that you put inside them. And you can’t rush. Made best with some company in the kitchen and a pot of coffee or a pitcher of mimosas. 36 Best Mimosa Recipes - Easy Mimosa Cocktails. As with mimosas, there is no limit to variations with crepes. The Byerses’ repertoire includes: BLT, Nutella & strawberries, blueberries, lemon & sugar, and plain chocolate chips. 

By the way, you can always find an orange pomegranate mimosa at the Bakehouse, year-round.

This week’s paper cup contains: AVGOLOMONO. A Greek chicken and rice stew with lemon and egg. The first time I encountered this soup was when one of the younger & Sons was born—don’t remember which one—and my in-laws (Mr. & Mrs. Grandma Byers! And her soon-to-be famous lasagna, found at Byers & Sons Long Island Bakehouse all winter long with Ron & More) brought it to us, as you do when you visit a family who just ushered in a new life onto this earth. It came from a local diner in Pittsburgh. I thought it looked starchy and . . . binding . . . through my post-childbirth eyes. And I couldn’t stop eating it. I will never be able to recreate the magic soup that the in-laws brought. But I will never stop trying. I guess you have to be Greek. I try to perfect it a little more each time I make it, so to not need a recipe. It’s a challenge seared into my memory. And it’s quite simple. A good base to start with is cat cora avgolemono soup recipe - Search. This week for Gas & More, I got pretty damn close to matching that Western Pennsylvanian Greek diner’s version of avgolemono. You’ll have to stop by and tell me what you think.

& Son Three. This onsie has been worn by all of them.