Orient Point - Food Glorious Food (plus a pony, and Friday night fun)

Actually the first one's at Sebago because that's where the weekend began. TQ couldn't make it this year so my friend Ilene gave me a ride; she had her boat already but we went out to get mine. I also wanted to see if the garden had enough pickings for me to contribute something Sebago-grown to the traditional Saturday night bacchanalia er potluck. I had armed myself with a little bottle of vinaigrette and my plan was to put that over whatever was ready to pick and call it a salad. I hadn't made it out to the club in a week and a half and I didn't know what might be ready, but Steve the Paddling Chef had left a message about me needing to get my workaholic hind-end out to the club to take care of some cukes earlier in the week and I also had hopes of tomatoes. 

There were only two smallish tomatoes ready for picking - this one, which lasted about 30 seconds after I photographed it (it was delicious) and a second not-quite-so-ripe one which I accidentally stewed by leaving it on the shelf behind the back seat in the car on the last day of the trip. There were 2 more ready when we got back to the club that night and there are lots more on the way. And loads of basil. And yes, I made caprese salad for TQ and myself last night! 

The cucumber plant had gone into overdrive, though. One GINORMOUS (like twice the size you'd ever see in a supermarket), one very big, and two slightly oversized. I was a little worried about the cucumbers being bitter, especially the biggest one, which was quite yellow on the end, so I decided to hold that one aside and beef up the salad with this funky tomato, which was the size of a small pumpkin and which I found at the farm stand we stopped at for lunch, along with a Vidalia onion and some cilantro (in lieu of dill, which the stand didn't have). 

The cukes were seedy but not bitter and the salad came out well, there wasn't much left at the end. I really do like it when I can contribute some of my club-grown produce to a club meal - and evidently my clubmates did too (this is "before", btw). The ginormous cuke came home and I just made it into tzatziki tonight. Ahhh, summer. 

I'm also happy to report that I got my corn corn, corn corn corn, corn corn corn corn coooooorn! Same farmstand had it roasted - they would put butter on it if you wanted but I had it nekkid - no butter, no salt, no nutthin' but sweet sweet corn. 

"I can has corn?"

No pony, you cannot has corn. I don't care how cute you are, I'm not sharing my corn with you. Besides, can't you read?

There was certainly more deliciousness but here's the last treat I HAD to take a picture of. This is an oyster roll from Salamander's General Store on Main Street in Greenport - we had just finished an excellent afternoon's rough-water play session at the point and were meeting some of our clubmates for a band concert in a waterfront park with a carousel; Ilene had suggested a Columbian place that has good tamales and pupusas but we happened to park in front of Salamander's and the minute we saw the sign that said lobster rolls and oyster rolls we lost all motivation to go anywhere else. Salamander's turns out to be famous for their fried chicken but what we didn't know didn't hurt us - they had just moved and seemed a bit disorganized but we did get our food eventually and my oyster roll was excellent! 

The band was charming, we didn't know what we were going to hear but it turned out to be the Greenport Community Band, a perfectly traditional concert band that played marches and polkas and such - the most modern they got was a medley from Pirates of the Carribbean. It was a lovely evening and there was a good crowd in attendance. 

 More ponies - these ones on the Greenport carousel...

And did anyone notice the fireboat in the background of the oyster roll shot? Ilene and I were first thinking the John J. Harvey was in town, although even where we first saw her I thought she was missing the Harvey's Maltese cross (the Harvey is technically retired but earned her cross back on 9/11). We wandered down a public pier to get a better look and it turned out to be the Fire Fighter. Looks to be from the same era as the Harvey, doesn't she?

Greenport twilight

 silly me!