end o season

Well folks, I’m closing in on another winter season of cooking at a wilderness lodge in Maine. Different setting/ organization, same state. In the interest of throwing it back to my old blog stand-by, here’s a quantitative list of my end-o-season thoughts/ accomplishments:

-largest number of people served at one meal: 60

-number of cookbooks I brought and worship: 3

-compliments I’ve gotten on my salads: at least 10

-containers of sesame seeds ordered: 5 

-miles cross country skied: woulda been cool if I had kept track

-pizzas I’ve eaten from Jamos: 6

-number of days before the end of the season before I discovered making pizza brings me great joy: 9

-seasonal positions I now have had: 7

-days skied in shorts: 4

-fires I have lit: 0

-times I’ve gotten my car stuck in the snow: 2

-number of (2 minute) snowmobile rides: 7

number of star wars movies watched: 3

-moose seen: 0 (what the heck???)

-times I’ve gone snowboarding: 2

-most times I’ve checked the mailbox in one day: 3

-number of visits to the Kokadjo snowmobile bar: 6

-loaves of multigrain bread baked: ~25

-knowledge that I never want another professional cooking job: priceless

Scallion Pancake Challah thanks to my fave food blogger/ cookbook lady!

A day in the life: Northern Maine edition

I’ve been crafting blog posts in my head every day since I’ve gotten here, and I just haven’t had the time to write. Mostly because it’s just SO busy when I’m on my shift and then the second I get off the clock I drive to go visit friends for the weekend. This winter is flying by! But in this here post I’m going to hit two birds with one stone and describe how a work day here goes and also talk about life in Northern Maine, mostly focusing on this last Friday.

I cook breakfast Wednesday through Saturday, so I like to get to the kitchen by 6 am or earlier if it’s a huge group. That way I have about an hour to myself to listen to music and get myself all set up for the breakfast cooking rush, which usually is at 7:30. I spend my time making coffee and setting out the oatmeal bar and getting  a head start on my other prep for the day (cookies, bread). On Fridays I drive the truck into town to pick up the food order right after I finish cooking breakfast. I love this part of the job because 1. I get to sit down for 2 hours, 2. I get to personally check and send mail at the post office, and 3. I can buy anything I want from the store after I pick up the food order because as far as I can tell there is no food budget. I drive to town around 8:30 am and always pass this logging truck on a certain spot of the road before I go through the town of Kokadjo (population 3). One time he threw his ratchet strap over all the logs and it almost hit me. So Maine.  While picking up the food order I converse briefly with the people from the other two lodges and scope out what food they’ re getting so that I can order it next week. We all help each other get the boxes into the trucks and tetris it all together. Here's where I pick up the food order.

Then I usually take my time going to the store to get any extra items and I stop by the office to drop my receipts and then I drive back to the lodge. Everyone unloads the trucks of food and then I work my butt off doing all the prep work for that evening and the next morning until I get off at 2. Usually at 3 we drive to Kokadjo and go to the snowmobile bar there, we've gone three times so it's basically tradition.

This Friday was one of those rare perfect windows for ice skating. The pond was completely snowy a week ago, but then we had a huge thaw followed immediately by a freeze, so we got a few patches of glassy skating ice. It was the very best way to end my work day-- skating around an island in my backyard. A fox ran across the ice just as I was turning around to view Mt. Katahdin. I watched it run to the next island and then heard it yip. Then I continued to walk off the pond and post-hole my way back to the lodge.

I then went back to the staff house (we call it the Burrow) to relax and drink milk with coffee brandy, which is apparently a huge thing in Maine (I even listened to a radio survey about it). I went back to the pond a couple hours later to try out a different skating spot. It was snowing by this point and the snow was drifting across the pond in little riffles that are hard to describe but really awesome to watch. 

On Friday nights I don't have to cook dinner, thank goodness, so I either lounge in the Burrow or lurk upstairs in the lodge for staff dinner. Evenings at the Burrow usually consist of knitting, a beer or two, wood stove stoking, and occasionally Game of Thrones watching. On this past Friday I went to bed at 8:30 because this week was vacation week aka the most exhausting week for the service industry in New England. My days are really draining, but usually at the end of them I feel pretty glad to be in Maine for another winter with a backyard full of ski trails and frozen ponds to play on!