April 2024 Newsletter
122 Corson Newsletter – April 2024
Last month we teased that we were headed on vacation. We left for Italy on March 19th arriving in Naples on the 20th. Our plans was to spend a few days in Naples, a week in Puglia, and 4 days in Matera. Things don’t always go according to plan! After settling into a comfortable Airbnb, in the old section of Naples, we spent our first evening browsing and dining locally. The next day we had booked a walking tour of historic Naples, led by a local professor of archaeology. After a very interesting 2 hour tour, we settled into a nice street café for lunch. The afternoon was spent on our own walking around seeing the sites in the city and that evening, we dined at Mimi’s, a 5 star restaurant which was delightful. Early the next day we became quite ill with food poisoning. That day we slept and tried to recover. Fortunately, there was a pharmacy a few doors from our Airbnb and with out limited Italian, we were able to get some medication from the pharmacist. By the next day, we were somewhat better but not up to traveling to Puglia which was a 5 hour train ride. One of the things we love about Italy, is the food and the wine, and we were in no condition to enjoy that. We decided to go home. After a train ride to Rome, an overnight at the airport hotel, and a direct flight to Boston, we finally made it home exhausted and still not feeling well. It was the right decision because it took us another several days to get back on our feet. Incidentally, we arrived home to 24” of fresh, heavy snow.
Food safety is an important issue world-wide. In the United States, and particularly here in Maine, there are good rules and regulations that ensure high quality food safety. You may not know that every retail food establishment in Maine requires someone present at all times who has passed the rigorous ServSafe course offered by the National Restaurant Association. To be ServSafe certified you must pass a comprehensive exam which covers all food safety topics. Both of us are ServSafe qualified. I think that we can be thankful for the food regulations that we have in this country.
Our summer season starts May 4th. Daffodils will be in full bloom and the view to the mountains will be spectacular. In addition to our popular mushroom ravioli appetizer that evening, there are two particularly delicious entrée choices. The first is roasted Atlantic cod with lemon parsley crumbs. This is a simple presentation which uses the cod loin and balances the delicious fresh flavors with just a hint of lemon. The other entrée choice is one of our favorites, red wine marinated beef short ribs. Now these short ribs are not like barbequed spareribs, they have an ample portion of very tender beef which consists of a very short portion of the rib bone and the surrounding meat. Chef Eddie’s recipe has the beef falling off the bone in a succulent red-wine sauce.
On the farm, we’re enjoying fresh spinach, arugula, and salad greens from the greenhouse and we’re planting other crops every few days. This time of year, we spend some time in the woods doing timber-stand improvement, removing lower quality trees and encouraging preferred species and essentially “weeding” our woods, always mindful of leaving and improving sufficient habitat for wildlife. In the days and weeks ahead we’ll be doing fencing repair, shearing sheep, and clearing out our barn. Always something to do on the farm.
We hope to see you soon and to share a late afternoon beverage on the patio.
Cheers,
Bob & Mary
