November 14, 2015November 13, 2015 by Katie

2015 in 2015!

Tuesday was a big day for me. I had set a goal on January 1st this year to run 2,015 miles before December 31st. It seemed like a big goal at the time, since I ended 2014 at just under 2,000 miles (1966.93, not that I’m keeping track). Woo hoo, I hit it by November 10th! And I still have time to get in about 350 more before the end of the year.

On Sunday night, I knew that I was going to be close, so I added an extra mile or two to my Monday and Tuesday runs, so I’d be sure to hit the goal on Tuesday. Tuesday is one of my favorite nights of the week. For some lucky reason, we rarely have kid taxi duty on that night, but, best of all, the next day is my day off of running. I love running, but days off are glorious! It didn’t take much to convince Mike we should go out and celebrate.

First we had to get through our younger son, Frank’s, first ever high school parent-teacher conference. He had texted me earlier in the day to see if we could have pizza for dinner, so I thought we could combine my celebration with a post-conference pizza dinner (as long as we were still speaking after the conference, of course – my older son legendarily got kicked out of his own conference once). I immediately thought of Bonobo, since I’ve been hooked on their pizza since our Happy Hour Run there a few weeks ago (and my subsequent, covert takeout order there one night when Addie had soccer practice nearby, and Mike wasn’t home).

We got through the conference without incident and actually got some nice compliments for Frank then headed to Bonobo. Having to park was kind of annoying, since we usually don’t have the burden of the car. As we were walking to the restaurant, it came up that it wasn’t actually Frank who had texted wanting pizza but our older daughter using his phone. (Smart of him not to mention it until we were almost there.) We got kind of a chuckle out of that.

Bonobo doesn’t seem to get as much press as some of the other pizza places in town. I actually quite like those places, so, originally, I was a bit reluctant to waste my pizza-eating budget on a different place, but I was hooked – almost the minute we walked in that first time.

The atmosphere is welcoming and bright (in a cozy, Christmas-y kind of way – not in a spartan kind of way), and it just looks like everyone is having a good time, relaxing and lingering over their pizzas and wine or beer. (Speaking about cozy, Christmas-y, I just recently read about the concept of koselig – check it out – very interesting and appealing.) There are little white Christmas lights strung back and forth across the tin ceiling, a nice bar, and banquettes along the window. It might just be where it’s located, in the West End, but I got a real neighborhood-restaurant kind of vibe from it – in a good way.

The first time we went we sat at the bar which was very pleasant.

When we went with Frank this time, we sat at one of the tables with the banquettes. A very nice couple who were sitting at a table for four offered to switch with us when they saw three of us trying to squeeze into a table for two. Even though there were people seated on either side of us, it seemed like we had our own nice, private space and had a fun conversation. (Surprisingly, our kids are really good about not pulling their phones out while we’re eating – it’s not like we set a good example.)

Mike is kind of a pizza purist, and the first time we went he wanted a Margherita pizza. I like those just fine, and I do agree that a sparsely-topped pizza lets you focus on all the important, simple, components of a pizza; the crust, the sauce (actually I guess those are the only two – doesn’t seem like you can really screw up the cheese part). But I like my pizza to be more interesting. Sometimes I can just go with the flow, but I was already cranky that night. On our run just before, Mike was weaving in and out of traffic like a madman, in the dark, so I was a little tense after taking my life in my ~~hands~~ legs and traipsing after him. We decided to compromise on a sausage pizza, but I didn’t really want that either. We couldn’t justify ordering two pizzas. Finally, we realized we could order half and half, and the night was saved! (Glass of wine helped, too.)

For my half, I had a hard time deciding between the “baby arugula” (arugula almond pesto, roasted red peppers, goat cheese, baby arugula salad on top) and the “gruyere” (potatoes, prosciutto, spinach & leeks, gruyere & parm, roasted garlic butter). I ended up with the “baby arugula”, and it was delicious. My favorite part was the subtle saltiness of the baby arugula salad.

The next time I went, I ordered takeout while Addie was at her last soccer practice, I got a “gruyere” for myself and whichever kids dared to try it and a cheese for those who didn’t. The bad thing about take out is that it was kind of cold by the time I did what seemed like a thousand other errands and got home. It was still really delicious though. The nuttiness of the gruyere really came through, and I loved it. The potatoes were purple which was a fun touch.

I liked that one so much that that’s what I ordered when we went to celebrate my 2015. Mike took advantage of the Tuesday (and Wednesday) night special of a $7 cheese pizza, and Frank opted to make the other half of mine a “caspian” (roasted chicken, smoked tomatoes, garlic & basil, mozz, parm & red sauce). I tried some of his, and it was good but not enough to make me stray from my two new faves.

If you’re in the market for a good pizza, definitely give Bonobo a try.

What are your running goals for 2015? Have you started thinking about 2016 yet? I’m planning on 2,016 miles (and, of course, some races).

November 13, 2015November 17, 2015 by Katie

Sometimes we Actually Cook our own Food

With all we talk about food on this blog, you’d think we never cook, but we do actually have to eat something other than breakfast. (Well, we cook that for ourselves sometimes, too. Mike makes a mean breakfast sandwich,

and I know my way around a bagel.)

One of my favorite things to make for dinner is pizza. I use the pizza crust recipe from Roberta’s restaurant in Brooklyn. I got to go to the actual restaurant with my brother and sister the night before I ran the Brooklyn Marathon around this time last year. What a great night!

I would like to work on perfecting my sauce recipe, but for now, I just use the cheapest grocery store brand if I even use red sauce at all.

Try as I might, I’m really no pro when it comes to the pizza peel, so we make our pizzas on parchment paper which slides right off the peel easily. I discovered these pre-made rounds on a recent trip to King Arthur Flour, and they’re perfect for our pizzas. I usually try to stretch the dough out really thin to cover the whole round. (I need to learn how to do that throw-the-crust-up-in-the-air thing.)

Other than the crust, everyone makes their own pizza. Sometimes, I go all out and put out lots of toppings like I did for my book club recently.

Other times when it’s just us, we pull things from the fridge as we find them. One of my favorites is a copy of the Matinicus pizza from Portland Pie Company which has cream cheese, prosciutto, and banana peppers (and red sauce and pizza cheese). Lately though, Joe (my oldest), Frank (my younger son), and I have been working on our copy of Otto’s mashed potato, bacon, and scallion. I think we’ve finally perfected it.

Did you know you can buy these funny little mashed potato disks in the frozen section at Trader Joe’s? They heat up in the microwave in less than 5 minutes and miraculously turn into fluffy, mashed potatoes. I think they’re a bit easier than making mashed potatoes from scratch especially when they’re not going to have to stand on their own. Last time, Mike doctored ours up with butter, garlic salt, and who knows what else. They were so good they barely made it on the pizza. I think they’d still be good without the “doctoring”.

Thanks for reading. Happy cooking, running, and eating!

November 13, 2015November 13, 2015 by Katie

Sinful Breakfast Run

Not my best photo – but keepin’ it real

We’ve been meaning to try out Sinful Kitchen for quite a while. Our older son had been there and was impressed by the lamb bacon and raved about whatever else he had (wish I could remember). We decided to follow up our neighborhood breakfast run to Abilene with another restaurant on our side of town (albeit on opposite side of the ‘hood from Abilene).

Mike wanted to do ten miles, so we mapped out a rough route through Westbrook for something different. Being near the ocean, we have a lot of pretty gorgeous running routes. This was not the most scenic in comparison, but it was pleasant running through parts of the historic Stroudwater neighborhood and seeing some big open fields and cows not far from the city limits. Coming back along Brighton Ave (Route 25) was not so pretty, but the McDonald’s and its bathroom came in quite handy.

I like to complete about 80% of our run before breakfast so running home afterwards doesn’t seem so hard. We ended up a little short when we were almost back at Sinful Kitchen, so we ran down and back some of the side streets and ended up with almost eight miles before Sinful Kitchen snuck up on us.

If you want a quaint old brick building with hip decor in the heart of Portland to show off to your out of town friends, this is NOT the place to go. If you just want a great meal, then definitely read on . . .

Sinful Kitchen and its environs – cool sign

It’s in a perfectly fine section of Portland but on a busy street with very little curb appeal. It’s on the way to places, not usually a destination. Some restaurants seem to survive based more on their location (Dimillo’s comes to mind) than the quality or creativity of their food. I like to assume that if a restaurant is doing well in a less desirable location, the food is probably pretty good.

We usually try (but actually rarely manage) to get to our breakfast destination right when it opens to avoid crowds and still have the bulk of the day left when we get home. This time we were close, arriving at about 8:20. We were only the second customers, so we had our choice of seats in the cozy, first floor of a house. The place actually filled up quite quickly after that which I take as a good sign that we’re not the only ones who think the food is good and that the place will last. By the time we left, there were people outside waiting for a table.

I love my breakfast mimosas, but it’s nice to have some variety every once in awhile, so I was excited to see that they had a relatively extensive drink menu – at least 8 different drinks plus some grown-up coffee options. I didn’t stray too far from my classic mimosa and ordered the “Chambord Kir Royale” (I like my bubbles). I’m sure it was no fault of the bartender’s, but I didn’t love it. Mike thought it tasted like a Shirley Temple mimosa which seems like that would be good. I like Shirley Temples, but to me it tasted kind of cough-medicine-y. On the other hand, Mike’s Bloody Mary (I think it was called a Sinful Mary or something like that) was beautiful and delicious, but I’ll let him review that.

Food-wise, the menu had a lot of interesting options, so it was a real struggle to decide. I kind of wanted to get the Monte Cristo – I’ve never had one – but I was worried that would be way too rich for a breakfast run. I wasn’t really in the mood for something sweet (but check out the waffles oozing with chocolate syrup on their website photo – I’m getting those next time), so I decided on my old standby, Eggs Benedict. I don’t always do this, but I kind of like to have the same thing each time I try a new restaurant, so I can make a more equal comparison. They had all kinds of interesting different Benedicts. I was very tempted by the one that came with crabmeat and avocado, but decided to go with the classic.

When it came out, I was excited to see that it came with bacon instead of the usual ham or Canadian bacon. I like those just fine, but classic bacon is best! It has to be well-done and crispy, and this was cooked to perfection. (I don’t think it was lamb, though.) I also liked that the English Muffin had a nice, crispy, buttery crunch. The Hollandaise was more subtle than some I’ve had – it was flavorful but not overwhelming with a nice clean finish not that citrus-y bite at the end that I’ve experienced in other places.

I really fell for the potatoes though. I’m a sucker for sides. They were cut into nice little bite-sized pieces. (I should not have to cut my home fries up with a knife and fork!) Some were crispy and some were tender. They had a nice savory spice to them. Mike commented that, flavor-wise, they were more like what Bayou Kitchen’s used to be.

All in all it was a good breakfast. It’s nice to see another neighborhood place doing well.

November 8, 2015November 8, 2015 by Katie

How to do a Breakfast Run

Thinking about jumping on the Breakast Run bandwagon? Wondering how to make it happen? Not a morning runner? You can apply the same process to a Happy Hour Run or a Dinner Run. (Brunch run? Lunch run?)

You’ll figure out what works best for you, but if you’re curious, here’s our process:

Plan Breakfast – start discussing it throughout the week. It’s nice to start thinking about the weekend when you’re facing Monday. Look at upcoming events like Slab’s first day of serving breakfast and consider that. The night before, finalize your plan, decide that 10:00 is too late for a breakfast run, and decide to go to Hot Suppa. Yelp is a great resource for planning your breakfast run, since you can filter by when the restaurant is open if you’re shooting for a certain time. If you’re local to Portland, Portland Food Map has a nice list of breakfast/brunch places here.
Plan the Run – Once you have a place picked out, plan your route. Figure out how many miles you plan to go and try to find a route where you’ll run most of your miles before breakfast. For example, we (well, Mike) needed to run 10 miles today, and Hot Suppa is about 2 miles from our house. We planned to run from our house, up State Street, over the Million Dollar Bridge and on to the Eastern Trail for 5 miles then turn around and end up back at Hot Suppa arriving there by about mile 8. That way, we’d only have about 2 miles left to go when we were full of breakfast and breakfast beverages.
Wake up with the sun – Figure out what time your chosen restaurant opens, and try to be the first one there. Hot Suppa opens at 7:30, so we planned to hit the road by 6:15. That way you don’t have to worry about reservations, lines, etc.
Waffle – wake up at 6:00, decide you don’t really want to get out of bed, check Facebook, delete your junk email, read the blogs in your reader, check the weather, start thinking about what you’re going to wear, wake up the spouse who said, emphatically, that we’re waking up with the sun. Tell him that it’s time to get up and that you’re getting up and wait for the cuddle that will make sure you don’t actually get up. Wait for spouse to tell you that he actually doesn’t want to go to Hot Suppa and wants something lighter. Consider Ohno and Dutch’s. Surf Yelp for awhile figuring out what would be open at this hour. Decide on Sinful Kitchen which is decidedly NOT lighter than Hot Suppa and plan a new route.
Get dressed – check the weather again. The best running advice I’ve ever gotten is to plan for 20 degrees warmer that the actual temperature considering that you’ll warm up when you run. It was 39 when we started out this morning, so I tried to plan for about 60. Went with running tights, wool base layer, and short sleeve race T over that – just so I wouldn’t be in all black. (This probably goes without saying, but also brush your teeth, go to the bathroom, do something about your hair, etc.)
Pack – I’d love to be able to do a breakfast run without carrying anything, but no matter the weather, I get really cold as soon as I stop running. I bring my hydration backpack – I have this one:I just remove the water holder. In the summer, we both just pack an extra t-shirt. I get cold even then, plus it’s just gross to go into a restaurant in a shirt drenched with sweat. In the summer, we just do a quick change outside the restaurant. I’m always wearing a sports bra, so it’s not like stripping down completely. In the winter (which is really the only other season in Maine), I usually order my drink then sneak off to the bathroom to change. I usually pack an extra long-sleeved race shirt and one of my wool-blend sweatshirts. Mike is more stoic and insists that his fancy wool shirt prevents him from getting cold. Then of course, we bring at least one phone to take pictures and check in on Facebook (priorities, right?) and a credit card and ids (not that, being in our forties, we’ve been carded yet).
Run – in a way, this is kind of the easy part. Think about what you’re going to get for breakfast. Get hungry. It’s best to make your Breakfast Run an easy run with no pace goal, but if you are shooting for a certain pace, try to “bank” some time in this part of the run. You probably won’t be setting any records after breakfast.
Eat – yum – this is the moment you’ve been waiting for. Maybe walk for a minute or two before you walk into the restaurant, so you’re not breathing too heavily. Ooops – wait, don’t forget to stop your watch. Pause it, don’t stop it, you have more running to do. Steel yourself for some puzzled looks but assume that the restaurant appreciates your business way more than they care about your weird clothing and sweaty, heavy-breathing self. Catch your breath, order a drink (I don’t recommend coffee, I’ve felt really strange running after a cup, heart-racing, etc, but I know a lot of runners drink coffee, and it does seem like a great way to warm up, so figure that one our for yourself), visit the bathroom to change clothes, pick out your breakfast, check-in on Facebook to make sure all your friends feel guilty that they’re still in bed, enjoy your breakfast but decide that what your partner got looks much better and have a few bites of that, too. Refuse the box that the waitress offers for the leftovers, since it would be awkward to run with it.
Get yourself home – this is the hard part. Get packed up, don’t forget your watch that you left on the table. Maybe take a picture outside the restaurant, then start ~~hobbling~~ running home. It will probably hurt at first, but remember that you’ll warm up again quickly and home (and the bathroom) is not that far away.
Prep for step 11 – run out and get the kids donuts or some kind of fancy kid breakfast (bagels work, Lucky Charms work, even the gross supermarket powdered mini donuts work) to limit nagging.
Relax – have another mimosa, take a shower, settle in on the couch to watch football, fall asleep, wake up and feel guilty that you didn’t accomplish all you wanted to over the weekend and start step 1 all over again. Hey, at least your got your running in!

Happy running. Thanks for reading.

p.s. don’t forget to take your wet, sweaty old clothes out of your backpack. Trust me, you won’t want to wait until you need your pack again next weekend to smell them.

November 8, 2015November 8, 2015 by Katie

Addie’s First 5K!

It’s been a busy weekend so far, but the most exciting thing is that our youngest daughter finished her first 5K this morning.

Now all four kids have done at least one 5K. Sadly none of them are as addicted to running as we are. Yet.

The race was put on by Addie’s school, and there was some kind of reward for the class with the most participants, so she was motivated to help her class. Our plan was to walk some and run some. She made sure to tell me that she would decide when we would run and when we would walk. (I think she’s heard Mike complain a time or two about me setting too fast a pace and always wanting to be one step ahead.) I’m actually surprised she was even concerned. She thinks she can run 35 miles an hour, since she and Mike happened to be running by one of those digital signs that tells cars how fast they’re going when a car going 35mph also went by. We don’t have the heart to explain.

We ended up walking more than we ran, but I was impressed that she never gave up running completely – didn’t even really consider it. As we were walking along, we’d pick out trees, signs, benches, etc. off in the distance where we’d plan to start running again and pick another landmark where we would stop. We were excited to see Mike/Dad waiting near the end and made sure to be running when we went by him and got some high fives. We took a quick walk break after that to make sure we’d have enough left to finish strong and managed to pick up our pace at the end for in impressive 54 minute or so time (the course was actually about half a mile too long – so we did about 3.6 miles).

Addie told me later that she thought it was cool that people she didn’t even know were cheering her on. I like that in a race, too. Mike also had a great race, but I’ll let him write about that.

Thanks for reading!

November 4, 2015November 4, 2015 by Katie

Boynton McKay Review

This past weekend we had one of our best runs ever in Camden and Rockport. In case you don’t follow every. single. post. I blogged about it here. It was amazing how quickly the miles ticked away as we were reminiscing about our childhoods there. I listed a lot of those in my last post, so I won’t bore you with that.

(Well, wait, I can’t help myself – here are a few more that I remembered remembering after that last post; the fabric store where my mom worked (who knew I would end up loving fabric so much), The Sail Loft where my mom also worked and brought home butter mints in her pocket which I stole (maybe they were meant for me), the soccer fields where I first played which were close to the parking lot where I ~~begged~~ very suavely asked Mike for my first ride in his car, the room where we first learned to type, my first elementary school (K-2) where I felt like a loser for not being able to figure out right and left or how to tie my shoes, my second elementary school where I also played soccer later and where Mike played Babe Ruth baseball and where I remember watching my younger sister play field hockey and which seems to be, other than the fields, completely obliterated from this Earth. Holy run-on sentence. Mrs. Crockett would be appalled.)

So, back to Boynton McKay. I remember (vaguely) going there with my Mom. I can picture stuff along the side walls and a giant fixture in the middle that mostly had greeting cards on either side. I think you could get root beer floats, too which we may have done a time or two. I can’t really picture it accurately though, and can’t seem to (quickly) find any old images of the interior. Like I said in my last post, it was featured in Olive Kitteridge, so watch that if you want to picture it. What I do remember is walking into town with my mom and sister. We had one of those cool (probably not at all safe) strollers where my sister (younger) could ride in the stroller part, and I could stand on the back. It was yellow-ish with brown flowers. About at 70’s as you could get. My Adelle-Davis-worshipper-of-a-mom made us eat mostly health food which by today’s standards is Guantanamo-Bay-Style torture (gluten-free’s got nothing on this). Think bread that no amount of water (or Kombucha) will moisten and peanut butter that’s barely more than peanuts littered across a 100% whole wheat landscape. Why, oh why, would anyone never trade me their fluffernutter sandwich? We must have worn her down though because on that walk from our rented house Sea Street to downtown (what a great location near the ocean and my best friend Kari), we, every once in awhile got to stop at Nash’s which was across the street from Boynton McKay. Every time, without fail, I got a hostess cupcake – well they came two to a package – pretty much the same as today. I don’t know if you can even still get them, I’ve outgrown my desire for them, but I got the orange-ish ones that I think were vanilla because I was somehow convinced I was allergic to chocolate. (I’m over that now, too.)

Holy Cow, do I ever digress???

So today, Boynton McKay is much hipper, like Brooklyn-hip (or is that so far in, it’s out?). After having read a few reviews, I was worried that if we didn’t get there at precisely the opening hour of 7:00 a.m., we’d never get a seat. After our running tour through Camden and Rockport, I think we ended up there around nine. Business was booming, but there were at least two open tables, one of which we competitively snagged (okay probably just me, Mike is much more laid back).

I really enjoyed the private feeling of the tall booths. I got the same feeling at Artemisia. It is just somehow more relaxing to my introverted self.

Honestly, I was not crazy about the go-to-the-counter ordering system. I really prefer to have someone come and wait on me. It sounds snobby, and maybe it is, but I like to have a lot of time to peruse the menu, and going up to the counter makes me feel too much pressure to decide quickly. And honestly, after a long run, I feel like I deserve to be waited on.

That said, the Boynton McKay staff was very patient with us when we waffled about our choices (again with the breakfast puns) and asked lots of questions. (Yes, you can order breakfast OR lunch any time of day – which frankly just made the decisions harder.) We were a bit puzzled by the sword-bearing, mustachioed woman behind the counter (but we are accepting of hipster-dom) until we remembered it was Halloween.

I was really tempted by the lunch-time quesadilla with black beans and avocado but decided to be disciplined and stick with the breakfast options. I didn’t wander far afield and ordered the Huevos Rancheros. I’ve been kind of on a Mexican breakfast kick.

It was really delicious. My best bite was one where the cheese had burned onto the dish to the point where I thought there was a crispy corn tortilla underneath. Every other bite was delicious as well. There was a yummy, warm, giant flour tortilla (which I much prefer to the healthier corn variation – I mean we’d just run ten miles – who cares?!). We debated whether it was homemade or not. It was at least warmed and grilled there, and delicious. The combination of that and the hot beans, eggs, and cheese, and the cool tomato salsa was orgasmic. My only complaint was that there wasn’t more salsa. In hindsight, I suppose I could have asked for more.

Also, in hindsight, I wished I’d ordered a side of home fries. That’s my favorite thing about breakfast, and I order them almost everywhere I go. I must have been overwhelmed beyond my senses by being “back home”. That’s what happens when I don’t have enough time to pour over the menu. I did have a seat with a nice view of the menu and thought that next time I would order the home fries with chorizo and other nacho-esque toppings.

There was a lot going on that day, and everyone else seemed to belong but us. I think that mostly a result of us having previously been part of that community and now not having any clue about it. They were giving away cute little ghost like meringues to anyone in costume. Honestly, Mike really should have qualified in his Sprockets outfit.
I was honestly surprised how uninhibited Mike was in the restaurant, but you should have seen him at home. Oh wait, you can . . .

There was a nice help-yourself coffee area (for us normal coffee drinkers anyway, it doesn’t apply to fancy-schmancy cappuchino drinkers) which also had water, Kombucha, etc. The water had a green tinge and was advertised as local Absinthe. I thought Absinthe was a previously-illegal-to-the-US-beverage for it’s murderous properties, so I was surprised that they were giving it away for free. Finally, Mike was convinced to try some. It pretty much tasted like water. At that point, we finally realized, it was a Halloween joke. Duuh. Very funny, Boynton McKay.

Mike had the French Toast which I had to sample, of course. It was delicious, but I’ll let him do his own blog post.

All in all, we will definitely be back to Boynton McKay. We enjoyed it thoroughly. The only improvements I would make are; real adult beverages (absinthe aside), more salsa on the Heuvos, and wait service while ordering. The last I could certainly live without, since, maybe that’s part of the appeal of the place, and like I said, the people were wonderful and didn’t rush us at all.

Definitely go to Camden if you have the chance. I think leaf season has pretty much passed, but at least the leaves are still on the trees (even though mostly brown), so you might be able to eek out this weekend or the next. Beyond that, you’ll have to appreciate winter or wait until July. The Camden Snow Bowl is fun if you’re a skier.

Thanks for reading. And eating. Happy running. And thanks to my brother, Simon, for the recommendation.

November 3, 2015 by Katie

Good Mail Day

This came for me today.

I’m super excited even though it’s a long way off. This will be my second Boston Marathon. I was so nervous for the first one (you can read my recap on my old blog here), and I certainly will be for this one, but I think I’ll be able to enjoy it a bit more. Now that I have seen the size of the expo, I’m going to plan to spend a lot more time (and money) there.

We have Austin to do before then (can you think of a more romantic thing to do on Valentine’s Day?), and April seems so far away that I haven’t put much thought into it yet, but I do want to consider what I’ll do differently this time (besides, of course, more shopping).

Anyone else out there doing Boston?

November 1, 2015November 2, 2015 by Katie

Amazing Run in Camden/Rockport

We had a such a great breakfast run this weekend that I can’t possibly limit it to one post. I’ll talk about the breakfast part later. Portland is a beautiful place to run, and we really love living here, but every once in a while, it’s nice to run somewhere else. (I haven’t had a chance yet, but I want to create a map with a pin for every state, city, town where I’ve run – and maybe a different color pin where I’ve raced.)

All year, we’d seriously been considering doing this 6.66 mile race in Salem, MA, but it just seemed like too much to pull together in the end. I’m not sure what got the idea into our heads, but we decided to drive up to Camden instead. No race, just running and eating. I grew up in Camden, and Mike grew up in Rockport, so it was going to be pretty cool to run by and possibly eat at our old haunts. I wanted to eat at The Rockport Corner Shop, but alas, it’s not there anymore (OMG, who says “alas”?! I should probably mention I’m having a glass of red wine while I write this post.)

I consulted my brother who has been in the area most recently, and he recommended Boynton McKay. It used to be a drug store. I remember shopping for greeting cards there with my mom when I was pretty young. Maybe Addie’s age (8). If you’ve seen Olive Kitteridge, it’s the drug store where the husband works. That’s more how I remember it, but now it’s a very hip restaurant. But, again, that’s a blog post for another day.

Anyway, both our families have moved away from the area, and apparently we didn’t make strong enough connections in high school to go back and visit classmates. Neither of us could remember when we were last there, but our oldest son was baptized there in 1996 or so. I think we may have gone back a bit later to help my parents move away, but that wouldn’t have been long after. Let’s say, it’s been at least 15 years.

We’d made the plan about a week ago, so I thought about it off and on all week. I wasn’t sure how I’d feel; emotional, maybe? or disappointed in the changes? The day finally arrived, and since we’ve been busy watching the Mets in the World Series, it was a late Friday night. For some reason that I still don’t understand, Mike wanted to set out on the 90 minute drive super early. He said, “4:00 a.m., no bellyaching”. I’m pretty much a morning person, so I was okay with that. I woke up in the middle of the night as I often do, and realized that all of our running clothes were in the washing machine. Waking up in the middle of the night and actually getting up are completely different things, but I managed to drag myself out of bed to put the laundry in the dryer. Waking Mike up wasn’t quite as easy, but we did manage to leave the house by around 5:30. It really stresses me out to be late, so I was worried Boynton McKay would be jam packed by the time we finished running, but I figured we’d go with one thing at a time.

After stopping in Wiscasset for gas and people-hydration, we arrived in Camden around 7:15 or so. At that hour, we had no problem finding parking across from Boynton McKay. We ignored the 2 hour parking signs assuming we’d be done running by then and would move the car if need be, but really who was going to be marking tires at that time of year at that time of day? But that did trigger my first memory of the day of a uniformed woman walking through town drawing yellow chalk marks on cars’ tires.

Mike was shooting for about 10 miles. I didn’t really care what we did. (Injured, more about that another day, too.) Then again, I don’t like not having a plan, so I sketched out a rudimentary route that I figured would at least give us 6 miles or so. Here’s what we ended up doing:

It was absolutely gorgeous,

(It’s moose-huntin’ season here, so it was handy that Mike had on his blaze orange.)
and brought back so many unexpected memories as we went along. Two of my first jobs in retail (motivation for college), my dad’s first office when he started his cheese company (creme fraiche first), where my bus stopped to pick up my friend, Joy Anderson, (and other kids who seemed weird at the time and others that I now know were bullied – the boy with the girlish name, for example), the park I ran away to when I was mad at my parents, the house I fantasized about living in as my bus drove by,

the oreo cows that are so sentimental that my dad now owns six or so,

(those are the ones in Rockport, but here’s a close up of one of my Dad’s:)
(That’s them on a colder day last winter. The one in the front is called “Two Tags”. She’s very naughty. I like to call her, “Lunch”.)
and of course, their home,

(Mike once put a Bangor Daily News mailbox in the middle of their field. I suppose they wanted to keep up with current events. As mischievous as that seems, doesn’t that seem better than playing Halo?)

the place where Mike played golf,

Andre the seal,

(some of us were being a bit sillier than others)

the white arch between Rockport and Camden that we remembered getting hit by a truck and requiring major fundraisers to rebuild,

the church I had to walk to every Monday to attend CCD with a very small contingent of other Catholics

and where we later got married,
(Please forgive the helmet head, I’d been wearing my hood.)
our high school that’s now the middle school,

the car wash that Mike remembered and I didn’t that was owned by one of our schoolmates families, where we used to swim in the river,

my old house,

(which is actually for sale – check it out here. We were tempted for a second.)
the park where we used to hang out and counted our coins to try to save up enough money for a tent to go camping,

the waterfall that housed lots of ducks that we used to feed.

(And also the back of the deli where I used to get sandwiches for my lunch break at work and was owned by our friends’ family.)

We had a lovely breakfast then hit up Maine Sport where my sister used to work. It’s like a mini L.L. Bean. We spent quite a bit of time looking at running gear and feeding Mike’s new love of merino wool. I’ll let him blog about it, but he just might have purchased wool underwear!

After that, we hit up The Market Basket which was probably my first ever experience with gourmet food. As you might have surmised, I do really like to eat. Growing up in Maine in the 80’s (okay fine, and 70’s), I’m not sure there really was the concept of French Bread, so The Market Basket provided me with my first taste of it, and it was so good that I’ve been seeking a duplicate ever since. The closest I’ve come is the Bread Baker’s Apprentice pain a l’ancienne. Mike and I used to buy their delicious sandwiches made on the French Bread and a couple of 35 cent peanut butter balls then continue down Route 1 to Miss Plum’s for a pint of ice cream; usually half raspberry chocolate chip and half coconut hash, but sometimes malted milk ball would sub in. We would take them to Beauchamp Point

(On the way to Beauchamp Point – 20 plus years later.)
and climb down on the rocks and enjoy them along with some teenage romance.

(The view of Rockport Harbor from those rocks.)
I don’t know (but I probably should know seeing as we have 3 teenagers now) if kids still do those kinds of things today.

We didn’t see any sign of Miss Plums, but Market Basket was still going strong. The bread was yummy, and I think pretty much how I remembered it. I really like baking, and, in hindsight, I’m pretty sure my motivation was to try to duplicate this French Bread, and, even though it’s not technically baking, the peanut butter balls, too.

(The peanut butter balls were almost too fancy now with their white candy wrappers on the platter. I remember them just being in a wooden basket by the counter.)
Both things were delicious from The Market Basket, but I’m satisfied with my replicas. Even though there were kind of different (on focaccia and wraps instead of French Bread), they still had a great variety of sandwiches and we snagged a Thanksgiving-style turkey sandwich which was probably even better than the sandwiches we had back in the day and inspired Thanksgiving sandwiches for lunch/dinner today.

I was curious to see if we’d see anyone we knew, but funnily enough the only people we recognized were a couple that we know from Portland who were in town for the weekend hiking. I think I recognized the mother of a distant classmate, but that was about it.

On our way out of town, we swung by Mike’s old house and grabbed a quick shot while the people inside were looking out at us then made our escape back to Portland.

We didn’t really appreciate the area growing up, but really enjoyed going back and seeing it through new and old eyes. Go, if you can! We will definitely be paying another visit. Who knows what other memories will surface.

November 1, 2015November 1, 2015 by Katie

Review of Abilene

Last weekend, we had sort of an unorthodox breakfast run. We didn’t get up quite as early as we should have and had to get our oldest daughter to dance practice by nine. We had plenty of time to get in a 6-miler but not to also eat breakfast. So we decided to run, take her to dance, then eat. That worked out nicely because we decided to invite our two youngest to come along. Sometimes I do feel guilty for ditching them in the early morning hours (even though they are often not even awake when we get home).

We had planned to go to our much-loved, neighborhood Bayou Kitchen. We call it “BK” for short (sooo not to be confused with Burger King). It’s fairly close to our house, so we walked (not ran) there with our two youngest in tow (not that young – 14 and 8). We got stuck waiting for a (60+ car) train which was actually kind of entertaining. As it gets colder, it won’t be. We definitely KNOW better than to get to BK later than 9 on a weekend, but the dance thing put it out of our control (will she ever get her license????). We got to BK and the hostess thought it would be about a 30 minute wait. Waiting for the train was okay, but it was a bit chilly to hang out for 30 minutes in the cold, so we decided to check out Abilene next door. (Full disclosure, you can kill lots of time checking out Artist & Craftsman across the street. It’s very cool and interesting, but we were HUNGRY). I didn’t know much about it other than skimming a review on Portland Food Map and hearing from our oldest son (19, who had probably gone for the same reason of not wanting to wait for a table at BK) that it was kind of weird.

There was a decent crowd there, but nothing like BK, and we got a table right away. There seemed to be only one hostess/waitress, but she managed to keep up just fine. The biggest advantage of Abilene so far over BK was that they had adult beverages. We’re sort of starting to setting in with breakfast drinks with Mike ordering a Bloody Mary and me ordering a Mimosa. (Are there other breakfast drinks? If so, please share!)

I loved my mimosa, but I was kind of overloaded on sweet, and I really enjoyed my sip of Mike’s Bloody Mary, so I ordered on of those next. Aren’t the embellishments cool?

Mike is a die hard BK fan. He struggles between a breakfast-y thing and their amazing Chicken Piquant each time and mostly ends up with Chicken Piquant with a side of Moxie and grits. I waffle (hah, hah, just noticed the breakfast pun) between their breakfast sandwich and their nacho-style home fries with bacon, cheese, sour cream, and salsa. I used to LOVE their home fries which had a nice taste of cajun seasoning and some crispy fried-ness on the edges. Now they’re kind of just regular homies, so I’m not always quite so ready to hit up BK (between that and the lack of mimosas).

I was impressed with the less traditional menu from Abilene. (Can’t seem to find the menu online.) I ordered something sort of like Huevos Rancheros. Apparently, I’ve been on a Tex-Mex breakfast kick. My dish had scrambled eggs with chorizo sausage which had a great, savory flavor, although, my favorite local chorizo so far is from Hella Taco. There were some lovely flour tortillas and black beans to make into a sort of breakfast burrito. It all had a wonderful savory flavor and nice “umami” that for me, always seems to follow anything with cilantro. I think some cheese or crema or sour cream would have been a nice addition, but I really did enjoy my meal. The home fries weren’t really spiced in any kind of way, but they were nice and crispy. Sometimes texture beats flavor. I enjoyed them, and the kids did as well, kind of like breakfast french fries.

(Sorry, I don’t claim to be a great food photographer, but I’m not sure anyone can make black beans look appetizing. It was good, I promise.)

Frank had the French Toast which looked really good. The carmelized bananas weren’t quite as impressive as I expected, but I’m not a big banana fan anyway. I’ve actually forgotten what Addie had, but she seemed to enjoy it. She had a side of bacon which was well-cooked and crispy which, for me, is very important in bacon.

I loved that the place was very grown up, kind of hip, with an intriguing menu but still welcomed kids. After the Marcy’s debacle, I think we’re all a bit sensitive. At Abilene, they had an entire shelf of crayons, stickers, paper, and other stuff with which kids could entertain themselves. In spite of there seeming to be only one bartender (who the waitress mentioned was also working in the kitchen) and one waitress, we did get served fairly quickly.

All in all, I’m very excited to have this addition to the neighborhood. Excited to try them for another meal or happy hour.

October 25, 2015October 25, 2015 by Katie

Breakfast Run to Union

Sheesh. Mike has been beating me in both blogging and running lately. And it really doesn’t bother me at all. We’re not competitive at all. Umm, so. not. true.

Anyway, even though it’s been another Breakfast Run and a Happy Hour Run since our breakfast run to Union last weekend, I still want to record my thoughts on our lovely breakfast there.

I wanted to make sure we got at least eight miles in, so we took the long way to Union and got in about 5.5 miles before we arrived. We met a running acquaintance of mine along the way. Super nice guy who I’ve only ever met running. Pretty sure he told me his name is Rex, but who’s named Rex anyway? Maybe I have that wrong.

A few weeks ago, maybe a month ago, we had a delicious breakfast at The Corner Room which is right around the corner (pardon the pun) from Union Restaurant in the pretty-new Portland Press Hotel. I had read about it, so we decided to walk through before we started running back home. The decor was super cool especially one hallway where an entire large wall was decorated with old typewriters. It was fun to look at those and reminisce about our days in typing class with Mrs. Sturdee. I think we were the last class in our school to use manual typewriters. Honestly, that was the most useful class I took in high school, but I digress.

After we walked into the hotel lobby, we decided to pop into the restaurant to scope it out for a later visit. We’d already been thinking about trying to stop by for drinks after reading about it on Portland Food Map. The host was super friendly, and even though we mentioned we’d already eaten, he invited us to look around and chatted with us about being “local”. Last weekend, when we were looking for an early Breakfast Run, I went to my trusty Yelp app to see what would be open early. With the early hour, and the places we’ve already tried, we were down to the bakeries and the hotel restaurants. We didn’t hesitate when Yelp reminded us about Union. (Granted, most of the reviews were about dinner, not breakfast.)

We had a pleasant, cheerful run on the way there. It was chilly, 30-ish (which sadly will be excitingly warm in a few months). We must have been in a really ~~cheesy~~ good mood because we actually broke into song a few times. There’s race pace, conversational pace, and the little-known-singing pace. (If you must know, both times we were crossing railroad tracks – Folsom Prison and City of New Orleans.) Notably, it was our first day in tights (vs. shorts).

The same friendly host welcomed us back. The restaurant was pretty full, but we were able to get a table right away. The decor is modern and very bright and airy which I liked. Even though I brought dry clothes to change into (the host walked me all the way across the lobby to show me where the restroom was), I was still a bit chilly, but there was a cozy fireplace going in the lobby that we enjoyed for a few minutes before hitting the road again.

We ordered our favorite breakfast drinks, a mimosa for me and a Bloody Mary for Mike. The mimosa was delicious with fresh-squeezed O.J., but it was fairly small. Size-wise, I have yet to find a match for the Manmosa from Brian Boru. Mike wasn’t crazy about the smoky flavor of the Bloody Mary.

The menu didn’t have a ton of options (maybe 5 or so real breakfast options – I don’t count oatmeal or yogurt and granola), but I suppose that makes it easier to decide. We were both intrigued by the European style, charcuterie-like Simple Beginnings breakfast which Mike ended up ordering. I didn’t want to get the same thing, so I went with the French Toast, and I love me some breakfast potatoes, so I ordered a side of those as well.

My French Toast (a.k.a Pain Perdu) was really good. The bread was thick and light and airy and the butter plentiful. There were some pretty berry garnishes and local maple syrup.

I have to say though, that Mike’s breakfast was much more interesting. I scattered some pieces of the cheddar from his plate on my breakfast potatoes and let it melt a bit (kind of like Raclette) and dipped it in the fennel mustard, and it was quite delicious. (Pretty much hate fennel, but this was good.) It’s mostly just on Easter that I have a nice thick slice of ham, but the ham (a.k.a Salumi) on his plate was also delicious and the fig jam reminded me of having a nice quince paste with a charcuterie plate.

My only complaint about his meal was that the croissant that came with it was miniscule. I like to have a bite of carb with each bite of protein, so I fully supported his idea to order a side of toast.

It was quite slow to come, so that was too bad, and when only one slice of toast arrived, I thought it a bit stingy, but it was delicious, and if I had to guess, I think it might have been a slice of pain de mie from one of our favorite local bakeries, Standard Baking Company.

Overall, it was a really nice experience. As Mike said, service was a bit slow, but the wait staff was so friendly and apologetic, it was really fine. At the end of our meal we were served an effervescent ginger carrot drink which was a really nice touch, kind of like a digestif.

Most of the breakfast diners seemed to be staying at the hotel, so I’m not sure it’s become a standard Portland breakfast place – yet. We were a bit jealous of the hotel-stayers and vowed to book a night in the off-season.

Weighed down by drinks and breakfast, we got off to a somewhat slow start heading home, but after the slight uphill of Congress Street, we had a nice long downhill on State Street and made the last 2.5 miles home no problem even though the pace was quite a bit slower and there was no singing.

Thanks for reading. Happy running. And eating.

Run for Breakfast

Running and Eating in Portland, Maine

Author / Katie