Short Post, All Food Basically, If You Want To Skip

I should have known if I bragged about a warm, shorts day, we'd get bit, and we sure did.  It has been rainy and cold everyday except yesterday.  We have done very little except try to walk a bunch in between the raindrops, and of course, eat.

So what better than homemade Cioppino on a cold, rainy night?

Delish!

Followed up a few days later with fried rice.

A restaurant in Portland was one of our favorites before Covid, and it just now opened, finally, for inside dining, so we thought we'd give it a try, the Empire Chinese Kitchen.  Well, what a mixed bag!  It wasn't busy, and after we had been there for maybe 10 minutes, the lights went out.  We could see the kitchen still had power though, so after they ran around a bit, came over to tell us it was just a circuit breaker and they'd be fine in a minute.  Well, not really.  Since we were in a booth near the back, in the dark, they moved us up to a seat in the window and took our order.  It was like they had never run a restaurant before.  The food came out at different times, in fact one of the items we had to ask for, and the food itself, that we thought previously was stellar, well not so much.  Disappointing.

So Jan later made a delicious Kung Pao Shrimp to make up for it:-)

Now we did have a highlight though.  We had a very nice visit and lunch in Augusta with Scott, Sue, and Harlean, Bob couldn't make it and was missed.  I get a D minus though, I took one picture of the amazing food at the Red Barn, and NONE of our visit!  Poor job, hopefully we can make this happen again in July when we come back through and I WILL get some then.  We were entertained by the owner, Laura who shared her experiences through Covid and how she persevered and came out the other side, a real tribute to her fortitude in the face of adversity.  Jan and I both agree, she has the BEST seafood stew, hands down in Maine, probably all of New England.  It is truly amazing, all seafood, no filler, and luscious!

I mean, really, check out that stew!

They also offer it in quart takeout containers that have instructions to add cream to your taste and consistency.  We picked one up and had it for dinner a few nights later, oh wow!

That's how it comes out of its quart container

Adding cream and heating gently

And oh wow!

I started off by saying yesterday was wonderful weather wise, finally.  Warm, sunny, shorts weather, so we celebrated with a cigar, a drink, a fire, and something special for dinner:-)

So we are down to a week now here in Scarborough and down the coast we go.  We are crazy enough to have the whole week marked out to hit our favorite restaurants and a few new ones.  Hopefully my future posts will be a little more interesting:-)