I was preparing a recipe that called for a fowl. That's not so unusual; fowl are tough old birds, stringier and better suited for the stockpot than for roasting or frying. Fowl are used instead of younger birds when flavor is important and tenderness is not.

But I encountered an unexpected complication. At Compare Foods in downtown Worcester, I found Fresh Heavy Fowl and Fresh Light Fowl - what to do? The heavy fowl was much more expensive per pound (although still cheap), but I had no other clues. So I came home and did some more research. Here's what I learned.

Chickens are raised for meat or for laying eggs, and the birds that are bred to be good at one are not so well suited for the other.  Of course, the ones bred for meat come from eggs, too, but those eggs are laid by big meaty mamas.

When either type reaches the end of her laying life, it is slaughtered for fowl. The meat-producer chickens become heavy fowl and the egg-producing chickens become light fowl. Since you're looking for flavor, the heavy fowl is the superior choice for stocks and stews. 

Have you seen the listing of cookbooks in What's on My Shelf? If you're the sort to enjoy whiling away a winter evening with a few good cookbooks and dreams of great ingredients and friendly farmers' markets...Well you could do worse than the two dozen+ books on that section of this site.

There is a broad variety of books listed there, with links to Amazon pages for the same books. Most (all?) of them feature in recipes on this site. And they have writer's insights about the books, and more. It's not a comprehensive list of the best cookbooks in the world, or even of the best in New England. Honestly, who has the presumption to tell you what's best? Why would you listen to that presumptuous fool?

This list is randomly generated from the sources of the recipes on this site, and the few books that simply could not be ignored - This is what's on my shelf. What's on yours?

Two international organizations cooperate to help ensure quality and production of Maple Syrup and the health of the often very local, small-farm maple syrup production industry:

• The North American Maple Syrup Council is comprised of representatives from state/provincial maple producer associations in Canada and the United States. This organization focuses primarily on issues of concern to maple syrup producer groups and actively supports maple research.
  
• The International Maple Syrup Institute is comprised of state and provincial maple associations, maple equipment manufacturers and other maple businesses and individuals. The Institute focuses its efforts on international standards for pure maple syrup, product quality assurance and marketing in the international marketplace. The two organizations often work together in helping resolve issues of importance to the maple syrup industry
  

The IMSI is all about the quality standards, espousing the mission:

• To protect the integrity of pure maple syrup;
• To encourage more industry cooperation; and,
• To improve communication within the international maple syrup industry.

(These three bullets and the two above are quoted from the IMSI website, linked above)

It's a great thing at my age to discover a new seafood, and I just devoured my first mess of Rock Shrimp. These little critters have been off the Florida Coast for a long time, but no one fished for them for a very good reason. They aren't named rock shrimp because of their habitat; it's because their shells are rock hard and until recently there was no practical way to get to the good stuff. Now with the invention of high speed splitting machines, these well armored crustaceans have hit the market, and I'm sending up a cheer.

I had my first taste of them at Dixie Crossroads in Titusville, Florida. If you're on your way to Cape Canaveral, it's a good place to stop. You may just spend your afternoon eating shrimp and forget all about outer space.

You can order rock shrimp by the pound. If you make a mistake and under-order, your friendly waitress will bring you more. She starts you off with corn fritters, which are addictive, but filling, so go easy. The shrimp are sweet. Some compare the flavor to lobster, but I think it's unique, and these were absolutely the best shrimp I ever tasted. They came broiled and accompanied by lemon and melted butter. Annette liked them with butter, but I thought they were perfect with just a side of cheese grits.

Should you have any room when the shrimp are gone, Dixie Crossroads serves an excellent key lime pie.

I see on the news this morning that the Cookie Monster on "Sesame Street" is on a diet. Instead of having a cookie every day, he's down to one a week.

We mustn't think Cookie's limiting himself. He represents the pleasure principle - raw unbridled desire. He portrays the propensity in every child to want what he wants when he wants it. I remember a story about the time the Cookie Monster went on a quest for a magic cookie that would bring its finder everlasting joy and happiness. The catch was he couldn't eat the cookie; he had to keep it as a sort of good luck charm. "Should I have everlasting joy and happiness, or should I eat cookie?" he asked himself. His indecision lasted for about a second. "EAT COOKIE," he cried.

Children laughed, parents laughed - no one expected Cookie to resist instant gratification. We'd have been disappointed if he showed restraint. I'm disappointed now - not in the shaggy blue Muppet, but in the producers and writers who are afraid they might make a child think that a cookie tastes better than a spear of broccoli.

Cookie Monster allows children to giggle at a human frailty, as does Oscar the Grouch. Next they'll have Oscar saying kind things so the children won't think it's OK to be in a bad mood.

In early colonial times, before the molasses trade established that sticky black substance as the sweetener of choice in Boston and much of New England, Maple Syrup and Honey were the only sweeteners available to most kitchens. Many recipes were adapted to use maple syrup, and those old versions are still worth exploring.

There's a good overview of maple syrup in cooking at the Maple Syrup page, with links to recipes.

So in March of 2013, we made a series of trips deep into the sugarbush country of northern New England. We wanted to learn more about maple syrup and how it gets from tree to table. There's a good, detailed overview of maple syrup production in the Exploring Maple Sugaring in Maine entry.

This event was strictly about the flavors of the syrups, both different grades and any evidence of terroir or of other geographical effects between Maine and Vermont. We set up the array shown in the first photo above. The samples were:

The only hard thing about baking bread is remembering how easy it is. Today I made St. Michael’s bread from Margaret Koehler's book . By the way, I see this book is available used for small money from Amazon.

This is my go-to bread recipe, but it has been modified over the years. It calls for dissolving a yeast cake in warm water in which you dissolve two tablespoons of vegetable shortening. I always used Crisco. You wanted the water warm enough to dissolve the Crisco, but if you got it too hot, you would kill the yeast. It was always a cliff-hanger to see if the dough would rise.  

I’ve made some notes in my old cookbook. I now use instant yeast that I buy from King Arthur Flour. It comes in quite a large package, but it keeps in the freezer. My notes say a scant tablespoon equals a package of yeast, which long ago substituted for the yeast cake. You just put it in with the dry ingredients. There’s no need to proof it.

People often ask about reviews, especially restaurant reviews. The Foodie Pilgrim reviews restaurants, attractions, and some hotels on TripAdvisor and increasingly on Yelp!

You may notice that most reviews are positive. For the most part, if I have a good experience, then I write about it. If I do not, then I hope the chef was having a bad day. I usually only write a bad review if a place has failed me repeatedly or if it is clear the place is hopeless. 

Of course, all reviews are highly subjective. We typically dine out on a Saturday night after a long drive, and facing a long drive home. I am usually looking for a relatively quiet, comfortable place with something local and seasonal on the menu. I don't want a fancy place (I don't drive hundreds of miles in jacket-and-tie!) and while I appreciate thrift I won't ever eat in a chain restaurant with a corporate marketing department.  

The title of this post is Christmas Mexican Lasagna. Why would I call this Christmas Mexican Lasagna?

Christine and I are experiencing our first married Christmas together. In just a few short weeks we will be heading out on our postponed honeymoon. Between Christmas and the upcoming honeymoon vacation we are working at hoarding some extra money for gifts and our travel plans.

Like most people, we put stuff in the freezer and forget it. It is so easy to do! We are looking for ways to not spend money so I decided to go Freezer Diving. There is a lot of really "cool stuff" in there that really should be used up.  

I found a pound of ground turkey sitting in there. What do you do with ground turkey?

Christine likes ground turkey and I find it very bland. We could spice it up with a chipotle rub and make burgers, mix it with some stuff and make turkey meatloaf but I have done that and still find it very bland. It is not really exciting.

Annette wanted a fancy French dinner for her birthday this year. Actually, she wanted a Diplomat Pudding and the rest of the menu developed from that idea. She had discovered the Hotel St. Francis Cook Book, from 1919. It is not a standard cookbook; it has three fancy menus for every day of the year, and recipes where needed. The menu for December 7th was not that compelling so we came up with this.

We had:

• A trio of Vermont Cheeses
• French Onion Soup
• Roasted Potatoes and Carrots
• Braised Lettuce
• Stuffed Capon St. Antoine
• Diplomat Pudding
• Artesano Traditional Cyser

We started with three fine Vermont cheeses: A perfectly ripe Harbison from Jasper Hill, and the Verano and Invierno from Vermont Shepherd.  These were followed by a French Onion Soup. Both the cheeses and the soup were served with a Chateau Haut-Beausejours St-Estephe Bordeaux 2005. 

We drive to Bar Harbor and Acadia National Park a couple of times every year as a day trip, and typically again for an overnight every other year. Over the years we have explored just about every mile of Maine's rocky, scenic coast. We always take Coastal Route 1 because we find it much more interesting than the interstate, and not much slower, and the eating is a whole lot better!

Along the way we pass through Brunswick and Rockland, Camden and Belfast, Bucksport and Ellsworth and many smaller towns along the way. But somehow we never managed to explore Verona Island, on the downeast side of this new cable-stayed bridge at Penobscot Bay, just before Bucksport.

So we did. We always like to stop and smell the flowers, as they say, and we've found many treasures that way.

But Verona wasn't one of them. I don't doubt that it's a fine place to summer, but just about the entire shoreline is blocked from view by private properties. The road is too far inland to get much sightseeing opportunity, and the terrain is too flat to provide those flashes of gorgeous scenery you see so often in other places along the hilly, rocky Maine coast.

(I am still catching up on long-deferred posts from a prolonged busy period at work. This one is from September!)

After prowling the fields of dealers at the big annual Brimfield Antiques Fair (scoring some cool barware and kitchenware there) we headed west to Northampton and onward into the Berkshires. We didn't know what we'd find there; we were really just looking forward to a relaxing drive before we had dinner and headed for home. 

There's a lot of farm country in those rugged, rural hills. Livestock is abundant and varied. There are fine horses, or course. Dairy farms are common, and Black Angus beeves grazing in rocky fields. There are also many sheep and alpacas raised for their wool. Goats make their appearances everywhere. Geese and ducks stand their wet ground, wary of the hens closer to the farmhouses.

It was the height of foliage season in New England and we had planned a foliage drive that would include Historic New England's annual fine arts and crafts festival at Roseland Cottage in Woodstock, Connecticut. We had no other fixed plans, but we know that Woodstock is in prime foliage country and it was a gorgeous day so all was well.

Although we live just a mile from Route 44, it's a slow road and we needed to make tracks, so we took the highway to Route 44 at I-295 west of Providence. From there we meandered through northwestern Rhode Island and into Connecticut at Putnam. From there it was a short hop to Woodstock, one of the prettiest towns in New England.

It's an excellent show with many vendors and very high quality, but I had work to do so Lorna shopped while I worked in the car. But I am not utterly impervious to beauty, so I did walk around a little and shot some photos while she shopped the show.

Main Street was the place to be last Thursday night. The finest product of Anheuser-Busch was to be featured. I refer not to Budweiser or even Michelob; I mean the Clydesdales. The splendid team of magnificent animals was to draw the famous beer wagon and stop at various bars, pubs, and taverns of Plymouth.

Annette and I took our seats at The New World Tavern, ordered drinks, and awaited spectacle. I sampled Mayflower Brewing Thanksgiving Ale. I love the Mayflower products because they don’t overwhelm me with hops, spice, pumpkin, chocolate or any other flavor that is fashionable among craft brewers. They remember that ale should taste like ale. The Thanksgiving ale has a hint of spice but retains balance and is very drinkable. The following morning I became the proud owner of two bottles. If they issue it every year, Thanksgiving ale could become a Talbot family tradition.

Dirty Water Distillery is downtown near the waterfront and Plymouth Rock in Plymouth, MA. They are brand new as of this writing, still building out the customer-facing part of the distillery. 

For now, Dirty Water (the name comes from the iconic bluesy 1960s paean to old Beantown by the Standells) is primarily a rum maker. Their lead-off product, What Knot, is a delicious delicate white rum with fine flavor and no burn. Richmond posted a great write-up in Studying our Knots in which your humble bloggers examined the What Knot every way we could to find cocktails that show it off to good advantage. We named the winning cocktails Knotty Nell and Dirty Nell.

Dirty Water Distillery uses a 200-gallon pot still named Dr. Evil for production. Dr. Evil, shown here, is ably assisted by a much smaller R&D version appropriately named Mini-Me.  

They have an amber rum in the works (Better Knot) and a black rum (Frayed Knot) is on the horizon.

Being a fan of local products, like sea clams, gnocchi bread, and Mayflower Ale, I was naturally thrilled when Plymouth got its own distillery, and I waited eagerly for the first spirit to come on the market. 

When I got the word it was here I headed for Water Street where the Dirty Water Distillery is located intent on being the first kid on my block to own a bottle of their new rum.  I set out on foot to buy a bottle, and on my way I stopped at the home of John the Foodie Pilgrim.  I found I'd failed to be the first to have a bottle. He has a gleaming silver bottle of What Knot rum on his kitchen counter. 

We felt an obligation to taste it.  Sipped neat, it had a light complexity and a pleasant hint of sweetness.  These qualities were delicate and became less noticeable when ice was added.  John was in possession of a superannuated lime, which offered no improvement. 

It got to be a joke.  It seemed every time we passed the Oxford Creamery on Route 28 in Mattapoisett it was closed, and we speculated they saw us coming and had all the customers move their cars and hide. We'd heard rumors of good food, but had just about given up tasting it. The other day, however, we detected activity. We were headed for Turk's, and my mouth was watering for their shrimp Mozambique, but life stirred at the Oxford Creamery and it was an opportunity not to be passed up. 

Having operated on the spot for eighty-two years, Oxford Creamery is the type of old time eatery I love. Brightly painted in blue and white, it evokes the past.  The interior is festooned with signs that substitute for a menu.  Their prices are old fashioned too, and with sandwiches starting at $2.50 and soft drinks at $1.25 you can easily get lunch for under $5.00. 

Seats inside may be at a premium, but there are picnic tables just outside the door and in a grassy area on the far side of the parking lot.  The food is available to go, and you could take it to Ned's Point Lighthouse, and eat it with a beautiful view of Mattapoisett Harbor.

For whisky to be called Scotch, it must be made in Scotland, but a spirit made elsewhere of the same ingredients and using the same methods can have remarkable excellence. One such is Glen Breton, which is made in "New Scotland," or Nova Scotia, Canada. This fall I visited the beautiful Glenora Distillery on Cape Breton Island and brought home some of what they term North America's first single malt whisky.

The claim could be disputed. Under Scotch whisky regulations, single malt Scotch whisky must be made exclusively from malted barley. It must be distilled using a pot still, and must be aged for at least three years in oak casks of a capacity not exceeding 700 liters. There are some American whiskeys advertised as single malts that are made from malted rye.

John and I briefly discussed the technicalities, but our main aim was to discover (1.) did Glen Breton taste like Scotch? And (2.) did it taste good? Our answer to both questions was yes.

I was an early fan of Jasper White. I traveled to Boston to eat at Jasper's, his dazzling restaurant on Atlantic Avenue. I still swear by his book, Jasper White's Cooking from New England. When he opened Summer Shack in Cambridge I made the trek and found it huge, cold in atmosphere, and mediocre in cuisine. I love real seafood shacks, and White's version wasn't even close.

When they opened a Summer Shack at the Derby Street Shops in Hingham I kept trying it. After all, I thought, it's owned by Jasper White, surely he'll bring it around. I had some good fish there, but never an entire meal without a serious flaw. The restaurant deserved to close and did.

The good news is that it has been replaced by Legal C Bar. Okay, it's a dumb name, and the sparkly sign looks like it belongs on a used car lot. The atmosphere inside might be better when the place is full. It's a large dim room devoid of charm, and it was nearly empty when we were there for lunch on a Tuesday. Never mind that; the food was outstanding.

It's a new concept by Legal Seafood. I've always found their restaurants dependable. I've never had fish that wasn't fresh and well-prepared. That's saying a lot. Where else would you eat at Logan Airport or bring an out-of-towner for scrod? A lovely piece of fresh fish, perfectly cooked is exciting enough for the likes of me, but Legal Seafood never went for glitz. 
Until now.

I put off trying poutine until my last day in Canada. There were lots of good things to eat, and even when I braced my taste buds for the ordeal, there were some very delectable Digby clams I could have ordered instead. Poutine is french fries soaked in gravy accompanied by cheese curds. It’s adored in Montreal where the dish originated and has spread throughout Canada. It is reportedly making inroads into the United States. I considered it my duty to try some.

I had a food snob’s aversion to poutine, but having tasted it, I must admit it has a certain appeal. I knew I was consuming so much fat and salt the mere thought of it would give the nutritionist at the Jordan Hospital Cardiac Rehab a case of uncontrollable shakes and possibly send her into a catatonic state. I knew I should shove it away and order a salad with the dressing on the side, but as with other junk food, one bite invited another, and before I knew it I had cleaned my plate.

When I was writing my newspaper column, I got an email from a reader who said he didn't like French food.  It seems he'd been to Montreal and gotten a bad meal.  I told him French Canadians are French the way I'm English.  I have English ancestors and I speak the English language, although not the same way the English do.  The food ways of my culture have strayed from those traditional in England. I don't eat bangers and mash or spotted dick.

Having been in the business, I know writers are oppressed by deadlines, and under pressure to find something to say.  When I read that driving to Montreal is like visiting Paris without the airfare, I roll my eyes.  They speak French in Montreal, but Paris it ain't.

In Canada French cooking is an imported cuisine the same way it is in Boston or Dallas.  Like my reader, I've had some disappointments. On my latest visit, I hit the jackpot because I chose a local delicacy for which the city has become known - smoked beef.  

When you get to my age, you've been wrong so many times, you get so you expect it. I didn't think you could get great food on Prince Edward Island.  After all, who ever heard of P.E.I .cuisine?  I predicted that my visit was certainly not going to be gastro-tourism.  I'd heard it is nice there, but at mealtime I expected to be underwhelmed.

I was pleasantly not surprised to find I'd added one more faulty prediction to my lengthening list. Nice is an appropriate adjective for PEI.  It's an island of rolling farmland.  There are fields of corn, but it isn't Iowa.  These are family farms.   There are lovely beaches, a lighthouse or two, and very little else to attract crowds.  The people are friendly.

Nothing these days is trendier than locavore cuisine, but on Prince Edward Island it's just what they've always had.  Why would they go elsewhere to get ingredients?  Of course the farming is sustainable. It has to be.  Since you're on an island, the seafood is fresh.  The cooking is simple, but what better way to treat such amazing food?

We had enjoyed an absolutely stellar vacation, but it was nearly over. Everything had gone right, and we had even had a few serendipitous extras that were highlights of the trip.

The ride home was also a part of the vacation. We always enjoy riding the Southwest Chief. It has great views, it's a big, spacious train, and the vibe is the best of all the trains we have ridden.

That's no idle observation. Lorna and I have ridden virtually all of Amtrak's long-distance trains: the Lake Shore Limited, the Sunset Limited, the Crescent, the Empire Builder, the California Zephyr, the Coast Starlight, and the Southwest Chief. We have ridden a number of them several times, and we agree the Southwest Chief is the most fun to be on. This trip was no different.

We arrived very late back in Los Angeles - after midnight - and we were hungry. Fortunately the City of Angels doesn't close down after dark like many of the places we'd visited since San Francisco, and we were able to get a fine "breakfast" at 12:30am not far from where we stayed. 

The next morning, bleary-eyed but not hungry, we raced to Long Beach to catch the ferry to Catalina Island, our last major West Coast destination. After an hour of comparatively smooth sailing, we entered another world.

Catalina Island is like no place else that we've ever been, and Avalon, the biggest town on the island is unique and beautiful.

The closest comparison in New England would be Martha's Vineyard: it's a major tourist destination and the ferries are full, the population depends upon the tourist trade, and the scenery is worth the visit. There are plenty of wealthy homes not far from the throng of tourists on the beaches and boat tours.  

When we finally left the broad western horizon of the Pacific Ocean behind us, we had good incentive to cross the rugged coastal hills to the valleys of the wine country. It's a gorgeous area everywhere you look, fine for driving and exploring down roads that barely appear (or don't appear) on the maps. Drive by hunch! This is no place for a GPS. GPS devices come with built-in serendipity destroyers.

We have been to the Wine Country several times, and each time we get better at it. The first time, back before the turn of the century, we drove up the Napa Valley, visited some wineries and tested their wares, and thought it fun. On the next visit we planned ahead and drove up the Sonoma Valley, dutifully stopping at whichever winery we had on our list, checking them off as if we were still at work.