In search of whoopie pies.

I drove up to Maine over Easter weekend. Other than a few long drives on I-80 over the past few years and a wonderful 12 hours I spent wandering around Venice in late 2005, I have never gone somewhere new completely by myself. A last minute four-day holiday weekend and some really cheap rates on a Hertz car were all I needed to get me off the computer and on the road to my first attempt at solo travel.

That, and I had whoopie pies to find.

While there is some debate as to where the whoopie pie actually originated (some say Maine, some say Lancaster County, PA, and still others believe the town of Roxbury, Massachusetts gave birth to the dessert), it is a cold hard fact that the whoopie pie is the official state treat of Maine.

I got to Maine around 5ish on Saturday evening, and after a brief walk on York Beach, I settled in for a tall beer, a warm cup of clam chowder, and the aural pleasure of listening to the fantastic locals' accents at the hotel bar. I considered trying a slice of the blueberry pie that was offered on the menu, but after the beer and soup (and let's be honest: I may have eaten an entire bag of Chex-Mix on the drive up) I was stuffed.

Really, who can think of pie when you have a view like this?

Well-rested after a night of doing absolutely nothing and loving it, I set out into town to find some whoopie pie.

Unfortunately, it was April, and the town was all but completely closed.

Being a New Yorker, I tend to forget that some cities have "off-seasons" in which important things like stores and restaurants and pie shops close for the winter.

Nevertheless, I still managed to catch a glimpse of the country's first lighthouse.

After the Nubbe Lighthouse, I headed north to Ogunquit and the beaches that surrond it.

Just as in York, I found a would-be-charming-and-full-of-pie-had-it-not-been-April little town.

Now I was running out of time. It was after 1pm, and I wanted to be back in New Haven before it got dark (I'm not a big fan of driving at night...yes, I'm old.) I had just enough time to hit one more town on Route 1, but if they were sans-pie as well, I'd be out of luck. So with one last look at the beaches, I put my nose to the grindstone and focused on the pie at hand.

I realize at this point in my story, you're probably thinking "jeeze, Mary, the Internet probably could have helped you in your pie search, didn't you do any research before heading to Maine?!"

The answer is a.) you're right and b.) no, I did not.

I spend my days planning and scheduling other people's crazy lives, and I wanted 24 hours without pre-planning, without sticking to a schedule, without having to stay ten minutes ahead of everyone else.

So I threw caution to the wind and let the fates decide my future. In an existential haze, I headed to Kennebunkport. After declaring this the Fourth Most Fun Town Name To Say (#3 Keokuk.  #2 Sheboygan. #1 Cucamonga) I delighted upon this sign:

Though it looked exactly like Ms. Halpin's 2nd-grade classroom bulletin board, it contained all I needed to know. It belonged to the side wall of H.B. Provisions general store, and was indeed selling whoopie pies.

I hadn't intended to start a trend of buying pies at small-town general stores, but after the success(?) of Santa Fe's Frito Pie, I knew I had to keep on going.

The inside of the the store (like all general stores, I'm beginning to learn) wasn't great. But there were a handful of people sitting at tables and happily consuming food purchased from the store, so that was a good sign. I went over to the deli counter and was a little dismayed to see lots of fresh and expensive lobster rolls, but only a small table of pre-wrapped whoopie pies. I ordered a cup of coffee, grabbed a pie, and headed to a table.

There's not much to a whoopie pie. 2 cake-like rounds with creamy filling sandwiched inside. It's basically as if you took the bottom of a cupcake and put it on the top. Which isn't a bad idea, it's just not...quite...a pie.

Here's the thing. I started this blog because I like pie. If I liked cake, I probably would have started writing about cake. But I don't like cake. I like pie. And while the whoopie pie was well made with moist cake and fluffly filling, it just so happened to be comprised of two things I'm not very fond of. And, it was absolutely gigantic. I had about three bites and was stuffed, regardless of my affinity for the snack.

It's possible that I committed some sort of New England sin, but I threw out the rest of my whoopie pie. Had I a friend with me, we would have split it. But I did not, and I also didn't want to find out how well an unwrapped whoopie pie travelled across state lines in a rental car.


Oh well. Until the next small-town general store.

DIY - Extracts!

While traveling through Denver last month, I was able to make a stop at the fantastic Savory Spice Shop, a little store with a huge selection of delicious and hard-to-find herbs, spices and seasonings.

Savory Spice Shop - Denver, CO

The store sells in bulk, which means that things come cheap. For example, I bought 3 whole Madagascan Vanilla Beans for $5. Whole Foods sells one bean for over $10. My entire purchase (3 different herbs, 2 spices, the 3 vanilla beans and 5 cinnamon sticks) rang in at just over $20.

One of the many knowledgeable staff members 

One of my big plans for everything I bought was to make my own extracts. Waaayyy cheaper than buying pre-made pure extracts and really easy to do, making your own extracts is a fun project for any chef or baker, and they make a great gift - a soon-to-be-married friend invited me over for tea this past weekend, and I gave her and her foodie fiance a set of the extracts as a house-warming/sorry-I-missed-your-bridal-shower-present.

Ingredients 
Dried herbs - I used lavender, rose petals, and hibiscus flowers
Cinnamon sticks
Whole vanilla beans
Glass jars (with lids)
Vodka - bottom shelf vodka is fine. Buy a handle of Fleischmann's, give a toast to your college years, and call it a day.
**There is no set measurements for the above ingredients - it depends on how big your jars are. A good rule of thumb is to use a 3:1 ratio - about 3 parts vodka for every one part of the herb you're extracting.

These used to be hotel-room service condiment jars

How to
For the vanilla extract:

Using a sharp knife, cut a slit down the center of the bean. Leave the ends in tact (kind of like you would pierce a hot dog before putting it in the microwave).

Leave all the other ingredients in tact. Depending on the size of your jar, you might have to bend the vanilla bean or snap the cinnamon stick in half, but keep the herbs as whole as you can.

Fill the bottoms of the each jar with one ingredient each (although if you get creative, feel free to experiment with your own blends and mixes. I didn't combine any of my herbs, but maybe that'll be my next extract project!).

Pour vodka into the jars, filling them to the top. Cap tightly, shake for good measure, and store in a cool, dark place. Shake the ingredients around every few days, but you can pretty much leave them alone. It takes about seven weeks for the vodka to turn into usable extract, so you'll have to wait a little while before you can incorporate this into your cooking. But think of all the recipes you can find and plan out while you wait!


I made a set for myself using the smaller condiment jars, but I found spice jars at Ikea that fit beautifully into one of their small metal baskets (or maybe the good folks at Ikea intended for that to happen. I can never figure that place out). They were the perfect present size, so I added a hand-written label and a little bow, and delivered it with a smile.

New Haven Pizza Wars - Abate's

I am spending the month of April living in the delightfully collegiate town of New Haven, CT, which means a few things:
   1.) I am soaking up so many Yale brain waves that my intellect has increased tenfold. I am sure to go back to my standard level of thought-processing the second I cross back into New York.
   2.) Due to archaic liquor sale laws, the state of Connecticut does not sell alcohol on Sundays. Therefore, I have to remember to purchase on Saturday all the alcohol I think I'll want to drink on Sunday. This is harder than it seems.
   3.) I will be writing about the phenomenon know as the New Haven Pizza Wars, because this is a blog about pie, and after a good mixed berry, there's nothing quite like a slice of pizza pie. That, and New Haven is decidedly not known for their dessert pies.

According to this Wikipedia article, the Neapolitan-style pizza found in New Haven is known locally as apizza. It is characterized by a thin, crispy crust that is topped with tomato sauce, oregano, and a sprinkle of romano cheese, and baked in a brick or high-temperature oven. Mozzarella is considered to be a topping (if you order a "plain" pizza, don't expect it to come covered in cheese). The apizza dates back to the early 1920's, when a man named Frank Pepe started serving "tomato pies" at his shop on Wooster Street. Many others followed suit, and to this day the area serves as New Haven's "Little Italy" and is dotted with gelaterias, delis, and pizzerias.

This afternoon, I found myself on Wooster St. after a failed attempt to walk to Ikea (after living in New York City, I'm alway shocked to discover just how much of the rest of the country is NOT pedestrian-friendly). Disappointed in my lack of Sweedish meatballs, I decided to find out what this apizza buzz was really about and stopped in the first place I saw.

Abate's seems at first to be the annoying younger brother of the apizza dynasty. Whereas the other big-time players all opened their doors in the 1920's-1930's, Abate's wasn't born until 1992 but nevertheless totes itself as one of the main contenders. Having eaten my first bite of apizza only a few hours ago, I cannot compare Abate's with the others (spoiler alert...it's entirely probable that I'll try as many New Haven pizzas as possible and then declare a winner at the end of my time here...), but I CAN say that I was incredibly surprised and impressed with what I ordered.

Mozzarella and mushroom apizza from Abate's

First of all, this was the closest I've come in all of New England to eating a pizza that tastes like my beloved Chicago-style-thin-crust. Only the very center of the pie had a limp crust (as opposed to New York-style slices that you can literally fold in half), the rest was crispy and crunchy, and actually had traces of the cornmeal that's spread on the counter before rolling the dough. The sauce was sweet and tangy. The mushrooms were fresh. The cheese, though minimal, was tasty.

What impressed me most, though, was the crust. Anyone can spread sauce and cheese on some baked bread and call it a pizza. Not everyone can make a homemade crust in which you can actually see the striations of dough and taste traces of the cornmeal that's spread on the counter before it's rolled. I am a fan of such crusts.

This pizza also was pretty moderately priced - with tax and tip, the 12" mozzarella + one topping pizza cost $12 - and I brought half of it home for dinner. I'm pretty excited to try all the other apizza places that New Haven has to offer; if they taste anything like Abate's, I will certainly not go hungry in this city.