Tea and Popovers Anyone?

Willowbrook

With this cold winter weather I thought you might be up for this. After years of perfecting the recipe, we first tried this in "Willowbrook" our old house in Maine. We have tried various combinations of ingredients, cooking methods, and everything from outdoor ovens to convection ovens. We thought we had finally found the secret from a server at the Jordan Pond House. She let us know that they baked them in convection ovens. We tried it, but it didn't work. I think this recipe works because of the jumbo eggs and the special instructions. Enjoy!!

Popovers

1 1/4 cups milk
1 1/4 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 jumbo eggs

Preheat oven to 425 degrees
Generously grease popover cups--1/2 pat of butter per cup.

Pour milk into medium size mixing bowl. I have also heard that ingredients should be at room temperature.

Add flour and salt

With rotary beater or wire whisk beat until well blended ( I have to say that I blend as little as I possibly can and think that if you blend too much the popovers are tough. So do it gently!!!)

Add the eggs one at a time. Beating in each until blended

Pour batter into popover cups, filling three fourths full. Do not scrape the bowl.(Tough Batter?)

Bake at 425 for 20 minutes.

Reduce oven to 325 and continue baking 15 to 20 minutes or until golden brown. Check how your oven works because it may only take 20 minutes. I sometimes cook at 425 for 10 minutes then reduce to 325 and check it after 10 minutes.

Painting in Maine

I was organizing last summer's photos when I came across this one of me in Surry August. After three days of hazy skies I couldn't wait to get out and paint the sunny morning.

Yet another book about Maine!

Happy New Year everybody!

While looking around for a Monhegan Island guide in my library's card catalog I saw this book, A Year on Monhegan Island by Julia Dean, and requested it. It had to go through inter-library loan and took a few months to arrive. I read it in about five minutes, and that included gazing at the photos. Not sure why, the writing was good and the photos too, but the book seemed unsatisfactory somehow. I finished and thought "Yeah, so...?" It is junior non-fiction, aimed at kids, but I can't imagine any kids finding this book very interesting. Seems like the kind of souvenir book a Monhegan-vacationing Grandparent might buy for a grandchild...more of a gesture than a real treat.

However, I don't mean to say it was awful, far from it. The idea of it was good, and oh how I'd love to be commissioned do my own version! If any of you own this book, or get it somehow, let me know what you think. Maybe I was in a bad mood when I read it...or my long wait had built up hopes of something rarer and finer than reality.