How to Cook a Moose (44 page)

4 slices bread

2 lbs. ground moose (good grass-fed beef would work, too)

(
Note
: If using moose, grate 1/4 cup of organic beef fat into the moose meat.)

1 cup dried black trumpet mushrooms, or 2 cups fresh

1 head of garlic, minced

1/4 cup minced parsley

1/2 cup grated Pecorino

1/4 cup raisins soaked in equal parts sherry

1/4 cup toasted pine nuts

1 1/2 tsp kosher salt

20 turns rough black pepper

4 large eggs

1/2 cup bread crumbs

1 glug of olive oil

1 cup boiling water

Good news for non-foragers, city dwellers, and off-season moose and mushroom enthusiasts everywhere: I
really
prefer using dried mushrooms in this recipe because you soak the mushrooms first in boiling water for a good hour, and then, once hydrated, place bread in a bowl and pour the mushroom liquid over bread. The soaking liquid gets incorporated back into the meatballs, which gives them a rich flavor.

Soak the mushrooms as indicated above, adding mushroom liquid to the bread. While bread is soaking, mince mushrooms and garlic. Sauté together lightly in a heavy pan coated lightly with
olive oil, and salt and pepper to taste. Once fragrant, add the sherry from the soaking raisins and cook off the alcohol.

When the liquid has evaporated, but ingredients are not dry, remove pan from heat and add raisins. Stir together, then let mixture cool.

While that little pan of heaven is cooling, turn to the bread in the bowl and crumble it up with your fingers. Chunky is okay. Add the ground moose, cheese, pine nuts, eggs, and then the cooled mushroom-raisin mixture. Season once again with black pepper and salt. Add bread crumbs last to adjust moistness to taste. The mixture should be moist but not sloppy.

Shape and roll mixture by hand into 18 to 20 meatballs. Bake on a lined sheet for 25 to 30 minutes at 325 degrees F. You want the meatballs to be juicy and yielding, but cooked through. Serves 4

Serving suggestions
: Try not to eat them all straight from the pan. I really love to serve these with a very soft boiled egg and braised greens. Another take would be to create a “one-pot wonder”: Use a nicely buttered cast-iron pan to fry the meatballs, then add egg and greens. Cook together and enjoy. These meatballs freeze well once par-baked. I really don't recommend a red sauce here, as it just tramples the mushrooms. A little butter or olive oil and more Pecorino is enough.

Now try to not go out and get the stuff to make these right now. Hell, I think we'll make them this weekend.

After dinner, Ladleah poured digestifs from a Mason jar over ice: Grand Marnier steeped in fresh-picked strawberries and put up last June. The resulting liqueur was addictively delicious and hot pink.

“This looks like what sorority girls drink to get into trouble,” said Shane, chortling.

We stayed up talking and laughing until eleven p.m. I'd arrived at four o'clock, which meant we'd been talking for seven straight hours, and I still felt there was so much more to say, to learn from them, to talk about.

They showed me a couple of videos—a white-water kayaking video shot on the Little White Salmon River, and a cartoon by an outfit called O'Chang about a typical Mainer who talked in the thick Downeast accent. They'd been telling stories about local characters for the last hour or so, and the O'Chang cartoon reminded them again of the guy at the marine supply store with the jerky recipe, who apparently always offered you deer jerky that looked like it was five years old from a body-temperature plastic bag in his pants pocket; he also liked to tell a story of how he used to work with fiberglass without any respiratory protection and “that shit would bring your IQ right down to room temperature.”

They told me about a registered Maine guide named Leaky Boot who could have been Willie Nelson's identical twin; the local politicians who'd given them grief about their business zoning, so Ladleah ran for local office and became a selectman herself, and is now the boss of those very local politicians; the tricky relationship between native Mainers and wealthy people from away who buy farms here and hire them.

Before we said good night, Ladleah said, “You need to write about the real Mainers. Write about what this place really is, not the bullshit image people buy into, not the rich people. The real Mainers, the real place.”

I told her about Lindsay's idea to start a magazine that would showcase handmade products made by local people, beautifully photographed, with written stories alongside.

“Great idea,” she said. “We need that.”

I slept so deeply that night in their comfortable guest bed, buried deep in blankets and duvets, my head nestled in soft pillows. I didn't wake up until almost eight o'clock, and felt as if I'd missed half the day. Ladleah had already fed all the animals, dealt with her e-mail and the day's paperwork, and was now on her way down to the boat barn because a two-hundred-pound mast had just been delivered, and she and Shane had to winch and hoist it against the side of the addition to store it.

I carried my mug of coffee outside into the warm summer morning and wandered around their property, looking in on the chickens and ducks, the sheep. The dogs kept me company. I went back by the beehives; the bees were active by now, as the sun got hotter, so I kept a respectful distance.

When Ladleah and Shane reappeared, we drank another pot of coffee in the kitchen and talked for two more hours. Before I left, Ladleah took me down to the greenhouse with a couple of quart containers, and we filled them with tomatoes. She packed them in a bag with four packages of frozen moose meat, a bag of Wabanaki heirloom hand-milled polenta from her neighbor, just-put-up jars of piccalilli, zucchini relish, chipotle salsa, and pickled garlic scapes, four cured bulbs of garlic, and a bunch of sweet purple grapes from their vine.

I hugged them both good-bye and thanked them fervently for their openness and generosity, their willingness to let a stranger into their lives to take nine dense pages of notes and ask them all kinds of impertinent questions and poke around their land.

“You're going to get that hay today,” I told Ladleah just before I drove away. “Today is the day. I feel it.”

I drove out of their driveway, past the boat, feeling warmhearted and inspired and happy.

During the two-hour drove back to Portland, I ate almost an entire quart of warm, ripe, soulfully delicious tomatoes while I listened to two writer friends discuss
Olive Kitteridge
on Maine Public Radio's book club show (a couple of times, I said aloud, “Excellent point!” or “Nicely put!”). I retraced yesterday's route through the Midcoast region, winding through Camden, inland along Route 1, over the bridge to Wiscasset, slowing down for the permanent traffic near Red's, past coves and inlets and farmland.

As I drove I thought about my life here, how happy I was—not an easy, superficial happiness, but the quiet internal daily joy of living in a culture based on authenticity and integrity, among people who valued hard work over glamour, honesty over style, quality over quantity.

It was an old-fashioned value system, one based on survival and sustenance, and it was reflected in Maine's food. Potatoes, blueberries, moose and maple, foraged mushrooms, lobster and clams: The ingredients from this place were perfect just as they grew in their natural state. They hardly needed anything done to them.

The same went for the people I'd met; there was an innate quality to all of them, a deep integrity that needed no dressing up or special presentation, that seemed to emanate from the land itself. I was even affected by it: I felt like a different person, a better one, since I'd come here just a few years ago.

I thought of a quote I'd read by John Bunker, Maine's foremost apple expert, when he tried to describe why he'd fallen in love with Maine at the age of eleven, then moved here as an adult and never left: “I just had a sense that this was the right place. I think maybe there was a recognition of something that spoke to the deepest part of my humanity.”

Back in Portland, I turned the car up State Street to Congress, over to Walker, up to Brackett, into the alleyway, into the garage. And I was home.

Midcoast Tamale Pie

Simmer 6 boneless, skinless chicken thighs on very low heat, partially covered, for 40 minutes, in just enough water to cover, plus 1 inch, with 6 garlic cloves, 2 bay leaves, 1/2 tsp dried oregano, salt and pepper to taste. Pull the chicken from the broth and let it cool, then shred it into bite-size pieces with a fork and set aside. Reserve the broth, discarding the bay leaves.

Meanwhile, in 2 batches in the blender, liquefy a quart of very ripe heirloom tomatoes with 2/3 cup of chipotle salsa or a whole can of chipotle peppers in adobo sauce, plus a chopped raw onion and the garlic cloves from the chicken broth. You will have a thick, creamy, pinkish-brown liquid. Pour it into a large skillet. Add 1 grated large zucchini and about 1 tsp each paprika and cumin. Simmer on low heat, stirring often, until it thickens, about 20 minutes.

Add the shredded chicken to the skillet and mix well. Let it continue to simmer for 10 minutes, then turn off the heat.

Meanwhile, in 6 cups of the chicken broth, cook 2 cups of polenta (hand-milled from a neighbor's heirloom corn, ideally, but any kind will do), stirring frequently, till it thickens, about 10 minutes.

Pour the chicken with chipotle-tomato sauce into a large shallow glass baking dish, pour the thickened polenta over it, smooth the surface so it's even, and bake it uncovered at 350 degrees for 40 minutes.

Optional
: You can also top it with 1 cup of grated pepper-jack cheese before baking; it's fantastic, either way.

Serves 2 people for 4 nights.

Bibliography and Further Reading

The northeast corner seems to have as many writers as it does farmers and fishermen. It would take many pages to list all of the wonderful, riveting books that have been written about this region, so I've contented myself here with the ones that particularly inspired me as I was writing this book. I encourage interested readers to use this list as a jumping-off place to dive deep into the rich sea of the literature of Maine.

Alice Arlen.
She Took to the Woods: A Biography and Selected Writings of Louise Dickinson Rich
(Down East Books, 2000).

Lura Beam.
A Maine Hamlet
(Tilbury House, 2000).

Jean Hay Bright.
Meanwhile, Next Door to the Good Life
(BrightBerry Press, 2003).

Melissa Coleman.
This Life Is in Your Hands
(Harper, 2011).

Trevor Corson.
The Secret Life of Lobsters: How Fisherman and Scientists Are Unraveling the Mysteries of Our Favorite Crustacean
(Harper Perennial, 2005).

Barbara Damrosch and Eliot Coleman.
The Four Season Farm Gardener's Cookbook
(Workman Publishing Company, 2013).

Paul J. Fournier.
Tales from Misery Ridge
(Islandport Press, 2011).

Helen Hamlin.
Nine-Mile Bridge: Three Years in the Maine Woods
(Islandport Press, 2005).