From away...

Life-long Mainers refer to people who live elsewhere as being, "From Away."  If they are visitors, this is normally stated as a simple fact, but if they live here, there is a bit more disdain used in the tone.  For example, "That house down the road sold. The new people are 'From Away.'" (As a side note, once you are from away, you will remain that way forever more. It does not matter if you moved to Maine when you were a toddler and are now pushing 80, the label remains.  I once read something on this topic that went like this, "Just because a cat had kittens in the oven doesn't make them biscuits."  Unless you were born here, you are not a Mainer.)

Last night we had supper guests from away. FAR away.  Germany.  And though they spoke far better English than we spoke their language, there was not a lot of back and forth conversation going on.  They are in Maine visiting my friend Marion, and they wanted to try lobster.  Marion is not a seafood kind of woman, so she asked us if we would mind cooking up some crustaceans and showing her friends how to eat them.  An excuse for lobster?  Sign us UP!

The weather was damp and sticky, so Chris lit a fire in the fire ring to cheer things up...

The guests wanted to see how this whole lobster cooking thing worked. Chris obliged...

Normally when we cook lobster we start off with corn fresh from the local farm, and cook the lobsters while we have the corn as a "starter."  Since this is a messy meal, we normally eat out at the picnic table, but there were too many people to sit comfortably there, and the weather wasn't all that great, so moved things indoors.

The corn didn't disappoint and Marion translated that her friends said we had ruined them for German corn.  When the lobsters made an appearance, there were sounds of appreciation...

Pantomimed lobster cracking sessions followed.

 And every tender, tasty morsel was devoured.

We followed up with rum cake topped with local berries and whipped cream.

Every bit of the supper was sweet.  I hope our guests will carry a happy memory home with them.