Maine Classics

WHEN WE FIRST CAME TO MAINE AND OPENED ARROWS IN A RUSTIC colonial farmhouse in 1988, we never thought that two dozen years later we’d have two more restaurants, more than just a few awards, and international acclaim for our gardens and our cuisine. We dreamed about it, of course, but it was tough going at first so it all seemed far away. We also never thought we’d finally feel like “Mainers,” but we do. Many New Englanders will say we’re still “from away,” and we can accept that; after all, there have been true Maine families here for centuries. Through getting to know the hard-working people who helped us find the ingredients we needed to start our first restaurant (and who still help us today) and by relying on the old ways and food traditions of Maine to inspire our cuisine, we feel we’ve become a part of the life and landscape of this beautiful state and of New England. That’s why we wrote this book, as an homage to what Maine has given us. In turn, we’re eager to share with anyone who loves Maine or wants to learn about cooking with Maine traditions and the foods that come from here, the wisdom from what we’ve learned in our almost twenty-five years in this wonderful place.

Our three restaurants reflect our connection to New England. At Arrows, we try to cook in the old ways, making all of our dishes from scratch. We use mushrooms foraged in the dark forest near our house and restaurant and cure hams and prosciutto made from pigs raised just a few miles away. We make our own ice cream from milk from nearby dairies and, of course, our garden holds two hundred seventy different kinds of vegetables and herbs. We love to find centuries-old New England recipes and use our own style and the influences from our travels in Southeast Asia and beyond to create something surprising but still familiar. Everything we do at Arrows is taken from that spirit, an echo of the old ways and those artisan food producers who still honor them today.

MC Perkins Cove is in many ways a reflection of that same spirit, but in a much more down-to-earth and straightforward way. Arrows is off the beaten path. It’s an elegant experience and more of a destination restaurant, but MC is smack dab in the middle of the tourist area of Ogunquit, on a rocky shore in gorgeous Perkins Cove. It’s a real American restaurant and, more than that, a Maine restaurant with a view of the ocean where the lobsters and oysters are caught the same day our guests crack them open and then slurp them with gusto. It’s a lively place and we love that vivacious vibe where the lobstermen can feel comfortable having a beer at the end of the day sitting right near a gathering of ladies celebrating a baby shower. The food is still made from scratch, still from our own land and sea, but the feeling is all about celebration.

An hour and a half drive to Burlington, Massachusetts, seems a world away from Maine. Summer Winter at the Marriott Hotel, our latest restaurant, is right in the heart of Boston’s “Silicon Valley,” and our challenge was to plant the seed of authenticity in a place that is emblematic of ferocious modernism. The first step was to create a real, onsite, working garden complete with a greenhouse and a full-time gardener. A kitchen garden at a hotel off a highway is a fairly novel idea, but we had to have it to create the restaurant we wanted, one in which food was valued, made from real ingredients, and grown the right way.

Maine is a beautiful place with mountains to ski and climb, wild rivers still pure enough to drink from, where you can still land a brook trout. The forests are home to deer and quail, ancient apple orchards, and wild onions. And, of course, there’s our gorgeous coast that vacationers flock to every summer, where artists and writers find inspiration, and from which many Mainers make their living. As we’ve explored our awe-inspiring home state over the decades, we’ve come to know that Maine has many facets, and we’ve seen much of its complex and delightful character through its bountiful natural food resources. When we began to set up our restaurant, we needed to find local breads, eggs, meats, and more. It was tough going. Good ingredients were hard to find. Even buying a bottle of extra virgin olive oil was an ordeal and forget about cured hams. So, we set out to find what we needed in order to be able to make things like prosciutto ourselves. As the years have gone by, more people see the joys and benefits of eating local foods, growing your own vegetables, and supporting the regional food ways. The term “farm-to-table” wasn’t around when we first started, but that was just what we did—brought ingredients from our own farm and from nearby farms right to the Arrows table. Now, we can offer so many of the things we learned through the recipes in this book, in simple dishes made from artisanal and local foods.

The seafood and lobster for our restaurants comes from the chilly, rough seas right nearby, brought to us by the people who caught it—often that very day—and we’re dedicated to making sure our sea life stays in those waters for eons to come. Much of our cheese and butter comes from local artisan cheese makers who are constantly improving the selection and flavor of cheese made from grass-grazing Maine cows, preserving and evolving an ancient art. Now we have so many wonderful artisan bakers throughout the state, and there’s a new breed of home chef who will trek out into the woods to find fiddleheads, morel mushrooms, and ramps each spring.

More Mainers are setting up root cellars to take advantage of their garden’s delicious seasonal harvest even in our harsh and long winter months. Gardens abound now, from small patches beside an apartment building to acres of fertile fields near barns and pens of sheep. Our farmers’ markets are simply the place to be on the weekends. More people every day are taking advantage of Maine’s offerings: the blueberries, milk, mushrooms, and apples. We also have maple syrup, stone fruit, honey, and raspberries. Our oysters and lobsters are legendary. We’ve been so blessed to be a part of helping people find their way back to the old ways, raising their own food, cooking with simplicity. It all reminds us of the way we both grew up, pickling cucumbers in the summer to save for winter, stopping at the ice cream stand on a hot summer day, making applesauce, and braising the family meal using root vegetables right from the garden. It just tastes so much better when it’s fresh from the land or sea.

As we’ve explored Maine, we’ve also explored its history. We’re absolutely fascinated by how connected Maine has been to the world even centuries ago. Foods that became a part of our everyday supper table came from far away, brought to us on clipper ships that went around the world. Mainers in Bath and Brunswick built those far-reaching ships, and the exotic spices and herbs, the curry and ginger they brought back found their way to our tables. When we cook a good old Maine or New England recipe, we can touch history. When we put a forkful in our mouths, we wonder why it has molasses, how hominy is made, which tribe of indigenous people taught the original Mainers to find oysters and cook them in a pit filled with seaweed in the ground. There’s always a story. There’s always an adventure, a romance, and sometimes tragedy. These stories infuse our cooking and inspire us to explore our own culinary legacies in a place filled with the beauty of mountains, forests, fields, and rocky shores.

The recipes are classically Maine, and the stories here are all about Maine. The ingredients and combinations come from the history and legacy of Maine. They come from the land and the sea of Maine, and from the people who work on that land and sea. But they also come from the Maine inside us, from the place where we learned how to grow our own food and create dishes from what Maine has given us in the past two decades. We’re honored to share what we’ve learned through these recipes—the simple, fresh, honest, and delicious food from our hearts and from our home.

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