First day of fall in New England

and it's time to celebrate by taking a little trip to one of the many used book stores in the area.

After a lovely drive along the Connecticut river on a winding country road through fields where pumpkins and squash were being harvested and turning left at Montague Center just past the village green, I found a little bridge and then this old mill - just stuffed full of lots and lots of books - heaven !

Lots of cozy chairs and sofas invite you to get comfy, have a cup of tea and enjoy the rushing water just outside the window while you try to decide how to reduce the stack of books to a manageable size to take home.

I can't think of a better way to welcome the new season !

And now,

we return to our regularly scheduled program

The Greek Cruise

Episode One : The Ship

Tea is served on deck or in the Lounge where a grand piano accompanies the genteel tinkle of tea cups being placed on saucers


Our luxurious living room, doors lead out on to a veranda complete with chairs and a table, where tea can also be served, as well as any other little nosh you might fancy.


The pool deck, where there is a grill and a bar , but tea is also to be had.

The dessert buffet - in the center is a castle made entirely of dark and white chocolate. It is the size of a small bungalow in a modest subdivision of Smalltown, USA. Drink of choice ? Tea, of course !

Oh,yeah, in case you were wondering - there was lots of other stuff to drink besides tea ( the bar opened at 9AM and closed in the wee hours ) , it's just that I loved teatime so much....

Stay tuned for tomorrow's episode : The Sights !

Busy,busy,busy...

We cruised, we toured, we island hopped in the Mediterranean and now we're back and still sorting through hundreds of pictures. Come back in a day or so and we'll share some of the most amazing pictures with you.

The Acropolis

After climbing the steep hill up to the Acropolis, we entered through the Propylae and saw the Parthenon for the first time. What an imposing structure, even with all the scaffolding all over it.

My favorite temple is the Erechteion, however. Notice that the columns now have Ionic capitals and are much slimmer and more graceful. The whole temple is just lovely, its feminity underscored by the wonderful karyatids which gaze out over the city of Athens.

This is how high the sacred rock of the Acropolis rises above the city.

Next stop, the ancient Agora at the foot of the Acropolis, where the public life of Athens took place and where Socrates, Aristotle, Demosthenes, Xenophon and St. Paul instructed in the stalls of the building below. Many of the great debates of Athenian democracy were held here. The Agora was marketplace, administrative center and THE place to hang out in the 6th century BC.

For now, however, I must say " καληνύχτα " ( that's good-night to you ) , we must go to bed so we can get up early for our last day here in Athens. What to do - more Agora, both Greek and Roman ? or the National Museum with priceless treasures from the ancient world ( gold mask of Telemachus anyone ? )

Time is just zipping along and getting short- tomorrow we also board our ship for the beginning of The Cruise ! There is so much to do and see here, I haven't talked yet about the food ( yummy ), the people ( fun to watch and very pleasant ) and the amazing breakthrought that happened to me late this afternoon in an alley - I am beginning to be able to read Greek !!

6:30 AM

Yup, still there...

Just checking ....

Bibliomania

We came, we saw and we had a terrific time. The Book Barn in Niantic is definitely worth a trip ! There's not only a huge barn full of books, there are also numerous outbuildings (as you can see above in the bosky dell - yes, the bosky dell. This is a literary post, after all. ) These outbuildings house more books, of course, in every genre under the sun, 350,000 books to be precise. If you don't find a book to please you here, you're a hopeless case.

We found lots to please us - see bookstack above. And just in case you feel faint after perusing all those books, there are lots of nooks and crannies - inside and out - where you can sit down with a cup of tea and some cookies to revive you , all courtesy of the management.

Combine all of the above with a perfect early fall day of blue skies, sunshine and just enough nip in the air to require a light sweater and you have the beginning of a great vacation.

Could this be it ?

Our new summer place in Maine ? A small saltwater farm , with an old house , near, no almost in, a small fishing village at the end of a peninsula. The lobster boats go right past our very own cove which has a sandy beach - a rarity in Maine.

The house can just be glimpsed between the trees.

There's even a secret pond hidden away in the woods.

There's lots to discuss and ponder on our long drive home tomorrow !

Dedicated to

all of you who had to stay home .
Having a wonderful time - wish you were here.

Maine is...

buoys for lobster pots on a pier in a fishing village,

walking in the deep woods ,

islands and coves and small beaches with big pink granite boulders ,

old farm houses

and new houses on a river , peeking through the trees.




And a surprise in a bathtub ! Thank goodness not real, but made of cast iron - Mainers can be very quirky and quite funny.




There's the ubiquitous moose - this one in a house made out of a barn,

and this one - what's left of it - in a laundry room in the attached barn of an elegant house from 1850.

Not all the critters are large, here's a pretty bug we saw on a walk by the sea.

And, last, one of the many coves, as evening is painting a dreamy scene .

We love Maine !

Ovens, Baking and Bread

Here's the little house in which the blacksmith raised his 10 children. We met the lady who takes care of the flower gardens and she invited me to visit her so she could give me some seeds. Maine is such a friendly place and the people we meet are incredibly kind and generous.

Back at the bread conference, there were happy bakers ; this one made bread out of ancient varieties of wheat , which are being preserved and brought back into circulation by a group in the US and Israel.

We learned to build a clay oven and were able to fire it within 3 hours. Once the fire burned down, we were able to bake a pita bread ! We even mixed the clay for the ovens in that period of time. A great project to do with kids because of the instant gratification and success and the gooey, messy, fun factor.

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Lots of baking demonstrations went on everywhere. Look at those yummy brioches filled with a mixture of ground hazelnuts, sugar, grated orange rind, a touch of cinnamon , topped with chocolate ! Of course we had to sample everything and all of us were laboring under serious carbohydrate overload for the three days of the conference.

We were fed 3 meals a day, most of them cooked in outdoor ovens with locally grown or produced food and all of them totally delicious !

On the left is my favorite bread of all made with - surprise - sprouted wheat and sourdough and on the right is a very fancy art bread with the kneading conference logo in the middle.

We attended lots of lectures and hands-on workshops and learned so many new things, but the very best thing we came away with was a wonderful sense of community and connection with people . There is a definite spiritual element to working with fire, cooking and eating together and working as a group towards a common end. One of the organizers summed it up well as we said good-bye, he said " Remember this feeling of community and being connected when you get back home. Let it cheer you when you're feeling low or discouraged and call us if you need a friend. Know that you are working for something which is taking us in the right direction and will help others by your example. "

We got so much more than knowledge about bread baking and ovens out of this wonderful conference - we made many new and interesting friends and feel satisfied and nourished in body as well as spirit.

Every day there were extraordinary flower arrangements everywhere !

The Kneading Conference

After a few hours of sunshine, the rains started and never let up all day, but the outdoor cooking went on regardless and we had an interesting workshop at Albie Arden's place, who is firing up the oven for our lunch . Albie, incidentally, was one of the founders of the Common Ground Fair which we visited last year and is a dedicated organic gardener with an amazing vegetable garden, as well as an expert in wood-fired ovens.



We built four different kinds of outdoor wood-fired ovens and also talked about the meaning of cooking together : fire as the heart of the community which brings old and young together , providing nourishment not just for our bodies, but for our souls as well.