Fog, Food and Henry the Eagle

Although the fog has dominated much of our world during the past few days, it is a gorgeous Thursday morning here in Winter Harbor, Maine. Whether the weather has anything to do with business who can say but there have certainly been plenty of folks coming into the cafe lately for sandwiches, take out food and of course pastries, ice cream and fudge.

Timing in such matters is everything.

Pastries and coffee are the big draw in the morning, although a few folks will pick up freshly baked bread to take home. By midday attention starts to shift toward sandwiches and salads from the deli case as people start giving serious thought to lunch and even beyond.

By mid- to late-afternoon you can almost see the shift in direction when people enter the cafe: rather than heading toward the back of the cafe where the deli case is and where they would place orders for sandiwches once inside the door they slide sideways and head toward the ice cream.

By early evening traffic falls off somewhat although the evening can bring a burst of activity as people drop by looking for an easy dinner to take home and put on their table with no fuss and no muss.

Just like we did yesterday.

That's right. Last evening we were planning on going out to eat in at Bunker's Wharf restaurant in Birch Harbor, just a few miles from here. Although the restaurant has had a superb reputation locally they have been closed all season and when word got around that they were going to reopen you could just feel the excitement in the air (things are a bit quiet here after all), that at last the Schoodic peninsula was going to get one of its (few very few) better restaurants back.

Word quickly got around that the food is good, the service great and the prices reasonable. Folks who have gone to Bunker's Wharf so far have been very pleased with the results. And word has a way of making a difference as we found out when we dropped by last evening about half past seven and found the place packed. It's in a beautiful location right along the water and the parking lot was full, a clear indication of what we could expect inside.

Since we were tired and hungry after working all day -- Susie is still baking nonstop all day long and I worked the better part of another person's shift who got scheduled incorrectly -- and rather than wait a half hour or longer we just made reservations for this Friday and left.

So we headed off to Gerrish's and bought some of Rosemary's great food out of the deli case. We can now see what the big fuss is all about coming to Gerrish's for food to take home. We tried Rosemary's chicken, potato, orzo and mozzarella and grape tomato salads. Delicious!

Finally, unbeknownst to us there is an eagle (or eagle family) living near Winter Harbor. Locally referred to us "Henry" and "Henrietta" because they hang out along the shores of Henry Cove looking for mackerel (so I'm told) Susan first spied "Henry" the other day, then I did on two other occasions and sure enough we both watched him sitting on a pile of nearby lobster traps for hours on end.

Amazing.

Wish you were here,

Steve