Live Well

When you live in Maine, you live well.  Life here is solid and simple, and the pace is slower than most places.  Sometimes there are moments when I feel this sense of wellness very palpably, and the most recent moment happened at Live Well Farm.  For Grey's Anatomy fans, this is significant: Patrick Dempsey's mother owned Live Well Farm not long ago.

The new owners have transformed the property, which is just a quarter of a mile from our home in Harpswell, into an event venue with sleeping accommodations for about a dozen people. Both the barn and the house can seat many for a meal and celebration.  My favorite feature in the barn is a piece of driftwood lovingly reclaimed from Popham Beach and transformed into a twinkly chandelier.

 

My kids, my new puppy, and I went to the farm for the Harpswell Fire and Rescue Full Moon Barn Dance a few weeks ago, and that live well feeling was palpable.  The evening air was clear and cool as dogs and puppies leapt joyfully and got into a fair amount of mischief concerning potato chips and hot dogs; fiddles played as the moon rose; friends and neighbors sipped icy beer and plastic cups of red wine and caught up on the local gossip; kids ran through fields and tried their hands at badminton.

 

Patty and Scott Ruppert have done an amazing job with Live Well Farm, and we wish them well as they grow their new business.

 

Going Upbeat

Five years ago, The Brunswick Inn began a wonderful relationship with the Bowdoin International Music Festival.  We are now the official Inn of the festival, so many of our summer guests are either faculty or the parents of festival students.  We love welcoming them: they fill the house with music!

Linda Chesis

This year we are pleased to host flutist Linda Chesis as a guest at the Inn once again.  Linda is the founder and artistic director of the Cooperstown Summer Music Festival and is on the faculty of the Manhattan School of Music.  She will be an artist-in-residence for weeks one and four of the festival, and we look forward with great anticipation to her performance of Debussy's Sonata for Flute, Viola, and Harp this Wednesday evening.

The Inn is the sponsor of this year's Wednesday Upbeat! performance series, and we are excited to be trying something new after four great years of sponsoring the Monday Night Sonata series.  Join us after the performance each week for an opportunity to meet the artists and other members of the festival community while enjoying complimentary hors d'oeuvres and a cash bar.  We're going Upbeat!

Congratulations Alane!

This past Saturday night I had the pleasure of catering Alane Callahan's wedding to Ken Crowe.  Alane has worked at the Inn for 3 years and has taken over the event planning for that ever-expanding part of the business.  She has mastered the art of discovering just what a guest envisions for a party and creates the perfect plan to help realize that vision.  She did an amazing job for her own wedding--the decor at the Mere Point Yacht Club was spectacular, and the feel of the entire event was intimate and easy-going with special surprise details at every turn.  I loved the ball jars labelled with the names of all the children lined up with red-striped straws for sipping lemonade.  I loved the twinkling white lights that lined the rustic beams of the ceiling.  I loved the food she chose: tapas in honor of Ken's Guatamalan heritage.  Guests feasted on fire-roasted salsa and fresh guacamole; skirt steak and roasted potatoes with aioli; skewers of prosciutto-wrapped melon, black olives, manchego, grape tomatoes, and chili-lime chicken bites; and paella. I loved the skiff filled with ice-cold beer.  I loved that they splurged on a can't-sit-still 8-piece dance band.  And after my work was done, I really loved the mojito, muddled to order with real lime and fresh mint.  Best wishes, Alane and Ken.  May your life together be as beautiful as the moon that rose over your reception.

Unsung Heroes

Teacher of the Year Sarah Borofsky

          with her husband Jacob at the Inn

In two days, my husband will retire after 40 years of teaching and administrating in independent high schools. We will celebrate with family and friends at the Inn, not only to acknowledge his transition into what I hope will be a well-deserved rest but also to acknowledge his incredible dedication to a profession that was neither lucrative nor glamorous.  He taught because he loves to teach; he taught because he loves high school kids.  "They're funny," he would often say.  "And they're honest."  No small things.

In the May 11th issue of The New York Times, Steve Almond wrote a wonderful piece about what we worship and honor today.  "Americans worship athletes and moguls and movie stars, those who possess the glittering gifts we equate with worth and happiness. . . . We might be willing to watch a drama about a meek high-school science teacher, but only if he degenerates into a homicidal meth tycoon."  Funny not only because the concept of Breaking Bad was absurd, but funny, too, because of what it says about American values. 

So because they do not get the credit they deserve, I tried to find a way to say thank you to the teachers out there who tirelessly take our youth into their hands and try to help them find their passions and their strengths and who thereby have our future in their hands as well.  Congratulations, Sarah Brokofsky, Cumberland County Teacher of the Year.  Sarah and her husband will enjoy a weekend at the Inn as our guests.  If we had a red carpet, we'd roll it out for her.

Transition

So here we are, full speed ahead into the school year.  It's dark now by 7:30, the mornings have been chilly, and the traffic has all but disappeared to make room for the school buses.  We have said goodbye to the summer tourists, the Maine State Music Theater  fans, and the Bowdoin International Music Festival musicians. 

In their place we welcome back our Bowdoin College families, many of whom we know well after so many visits.  In fact, we welcomed former Bowdoin parents just last week: their son graduated last year but they still love to come, and we were so happy to see them.  We grabbed a great meal at The Dolphin out in Harpswell and I was genuinely surprised that they had never been there.  It reminds me that it takes years to discover the many wonderful spots in this part of Maine.



The Dolphin Restaurant

There is excitement in the air as a new school year begins, with all the hope that is wrapped up in a fresh start.  We look forward to all the new Bowdoin families that will come through, the professors and performers we will get to meet, the victories and defeats we will watch on the playing fields.  The vibrancy of a college town makes the transition from summer to fall a bit easier, I have discovered.  I will miss those long, easy summer days but love the thought of another Brunswick fall.  Before you come, be sure to check the Bowdoin calendar for lectures, performances and games!

Surprise!

I can always tell, even from the kitchen, what the energy of a party is like, and this past Friday night was one of the best parties I can remember here at the Inn.  We had 100 guests who all managed to keep the party a secret so that the guest of honor could enjoy what looked like the shock of a lifetime on the occasion of her 70th birthday.  Everyone enjoyed a beautiful spiral ham; orzo with roasted vegetables from the  Brunswick Farmers Market; smoked salmon; a cheese board with some lovely new additions from Treats, a favorite store of mine in Wiscasset; scallops wrapped in our applewood smoked bacon; pate, spanikopita, fresh fruit, and more.  But it can't be just about the food, so Happy Birthday, Rachael! It was wonderful to feel the energy of people who were clearly so happy to be celebrating your life.  (A special thank you, too, to courtney elizabeth for the fabulous photos!)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Random Acts of Kindness

When I was a teacher at Loyola School in Manhattan years ago, one of my students lost her college-age brother in a car accident.  I am not a Facebook devotee, but occasionally I take a peek and see her posts, which often refer to her random acts of kindness.  There are so many people who would have become jaded after such a terrible loss, but instead this young woman does random acts of kindness like clockwork.  She pays for the next customer's coffee, leaves a few dollars hidden behind an item in the Dollar Store, or sends someone a package "just because."

Stuff like this is great to read about, but it packs a punch when it happens to you.  I have recently been the recipient of a random act of kindness/paying it forward combo.  Someone who appreciates the Inn and what we do is helping me with a project, and I wouldn't be able to do it without him.  It feels amazing when people are kind and generous and thoughtful and selfless.  So much of what happens around us can seem so automated and techie and fast, like we're all less human than we are meant to be.  I am glad to know that today I am wrong about that, and the Inn will be that much nicer for it.