two dutchies in a foreign land

I never thought twice about taking Ben’s last name. I enjoyed having an ethnic last name being of hispanic heritage, but I was thrilled to be a Mrs. and didn’t care for the hyphenated name mumbo-jumbo. Plus, the other half of my heritage is as Dutch as they come, so it felt like an honor to take on a Dutch name for the remainder of my days.

In West Michigan, everyone and their mother (including mine) is Dutch or has some sort of Dutch background. Pronunciation and spelling of our last name was never an issue because everyone has a name that starts with “De” or ends in “Van” or “Der Van” with a few “z”s and “aan”s thrown in there. You would say your last name over the phone and the person at the other end always knew how to spell it, say it, and most likely had a relative or friend with that same name (then proceeds to ask you if you know said-person). 

Now, we live in New England. The land of the English, Irish, and other riders of the Mayflower. The names now are all Turner, Adams, Littlefield and Sanford, which is fine – easy to pronounce, spell,  and usually the same as local towns. But our name? De-what? How do you spell it? (Then it is usually spelled wrong). 

Of course I don’t mind, I usually tell them it is Dutch and they are generally satisfied with that (along with a confused face because I obviously don’t look Dutch and Ben doesn’t especially look Dutch either.) But I’ve now found that I pronounce it differently than I used to. Saying it more of an Englishy way, so it makes more sense with the spelling. Now I worry that if I ever do move back to Michigan (NOT likely, but just hypothetically) would I be one of those wierd people who changes the pronunciation of their name even though everyone obviously knows how it is supposed to be pronounced? You know, those people who are like “Actually, it is pronounced ‘Garni-yay’, not Garner”. No, it’s not – you are normal just like everyone else. 

Anyway, I guess it just goes along with moving somewhere where you realize no one knows you or your parents in some weird obscure way.

The truth? I don’t mind. It makes you feel kind of special being a bear of another kind, but do I miss Michigan’s Dutchies at all? Maybe just a little bit. Don’t tell anyone though.

Top 5 Things..

…that amuse us about living in Maine:

1. Whoopie pies

Have you ever heard of a whoopie pie? There was this one time like 2 years ago that I saw a Martha Stewart episode where these two old ladies from Maine came on the show and taught Martha how to make the best whoopie pies. From what I could tell, they were some sort of pastry, but I probably lost interest and changed the channel because I still had no idea what they were when we moved here. I found out.

 A whoopie pie, which could also be referred to as “prequel to a fat butt”, is basically a large slab of frosting sandwiched between  two pieces of thick, rich chocolate cake. Did we try one? Well of course we did, at a bakery called “Two Fat Cats” no less. Needless to say — we ended up with brown teeth and two stomach aches.

2. Moxie

Yet another consumable item unique to New England. Now this one I had never heard of either, but sort of wish I hadn’t. Moxie is a soda produced in New Hampshire and sold only (as far as I know) in the North East. Considered a “cure-all” elixir, Moxie is known for its bitter taste and common dislike and is most often associated with Maine because of its Mainer creator and status as Maine’s ”Official soft drink”. Did we try this too? Well of course we did.

It was pretty gross. At least we can say we tried it.

3. Subaru Cars

Mainers LOVE Subarus. I have never seen so many makes and models of Subarus in my entire life. I understand the lure, most are all-wheel drive and they are often hatchbacks or wagons which is convenient to Mainers as they usually need to haul around their outdoor gear and L.L. Bean merchandise, but really. One time, Ben and I thought it would be funny to count how many Subarus we saw on our way home from the grocery store. We counted 18. Did I mention we only live 1.3 miles from the grocery store? Yeah it’s that bad.

4. Personalized license plates

Mainers don’t just put any license plates on their Subarus either. No way, that would be just ludicrous! I would say MOST Mainers have personalized license plates. So many in fact, that when Ben and I first got here it was one of the first things we commented on and even inquired if the service was free of charge — it’s not. Apparently having a vanity plate is just the cool thing to do around here, so cool in fact that the Bureau of Motor Vehicles even offers on online service to search if the vanity plate that you would like is already taken. The plates say all sorts of things, from nick names and business names to random words or phrases like “O SNAP” or “FLANNEL”. Oh Maine…

5. The “Mainah” accent

And last, but definitely not least, the Maine accent. It turns out that people in Maine cannot pronounce the letter “r”. This makes them Mainahs, not Mainers. They tend to “pahk” the “cahh” instead of park the car and often eat “lobstahs”, even at the “bahh” (while drinking a P-B-”Ah”). It never stops being funny.

Oh Maine, you’ve stolen my hahht… plus you’re just WICKED awesome.

local carnivores?

For a quite some time now, Ben and I have been mulling over the idea of becoming vegetarians.

It isn’t that we’re animal activists or that we don’t like meat, we definitely enjoy a big juicy cheeseburger or an innocent turkey sandwich every once in a while. It is this idea of knowing where our food is coming from and not knowing exactly what we’re putting into our bodies that really bugs us. After joining in with the rest of Americans and watching Food, INC. along with reading thought-provoking books such as “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” and “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle”, it seemed pretty obvious that we were ready to either start cutting out meat altogether, or do the research for every slab of chicken-butt before tossing it mindlessly down our gullets.

When we were living back in Michigan, it was a bit easier to stay on the meat-loving trail, having full access to a never ending beef-filled freezer at our family’s dairy farm and knowing exactly how the cows were raised, what they’re eating, and probably having even milked them personally. But now, living across the country, our connections are gone, and we are left finding other means of getting our paws on local, non-factory produced meat. So what’s a carnivore to do?

What’s that you say? Move to Maine? DONE. 

I’m not bashing Michigan at all, Michigan is definitely on its way to making organic, local foods more available. But just for fun, if we were to say it were a race between the two, Maine would not only be lapping the Mitten State, but speeding past in a Prius stocked with canvas bags.  

The local grocery store here is Hannaford’s, which is very relatable to the midwest’s Meijer chains minus the mega-store merchandise — being just groceries, but having similar prices. Hanny’s (as I like to call it), is our savior when it comes to finding were our food comes from. EVERYTHING is labeled with convenient signage (I had to use that word because Ben hates it) about where it comes from. Not just meat either, but everything. Every bunch of grapes, leaf of spinach, and hunk of rump roast is labeled with what country or state it was shipped from. Not to mention their fantastically large organic sections of produce, dry goods and even frozen foods. To Ben’s delight, they even offer fresh whole milk from a local farm that is packaged old-fashioned style in glass bottles that have to be returned for reuse.  

Smiling Hill Farm Milk

 

It makes it a lot easier to not eat something that you know was carted half way around the world, but the next question is, where do we get things that aren’t?

The farmer’s market of course! Now I’m not an idiot, I know Michigan has farmer’s markets. But Maine has winter markets too, and their farmer’s markets aren’t just fruits, veggies, and preserves like I’ve seen at Mitten markets. Our local market here in the city also offers farm fresh eggs, cheeses, and any meat a carnivore could ever want from pork chops and steaks to ground turkey and chicken thighs, photographs of happy animals included. Glorious.

"Maine-ly Poultry"

 

So are we still en route to becoming vegetarians? I’m not sure. Especially since the fish market down the street offers lobsters straight out of the bay that we’ve been dying to boil up. I guess for now we’ll remain carnivorous. At least we’re local carnivores.

Introducing…

…two new members of our family.

Jan

Lars

10-week old Lars is a short haired gray tabby who is very energetic and talkative. He enjoys attacking feet, daring jumps, meowing for no reason, and long walks on the window sill. His favorite outfit is white socks and his hobbies include listening to Queen and attacking his sister, Jan.

Janice is definitely the beauty of the family and likes to be called Jan for short. A Maine coon mix with a long soft coat, Jan is much more laid back than her hyper brother. She enjoys napping on the couch, laying on paper, unnecessary rolls,  and being brushed.  Her hobbies include chasing crumpled pieces of paper, sharpening her claws, and watching Bob Ross.

Lars and Jan

Maine Maple Sunday

On the fourth Sunday in March every year, Maine celebrates Maine Maple Sunday.

Maine Maple Sunday is the day when maple producers throughout all of Maine celebrate the beginning of Spring by opening the doors to their sugar shacks and letting the public in. Most of the farms offer demonstrations, farm tours, pancake and fresh sausage breakfasts, and of course samples of all of the things that could possibly use syrup including maple candies, maple ice cream, maple butter, maple cotton candy and oh so much more.

Ben and I of course had to partake in this glorious holiday and mapped out four different farms we would explore, each offering various treats we wanted to try. The first farm was loaded with people, with cars lined up for miles down the country road. There we saw a syrup-making demonstration and had our breakfast of ice-cream and syrup while petting the miniture horses.

Our next stop was a bigger farm with tons of attractions including oxen cart rides, boiling syrup cauldrons and  full kitchen service with maple chili, hotdogs, pancakes, and fresh farm sausages. There we enjoyed a hotdog, more ice cream, a maple donut, and maple butter.  Even though we were starting to get pretty sugar buzzed, we decided to make it to one last farm that was offering grass-fed beef burgers for lunch that we just couldn’t turn down (which turned out to be amazing) and we didn’t even make it to the last farm we mapped out. Did I mention we put syrup on the burger too?

Two hours and loads of sugar later, we came home and crashed, our bellies full of delightful maple-ly goodness and I never want syrup again. Well, at least maybe not until next year…

Happy Birthday, Maine

It was brought to my attention this morning  at my Monday meeting that today, March 15th, is Maine’s 190th birthday.

It was on this day in 1820, when the District of Maine was officially separated from Massachusetts and became the 23rd state.

Happy Birthday, Maine. May you be blessed with many more years and pine trees.

he finally took some photos!

View of the living room as you walk in the door.

View of Living Room from dining room

Dining Room into Living Room, View from Kitchen

Kitchen nook where stove isView of kitchen from dining room

those massholes

So we have our first visitor this week. Ben’s little brother is on his spring break from college and decided to come out to Maine to check things out. He took a train from Michigan and we volunteered to pick him up in Boston, which is only about an 1 hour and 45 minutes from where we live, so it was no problem.

Until we got to the bridge getting into Boston that is.

There’s a toll on the bridge, $3.oo. We had run out of cash on the other tolls along the way and were planning on paying with check or credit card, most take either. We pull up and ask. Credit? No. Check? No. Cash only. Um…What do we do if we don’t have cash?

Fifty dollar fine. FIFTY DOLLARS! Can we turn around? Negative. Half way across a one way bridge to Boston. What makes them think if we don’t have three dollars that we would have fifty? Not sure.

They’re mailing us the fine. I think I understand now why they call people from Massachusetts “massholes”. I sure hope Ben’s brother is worth it…

Whirlwind

What a crazy week this has been! I don’t even know my name right now. It’s been such a whirlwind, where do I start?

I guess I should start with the drive out here. A storm decided to brew the night before we left and needed to follow us east on our exact route, of course. The theme of our drive was: is it rain, is it snow? Luckily the snow and rain never froze, but driving through Pennsylvania and its mountains during the tempest was NOT fun. Especially with poor Rhonda (the Honda) who could barely make it up those mountains anyway. At least we didn’t lose the catalytic converter this time. We stayed the night at a friend’s house in Danville which was the halfway point for our journey. With our luck, an additional storm developed that evening which was to follow our exact route again but northeast this time. Awesome! Let’s just say that after we finally arrived in Portland I had to pry my fingers off the wheel.

Next: finding a place to spend the next year of your life. Pressure! After only a day of searching, we got lucky (or maybe just sick of looking) and found something we knew we wanted. It is in an old historic brick building with wood floors throughout the whole apartment (even in the bathroom), high ceilings, big parting wood doors to the dining room, three fireplaces, a kitchen with lots of cupboard space, and a window in every room. It is in a very good location, close to everything and kiddy corner from a beautiful Irish Catholic Church. All we’re missing is a new cat .

Alright, apartment – check. But getting situated is busy and stressful. Lots to do and many things to change and landlords to harass about mailroom keys (grr). Finances are tight, especially when you no longer have the handy dandy brother-in-law and have to spend $422 on brake repair for a car you just bought. Missing handyman aside, I love this city.

Portland is big enough where I don’t feel that I ever need to leave, but it’s small enough where I’m not overwhelmed. It’s very walkable, and everyone bikes. There is a fish and seafood market down by the harbor and there are great options for farmers markets. Even the generic grocery store offers local options with labels saying what’s local and what’s not. They even offer milk from a nearby farm. Represent! The city has that port/fisherman town feel but it also is artistic and contemporary. So far I really dig the east coast. I think Laura and I will really enjoy ourselves here.

Now I just have to find a job.

vacationland

We made it!

After a short weekend of saying our goodbyes to family and friends, we took off to our new home sweet home on Monday morning. It took two days to drive across the country, but we made it safe and sound (a little stressed) but safe nonetheless.

We found a great apartment in a prime location that we moved into today and I start my new job on Monday. The city is fantastic, the people are friendly, and the lobster is plentiful.

People call this place “vacationland”, it’s even written on their license plates. I call it home!