Afternoon Adventure: Sabbathday Lake Shaker Village

As a teenager I went to an all-girls school, one steeped in tradition and programs that recalled English prep schools. One of the big ones was chapel, where we heard guest speakers and senior speeches. Before the program began, we often sang a community song, with sheet music left on every other chair for students to share. The director of the music department would accompany us on the organ or piano, and it felt a little like church, though our school was determined to remain secular.

The regular rotation included "Simple Gifts," a traditional Shaker song about community and dancing. I bet you know it: "Tis a gift to be simple, tis a gift to be free..." I can sing it by heart now, we returned to it so often. Once, in the middle of a rather serious speech, our head of school took a break to perform a traditional Shaker dance. She raised her arms and turned around, all while singing the song alone, which is probably why it's forever emblazoned in my brain.

Anyway, all that is to say that I have a passing acquaintance with the Shakers. So I jumped at the chance to visit Sabbathday Lake Shaker Village when I was in Maine with Josh and his family. While there used to be a number of Shaker communities throughout New England, Ohio, Indiana, and Kentucky, very few remain, and those that do are usually historical recreations. Sabbathday Lake, located in New Gloucester, ME, is different: it houses the three remaining Shaker believers.

Three. In the world.

Originally founded in England in the 1780s, the Shakers were an offshoot of Protestantism that focused on celibacy, hard work, and communal living. Dance formed an integral part of their weekly worship, so outsiders began to term them "Shakers" for their vigorous movements. They quickly spread to the United States and built a number of communities, which reached their height in the early 19th century. But because of their belief in celibacy, the only way to add members was through conversions and fostering children. So membership began to decline, especially as religion became less and less important in mainstream society. Yet three believers remain today.

The tour at Sabbathday Lake reflected this reality in a lot of ways. Only 6 of the 18 buildings in the village were open to us, since the three members still work on the farm and produce crafts and herbs to sell. At the beginning of the tour, our guide gave us a brief history of the Shakers and mentioned that the members of Sabbathday Lake were still accepting new converts. So if any of us were interested... Maybe it's just my sentimental side, but I thought I could sense some sadness behind her joking tone. Yes, the Shakers represent a dying way of life, for a good reason. But it's unfortunate that this lifestyle will pass on.

Most of the rooms we visited felt like part of a museum. There were the period rooms above the meetinghouse, spare and neat, with examples of Shaker furniture and innovations in arranging a house. (The Shakers invented practically everything, it turns out, from "button chairs" that allow you to tip back in your seat to flat brooms.) One room displayed the history of processing apples (again, rife with inventions). On the whole, it didn't feel very much like a place inhabited by real people, doing real work.

What got me thinking that day, besides the quiet rooms and the knowledgeable tour guide, were the constant reminders that this represented the last vestige of a unique lifestyle. That Shaker song I knew? One of thousands composed by early believers, many passed on orally (though many have been written down). The three surviving members spent their early lives apprenticing to the jobs they really wanted, like baking, until they had mastered them. Summer people can join them in their Sunday worship at the 18th-century meetinghouse, where they can participate in a traditional Shaker service. But sometime not so far in the future, only tours will pass through that meetinghouse.

If you're at all interested in the Shakers, Sabbathday Lake is worth the trip. It's a fascinating glimpse into another world.

The Ancient Table: Roast boar

Obelix with dinner

I have this habit of getting totally immersed in whatever topic I'm teaching in history. The Declaration of Independence? Let's watch 1776! Ancient Greece? Let's check out The Odyssey from the library! The Gupta empire? Let's eat Indian food for a week!

For the past couple of weeks, the cogs of my "immersion" brain have been turning, slowly putting together disparate strands of information. We've just started studying ancient Rome. There's a stand at the farmers' market that sells boar. I used to think boar looked delicious in Asterix comics. (And anything that lets me refer to Asterix while teaching is good in my book.)

Finally, it comes together: let's roast some boar the ancient Roman way!

When I told Josh my plan, he said, in characteristic fashion, "Oh, boy." But then he realized how grand it sounded: roast boar! The manliest of dishes!

It took a few more weeks to get organized. First, there was the recipe. While I took Latin in high school, my translation skills have atrophied to the point where I need to refer to an English-language recipe (sorry, Ms. V.). I found the perfect book at the library, Around the Roman Table by Patrick Faas. According to Faas, the Romans originally served boar divided in three parts, but they transitioned to serving whole wild boar towards the end of the Republic (as they moved to an empire). However, I have neither an oven large enough for a boar nor the capacity to consume a whole boar, so adaptations had to be made. I relied primarily on Faas' recipe, which he converted from a recipe by M. Gavinus Apicius, author of the only ancient Roman cookbook still in existence. But I also occasionally referred to modern recipes for loin roast of wild boar, since the temperatures and timing were more appropriate to my experiment.

Next, the boar. My friendly neighborhood farmer sold boar in smaller pieces, so I chose a 3-lb boneless loin roast. A few days before I planned to cook, I let it defrost in the refrigerator. Exactly two days before I planned to cook, I rubbed the meat with a fragrant spice rub of crushed, toasted cumin, pepper, and sea salt. Then I let the meat marinate for two days, turning it occasionally.

Finally, the big night arrived. Roasting went pretty much as I expected, though the "low and slow" method recommended by so many websites left me tapping my toes, waiting for the meat to be finished. (This probably happened because I didn't let the meat return to room temperature before cooking.) You really need a meat thermometer for this kind of experiment--mine was invaluable. As the meat cooked, I prepared a rich wine sauce to serve alongside the boar; apparently the Romans liked their boar with regular and dessert wine!

We set out plates with meat, sauce, and rather more modern braised leeks and carrots. Then we tasted it.

"I love this!" Josh exclaimed. "I usually hate pork, but...I love this!"

Yes, friends, if you're not a fan of pork, then roast boar is the way to go. It's lean and moist, and it picks up the fragrance of the spice rub so that the whole roast tasted faintly of toasted cumin. And the wine sauce? Divine.

Goscinny and Uderzo weren't lying: that roast wild boar in Asterix really is delicious.

Roast Boar

for the boar:
3 lbs boneless loin roast of boar
1 tbsp cumin seeds
1 tsp ground black pepper
2 tsp sea salt

for the sauce:
250 ml red wine (a little over 1 cup)
1 tbsp honey
100 ml dessert wine (about 1/3 cup)
salt

To make the boar:
Two days before cooking, rinse the loin roast and pat dry. In a dry skillet, toast the cumin seeds over low heat until fragrant, about 3-4 minutes. Move to a mortar and pestle and grind the seeds with the pepper and salt. When you have a fine mixture, sprinkle all over the boar. Refrigerate the boar for 2 days, turning occasionally.

When you're ready to cook, preheat the oven to 500 F. Let the boar return to room temperature. Set the boar on a rack in a roasting pan and insert a meat thermometer if using. Place the boar in the preheated oven for 10 minutes to brown, then reduce the heat to 250 F and cook for 1 to 1 1/2 hours, checking the thermometer. Meat is done when the thermometer (or an instant-read one) reads 150 degrees. Remove the meat from the oven and place on a platter, then tent it loosely with aluminum foil. Let sit for 10 minutes to finish cooking and preserve the juices.

To make the sauce:
Reduce the red wine to about half a cup over medium-low heat. Add the honey and dessert wine, mixing well, and add salt to taste.

Carve the boar into thin slices and serve with the wine sauce.


Works cited: Welcome to Brussels (image). Around the Roman Table.

Planning the garden

Today I taught my first session with a new group of students: little guys (to me, anyway), 4th - 6th graders. We talked about reading and books and the program we'll be starting tomorrow. The kids were fun, energetic, and so genuine. I always maintained that I could never teach anyone younger than 7th grade, and yet...I'm looking forward to this semester.

I don't want to get all cheesy on you guys and talk about new beginnings and whatnot, but with January being so gloomy, it's hard not to dream about a fresh start. And since I'm in the middle of a crash-course fresh start at school, I've been thinking about beginnings in other areas of life, too. Lately of the green variety: the garden.

Last summer I tried out container gardening for the first time, ambitiously calling it my "kitchen garden." There were tomatoes, spinach, snap peas and lettuce. The squirrels probably enjoyed more of its bounty than I did. And yet there was something so satisfying about growing a tiny garden from start to finish. I watched my little seedlings obsessively, bending down to check on them every morning, and when they moved to bigger containers I stuck my finger in the soil every few days to make sure they had enough water. My dad and I traded tips on growing the best tomatoes. When autumn arrived and it came time to clean out the pots for next season, my heart ached a little bit.

But! Now it's time to plan for this coming season. I've hunkered down in the dining room with library books and an organic gardening text recommended by a friend. I'm taking notes on what plants to grow together and what seeds to order from catalogs. And over the weekend I fell for a few pots of herbs at the farmers' market, because who wouldn't? They now sit on my great-grandmother's plant stand in the living room.

So here's my tentative plan, in containers once again:

• snap peas
• peppers
• kale and spinach
• carrots
• herbs: parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme (try growing those together without breaking into song); lavender, oregano, cilantro, and dill
• flowers, just because

Ambitious? Yes. Doable? Uncertain. But planning the garden makes January a little less gloomy, and there's something to be said for that.

Are you planning a garden? What will you plant?

"Field Notes" notebook: Column & Stripe.

A tale of two peanut butters

This weekend the weather turned. It's been hot and muggy all week, the air dense with rain. And now the heat has burned off and it actually feels like fall. Supposedly it won't last, but after Saturday, we'll take it.

Even though summer is my favorite season, there are loads of things I like about fall. The crisp leaves, the way the air feels fresh and brisk, cooking with apples and pumpkins, going to harvest festivals. I love getting ready for school (which is probably why I became a teacher), picking out new notebooks and pens and binders. That back-to-school trip to Office Max or Staples, where the shelves are full of notebooks and the air is crisp with possibility...sigh.

I'm a huge nerd.

This year things are quite different for me as a teacher, since I'm working part-time as a humanities teacher at a Montessori school. As I mentioned earlier, there's a lot to get used to about this new set-up. Aside from a few bumps, it's been going smoothly, but I'm still trying to figure out the most important thing: lunch.

When do I eat it? Do I eat it in the classroom with the children? Do I wait until I go home? If I don't get out of the building until 12:30, and I don't get home until 1:15, will I be dying of hunger? What should I make? What's portable and easy to heat up when there's a line of children waiting to use the microwave?

As you can see, it's a topic fraught with anxiety.

At my previous school, teachers ate separately from students and had time to heat up their food and chat with each other. At this school, teachers eat in the classroom with their students and manage to down a few bites in between kids asking where the forks and knives are, if they can go outside and play because they finished their lunches in five minutes, etc. A very different experience. So far I've been sticking to salads, but I'm itching to try something new. Exotic sandwiches? Maybe soup?

Lo and behold, The "Settlement" Cook Book had just what I needed: a whole chapter on sandwiches for luncheon. You'd typically make these recipes for an afternoon picnic or an informal luncheon with your closest lady friends. I flipped through the chapter, looking for something that sounded promising. And then I found it: "Peanut paste for sandwiches."

The 1903 equivalent of peanut butter! A classic school lunch! Even the recipe was easy: after crushing half a cup of peanuts (with your modern food processor), you mix in a cup of boiling water, some cornstarch, and let the whole mixture thicken for 8 minutes, after which you season it with poultry spices. Aside from the poultry spices, it seemed pretty straightforward.

Little did I know. I'm not sure what kind of peanuts Mrs. Kander used when she wrote the recipe, but those crushed peanuts did not thicken into a paste until I'd added a tablespoon of cornstarch and boiled the heck out of it for half an hour. So by the time I sat down to lunch, my expectations weren't too high. I decided to compare the peanut paste with Jif Natural peanut butter from our pantry, rounding out the whole meal with some lingonberry jam (thank you, Ikea) and carrots. Like I said, a classic school lunch. With a twist.

And the twist is this: peanut paste tastes pretty much like you crushed up some peanuts and mixed them with water. It's less appetizing than whole shelled peanuts, and the poultry spices make it more savory than sweet. I found myself nibbling on my Jif peanut butter and jelly sandwich in between every bite of the peanut paste one. While this recipe isn't one of my major failures, it's a disappointment.

I'll stick with Jif.