One Day in Maine – Back to York Beach

Each of the last two summers we’ve stayed at a house in York with friends for a week. This year none of us could swing the whole trip missing out on the sunny days, insane amount of food and drink, the sound of the ocean and immense laughter from the bunch. It turns out that we all did spend at least a day up there about the same time year. The weekend that followed our trip that finishes with this post saw our friends at the beach and out for seafood. Same mission accomplished by like minded friends!

No whirlwind one day trip to Maine would be complete without a trip to the beach. As our luck often holds thunderstorms were bearing down on the area as we arrived. It didn’t actually rain or storm the whole hour we were on the beach. It was dark and ominous, but the breeze was nice and crowd was long gone!

The tide was heading out so we were able to setup chairs on Long Sands and enjoy the view and the sounds of the ocean.

We reminisced about our ferry trips to Peaks Island, lobster bakes, people watching on the beach and those mornings after that none of knew where we were until after coffee! Summer vacation to the beach really is a singular and unique delight.

We walked the beach a bit and watched the dogs chasing toys and birds in the surf.

We finished the day at Harry’s Seafood & Grill for lobster rolls and fried clam strips. We always eat way too many of them when we are there, but they really taste so much better when you are on vacation!

And with that we headed home having had tremendous fun on our one-day vacation to Maine.

This was part four in the series. Recaps from the first three stops can be found at:

All Day Breakfast Two in Biddeford
Scavenger Hunt in Portland
North Berwick Farmer's Market

Cheers!

Jason

Long Sands Cocktail

York Beach has two separate sections, Short Sands and Long Sands. We vacationed on Long Sands last summer, fell in love with it and came back this year. To commemorate I created a new cocktail and named it the Long Sands.

When I was dreaming the drink up the word “long” in the name kept making me think of a Long Island Iced Tea, which I don’t actually drink. Tea sounded fun to work with and we brought some I could use, so I went with it.

We didn’t actually get this right the first time and sat around later talking about what we would have changed. The recipe that follows is what we all agreed on and will be looking forwarding to recreating in the future.

Long Sands Cocktail

3 oz Ancient Fire Peach/Moscato wine
1 oz simple syrup
1 oz citrus infused vodka
½ oz fresh lime juice
½ oz strong black tea (cooled)
2 canned peach slices
2 mint leaves
Club soda

Muddle the mint and peaches in the bottom of a shaker. Pour everything but the soda into the shaker, and shake with ice. Pour into two highball glasses and top off with the club soda.

This drink was inspired by a day of sitting on the beach with friends. We all hope you try it and enjoy it as we did.

Cheers!

--Jason

Dinner at Lobster in the Rough

We took Lenny out with us for seafood on Thursday night. Lobster in the Rough on Route 1 in York is the out-back take out counter with open seating to its sit down version out front. With good weather you have to sit and enjoy for a while. They have a full service bar out front, live entertainment and bocce.

Last year Margot and I killed a couple plates of fried clams, scallops, shrimp, onion rings and a mound of fries. We had already had all of these things earlier in the week so we opted for lobster rolls with smaller portions of fries and onion rings. We were not disappointed at all. The pieces of lobster were massive, they were seasoned well and not drowning in mayo. The bun was toasted and the fried snacks were cooked perfectly.

We knew we were going to be tormenting Lenny this week so we blindfolded him while we ate dinner.

After dinner Lenny had a couple of beers and got in on giving Merv a hard time. Some friend!

We look happy, and we were. It was one of those beach days you dream of.

We finished the night with some Ancient Fire wine sitting around a bonfire and telling stories. Here’s to vacation!

This week we drank Amarone from 2008, Pinot Noir from 2009, Syrah/Mourvedre from 2009 and some of all of our whites late 2008 to early 2010.

Cheers!

--Jason

York Beach Maine - Trip Update

As you may have gathered from Wednesday’s post, we didn’t quite have the best weather to start our beach week. It finally changed and with only two days to salvage vacation we have been off having fun. Not before we saw this though,

These two photos were taken at Soher park and the Nubble Lighthouse from inside the car with a Blackberry phone. Anyone who knows this area knows what it looks like when the sun it out. The rain and wind was so heavy our whipped cream topping from our Brown’s ice cream sundaes was blowing away! If you haven’t been to York or Brown’s in the summer, put it on your list.

Thursday the sun came back and we packed up to hit the beach. For breakfast we cooked up some sausage from our 2009 pig and paired it with fruit, cheddar cheese and toast. It was a nice bump for a day on the beach.

Margot and I went up early before breakfast to find a good spot. It was cool and breezy and

everyone seemed to be taking their time getting to the beach. Not us!

Here we all are getting some beach time!

I was digging the shade and cool ocean breeze.

Cheers!

--Jason