Last year, the pandemic year, was a year for many of us to try new things. We had the time, from either a lockdown or a layoff, or both. I just don’t mean the shock of wearing a mask into a store or forcing myself to not to hug other people upon meeting them outside. I’m referring to learning something new, overcoming a fear, or taking a major plunge.

We moved to Maine. Two years sooner than planned. Initially, we came for a 10 day quarantined Spring vacation in my partner’s empty family home. We brought everything with us from our southern New England house including bananas, half and half for coffee, his beer and my whiskey, and the frozen dog food. Maine had a strict out-of-state quarantine that our neighbors, and the police chief at the door, reminded us, and everyone, including the police, offered to shop for us should we need anything. No worries. We were set for our ten days and planned to do nothing more than hike, bike, and walk the dogs. We didn’t have internet, but we were only up short term. So we thought.

Due to work situations not requiring us to be back, our ten days stretched into twenty. A month rolled by. Then another. Then it was beach season—why would we leave then? Within six months, our Massachusetts house was sold, and we were officially Mainers.

One of the major aspects in moving to Maine is having an incredible access to fresh, extremely affordable seafood that around the world commands a top dollar. In warmer weather, a local fisherman’s co-op set up a tent outside a grocery store once a week. Now in January, I drive the ten miles down to its cove location and buy lobsters right off the dock from them. Or for a tiny bit more cash, I can walk to the town’s seafood market for fresh haddock and scallops at a whim. 

I had never boiled a lobster before despite eating many at a restaurant or a VFW fundraiser. Years prior, I bought myself a large pot and Jasper White’s “Lobster at Home” cookbook but had used neither. In fact, I met Jasper once at a cooking event and told him I owned his cookbook. He said, “I bet you’ve never used it.”  He was right. How did he know?

With both the book and my pot long gone, I was determined this year to make myself a lobster. I needed to first get over the spookiness of having a live organism in a bag in the refrigerator. Next, to risk hearing it “scream” when I dropped it into the boiling water (it didn’t). The Co-op had encouraged me to buy the even cheaper soft-shelled ones—who knew they existed?!—because they’d be easier to crack open. Their harder shell hadn’t grown back yet from molting. They were right.  And yes, it was delicious and became one of many I’ve made and enjoyed since.

Another benefit of mid-coast Maine life is living in the oyster capital of the U.S. Again, I had slurped dozens of raw oysters in my life without ever opening one. Now was my chance to have them at home. I bravely bought the fresh, dirty, closed oysters on ice at a farmer’s market. Dug up that day from the local river, their shells needed a scrub before I could even attempt to crack them open. With my first batch, I didn’t even have an official oyster shell knife, but a large screwdriver did the trick.  Now with my oyster knife in hand, I’m an expert.  

I moved on to preparing mussels in a garlicky wine broth—one of my favorite dishes to order out. Then clam chowder with fresh clams—an Ogunquit restaurant recipe I made the year before in Massachusetts with Maine canned clams. This time, I bought flash frozen local ones and had to cut out the gritty black bellies. Next year, I’ll buy those fresh clams I see for sale in plastic coolers at the end of driveways.

Throughout my pandemic seafood exploration, I sprinkled in other new recipes, including the pre-requisite pandemic baking.

The two activities seem to be in direct opposite of each other. Baking is a careful scientific measuring ingredients. The other is raw in both the literal and figurative sense. The smells of the fish, the potential nicks of blood on my hands from my shell opener, the black innards of the clams, the scooping out of mussels that didn’t open upon cooking all seem barbaric to the refined process of kneading bread, spreading frosting, and inserting a cake tester into a buttery, light birthday cake.

Yet, the joy is the same. 

In some of my baking, I chose to follow recipes by Mary Berry. While she is known to me from the addictive British Baking Show, I had never tried to bake like her. The connectedness to Mary Berry and the British way of baking helps me feel my own British heritage and reminds me of the deliciousness from simplicity. In baking and in life. 

Baking with Mary pushed away any lingering fears of weighing, instead of measuring, ingredients—more pandemic learning!—but despite my years of a baking background, I failed over and over at Mary’s recipes. Maybe our U.S. ingredients aren’t quite the same, but more likely it was user error. That’s okay. It’s a good challenge to have something to look forward to—succeeding at a Mary Berry recipe! One of these days my delicate chocolate Swiss roll won’t look deconstructed! 

We’re now in a new, more hopeful year. I don’t know about you, but I’m definitely more primed for risks, learning, and change. I look forward to exploring my new home state, and poking more into Canada too, when it’s safe to do so and allowed. I have a new goal of stumbling across a moose, but I’ll pass on seeing another porcupine unless the dogs aren’t with me. I’ll also continue to explore new recipes, eat more local food (yes, the potatoes in the clam chowder were also from Maine!), and push my skills in baking, writing, and in physical activities past my pre-conceived limits. 

Let’s remember last year as the year that allowed us to be brave. And keep that bravery as part of our tool box.

Wishing you a bright and healthy new year.

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