A few weeks ago, my friend Fil and I drove from Brooklyn to Maine, taking an unplanned detour through New Hampshire, where we came upon this farm,

and this roadside restaurant,

which led to a tasting of grape nut ice cream,

and a bucket of native (in this area of the U.S., “native” is used for “local”) chicken and fries that really tasted like potatoes.

Shortly before our destination, we celebrated crossing into Maine with lobster rolls,

and shortly after, we hugged our friends in Camden, watching the light play off the water at a big dinner at a lake house with wonderful people we cannot see often enough.

When I am in Maine, I usually wake with the sun in Keryn and Mike’s cheery sunroom, looking up at the star lanterns and daydreaming about how long I could extend my stay.

When Fil woke we ventured to my favorite store of local products, Farmer’s Fare, and went silent sitting outside, rapt with the crunchy crust of their focaccia,

and the glorious raw milk of my favorite dairy producer in the area, Keene’s.

We made our way to the Camden harbor a bit later, napping in the sun as all good long weekends away require,

and waking, we followed Keryn and our friend Emily to Harbor Dogs,

home of the dog with apple chutney (very good),

and a solid fish taco.

Emily surprised us with an invitation to take our lunch to her family’s boat docked in the harbor,

and she skillfully maneuvered us onto the dock next to the gleaming hull,

and we had such a fun hour talking and laughing in the shiny interior.

For our afternoon adventure, Fil and I decided since everyone had told us we had to visit Beth’s, we should drive out to this expansive market full of local food, (after a brief photo shoot on the lawn with a photographer who approached us admiring Fil’s jaunty hat).

Marveling at the piles of garlic,

enchanted by the fancy cream,

delighted by the real popcorn, we threaded our way down each aisle, stopping to read the signs with personality and stocking up on bacon.

That night, we went to the new Shepherd’s Pie restaurant in Rockport,

and Keryn joined us after a first round of blueberry-rosemary gin cocktails,

and rosy oysters,

leading us around the harbor and back to the house, where we rested for another day of Maine adventures…

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Just before I left for Linz a few weeks ago, my wonderful friend Mike of RoadTrip Nation was in town, and since Roadtrip Nation puts college students on the road to meet their heroes, I thought it appropriate we swing by the mobile @waffletruck (Mike’s naturally infectious energy was heightened by the sugar and the possibilities of the food truck movement) on our way to a house party on an actual back patio in Manhattan (seems they do exist).

Now Virginia homesteaders, Jay and Ryanne of Ryan Is Hungry have been leading lights in videoblogging for years, and they invited interesting fellow videobloggers (it was so nice to finally meet food vlogger Grace Piper of Fearless Cooking) and other friends over to the house they were sitting for the week.

Dean Jansen of Miro, the open-source video and podast player you should certainly download for watching (ahem) video blogs, brought his friend Winnie Yang, who casually mentioned when we were introduced that she works on The Art of Eating, the watchword in publications for serious food geeks (and my favorite food magazine since I discovered it seven years ago).

Winnie is Managing Editor of AoE, besides blogging and running the film-and-supper club Choice Cuts with Matt Pendleton (who paid this blog a lovely compliment to be shared in a future post). Last night was this year’s BLT party, a genius event idea where guests can truly bring useful gifts and contribute to the table.

Assembling quite a team, Winnie was, seemingly, everywhere while Matt took pictures, Tim cut bacon (this was cured by the Char No. 4 chef, a restaurant I really like in the Carroll Gardens neighborhood of Brooklyn),

someone talented associated with Momofuku mixed bacon-infused bourbon into Old Fashioneds,

near the bread station and table with juicy tomatoes piled high, homemade mayonnaise in plain, basil, garlic, and olive-anchovy flavors, bowls of gleaming lettuces Tim tore into pieces just the right size for sandwiches with the star ingredient—Benton’s, of course, but many local curings from New York farms,

that Winnie directed in cooking, placing, and labeling—she moved too quickly to catch here (but with any luck, she’ll appear in many upcoming posts).

As I left this party full of fascinating people (including food blogger Ganda) and smoked beer, trays of bacon continued to emerge from the kitchen, and the beautiful bacon haze followed me back down the stairs it had lured me up.

The end of a lovely day that began with salted radishes with butter on bread while proofing the loaf I brought to the party,

and Sancerre with salmon cakes, aioli, and allium flowers,

I walked down the stairs last night thinking the best description of the BLT party’s food, guests, and especially the hosts is the language at the bottom of this sign at Evolutionary Organics yesterday morning at the Prospect Park Market—”seriously, they are awesome.”

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About a month ago, I drove up to meet Emily and Jeremy Stanton of Barking Dog Farm,

had an incredible weekend learning about the strong network of local producers in the Berkshires they are part of,

and as we stood in the kitchen looking out over the chickens and orchard, they told me about the local butcher shop they plan to open in the spring—and an upcoming fund-raising dinner to that end.

So last Saturday afternoon, I pulled out a long dress with flowers as bright as those in Emily’s garden, adjusted the three strands of a vintage necklace from the Brooklyn Flea, and drove with determination through four hours of rain to the inaugural dinner of the Meat Market.

Upon entering the house, this charming bartender (I’m told he makes a mean cup of coffee at Rubiner’s, the local cheesemonger you should certainly visit) mixed a vodka cocktail for me with a homemade rhubarb concoction Chef Jeremy created from the large plants in their backyard,

and everyone clustered around a long table of charcuterie and then bread that Emily baked, sipping as the rain fell outside.

Then we all began to move down toward the tent, passing the fire pit and peach tree with branches hanging heavy with fruit.

Entering the tent, I met Emily and Jeremy’s neighbor Ken, who divides his year between the Berkshires and Miami—you will likely see him on kthread again, as we are old friends although we’ve just met. (Linked photos throughout this post are by Kit Latham, a photographer who shot for Martha Stewart, which explains their beauty.)

Finding my placecard at one of the three long tables, I sat quietly at first, knowing only the hosts.

As she sat down next to me, Kathleen, owner of a cloth-screening business in Southfield that made the beautiful tablecloths printed with chickens (image at the bottom of the post), began to illuminate the fabric of the group beginning to settle into chairs.

Image copyright Kit Latham (borrowed for this post).

After that, it was all delight.

Orbs of yellow hovered above the tables until clipped, and mushrooms, scissored off, landed softly in soup bowls below; a beefy onion broth poured underneath lifted them. We all turned to each other and lifted our spoons.

Next, Jeremy’s famous ravioli filled with rooster (yes, rooster) on top of lettuces and baby rainbow chard dressed with a citrus – a clever combination of courses and unusual presentation appropriate for summer.

Jeremy thanked all the farmers sitting among us (there were many) and introduced the next course of sausage, pickled beets, more of Emily’s good bread, and braised cabbage.

We served each other, passing plates, the rain continuing as a part of the evening’s show,

and I remembered Master Chef Gerhard Schmidt, who carved a little later, asking me how I had stayed so dry with the rain,

as the table was prepared for the Murray Grey beef that had been turned for hours on a welded device of Jeremy’s fashioning,

and we marveled over the beef, the tomatoes, and incredible roasted corn as Dominic Palumbo stood and made an impassioned argument that a local butcher shop represents a significant step for this community of local producers. He tapped all dinner guests as co-producers:

Shortbread cookies in a basil crème anglaise with eggs from the chickens half a dozen yards away and a peach from the nearby tree accompanied by eau de vie and dandelion wine ended the meal, and guests lingered in the tent lit with tea candles between sunflower bouquets.

The next morning, the special tablecloths had withstood the night of revelry and looked ready for their next event,

as the flowers leaned from the rain,

the lilies heralded the evening’s success,

and all the way back to this borough I hold dear, I thought about how a community celebrates its own.

Heading to a neighborhood full of pizza places ranked competitively with long lines for tables, I sat down on the asphalt with other Flea Marketers to the finest white pie I’ve tasted, cooked at 900 degrees in an oven that travels on the back of the Pizza Moto truck.

The pepperoni made this pizza sing, but then so did the others sitting around me, crunching their crusts, breaking the slices apart—superior products still need serious, supportive demand.

Best of luck to Emily, Jeremy, all involved with the Meat Market, and all of the lovely people I met at the dinner. For more wonderful images of the night, see Kit Latham’s Flickr collection, and for a comprehensive, detailed review in a source I now read compulsively, bookmark Dan Shaw’s articles on Rural Intelligence (here’s the one on the dinner).

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Past ripe, the green streaked with gold became a fresh Bloody Mary:

Purée quartered ripe tomatoes in a food processor with a dab of sun-dried tomato paste, a squeeze of lemon, a hearty pinch of sea salt, and—this is optional—a few pitted Kalamata olives and the tiniest bit of anchovy paste;

Pour an ounce or so of iced vodka in a glass, add ice cubes, pour the tomato mixture over and garnish with celery and a tomato wedge, cracking pepper over the top (add regional variations as compelled).

Rather than salt, the tomato flavor comes through in this lighter version of my fruity drink of choice.

I like to simmer the remaining tomato mix and serve it under crab crakes (add a little vodka to the pan as it cooks).

Note: If you are relying on the drink for its restorative lycopene, you will want to simmer the tomatoes for ten minutes before puréeing.

Suggestions? Ways you like your Bloody Mary?

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We started talking about the coconuts that he harvests from the street, and that led to a machete and a handmade, welded striking implement cracking open coconuts on the porch, draining the milk, admiring the meat (which you score and then scoop out), and an explanation of how to make coconut milk—blend quite a bit of coconut water, a little coconut meat, a date and a dash of cinnamon for sweetness.

As a storm rages outside, intermittently lighting up the cottage, I am drinking it all up and in, sipping the milk (fresh coconut water tastes infinitely better than the packaged product, as you can imagine) and shaking my head at all the years I let a terrible cake experience with sweetened, shredded kind of coconut hold me back.

I prescribe fresh coconut.

If we can imagine meat—the word itself, without its weighty moral baggage and simply referring to these hairy things that hang from tropical trees—as a delightfully firm, silky white layer hidden inside a shell, perhaps spritzed with a little lime, we may all feel a little better…

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and progress to the black beans and rice and the sticky plantains, too much by far (especially for seven dollars), but nice to attempt as the cars race down 8th Street in front of you.

Then, in my opinion, you should meet a good friend at a good bookstore and sip bubbly things while you plan for trips to other destinations with decidedly different transportation options and cuisines, leaving holes for chance excursions, literary inspiration, and lazy afternoons.

I firmly believe Sunday afternoons should be sparkly…

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As it keeps, new butter weeps into the parchment paper wrapper—throwing off milk droplets—and it melts gracefully into warm bread with a crispy crust.

Steadying food for a morning after floating through courses at Sra. Martinez in the Miami Design District last night with Jessica, who is one of my favorite people to explore menus with:

Look beyond the cheese plate (Manchego, Valderon, Murcia al Vino) to the crispy artichokes, quartered with their stems and just right with a Lavender Sidecar—a reminder that something fried with a light touch is a good beginning to a series of small plates,

and then there was a salad with dark roasted beets (think how beautiful this would be with Chioggias), purpled apple slices (I imagine, like the Murcia cheese, soaked in wine), a piped star of blue cheese and almonds.

The kitchen sent out spiced corn, a vegetable dish to rival the beets (don’t bother with the brussels or the sweet potatoes on the menu), and then a chocolate cake that, as Jess explains, we saved until most of the yogurt ice cream had melted into the accompanying basil oil and tomato marmalade—that, like Miami at its best, was strangely beautiful and a surprise…

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Cava is always involved with America Day celebrations (see America Day I and America Day II), and a cork soon popped at the apartment; Stewart, John, Ben, Michael, and I toasted to the revelries ahead:

Then, there was Mothership Wit on draft at the Riverfront Tavern, and stellar huckleberry vodka that led to some of us not waking as gloriously as the tulips,

that waved near the Noshville diner, where Lady Liberty waited on the roof (you can see her in the distance above), whole pickles unnerved us on the table, and the server wanted to take part in America Day.

Stewart and I both ordered the ‘We Dare Ya’ breakfast, a dare we lost to pancakes the size of flying saucers,

and afterwards, we began incorporating all the elements of country music songs: reverence, wine, and Baby Jesus,

a nice day for (any kind of) a white wedding,

casually perplexing proposals (I found a large ring with a white stone that we needed to fold into the America Day narrative and Wonder Woman costume—so, this is the America Day where Wonder Woman becomes engaged to a hot Nashville musician).

Michael analyzed what Wonder Woman’s ideal wedding gown would look like in reference to cupcakes,

Ben disappeared to find coffee (which should be a country song),

new leaves heralded Spring,

and dogwoods bloomed in front of the Nashville Parthenon, where this scholarly group was bound.

I circled Stewart, John, and Ben with my Lariat of Truth,

before deciding to lasso a saxophone player instead,

and in this place of learning, we noted that really all of America rests upon what’s written on the bench:

We drove to East Nashville’s Hip Zipper vintage,

discovered I Dream of Weenie was closed and our weenery dreams were to be unfulfilled,

so we bought scratch tickets at a gas station and headed toward Cowboy fashion on Broadway.

As is America Day tradition, Ben met a bachelorette,

Stewart lit a cigarette (seriously, how gorgeous is my Facebook husband? Note the vehicle in the background) while John stood by in a very serious black cowboy hat,

Ben evaluated Michael’s boot choices,

I liked the boots I was wearing,

that prompted this wonderful Linda Carter story from a sales clerk.

We were welcomed in American Apparel,

where Ben Superman and Michael contemplated truly blue jeans,

though I liked the lettering on Hatch Print Shop posters more.

We five decided B. B. King’s was appropriately American, taking the long walk back to Section D,

extending the pickle motif with fried pickle chips and horseradish sauce along with Blues Brew.

I ordered a Porktato (yes, I take implicit menu dares as well, and I think a Tofutato would also be great),

before the boys gave each other direction in matching sweatbands,

and we headed out for an American dance party at Mad Donna’s,

with Michael reminding us that Girls Just Wanna Have Fun across the street at Lipstick Lounge,

and we suffered through terrible karaoke before returning to Riverfront Tavern in America Day stripes by Ryan (at left) and plaid (Matt, to the right of John).

Ben was reunited with his bachelorette,

and there was more of that lovely huckleberry vodka.

The next morning, we brunched in the sunlight at Mad Donna’s,

with Michael’s French toast swimming in double doses of syrup and caramel,

and Ben’s unusual, colorful Cap’n Crunchberry French toast serving as a metaphor for our merry Day encrusted with bright flecks of Americana.

As this fantastic four dropped me at the airport, I glanced back with love—I will meet them anywhere for next year’s America Day IV (Chicago? New York? Los Angeles? Where do you think?)—

and we do hope that those of you that couldn’t join us this year will rejoin us or experience the magic of America Day for the first time next year…

View the entire Flickr set with additional photos and videos here.

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Late yesterday afternoon, I met with Justin, Jon, and Brad of the Aten Design Group (they are building the next phase of Knight Pulse) over paninis at Busboys and Poets (Brad Jon, a fellow foodie, also chose a peanut butter + banana panini).

Later, I convinced Drupalers (it’s DrupalCon this week) to meet at Biagio for a Madecasse tasting. The fabulous Liza shares her opinion:

Ian countered with this comparison:

Then, I was enchanted by Annie’s art in Andrew and Annie’s beautiful kitchen:

We drank home brew (always a good idea) from a friend of theirs,

and cooked dinner talking about Andrew and Annie’s upcoming travels, the importance of taking vacation, Annie’s stellar site launch checklists, Andrew’s vision of progress through science (read the blog), and the delightful eccentricities of family gatherings.

And then Ian and Liza convinced me to head back over (ancho caramels are quite motivational) to a rooftop in Adams Morgan, and there was blueberry beer on the table, 12seconds uploading happening, and all sorts of code-related antics were being planned at neighboring tables, small droplets loosely joined in this place newly filled with hope…

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John and I ascended to see the late Friday afternoon skyline, which John perhaps would have preferred to see from the ground,

(Read the rest after the jump)

but his love of all things American overcame his doubt about the wheel’s stability, and we safely rotated down in time for tapas and merriment in Boystown with Jenne, Jessica, Lee, and Ben that night…

The next morning, I was overwhelmed with flowers at the Green City Market in Lincoln Park—tangled up in blue,

noting blossoms that were all yellow,

and purple asterisks that punctuated neighboring tables of fruit

waiting to be transformed,

caramelized and surrounded by soaked brioche,

baked into cobbler.

The sweetest part of the market was meeting Alice Waters, a woman I admire deeply;

her commitment to local and slow foods has made the whole world into an edible schoolyard where we all continue to educate each other.

On the long stretch of grass and trees to the side of the market, families shared food on blankets while listening to local musicians,

and I stretched out to watch the clouds…

That afternoon, Jessica led Jenne and me on a birthday tour of her adopted city;

we watched people take pictures of themselves reflected in the Bean,

children playing in the fountains (the essence of summer in the city),

and donning pickle headpieces,

we sped to the Newberry Library book sale where I spotted this wonderful cover (for more typographic finds from the sale, try the very talented pk‘s Flickr stream starting here)

before we walked around the Gold Coast neighborhood and into a shop with bakeware covering the walls,

and then to Hopleaf gastropub and local mead to sip with mussels, frites, aioli, and bubbling macaroni and cheese with Jake and Mark.

Leaving Hopleaf, we stopped to look at a streetlight and the old sign of the city on it (my friend Brian moderates a Flickr pool with more pictures of these river symbols to look for as you walk Chicago).

Deciding we had to experience the sprinkle station, we walked into the magical world of Molly’s Cupcakes in Wrigleyville.

We ordered key lime, chocolate decadence, oreo, red velvet (with brown butter frosting), tiramisu, Intelligentsia coffee, and milk while perched on swings at the counter.

And we were impressed with the Chief Egg Cracker, Johnny Nicolaides, who told us about giving the profits back to local schools and organizations. Molly’s is his side project, and the place crackles with good energy.

All this and cupcakes with a tender crumb + buttercream icing that tastes as it should = a line of cupcakes that are wrapped little parcels of goodness instead of sugar bombs. How could you live in Chicago and not frequent this wonderful place?

This cupcake shop of love was the perfect spot for Jessica (also quite the baker and cupcake queen) to deliver a message to herself for this time next year:

A few hours later, I rested my suitcases by the door and joined Jenne and Jessica to pour birthday Veuve (Jenne’s birthday was yesterday) into orange juice,

and I joined these two fabulous friends of mine in toasting to safe travels to and from Miami in the year ahead…

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To be more precise, I actually “won” the ticket (Amit makes life into a series of fun games) when I responded first to beat out the other 1,337 people who follow Amit on Twitter.

And so, I lucked into the PSFK SF conference and walked in thinking about response times and lightweight applications, pausing briefly to pick up a bottle of what looked to be gin. (Note: I spent years in academia where full liquor bottles are highly desirable commodities, and free liquor bottles not to be passed up at any hour of the day.)

(Read the rest after the jump)

This is, of course, bottled water in a container shaped like a gin bottle, which presenter Chris Riley commented alters the way you drink it as he swigged water during his talk. Almost a trick, really, to take a familiar container shape and switch the expected liquid—and a one-way trick at that, as the reverse—putting gin in a water bottle (and thus encouraging gulps of gin)—seems a terrible idea.

The techgeek crowd has been thinking about gin since April, when Clay Shirky gave his Web 2.0 talk about gin and cognitive surplus.

Shirky opened the talk (full video below, well worth the fifteen minutes) by talking about a “collective bender”:

I was recently reminded of some reading I did in college, way back in the last century, by a British historian arguing that the critical technology, for the early phase of the industrial revolution, was gin.

The transformation from rural to urban life was so sudden, and so wrenching, that the only thing society could do to manage was to drink itself into a stupor for a generation. The stories from that era are amazing– there were gin pushcarts working their way through the streets of London.

And it wasn’t until society woke up from that collective bender that we actually started to get the institutional structures that we associate with the industrial revolution today. Things like public libraries and museums, increasingly broad education for children, elected leaders–a lot of things we like–didn’t happen until having all of those people together stopped seeming like a crisis and started seeming like an asset.

It wasn’t until people started thinking of this as a vast civic surplus, one they could design for rather than just dissipate, that we started to get what we think of now as an industrial society.

Shirky goes on to suggest the current energy expended in social media like Wikipedia is from the cognitive surplus that sitcoms and non-participatory media have been “masking” for decades and that this is actually a one-way shift like the Industrial Revolution. Hard to go backwards once you’ve tasted the good stuff.

San Francisco is a city of cognitive surplus, and certainly the cognitive surplus was bouncing off those walls in Fort Mason as we sat and listened and asked questions at the end of sessions.

Looking around the room full of creatives swigging water out of plastic gin bottles, gathered to listen to talks about design, creativity, trends,

I thought about the one-way shift in the cottage industry of conferences and convening that unconferences and barcamps have begun to force. It is always lovely to hear smart people expound articulately on interesting and inspiring subjects, and the PSFK roster was impressive and thoughtfully chosen.

And yet, the more industry events I attend, the more conferences that haven’t scaled effectively (note: PSFK is smallish to my way of thinking, at around 250; the scaling issues I’m referring to are at larger conferences), the quicker I grab a water bottle.

To futurecast for a moment, demos and hack sessions may be the way we pick up a name tag, put down the bottle, and begin harnessing that surplus.

p.s. Part of my day job is thinking about how to convene people effectively; I would welcome your thoughts or examples of successful events or techniques in the comments—

p.p.s. More Shirky? Have another swig.

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