I knew exactly what I wanted to make this morning.  And then the dreaded moment of realization hit me and it was clear that I would have to alter my course.  I had forgotten a key ingredient and heading out the door on this rainy, lazy Sunday morning seemed cruel.  So, it was back to the drawing board and carefully inspecting recipes to ensure the requisite ingredients were indeed stashed happily in my cupboard.  Of course, I am working on my flexibility as a baker and cook.  Truth be told I have never been one to get mixed about in changing recipes.  No, I was a stick-to-the-book kind of cook.  And I’m not sure what has started to soften this engrained spirit but I have begun to substitute here and there, usually in attempts to make my baked goods a smidge healthy (I was going to say healthier, but let’s face it, are chocolate chip cookies healthy to begin with?).  I stocked up on a variety of flours a couple weeks ago, adding organic whole wheat pastry flour, brown rice flour, white whole-wheat flour, and corn flour to my shelves, along with sucanat, an alternative to certain refined sugars.

I have begun substituting white whole-wheat flour for all-purpose flour sometimes entirely, but sometimes using half and half.  And sucanat can do well to replace brown sugar in certain recipes I’ve found.  Back to this morning.  I was on the search for a breakfast baked good that wouldn’t require hours of my time and I was leaning towards muffins.  I had some blueberries in the freezer and a lemon on hand (well, it was actually for the original recipe I planned to make, but I can replenish my supply) and did a quick search for lemon blueberry muffins and quickly came across this one from Country Living magazine.  I was lacking a couple of things but was feeling confident in my flexibility and with a couple substitutions I ended up with a dozen tasty muffins (they’re still warm if anyone wants one!).

Lemon-Blueberry muffins
Adapted from Country Living

The vernal equinox has passed and we are now almost one full week into spring.  That is not to say that temperatures shot up over night, but there are signs all around of spring’s arrival.  I saw crocuses forging upward paths, determined to greet the world, patches of green peeking through the snow in the woods, and vibrant blue skies decorated with billowy, cotton-ball clouds.  And our landlord at the studio is putting his tomatoes in the barn’s greenhouse this week, a sure declaration of spring, but also a marker of our one-year anniversary in the studio space.  Thus far celebration has come in the form of a near constant stream of activity in the space.  J has been recording a variety of bands lately and I have made it up there to print regularly the last couple weeks.  There’s nothing like a deadline to make the flywheel turn!

I finished up wedding invitations (envelopes and reply postcards included) for a cousin pretty recently and then I began brainstorming and carving a design for a letterpress print exchange that I signed up for, organized by Kelly of Paper Stories.  My prints went out on the tardy side, but I was pleased with how they turned out.  I’m holding off on posting pictures until the swap is finished.  I think that this exchange was exactly what I needed to jolt me back into a world in which I enjoy printing and its whole process.  Printing wedding invitations can be rather draining and end up feeling too much like a chore, though I learn new things throughout the {sometimes arduous} process.

Spring does tend to be a refreshing time, the world seeming ripe with opportunity, the warmer weather waking up parts of ourselves that can become frozen during the long winter.  I am uncertain about my gardening opportunity this summer, but regardless of what happens fresh, local produce will be headed my way every week since I signed up for a CSA in Bowdoinham.  I was excited but a bit reluctant worrying that food will go to waste, but I am determined to use each week’s provisions and I suspect that Serving Up the Harvest, a cookbook I bought last year will come in handy.  The sequence of recipes follows the readiness of crops through the season which I find rather handy.  Anyhow, unless the CSA is full, we’ll be getting a weekly supply of fresh produce from Life Force Farm May through October.

Changing topics yet again, I went for a lovely late afternoon walk at Wolfe’s Neck State Park last weekend, awhile after the short-lived snow squall that spit big, wet snowflakes on my windshield.  I packed myself some leftover soup my mom made, along with a few thick slices of homemade bread and headed out.  It was chilly but invigorating and I was able to eat my provisions while relaxing on a large rock a few feet from the water as the sun shone and the patterns and colors all around me left me filled with wonder.  It’s amazing what an hour in the great outdoors with plentiful fresh air will do for the mind, body, and soul.  As I walked I considered myself an explorer, mulling over the first half of How to Be an Explorer of the World, which I gifted myself last week.  There is so much to enjoy in this book.  Inspiration is visual and cerebral as Keri Smith packs interesting and insightful quotations into the pages of this book.  I’ll be sure to share some of my favorite spreads in a later post.

Here are photos from my weekend adventures:

p.s.  J has become a regular at Town Landing, the local diner near our studio, and this seems to translate into special treatment now.  He ordered a short-stack of pancakes Sunday morning and they were served like this:

I was up and out the door on Saturday morning, but I stopped to snap a photo of the terrifically blue sky gracing us with its presence.  There was a slight chill in the air, as many a March day has, but copious amounts of sunshine convinced me that spring is winning its battle against winter.  I spent the morning at a class on baking bread with whole grains, which took place at Wolfe’s Neck Farm, down the road a few miles in Freeport.

I went with a friend entirely new to the wonders of baking bread, and though I have done it many a time I enjoyed myself and learned as well.  Plus, I gobbled up two piping hot, fresh from the oven, english muffins that we made.  So, a dozen english muffins and one HUGE loaf of bread later, my day continued with a few chores and then studio time to finish some printing.

As for the second half of my weekend…I’ll mostly let the pictures speak for themselves.  Let’s just say that Maine was blessed with temperatures hovering around 50 degrees and I took full advantage by stretching out for a good part of the afternoon on the trunk of my car, finishing up a linoleum carving and soaking up the rays outside the barn.  My Vitamin D deficiency is on its way to being cured!

No, no, not the March madness that basketball advertising has commandeered.  I have absolutely no interest in that kind.  No offense to basketfall fans, but I learned in 8th grade that my life was better off without basketball.  Anyhow, what I mean by March madness is the craziness this month seems to have delivered — the month that I thought started only a couple days ago.  And here it is already March 12.  There is something tempting about March as it beckons us outside with 40 and even 50 degree temperatures one day, and then rustles up a few inches of snow the next day.  The mud and ruts are even more hazardous when covered with a thin layer of sugary snow, or the ice that still takes hold each night.  I suspect its the warmth that puts my mind and body into overdrive.  February seems to have been the period of runway taxiing, and March has us at full-throttle, lifting our bodies and minds above the fray.

But back on the ground, though still snow-covered, I am plotting and planning a place for my garden.  And tonight I’m going to a talk about organic vegetable gardening, which I believe will catapult my garden ideas into action — like ordering seeds, which I haven’t done yet.

Spring and winter are certainly dueling here in Maine and I’m embracing the.  Clad in wellies, I am keen to slosh my way through every puddle I encounter rather than step to the side.  As the kid’s song goes:
Mud, mud, I love mud!
I’m absolutely, positively wild about mud.
I can’t go around it. I’ve got to go through it.
Beautiful, fabulous, super duper mud.

p.s.
I visited my best friend in Boston for the weekend and the temperatures enticed us into ice cream cones that we consumed outdoors!  Certainly a milestone in the season.  And upon my return to Maine, J and I treated Puddleglum, my trusty Toyota, to a deluxe car wash.

According to the calendar, February is the shortest month of the year.  However, I daresay that February never feels like the shortest month.  In fact, most years it seems as if February might never come to an end.  Valentine’s Day falls smack dab in the middle of the month but the days leading up to this Cupid calamity seem to pass rather slowly.  Although not nearly so slowly as the second half of February whose days pour forth like cold molasses.

This is not to say that I hate the month altogether, just that March is quite welcome when it finally arrives, usually in a flurry of snow.  You see, it’s not the weather which bothers me.  I happen to rejoice in winter and its bountiful gifts of snow and ice, but sometime in the deep, dark bowels of February I begin to long for progress.  I know that crocuses and daffodils will not be seen for many more weeks, but it is subtle change that I want.  Then, wham!  March invades, teaching us to be thankful for the extra daylight and beckoning us to greet the outdoors with renewed vigor, even if the first day of the new month bestows another foot of white powder; even if the plowman must come again, enlisting the help of his tractor to move the snowbanks that have fastened like cement.  Suddenly, amidst my dreams of a summer garden, I realize that my dreams need a plan, and soon.

Yesterday was a snowday, and I used the day as an opportunity to linger, soaking up winter’s best.  The woodstove burned all day, snow fell steadily, rising bread dough nestled by the fire, and scents of orange and almond wafted through the house.  I ate, baked, shoveled, and read the day away, capping it all off with a cup of hot tea and a crisp biscotti slice.  Days like these will be remembered fondly when heat and humidity have sapped my spirits come mid-August.  But for now, I simply want to enjoy what is here while preparing for the season that is to come.  Mud season, of course.