I love this for you!

This week, I’m on vacation in Maine, visiting the topic of this newsletter posted in 2024. Please enjoy this love letter to Maine, and imagine me rocking in the waves of the Atlantic, hiking among the mossy forests, and maybe even finally standing up on a paddle board.

I met my best friend after an unfortunate garlic bread fire in my apartment in Andersonville. We both had two young kids; she a single mom, me solo parenting most evenings while Mr. Drake worked nights. We lived across the street from each other; admiring each other from afar, until said fire got me outside that summer evening, rattled from the incident. (Only the bread was harmed in this fire) She was 27, I was 29, and I remember the look on her face when she asked me. “I thought you were my age”, she told me, disappointed. Despite our huge age difference we became fast friends, often combining efforts to feed our four children at one of our houses, mostly pasta and said garlic bread.

She is from Maine, and we both romanticized and shared stories of our childhoods spent outdoors, in nature, cursing our current living conditions: black snow, traffic noise, and general city grievances that crop up in Chicago, conversations more frequent in the winter.

Much to my complete and utter devastation, she moved back to Maine in 2021. After one covid case canceled our first planned trip in 2022, I finally got out there to visit her last summer. (Summer in Maine being a high of 55) Okay to be fair it was the end of May, but we still had to wear coats. Maybe July is more summery?

She and her family bought a 150+ year old white clapboard home on an acre, with a barn, across the street from a lake. She is living the true homesteading lifestyle, but certainly would never announce that. Doesn’t even have social media. I think this is true for most #homesteaders, they are baking bread, making salads from their vegetable gardens, dragging their kayaks across the street for a morning paddle, and you will never know. Especially true in Maine, where to be a Mainer is pretty much an isolated experience. You take care of it yourself, whether you are repainting your barn, (why would you actually, the weather is such that there’s no shame in peeling paint or weathered wood), building raised beds to take advantage of the short but lively growing season, shoveling your driveway, or fixing your fence, because you can and you’re a Mainer.

The entire state has only 1.6 million people, half the population of the city of Chicago. It’s filled with trees, rolling hills, and a jagged rocky coastline. The hiking is top-notch. It’s gorgeous. To put it mildly, I’m obsessed with this state. My bestie swears it’s not any colder than Chicago. (Should I believe this?)

1. If you want to more fully understand what a Mainer is, then check out Christina Salway, an Interior Designer, via Instagram. Okay, I’m not certain she is from Maine, but she does renovate two houses in Maine on Magnolia Network’s In with the Old, and exhibits the same life-filled energy, self-sufficiency, and can-do-it-ness inherent in Mainers. She is currently renovating a house she bought in France, so now I’m doubly obsessed with her.

It was this kitchen reno that caught my eye: all the charm, and that one yellow tile. LOVE.

2. I learned about Erin French from Cherry Bomb Magazine’s Issue 20 while strolling the antiques at Jayson Home last year. Her restaurant, The Lost Kitchen is located in her hometown of Freedom, Maine, and they take reservations for this seasonal restaurant experience not by open table, phone, or even email. She opens up her reservations via lottery with a postcard submission, sent through the US Postal Service each April for the next summer season. Pretty charming. Yes, I took a cue from this watercolored postcard and painted and mailed mine in already!

   

   She has a show on Max as well, where I recently learned that she has a staff of all women who care about the land, producing product that they make, sell, and often grow themselves. A seat at her table will cost $250 plus tip and beverages, but it may just be worth it if you have zero dietary restrictions and love this sort of experience.

Number 3 is such a well-kept Maine secret, I promised to keep it that way :)