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May 5, 2008

Thanks to all who took the time to answer our survey. 

Many added helpful comments and suggestions. We are now considering the various possibilities and will tell you about changes in future editions of Port News. Thank you.

Table of Contents
Thank you!

Happy Mother's Day

Weekly Staff Pick

Article: Ladies of Liberty

Maine Dish

Around Somes Sound

Happy Mother’s Day!

Sunday, May 11

We have a fine array of Mother’s Day cards, as well as note-cards, boxed note-cards, and stationery by such producers as Crane & Company, Pen & Ink (Anne Kilham), Studio C, and Waste Not Paper. We have also put up on our front display shelves some books with Mother’s Day in mind. They include Jimmy Carter’s A Remarkable Mother (Simon & Schuster, $22.95), Designated Daughter: The Bonus Years with Mom by D. G. Fulford (Hyperion, $22.95), and Green Babies, Sage Moms: The Ultimate Guide to Raising Your Organic Baby by Lynda Fassa (NAL, $14.00).

Announcements

Port Side in Bernard will open on June 20.

Staff Pick of the Week
Spring Hours:

Mon-Sat
10am-5:30pm

Sun
1pm-5:30pm

Acadia Panorama: Images of Maine’s National Park

by Alan Nyiri

Down East Books, $18.95

Known nationally for his architectural and landscape photos of American colleges and universities, Alan Nyiri is a widely traveled photographer whose scenic photography has been featured in four titles published by Down East Books. He lives in Vermont, but often makes his way to Maine, bringing along his kayak and his cameras.

In his new book, Acadia Panorama, he offers many scenes of the Park that recreate the vision whole of particular places, known and loved by both hikers and ambling photographers. Nyiri writes, “I have been using panoramic cameras for ten years now, and have found that the landscapes and seascapes found along the down east coast seem especially well suited to the wide-format interpretation. The extremely wide format is especially challenging. Everything in an image must be interesting to look at and must contribute to the flow of energy within the composition -- a goal difficult enough to achieve even with the familiar rectangular-format camera. The Noblex cameras I use capture a full 140-degree panoramic view -- this approximately matches most people's peripheral vision.... ”

Explaining his long quest in search of image and light, Nyiri writes, “Mastering this strange and wonderful art and craft became my primary focus through my twenties…. I discovered those image-makers whose work resonated within me and would shape my vision. Ansel Adams would become the Grandfather of my adopted, metaphoric photographic family, and I made the pilgrimage to his Yosemite workshops in 1976 to sit at his knee and the other wonderful photographers he assembled. Philip Hyde, my sensitive photographic “father”, attuned me to the importance of craftsmanship – Ansel showed me how, but Philip showed me why.

Eliot Porter became the kingpin of my visual education. All of the other members of this adopted family felt assigned to me, just like a real family. But if Eliot was my “uncle”, he would be different from all the others… he became my favorite uncle. His was the work I intuitively understood – no intellect necessary. His image of backlit raspberry canes had the same power as Ansel’s dramatic clearing winter storm in Yosemite Valley. How could this be? The one was a quiet vignette of a pastoral field, the other showed mighty Nature huffin’ and puffin’ – how could both images contain equal power? Eliot showed me that the secret is light. Quality of light can actually trump powerful image content, and when both are used in harmony, the result is absolutely magic! Then I finally understood the true strength of Ansel’s work: perfect composition uniting wonderful light with strong content. I finally got it.”

Leaf through the pages of this book and enjoy the results of his photographic journey.
1112 Main Street
Somesville
Mt Desert, ME 04660
207.244.4114

Ladies of Liberty

Ladies of Liberty:
The Women Who Shaped Our Nation

by Cokie Roberts

William Morrow, $26.95

 

Cokie Roberts is a political commentator for ABC News and a senior news analyst for National Public Radio. From 1996 to 2002, she and Sam Donaldson co-anchored the weekly ABC interview program, This Week.

Roberts, along with her husband, Steven V. Roberts, also writes a weekly column syndicated in national newspapers by United Media. Both are contributing editors to USA Weekend, and together they wrote From This Day Forward, an account of their marriage and other marriages in American history. Roberts's first book on women in American history, We Are Our Mothers' Daughters, had a six month run on the New York Times best-seller list. She is the author of Founding Mothers, the companion volume to Ladies of Liberty. Roberts is a mother of two and grandmother of six.

In Founding Mothers, Cokie Roberts wrote about the heroic women whose patriotism and sacrifice helped create a new nation. Now Ladies of Liberty continues her story of early America's powerful women. She writes, “It is the story, told as much as possible in their own words, of the influential women in the period between the inauguration of John Adams in 1797 and his son, John Quincy Adams, in 1825. It is not the story of everyday women in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, many of whom had much harder lives than the elite women who had the ears of the Founding Fathers.”

This exceptional group includes Abigail Adams, Margaret Bayard Smith, Martha Jefferson, Dolley Madison, Elizabeth Monroe, Louisa Catherine Adams, Eliza Hamilton, Theodosia Burr, Rebecca Gratz, Louisa Livingston, Rosalie Calvert, Sacajawea, and other notable women. Here is a book that would make a wonderful gift for an historically-minded mother.

Maine Dish

Cinco de Mayo Margarita

by David Nolf

The agave is an eerie plant. Seeing the abrupt blue of the long, spiked pencas – the leaves of the agave – in the carefully laid-out fields of Mexico could induce a hallucination: images of men armed with spears rising out of the ground where dragon teeth had been sown. And watching the jimadores harvest the fruit of the agave, the pinyas or pineapples, as they are called, which can have a diameter of 25 inches and weigh over 100 pounds, and load them into waiting trucks is reminiscent of those scenes in the movie, The Invasion of the Body Snatchers, in which weird alien clones are loading pickups with unearthly pods.

Since tequila became popular, it has been combined with traditional mixers, yielding the tequila daiquiri, the tequila Bloody Mary, and the tequila Manhattan, but the most popular drink made with tequila is the Margarita.

Popularity breeds mythology, and so there are many versions of the drink’s origins. Grossman’s Guide to Wines, Beers, and Spirits states flatly that the drink was first made in Los Angeles. Other sources narrow the origins down to a gringo bartender who was dabbling with ingredients one day in the early 1950s at the Tail of the Cock establishment in that city of angels.

But there are many other accounts, including one in which the bartender in a hotel bar in Puebla, Mexico, has a girlfriend with the unfortunate American habit of salting everything she eats or drinks. Trying to please her, he always salted the rim of her glass. Then, as the story goes, he decided to liven up her usual shot of tequila with Cointreau and fresh limon (the small Mexican lime-like lemon) juice. Puebla, of course, is the city where the Mexican soldiers pushed back the French in a battle that took place of the 5th of May, 1862.

Whatever its ancestry, the Margarita has firmly established itself in Mexico, in the United States, and in bars all over the world. There are those who insist that a Margarita consists of tequila, fresh lime juice, and sugar. Period. But the popular contemporary recipe combines an ounce and a half of tequila, a half ounce of Triple Sec or other orange liqueur such as Cointreau or Grand Marnier, and one ounce of freshly squeezed lime or limon juice. Put all into a shaker with cracked or shaved ice and shake gently; then, pour into a chilled glass with a salted rim.

For a new take on the Margarita, try this:

Combine one and a half ounces of gold tequila such as Herradura, three quarters of an ounce of Mandarine Napoleon (a tangerine liqueur), one quarter ounce Frangelico (a hazelnut liqueur) and one and a half ounces of freshly squeezed lime juice, and three ice cubes, cracked or shaved. Pour into a large brandy snifter or Burgundy wine glass. Salt is optional.

Around Somes Sound

Sure Signs of Spring in Somesville:

Fyke Nets and Daffodils
Photos: David Nolf
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