When in Belfast, Maine

I'm very tired from 450-mile drive yesterday, so quick bullet list of Belfast area not-so-hidden treasures. Click on boldface names to jump to websites.

1. Chase's Daily. H.'s brother Mike and Mike's wife, Therese, treated me to breakfast there. So good, including Rosemary Polenta toast and a couple forkfuls of Therese's buckwheat grits. 

2. Bellabooks & Antiques, owned by Gary and Kim. Kim bakes cookies and sells coffee there, too. Today I tried a crinkly, oversized, soft molasses ginger orange cookie. I can't begin to tell you how delicious it was--all buttery and sugary and fragrant. [As you can see, I'm allowing myself some treats here.] Kim said the lady who runs the yarn store around the corner loves these cookies and tells everyone about them, so Kim makes them often.

3. My beloved Belfast Co-op, of which I am a paying member [$15 per year]. And when I popped in to get veggie burgers, I picked up a container of Tide Mill Creamery Lillian* Honey Lavender Chèvre. It's organic, of course, and impossibly delicious--so creamy. Made in Edmunds, Maine/$11.99 per lb. I also saw Figgy's friend Alex, who works in the Co-op's meat and cheese dept.

4. Pat & Martha's farmhouse kitchen in town with wood stove and old-time built-in pantry. They brewed Green Tree origin select Ethiopian coffee. Pat is a coffee connoisseur [actually, all 5 Hurley brothers are crazy for coffee] and he has sent H. and me to check out Green Tree Coffee Roasters in the past. It's in nearby Lincolnville Beach. 

5. Not Belfast, but in Camden, the Camden Deli. It was raining pretty hard about 7 p,m. and the view of the harbor from the big picture window was lovely and soothing.

Then I drove back over rolling Route 1 in a thick, soupy fog, zipped into the Co-op again for Back to Nature Peanut Butter Creme cookies to drop by at Figgy's house, and sugar for Martha. And now I'm going to sleep. Good night. More tomorrow.

TCOY

1. Walked around a bit, and up a big hill; 3.5 miles on Fitbit.

2. Missed early Mass, but meditated a bit while watching water splashing over rocks by the dock of the bay.

3. Took a shower with lime coconut shea butter scrub.

*Just read that the cheeses are named after the goats themselves, such as Frida, Fannie, Edith, Imogene--and Lillian. Love that.