So, my name is Lara, and I am the daughter of the innkeepers Mario and Roni, that many of you have come to know during your stays at The Squire Tarbox Inn!  After 8 years of hard work they are beginning to think about retiring, and have put the inn up for sale, but alas in this climate, that may take some time, so that’s where I come in to the picture!  I have moved to Maine from Oregon to join the team, and help them take a break from the maddening pace of
an innkeeper’s life!  I spent last summer there, working side by side with them, observing and thinking about what I’d like to see happen at a place like that.
As many of you have seen, it is incredibly beautiful, with it’s historic buildings, and it has all the infrastructure to be a working farm.  Some of you may have been lucky enough to visit when my brother’s organic vegetable gardens were in full swing, and it was stunning…he has since outgrown the acreage, and moved to another piece of land just down the road!   We are very happy for his business success, but we miss the incredibly satisfying feeling of being able to see, touch and smell all those gorgeous vibrant organic veggies on site!  We hope to re grow the land he left.  I have my bachelors in nutrition, so love veggies, and especially odd, obscure and heirloom types, and we will focus on those alongside many of the important restaurant staples!  We have always used some of his vegetables in our cooking, but I would like to produce enough that after a year or so, we use almost exclusively our produce (alas we can’t grow lemons in Maine without greenhouses)!  I also have a passion for incorporating herbs into cooking, so we will be planting lots of beautiful, healthy medicinal herbs in our gardens as well!  If I stay long enough, I would like to start creating our own animal products too!  The previous owners made and sold goat cheese, so that would be the first place to start, and we already have chickens in charge of the breakfast supplies…aka farm fresh eggs!  I have thought about starting to raise meat birds as well, and even perhaps some sheep for milk and mutton….my brother raised pigs on the property, and I would like to do this again….the quality of the pork is UNBELIEVABLE!!  My basic philosophy on cooking and eating healthy is that if you raise it yourself (or visit an inn where someone else lovingly raised it) you can eat almost whatever you want, including butter and cream and the likes, and not only is it healthy for you (within reason) but without having to do too much to it in the cooking process, it TASTES fabulous!!  Some other fun projects we have in mind are to build an earthen oven for wood fired pizza and bread, to have canning parties, to have a roasting spit in the restaurant where we carve your dinner for you right in front of the fire, and many more ideas….keep checking our website as we start to update about all the changes we will start to make this year!  www.squiretarboxinn.com We are a family that loves food, and we look forward to sharing its beauty, vitality, and even sensuousness with all of you!

We’re almost 1/2 done with winter and we have been spared the worst. So far so good. Another beautiful day today. I knew if I got real winter tires with studs we wouldn’t get too bad a winter…it’s like taking an umbrella along to keep the rain away!! We’ll be opening again on April 19th so don’t forget to come back and see us.

Need something to do in the winter in Maine. Check this miniature circus out at the Penobscot Marine Museum http://bangordailynews.com/2011/12/09/living/bex-bros-circus-returns-after-25-year-hiatus/

We hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving feasting on turkey with family and friends :  It’s hard to believe now with these warm temperatures that Christmas is only 25 days away. Don’t forget to still join us here for a meal before we close January 1st until April. We are open Thursdays, Fridays & Saturdays and don’t forget Thursdays is Swiss night when we serve cheese fondue and raclette. We are also doing our New Year’s Eve dinner so make a reservation for that.

The fall season was a bit of a dud (as far as the leaves) but our guests enjoyed themselves regardless…The pumpkin regatta in Damariscotta was a big hit, with lots of fun activities and silliness   Folks enjoyed apple picking at our local orchards as well!  We had our first snow before Halloween even got here…it might be a long winter!!  The plows were on it, however, and everything went smoothly.  We are now looking to our holiday season…we are offering an exquisite Thanksgiving dinner for inn guests and locals alike!  After that, we move into Christmas parties and our New Years’s celebration!!!  Then a little rest until we start up again next spring.  Thank you to all of our guests that make each season we do business totally worth it!!  Next year we are going to begin adding some classes/seminars to our spring and fall schedules…we are looking at beekeeping, cooking, and maybe beer making.  We plan to add more in the realms of cooking, gardening and homesteading!  We look forward to your participation in learning some truley valuable skills, or just some fun hobbies!  Happy autumn and winter to you all!

Here’s a great write up on places to stay when coming to see the fall foliage in Maine.

I am very proud of my father (the one on the left).  I’ve known all my life that he is a most excellent chef, but it has been quite the treat to be a server for him and hear all the positive feedback we get from our customers.  We have a very worldly clietele with our inn guests, having travelled many other places besides our inn,  including London, Paris, Dublin, Munich, Rome, Naples, etc… and even many far east travelers.  Some of the comments we’ve had are “My friend and
I share a mission to find the best lamb in the world, and so far it was a little restaurant north of Dublin, but I’m calling my friend to tell him its here at the Squire Tarbox Inn!!”  Another local couple from our little island had just returned from lots of fine dining in Paris, looked at their plates, and said “Man, It’s good to be home!”  Other comments aren’t so specific, (“excellent, delicious, best I’ve had, how does he make this so good?”) but the amount of times I hear near silence in an mostly full dining room (becasue everyone is busy eating) is the real testament to his skill.  I am honored to see him in his element, and learn my cooking skills from him until I leave to do my apprenticeship with his brother in Switzerland!!!  Maybe then they’ll be praising my food as much as his!!!   I can only hope!!!

The vegetables in the restaurant are at their peak!!  We have lots of fresh tomatoes still from Kyle’s farm.  There are, of course, lots of zucchini for breads. We’ve been doing a sweet one, as well as a cheese jalapeno version with dinners.   The pattypan squash have been very popular with diners, and sautee up very nicely with a lil garlic!  We got some fresh black radishes just yesterday, and so far have just sliced them and added salt….Mmmm!

We are trying our hand at some lacto-fermented veggies.  This is the old fashioned way of making pickles that doesn’t use vinegar, but instead uses the same healthy bacteria in yogurt to make the veggies sour.  So far we have tried japanese sauerkraut with savoy cabbage, and pickled red carrots with onions!!  They are in the root cellar fermentinmg away, so we’ll have to wait and see!!

The days are still warm, but the nights are gettting chillier.  As the cooler weather comes, of course, the trees begin to dazzle us with their array of colors!  Right here on the coast, the cooler air is tempered by the ocean air, and so our foliage changes just a bit later than our inland neibors’.

Why do the leaves change?  Well, clorophyll makes leaves look green.  For them it is the equivalent of hemeglobin in our blood.  It’s obviously precious, and for plants, difficult to produce.  Deciduous trees, however, shed their leaves for the winter.  In anticipation of this event, the tree sucks it’s chlorophyll out of the leaves into its trunk to seqester for the winter.  What’s left behind in the tree is the simple to produce carotenoids.  These, like beta carotene in carrots, are shades of oranges, yellows, and reds.  They were there all along, but just drowned out by the green of the clorophyll!!!

Some people get annoyed when we have rainy days…they think there is no way they can go to the beach…well, I think that a rainy day at the beach is the best…ok, there’s no swimming or sunbathing, but its quiet, the roar of the waves is usually an amazing sound, there are some great tide pools that pop up, and the mist and grayness offer such a sense of cool mystery and romance, that there’s no way one can claim it a lost day!  As you can see by the photo a rainy beach day can offer some real hidden beauty!  Today the weather is warm again, but don’t let the threat of some showers deter you from enjoying our stunning coast line!!