I wish you had been able to join us for the fourth Foliage, Food, and Wine Festival. Put it on your calendar for next year right now--it's the third weekend in October, Oct. 14-17, 2010. Each year more fabulous activities have been added. One of the most delicious was a chocolate making workshop held at the inn. Kate from Black Dinah Chocolatiers taught a sold-out crowd everything about chocolate making. Let me tell you--having a vat of warmed chocolate in the kitchen makes the inn smell heavenly! Not only is Kate a wiz in the chocolate kitchen, she writes of chocolate and Isle au Haut living stunningly well. Check out her blog and you will agree with me.El El Frijoles amazed our guests during the sold-out wine dinner we hosted as part of the festival. Even long time fans of the taqueria were dazzled by the food that kept coming out of the kitchen that night. The queso fundido, the pork loin, the apple tart... this and more paired expertly by Maxx from the Blue Hill Wine Shop made for a smashingly successful evening. El El Frijoles went on to win "Best of the Fest" at the Taste of the Peninsula event on Sunday. Their posole... Mmmm, mmm.
The inn offered browned butter cookies, apple walnut cake, and those graham crackers I keep raving about. I was very very popular with my trays of goodies. Kathy from Blue Hill Hearth had one of the prettiest displays--look at her patchwork pizza.Guests at the inn attended the wine dinner at the Arborvine, the beer lunch at Table, the lobsterbake at Barncastle, just some of the special events with the festival.
As summer downshifts to fall, we get more excited about books again. Kevin Hawkes stayed with us, lured here by friends who are returning guests (they really like room 2). Their friends presented the inn with a copy of Kevin's book, Library Lion. If you haven't read this before, go get it now--so sweet. You will fall in love with the illustrations immediately.
We continue to grow our library at the inn--I think we have more books than any other inn in Maine! Guests will sometimes end up in the middle of a book when it's time to check out. Trudy, a longtime friend of the inn, checked in this fall with a book in hand she had started last year. She and her husband always stay in room 3.
Speaking of gifts from guests, I had to pull out the tree book Catherine gave us last year (see the blog entry from Sept. 27, 2008) to identify the American Mountain Ash, or Rowan Tree, we have in our yard that produces the most eye-catching orange berries in the fall.I received an email the other day with the subject line: "Our stay with you was fabulous." Margaret ended her email with, "Can one be homesick for a place visited only for four or five days?" Blue Hill does has a certain magic...
