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"Best Classic B&B in Maine"

We are doing the spring dance of joy here at the Blue Hill Inn because the latest Yankee Magazine proclaims us the "best classic B&B in Maine"! I blush to report they write, "Innkeeper Sarah Pebworth does everything right at this Federal gem, featuring three-course breakfasts and plentiful insider wisdom." They didn't have room to mention Jeff's cranberry sorbet, Matt's popovers, Jean's amazing lawn care and handy-woman-ness, Bonnie's expert control over the housekeeping, and the able assistance of Sue, Elizabeth, Ellie, Kaiya, Keira, Susan, Kelly, Heather, Emily, Maura, and others, many of whom will be here this season to welcome you back to the Blue Hill Inn. See you soon!

Yes, she's talking about sticky buns, again!

When I look back over the 2009 season, one of the food highlights has to be discovering a sticky bun recipe. Before finding my own way, I would buy a sticky bun from Millbrook Bakery at the farmer’s market each Saturday. I was hooked, I was dependent, so much so that for my birthday in August, I had Jill (the person wearing the baker’s hat at Millbrook) bring me enough for all the guests and the staff and the birthday girl. Then I discovered the Barefoot Contessa’s recipe. A key ingredient? Frozen puff pastry! Now, with a quick trip to your grocery store, you, too, can dazzle your guests—or just your family—with gooey, heavenly sticky buns. They are so rapturously delicious, two guests created a Facebook photo essay about their experience. Thanks again, Pat and Pam!

Speaking of Facebook, have you become a fan of the inn yet? I have great fun making more frequent updates. I even made a wee video of the beach and fog horn at Barred Island so I could share it with you!

Spring brought magnolia blossoms so early this year--town is gorgeous with forsythia and bulbs and green! Come see for yourself!


Pecan Sticky Buns from the Blue Hill Inn

Makes 12 larger or 14 slightly smaller buns

Topping
12 tablespoons (1½ sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/3 cup light brown sugar, lightly packed
½ cup pecans (or 24-28 halves)

Filling
2/3 cup light brown sugar, lightly packed
3 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 cup pecans, chopped fine (or, if you really like raisins, use raisins, or both)

2 sheets frozen puff pastry, defrosted
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Line a cookie sheet pan with parchment paper. Place standard muffin tin(s) on the paper-lined sheet.
With an electric mixer or food processor, combine the 12 tablespoons butter and 1/3 cup brown sugar. Divide into muffin tins (approximately one tablespoon in each). Distribute pecans on top of the sugar-butter mixture (place pecan halves upside down so when the sticky buns are right side up the pecans will look lovely).
Mix together the remaining brown sugar, cinnamon, and pecans, and set aside.
Place the puff pastry, with the longer side toward you, on a floured surface (or keep the nonstick paper on). Brush the whole top of the sheet with half the melted butter. By paying attention to the edge closest to you, you will ensure the center of the sticky bun is especially heavenly. Distribute half the filling over the entire surface—don’t forget that edge closest to you! Starting with that edge, roll the pastry up snugly like a jellyroll around the filling, ending with the seam side down. Slice the roll into 6 or 7 equal portions. Place each piece, with the flattest spiral side up, into one of the muffin cups. Repeat with the second puff pastry sheet.
Bake for 30 minutes or until the sticky buns are golden to dark brown on top and firm to the touch. The butter may bubble over the sides of the muffin tin. Remove from the oven and allow to cool for 5 minutes only, then invert the buns on to the parchment paper that you placed under the muffin tin. I do this with a spoon in one hand to ease out any filling that may want to stay behind.
Serve. Prepare for oohs and ahhs!

Adapted from Ina Garten’s recipe

An Early Spring in Blue Hill

I still have to pinch myself--I get to live here! "Were you born in Maine?" "No, but I got here just as quick as I could."

We had sunshine and temps in the low 40s the other day--a great excuse to head to Brooklin. I hadn't been to the Morning Moon Cafe in ages and I took a friend who hadn't yet been to the Cave.

The Moon is for sale--and if it doesn't sell by May, they say it will close. Here is your chance to own a cafe! It comes with a four-bedroom house--all for $485,000. Brooklin is such a dear town--EB White used to call it home and now his grandson runs one of the local boatyards. The Cave is a new business, filled with decadence. I'm addicted to their caper butter. Laura, the proprietor, puts out too many samples. I could resist the smoked cheddar but did try the chocolate drizzled popcorn--too delicious! Her shop has wine, cheese, sweets, gifts, beautiful cutting boards, artwork, and Caroline Mayher's pottery (the joke is that she and her husband are the "mayors" of Brooklin).

I met another friend at Jonathon Chase's Buck's Harbor Market in Brooksville. The chowder was yummy and the market has all sorts of treats to take home with you. And it's almost kid time--Sunset Acres Farms has an "open farm" during the spring, with three bottle feeding times a day!

Have you become a fan of the Blue Hill Inn on Facebook?! Now you can post a picture or a comment and I can give you more casual notes on the happenings at the inn. A dear guest sent me a photo essay about making our sticky buns--check it out. You can also befriend the Blue Hill Wine Shop, Black Dinah Chocolatiers, El El Frijoles, The Cave, and Table!

Guests have been happily coming in and out and making lots of calls about the summer. If you have been planning on coming but haven't got around to calling--call now! Brides and birthdays and photo shoots--we have many many weekends all booked up.

You know how I love my winter reading. I visited the Maine authors section at the Blue Hill Library (have I mentioned they now sell coffee?! I love our library) and brought home an arm full. I just finished The Dead Cat Bounce by Sarah Graves, which I thoroughly enjoyed. She wrote a series of books: "A Home Repair is Homicide Mystery". As I do a fair amount of Inn repair, I can relate! With all the great weather we've been having, I'll hardly have enough winter to get far into her books. I'm not complaining; no one is. At the post office, at the town hall, at the library, at the cafes, we're all smiles. I hope your spring is wondrous as well!

An early Valentine

I know it is only January, and mid-month at that but I am, as they say, feeling the love. (And wishing happy birthday to my brother George who took his hospitality inclination to Whitetail Bluff Camp and Resort, a fun campground and bar and grill they started in southwestern Wisconsin).

I had heard that Cullen from Fairwinds Florist, our local flower girl and purveyor of many things gorgeous, had her picture in February's Martha Stewart Living magazine. So I found myself paging through the glossy celebration of red hearts and deliciousness. And, turning corners down on lots of pages, before even getting to the lovely article that focuses on Black Dinah Chocolatiers.
During the season, the inn is a playground for new recipes, pretty flower arrangements, and hospitality adventures. The quiet season brings its charms--snowshoeing, reading books (just finished the Elegance of the Hedgehog; Juliet, Naked; and A Gate at the Stairs); and visiting restaurants (tried Finn's in Ellsworth--get the artichoke appetizer, the Mache Bistro in Bar Harbor--I'm still melting over the beef bourguignon). But I apparently was hungry for some entertainment on entertaining so you might see me whipping up some glittered roses (page 41) or you might find a filigree heart on your waffle (page 39). For certain, though, you will find me praising Black Dinah Chocolatiers all the more.

Kate, the chocolate maker, led a class at the inn during the October Food and Wine Festival last year--the aromas! The oooooos and ahhhhhhhs from the guest-cum-apprentice chocolate makers (and the innkeeper). My tip, though? Don't be so cliche as to get your loved one chocolates for Valentine's Day; you will be dismissed as unoriginal and your amazingly fabulous gift of Black Dinah Chocolates will go under appreciated. Instead, choose to pamper your sweetie on Groundhog's Day, or perhaps the Ides of March, or even April Fool's Day ("Ha! You thought I didn't get you anything for Valentine's Day!"). One last tidbit about the mouthwatering candy Kate produces--the ingredients are so fresh that it makes no sense at all to save the box day after day waiting for the perfect time. They are meant to be savored right away. Mmmmmmm.

Blue Hill for the Holidays

I can only hope you are having as luscious a holiday season as I am. For me, the highlights are music, people, and food.

Blue Hill is lucky to have the Bagaduce Chorale, with 80-plus voices. They perform two concerts a year at the Congregational Church. Their winter concert included a newly commissioned piece by Anna Dembska. The spring concert, schedule for April 30 and May 1, will include new work by Paul Sullivan.

High school concerts can be scary but not when you have an award winning music department. George Stevens Academy, directly across the street from the inn, has a wonderful array of musicians and their winter concert includes a band, various steel drum combos, a handful of jazz combos, and an acappella vocal ensemble. Guests have asked about George Stevens. The history of who he is and how the school acquired his name can be found at the school's website. One of the great things about living in a small town--the cast of characters is small, even with a history that goes back to the early 1800s.

Ellacappella is another Blue Hill treasure.
They've been out in their bright colors for the tree lighting and at the library for my favorite Christmas event of all--the reading of Dickens' Christmas Carol. As you may know, our library is beautiful, with its central room flanked by fireplaces. In front of one is where three local gents read out the carol, with appropriate chain rattling and hat changing to cover many characters. We laugh, we cry, we eat more cookies.

For me, too, part of the charm of the season in this small town is the proximity. The inn is just around the corner from the Congregational Church and the library and shops on Main Street. We can walk to three bookstores! For me, that describes a great town perfectly. The fact that you can get great espresso in one and fresh bread in another and the third has the best, smartest inventory of a bookstore ten times its size is just like frosting on the cake.

On Last Night, we wander the streets listening to live music and being entertained by an impressive array of locals. This year, Noel Paul Stookey began the evening to a standing room audience. Guests staying at the Cape House, where there are two options of rooms for you, had a great time. One couple ventured to the Arborvine for a fabulous dinner and then walked about town in the snow, to return to the Suite before midnight to enjoy a cozy fire.

If you stayed with us at the inn, you know that we don't have televisions in the rooms in the inn, just in the Cape House next door. But we have books, boy, do we have books. Just in the last month I've added a new one by Rebekah Raye, Bear-ly There. Jonathan Lethem's Chronic City is finally out (I had the pleasure--O so pleasurable!--of hearing him read from an almost final copy with a small group tucked into the East Blue Hill Library). You can borrow it when I'm finished.

Then, too, I've added some art to the inn's collection.
But I'll have to tell you about that another time as the snow is still falling and I'm the snow shoveler today. I do hope you are making snow angels and enjoying the winter wonderland. (Sand angels, for you folks a bit more south, sound painful... You should just visit us and bring your snowsuits).

Happy, happy 2010 to you!
Sarah Pebworth

Big Fall Finale

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...