Life’s circumstances can turn on a dime. In a world where technology is exalted and worshiped, we’re less likely to remember that our seasons evolve and fluctuate.
We’ve just come through a stretch of weather spanning 3-4 weeks where May felt like mid-July, or even early August. Then, in a matter of minutes on Sunday, as a cold front passed over central Maine, the humidity and heat were switched off, replaced with a crispness that has been missing for much of the past few weeks.
This morning, I awoke to steady (and needed) rainfall. Talk of drought was replaced by reminders of “flooding in low-lying areas.” As the old-timers would say, “if you don’t like the weather, wait a minute,” offering their apt and simplified descriptor of what the meteorologists tell us about Maine’s weather.
Sunday, my sister and he who we know as “Handy,” were doing an early run-through of some recipes that may show up in the upcoming Moxie “Cook Off,” better known as the Moxie Recipe Contest, which she reminded me, would be taking place in “40 days and 40 nights.” This year’s Moxie culinary throw-down seems to be taking on something akin to biblical import in Lisbon Falls and surrounding communities.
The focus of Moxie Season.
The meatballs were stellar, and I must say, in a nod to Handy’s predilections and food pairings, they go well with PBR, too! For the beer snobs, I’d hazard a guess that they’d go well with any summer session brew of the craft variety, such as my favorite, Harpoon Summer Beer, a terrific take on the German Kölsch. But let’s not get bogged down on beer, at least not in a Moxie-related post. There’s plenty of summer writing space to tackle beer preferences
Word about the Moxie Recipe Contest is beginning to trickle out, at my sister’s blog, on the Facebook and other social media, and I’ve begun “leaking” information to a few “inside baseball” types.
Get ready. Like our recent premonition that summer’s not far away, it’s also time to start thinking about Moxie Season, too!
Get your Moxie on at the Moxie Recipe Contest.
We just endured thirty days without a drop of rain at this southern locale as well. Lots of micro-climates down here, though, with drought in one location and a farm flooded out of summer crops a mile or two away. When the contractors take over an old farm, cut down all the oaks and tear up all the pasture, pour a couple thousand tons of concrete and tarmac over it, they change the weather patterns. The rains fall where the trees are, that is, where it’s cooler and encourages condensation.
While the Moxie Cook-off is taking a big step up, I was disappointed to see that under-18s are no longer allowed to compete. I’m guessing that’s liability based on a cash prize or being in the MTM Center, but the younguns have made quite a good showing in the past and it’s a shame to discourage them.