The White Hot Spotlight features local people and their creative passions or careers.

Capt. Brenda Thomas is a schooner owner/captain and the co-owner of Maine Boating Adventures, LLC . She is married with two kids and lives in Rockland. Thomas has been sailing since 1994, mostly on schooners in Maine, but also in the Chesapeake, Caribbean, and through the Panama Canal up the west coast to Los Angeles.

Q: As a captain, it's clear your passion is schooners and boats. How did you get into this life style and what motivates you every day about it?

 A: Honestly, some days are easier than others. When it's sunny and warm with the gentle breezes of summer, it's easy. There are the windy, rainy days that are more work, but it still beats being in an office!

My involvement with the Isaac H. Evans began in late summer of 1995, when I took over the position as mess mate from a young lady who was returning to college. I was the cook the following summer and then the first mate for two summers before the schooner came up for sale in the fall of 1998. Though I had been keeping track of my sea time, when I purchased the Evans in February 1999, I didn't yet have my captain's license. I spent that whole winter working on the boat and studying for my test. It was an absolute roller coaster ride, but about two weeks after the sale became final and the reality was finally starting to sink in, I called my mom and said, "I own a National Historic Landmark!"

In addition to sailing each season since 1994 in and around Penobscot Bay, I have found myself working on several other vessels in the off-season. I have sailed in the Chesapeake Bay Schooner Race several times, sailed all throughout the Caribbean from Trinidad to St. Thomas, through the Panama Canal, and up the west coast as far as Los Angeles. Although all those experiences were great in their own way, every time I sail somewhere else I appreciate our idyllic Maine coast even more.

Q: Do you own both The Isaac H. Evans and the M/V Rendezvous or do you just manage the two businesses under one package?

I love that this boat has been through so much and she is still here. I enjoy being her steward for now to make sure she is alive and well for the next caretaker.

I bought the Evans in 1999. I had been a crew member since 1995 and the business was essentially turn-key. I bought Rendezvous in 2007 and spent that winter rebuilding a lot of her. We started operating Rendezvous in the summer of 2008. I incorporated on January 1, 2008; the business name is Maine Boating Adventures, LLC. I had given some thought to offering kayak trips at some point, so "boating" was the only thing I could think of that would cover sail boats, power boats, and kayaks.

Q: Explain the benefits of promoting not only a classic schooner trip throughout the Midcoast, but also a sightseeing harbor tour.  In other words, when people come to Maine, what do they want to see and how do you fulfill that wish for an authentic experience?

A: Over the years it seems that people plan their vacations differently. I'm sure the economy is the biggest factor. When I first started in the windjammer business, people were making their reservations up to a year in advance. By the time spring outfitting rolled around, I had a pretty clear picture of what the summer was going to look like. Now people make their reservations much later - sometimes only weeks in advance. And we have even more last-minute reservations. By the time spring outfitting rolls around, we really don't know exactly what the summer is going to look like and we hope the weather is nice so people think of traveling to Maine and going out on the water.

The other trend I've seen over the years is vacationers opting for shorter boating excursions. In the beginning, windjammer trips were almost all six nights; board Sunday night return to the dock Saturday morning. Now our most popular trip is four nights. In the last two years we've also tested one- and two-night trips. Most people just don't have the time, nor the budget to spend an entire week on the bay like they used to.

Even though Rendezvous isn't a sailboat, I saw her potential as a beautiful platform to offer lighthouse cruises and lobster-dinner cruises for people who just wanted to get out on the water and maybe have drink or two along the way, kind of like a classy party boat. We've done birthday parties, bachelorette parties, corporate parties, weddings, and funerals at sea in addition to our regular cruises and special event cruises (like the Windjammer Parade cruise). We were even the platform for the filming of a Kenny Chesney music video a couple years ago and Kenny was on board for an entire day.

Q. How do you find enjoyment every day in what you do?

A: I like that, although there is a basic schedule to every day, every day is different because of the guests, weather, wildlife, and the problems that crop up. I like being versatile and being able to meet the challenges that arise. I work very well under pressure and like the instinctual decision-making that kicks in in those situations. I also like "boring" - when everything is moving along like a well-oiled machine and we just do what we do.

I like climbing aloft and feeling the power of the boat and her masts (I'm still amazed that such a big, heavy boat moves with just the power of the wind!) I like taking guests ashore and exploring alongside them. I love Maine and I love the area that I get to sail in with its thousands of islands and anchorages. We welcome kids on our trips and I find great enjoyment in watching them experience the schooner; from the fun of pirate play to the seriousness of taking the helm. I strive to take repeat guests to harbors they haven't visited before. I like to sand and paint and get great satisfaction from the finished product. I love that this boat has been through so much and she is still here. I enjoy being her steward for now to make sure she is alive and well for the next caretaker. She has taught me so much - about her, about life, about sailing, plumbing, electricity, carpentry, and mechanics, and, most importantly, about myself.

Q: You also play in a steel drum band for fun. Ever think of combining the two and doing a steel drum cruise?

A: I have taken my drum on board a few times but, unfortunately, it's not the most portable instrument, especially on a boat where space is already tight!

For more information visit: http://www.maineboatingadventures.com/ Like www.facebook.com/killervconvo to be in the running for the next White Hot Spotlight.

LINCOLNVILLE – Ladleah Dunn is a sailor and a damn good cook. More importantly, she aims not to take the foodie industry in Maine so seriously or make it too precious. Her culinary adventures stem largely from her own small farm in Lincolnville; what’s ridiculous is how she makes it look so easy.

A good friend of Ladleah Dunn’s is up from Brookyn for a few days. Millicent Souris happens to be the author of the just-released cookbook, How To Build A Better Pie: Sweet and Savory Recipes for Flaky Crusts, Toppers, and the Things in Between (Quarry Books, 2102)

 So what do we want to do while she’s here? Make a pie, naturally.

Typical of Ladleah and Millicent’s style, this is a pie on the fly. That is; there will be no trips to the grocery store—they’ll make it with whatever they can scrounge up on Ladleah’s farm she shares with her husband Shane Laprade. With beers on the beach, the ladies start to envision what to make, going off on their own culinary jam:

Millicent: “It’s too hot in the freaking kitchen. What do we want to make?”

Ladleah: “We want to make something that doesn’t take a lot of time.”

Millicent: “Right, so something crusty, like chess pie.” (Which is an easy custard pie.)

Ladleah: “Yeah, good—let’s use some of the duck eggs.”

Millicent: “How ‘bout some of that lemon verbena in your garden. I love lemon verbena.”

Ladleah: “And I’ve got frozen raspberries.”

Millicent: “Oh we’ll definitely use that. With some anise hyssop, also from your garden.”

Ladleah: “Yup.”

Duck egg crème en glace (a loose custard) flavored with lemon verbena/anise hyssop atop a Dutch pancake. Done. Recipe in mind, we head back to the farm in Lincolnville as we come to find out how Ladleah and Millicent’s path crossed. As Millicent tells it, she and Ladleah met when she came up to Maine with some friends a couple of years ago and cooked at Salt Water Farm, where Ladleah had been the chef for 2.5 years. “We were luckily enough to have Ladleah there and she and I are just, you know, kindred souls.” Millicent is currently working to open a new restaurant in NY for a friend and is up for a few days to cook with Nancy Harmon Jenkins.

Technically what they have in mind is not so much a pie as a light, crusty dessert.  “If we don’t make a pie then we don’t have to have the oven on for an hour,” Millicent says. “Making a real pie takes a lot of time. If you’ve got good custard and you’ve got beautiful fruit and herbs—that’s what makes a lot of desserts interesting. Sometimes it’s like: don’t get in the way of the food. Don’t try to be like some f***ing superstar when you should just be like: ‘All right, let’s just make this.’ ”

“Exactly,” says Ladleah.

Back in the kitchen, Millicent cracks several fresh duck eggs collected from Ladleah’s duck pen and mixes it into a bowl with sugar.

She then scalds milk with a couple of peppercorns and some of the lemon verbena from Ladleah’s herb garden. Whisking, Millicent notes, ““When peppercorns and lemon verbena come together it’s very flavorful and fragrant.”

Next, she explains how she mixes the two ingredients. “Eggs are difficult so you have to respect them. You aren’t looking to scramble them here, you’re looking to make a smooth sauce. So, any time you make an egg-based sauce, generally you need to temper them, which means you’re bringing up the temperature of the eggs by adding the hot milk, but in a small, steady stream.”

At this point, Ladleah produces the frozen raspberries and begins to thaw them as Millicent finishes the custard (thickens it up) over the double boiler. A double boiler can be as simple as a metal bowl sitting on top of a pan of simmering water—as it is in this case.

Next she prepares the batter for the Dutch pancake—which is, as she explains, sort of like a giant popover—cooked in a cast iron pan. It cooks up really easy and then it all comes together.

The finished result is the duck egg crème en glace and lemon verbena/anise hyssop stop a Dutch pancake. Sounds complicated, but for these two, a walk in the park.

“Let’s not even bother with forks and knives,” Millicent says, “just grab a hunk off of it and enjoy it.” That’s what we do.

For more of Millicent’s pie recipes visit: How To Build A Better Pie

Follow Ladleah’s blog, Sailor’s Rest Farm to see what else she’s got cookin’.

Networking can be a funny thing. Sometimes people work hard to make connections that lead to successful partnerships and sometimes it just falls in their lap.  Brandon Kimble, a custom furniture/cabinet maker and owner of Brandon T. Kimble Designs in Camden, knows this well. He went from talking to his brother-in-law at a birthday party one day to appearing on televison on an Aug. 20 episode of "Kitchen Crashers," part of DIY Network's Blog Cabin series. Because his brother-in-law was a mutual friend of one of the contractors connected to the show, one thing led to another. The show Blog Cabin needed a custom cabinet maker for an upcoming episode featuring a Maine farmhouse in Waldoboro and Kimble was asked to run the install of the kitchen.

According to their website, Blog Cabin is "the groundbreaking multimedia experience based on a very simple idea: You Design It, We Build It, You Could Win It! This truly interactive series asks Internet users to vote on the design features for a real vacation getaway."

What this means is viewers and online followers get to choose every single element of a house that DIY Network fully renovates and one lucky winner gets to move into the finished home, completely free. In this case, the network purchased an old high-posted cape located in Waldoboro and has renovated every part of it for a 2012 giveaway. Along the way, six special epsiodes of the renovations will be broken down into sections inside and outside the house: Mega Dens, Bath Crashers, Yard Crashers, House Crashers, Kitchen Crashers and Desperate Landscapes.

Kimble's crew tackled the kitchen of the 3,000 square foot high posted cape, thus landed on Aug. 20 Kitchen Crashers episode. We checked in with him shortly after the episode aired.

Q: Who actually is responsible for pulling the kitchen's overall design together?

A: Victoria Lesser is the Interior Designer on the show. The viewers and online followers of Blog Cabin picked all the counter tops, fixtures, and whether there was going to be an island or a penisula--they chose an island. Online, they voted for everything wanted and that's what went in it.

Q: Did you like what they picked?

A: Yeah, thought it looked great! You can see everything that went into the kitchen on the website's Kitchen Tour.

Q: How long did your crew take to rebuild this entire kitchen?

A: They left us with just drywall and finished floors and we did it in three days. It was a long three days; we put in a lot of overtime just to get it done.

Q: What did you end up doing?

A: We did all the cabinets, all the countertops, the sink, the island, the wine rack, basically the entire kitchen.

Q: What was it like working with a TV crew shooting around you the entire time?

It was great--probably one of the best experiences I've ever had.  I've never had a TV crew filming me while I'm doing things; however, if that needs to start, I will do that.

Q: What's the response been?

Well, because the show was aired on the DIY channel and not HGTV (their big sister channel) most locals I've talked to still havent seen it. It will, however, air on the website shortly, so stay tuned. I was also approached to do two more episodes to do in Boston, but we'll see on that.

The DIY Network plans to give away the Maine 'Blog Cabin' valued at approximately $700,000. The final show airs at 9 p.m. Sept. 27 on the DIY Network. It can be seen again at 8 a.m. Sept. 28 on HGTV. To enter the sweepstakes to win the "Cabin" visit: http://www.diynetwork.com/diy-blog-cabin-2012-main/package/index.html

For more information on Brandon T. Kimble Designs visit: www.btkdesigns.com

Standup Paddleboarding (SUP) is the newest form of the Girls Night Out, the Coffee Klatch, the Stitch N’ Bitch.  Paddleboarding on the lake or the ocean has been one of the fastest growing water sports the Midcoast has seen in the last few years. The water sport first originated in Hawaii and only requires a surf style board, a long paddle and balance. The first time I remember even seeing one and going “The hell?” is when Kea Tesseyman, a local dance instructor, was whipping by on Megunticook Lake on a paddleboard a couple of summers ago. Later, I’d met other women in the Midcoast who had their own boards and gathered together on summer mornings to work out, talk, do yoga on them and work off the scary voices in their heads.

Last summer, I learned how to use one at the same time I learned how to hula hoop. I got Maria Randolph of HOOP ME together with bartender and yoga instructor Stacy Campbell and the three of us decided to have a hula hooping contest on top of the paddleboards. Stacy had never hula hooped before; Maria had never SUP’ed. I’d never done either. We were just nerding out, but didn’t realize hula hooping on paddleboards had already become a trend, along with doing yoga or using them to go fishing.

While it is a watersport equally embraced by men and kids, I started to notice a trend with more women getting together to socialize on paddleboards.  Maine Sport Outfitters’ rental associate Ben Hamel said: “It’s definitely a growing sport. And women going out alone or together have made up at least half of our clients. Paddleboards are substantially lighter than kayaks; most of them are in the 20- to 30-pound range, so they are much more manageable for them to lift onto and take off a car." Thorfinn Expeditions co-owner Chris Laughlin agreed. “Probably one of the most exciting parts of standup paddling is that it’s equal, or it could heavily tilted toward the women’s demographic, actually. There seems to be natural attraction between women and SUP; I’m not sure what it is — kind of a Zen factor mixed with a workout. Sales and rentals have been very much active with women.”

Not content to be all herp derp with a hula hoop, I entered the first Paddleboard Jousting Event this summer hosted by Maine, Boats, Homes & Harbors and assisted by Thorfinn Expeditions. With the jousting event, everyone had to have a Medieval-sounding name, a costume, and the willingness to sign paperwork that stated event sponsors were not responsible if you were maimed or died on your board in front of hundreds of people. I have to admit: that unnerved me. I didn’t want to be maimed. [Not the face!] And I definitely didn’t want my last moments on Earth to involve being Lifeflighted out in a plate-mail costume made of PBR cans.

Pressing on. Photographer Jonathan Laurence strapped the “Maim or Die” cam on the top of my helmet. So you know, it’s not easy to paddle toward your opponent with a helmet that keeps covering your eyes, with a mouth guard that obstructs your breathing, while trying to figure which end of the paddle you’re supposed to use. [You: it’s not rocket surgery. Me: shaddup.]

I did okay in the first round. Lady Paddlebeard (who incidentally won the contest) gave me a good jab in the semi-finals. At that point, I gave my best imitation of sliding around on a wax floor coated in Olestra, while trying to simultaneously stamp out a fire and wave at an oncoming car that was about to hit me. For that, I won Best Wipe Out.

September is an ideal time to rent a paddleboard, ladies. The supply of boards will be higher. The season is traditionally dry and hot, perfect weather for paddling and a lot of kids are back in school, freeing up some time for moms and non-moms to get a core workout in and some serious cackling out of the way.

For more info on where to rent/buypaddleboards in the Midcoast and pricing visit:

Thorfinn Expeditions (Lincolnville)

Maine Sport Outfitters(Rockport)

Port Clyde Kayaks (Port Clyde)

You don't forget a guy like Jay Sawyer when you first meet him. Big, raw-boned, in a faded Pink Floyd T-shirt with a go-to-hell beard. Intimidating at first, until he eases into conversation, feeling comfortable enough to let a few F-bombs fly. Then, you know, he likes you.

Eight months ago

A friend and I were knocking around last October, on a beautiful crisp day, when she pulled into a dirt driveway off Camden Road/Route 90, which connects Warren with Rockport. A beat up pickup truck painted with the colors of the American flag sat by the gate.

"Good," she said. "The gate's open. You gotta see this guy's sculptures."

"What are we doing?" I remember asking. "Can we just... go walk around on his land?"

"Yeah, the gate's open. That means he wants us to."

I'd been to outdoor galleries before, but nothing of what I was about to see was in any way typical.  Beyond the natural beauty of the sloping pine grove of his property, several winding paths led out to a lily pad choked pond and a large expanse of lawn.  Tucked in spots around this wooded canvas were these odd configurations of metal, many of them spherical and more than eight-feet tall. This outdoor showcase featuring all of these scrap metal sculptures was called Stemwinder Sculpture Works & Garden. I immediately pulled out my camera. That's when I saw Sawyer come walking toward us.

"Hey there," he said, with an unflappable Maine accent. "I'm happy to have you walk around my garden, I just need to ask what you’re going to do with the pictures."

As a self-taught artist who has worked hard over the last 10 years not only to perfect his particular brand of welded sculpture, his question generated a thoughtful conversation around the ethics of taking photographs of a artist’s work and displaying it on one’s professional website, particularly, if the photo is for sale. (Luckily for me, I snapped the pictures just planning a story.) But it’s a big gray area among artists, regarding who should receive credit, the photographer for the image or the artist for the work. And where is the respectful balance at which both parties benefit?

It's all in the phrasing

Over the last eight months, Sawyer and I have gotten to know one another and have developed a mutual respect. It's a rare occurrence that I'll let myself be as unedited with someone I'm interviewing as Sawyer, but no one's here to clutch their pearls. As we once again walk through his property, I'm mostly drawn to his rustic spheres made out of old horseshoes or shear rings fashioned perfectly round. Asked how he does that, he chuckles, “That’s the 64,000 question, now isn’t it?”

"I'll tell you," he said. "I get the funniest comments about these spheres. I had a guy come up to me a couple of months ago and tell me in all seriousness, 'My wife loves your balls.' And then later, she came up to me and said, 'I can't stop rubbing your balls.' " Chuckling, he said: "I was just trying to keep a straight face and you know, thank her for the compliment."

Sawyer’s unconventional path as a commercial welder to a full-fledged sculptor/artist started later in life. He has lived in his hometown of Warren since 1973. After graduating from Maine Maritime Academy, Sawyer worked as a marine engineer, and then started his own welding business in 1994. 

All of Sawyer’s signature pieces are constructed from salvaged materials removed from old mills, demolished buildings junkyards, and scrap metal yards.

“I think from the moment that I was actually trying to build a sculpture, I had it in mind that my goal was to be a sculptor and be recognized as an artist,” he said. While others contemplating a career change might jump into college programs, Sawyer never pursued formal training; he just started forming pieces that felt right to him. Around 2005, he began to make welded art in earnest. Each piece was added it to his outdoor garden. Soon, other artists, gallery owners and architects were consulting and commissioning his pieces. Last year, his income from his art surpassed what he had been making as a welder.

You get the feeling that initially, when he began sculpting, the term “artist” might have felt as comfortable as wearing a tuxedo to beach. But over the years, Sawyer’s work has spoken for itself and with each commercial success and recognition from the local art world, he has reconciled himself to what the term artist means for him.

Rock N Roll and an old friend’s legacy

The spheres that Sawyer is known for all have stories, of course. Most of the salvaged pieces are recovered from Maine locations. One of his first welded series used horseshoes; he eventually moved on to work with other unlikely materials, for example: metal pieces shaped like bow ties and steel shear rings, used in the construction of the trusses that went over a hangar at the Brunswick Naval Air Station. The shear rings have the most emotional resonance for Sawyer, for they were materials his late friend and mentor David McLaughlin, also worked with.

McLaughlin, also a welder/sculptor, didn’t pass up a chance to find some quirky salvaged material to re-use in his own art. “David had self-diagnosed his obsession with scrap metals as Acquisition Disorder,” Sawyer jokes.  Before McLaughlin passed away, he’d left a note stating that he wanted Sawyer to have his remaining collection of shear rings to carry on the subject of spheres in his absence.

 A Spirit Of Its Own was inspired by Sawyer’s earlier creation Late Collaboration, which had a McLaughlin sphere tucked inside one of Sawyer’s larger spheres. In A Spirit Of Its Own Sawyer created both the smaller and larger sphere, using some of McLaughlin’s remaining shear rings.  

“We had a ton of mutual respect,” said Sawyer. “He felt there was going to be success in my work and I think that was his way of contributing as a gift to me. And so, in return, I hope to help contribute to his legacy and his influence on many, many people in the state. He’s one of the closest friends I’ve had. “

The Alice-In-Wonderland meets Steampunk gazebo was another McLaughlin-inspired find on a salvage job the two of them did together.  The canopy is the belly pan of a water tower that stood at a woolen mill down in Lisbon Falls.

“I found myself looking straight on to this spherical shape and I’m drawn to that shape, obviously,” said Sawyer. “And it was just so beautiful. I wanted to build the most beautiful gazebo you’d ever seen.”

At 14-and-a-half feet, it had to be hand cut in half with an oxy acetylene torch and carried home on a flatbed truck. Then, Sawyer re-assembled it and took his trusty 65,000 pound 1970s vintage excavator, Big Bertha, swung the belly pan upside down and affixed it atop the stump of a dead tree. At Stemwinder Sculpture Works & Garden, amidst all of the other rusting hulking “flowers,” the canopy is immensely at odds with nature, yet so beautiful, indeed. Couples have already asked to pose under it for wedding day photos and another couple is slated to get married under it this fall.

If Sawyer is around for that wedding, just don’t expect him to show up in a tuxedo.

Stemwinder Sculpture Works & Garden’s entrance is open Sundays and Mondays, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. or by appointment.  For more information contact Jay Sawyer, 207.273.3948 or www.stemwindersculpture.com

Whether you're one of those purist camping types, who will only bring whatever you can physically carry in/carry out; i.e., chamois towel the size of a Wet-Nap, fire-starting flint, two-ounce micro stove, or you're a cram-everything-you-can-into-your car-type (three-foot cooler, hand-blended fruit purees for the evening's happy hour cocktail, air bed and 15 pillows), you're going to love what Lafe Low, author of Best Tent Camping In New England, has to say about the best car camping spots in Maine.

The book was first written in 2002, featuring Acadia National Park on the cover, and has now gone into its fourth edition. Low, who comes up frequently from Boston to the Midcoast to visit family, first moved to the Midcoast in 1991 to be the editor of a graphics magazine.

“The ad said a desired northern New England location and I knew right away that was Camden, because there was this bizarre connection between Camden, Maine, and Peterboro, N.H., where all these computer magazines had sprouted up," said Low. "And I remember saying to my wife as we drove into town, 'Well the hell with this, even if I don’t get this job, we’re moving here.' I felt more at home here than I’d felt in a long time.”

'So after going back and forth a little bit, I agreed to be that wing nut.'

When Low eventually did move to Camden, he took the editor position and eventually gravitated toward his what he’d always been passionate about personally, as well as professionally—the outdoors. With a partner, he started an outdoor magazine in 1995 called Explore New England.  “I started the magazine with the intent to…retire at age 30?… Yeah, that didn’t happen. Actually, the intent was to produce a magazine sort of like Outside, but just for New England. And although the magazine did not succeed, I’m just as convinced today for the editorial need for that kind of resource. You just got to find a way to do it and stay alive.”

In the next few years, Low would explore a lot of what New England’s outdoor regions had to offer with every new position he took. He worked as editor and editorial director for the Adventure Club of North America and as an editor for the Globe Pequot Press. He made a lot of good contacts in those jobs and one day, having moved back to Boston to work for the award-winning CIO and Redmond magazines, an opportunity dropped in his lap.  

“I’m sitting there at work one day and the publishers at Menasha Ridge Press contacted me and said, hey, we’ve got a series of campground books and we’re looking to do one in New England and we need some wing nut to write one," he said. "So after going back and forth a little bit, I agreed to be that wing nut.”

The Top 3 Best Places In Maine To Camp

“I’m totally a creature of habit,” said Low. “I’ll go to the same places over and over if I like them. But writing the book had to make me spread my wings a bit.”

Of the 14 best spots in Maine Low reviews in his book, his personal his top three that he would visit over and over are:

1. Mt. Desert Campground: This is my favorite campground that has been in every edition and will stay in every edition. When I first sat down to write this book with a mild sense of panic, this was the first profile I wrote. I love this place, absolutely love it, just the character and the feel of the whole place. It has a ton of water sites, right on the coast at the apex of Somes Sound. The sites aren’t huge, but they are nicely spaced from one another. It’s peaceful and relaxing. If you go in the off-season in September or October, try to make a reservation in the A peninsula.
   
   
2. Hermit Island: Drive to Bath, heading to the ocean, and keep driving until your front wheels are wet. It’s at the end of one of those fingers of land. It’s pretty big, and has a lot of sites. It’s got everything, some deep, densely wooded sites, some sites that are on this nice, still water facing the land. Sites on the beach carved out of that dense beach foliage. Sites up on a bluff overlooking Muscongus Bay. It’s fabulous.
   
   
3. Cobscook Bay State Park: Clearly the woods and water are a powerful combination, which is why I love this one, too. There are tons of sites right on the water. And they’re not giant, but I don’t need a plot of land I can build a house on to go camping. The character of the sites gives you a real nice feeling of isolation in the area.

There are still some beautiful months to camp this fall. Whatever you do, respect the camping credo: Take only good craft beer; leave only memories.

Nathaniel Bernier, of Wild Rufus Consignments, scours obscure news articles daily finding oddball stories that he puts his own twist on. Read at your own risk.

1: Today's ProTip: if you're going to show up to your child's tennis match hammered, you probably shouldn't offer the booze to any of the other juvenile players. 20th July 2012

2: Today's ProTip: if you're a deputy sheriff tooling along in the county's cruiser, try not to run into other cars in the parking lot of WalMart due to being so whacked out on confiscated 'scripts' or you might be charged with a DUI and fired. 19th July 2012

3: Today's ProTip: if you're a teacher and you're doinking one of your students, try not to send text messages about meeting at home for sex, especially if the student's father intercepts the text message and meets you at the front door. 18th July 2012

4: Today's ProTip: if you've got stolen money in your purse, don't forget that you don't HAVE to show the cops when they ask you to open it- especially if you also have cocaine in there. 16th July 2012

5: Today's ProTip: if you're a motorcycle cop for the presidential motorcade you probably shouldn't boast to your fellow officers about how you want to shoot the First Lady and then show them a picture of the gun you intend to use. 13th July 2012

6: Today's ProTip: if you can't find your wallet you probably shouldn't call 911 and then threaten to kill the "whole police department" since they can't help you. 9th July 2012

7: Today's ProTip: if you are training your three-year olds to "ball up their fists" and encourage them to keep fighting, you probably shouldn't video it and then put it up on Facebook. 5th July 2012

8: Today's ProTip: if you're the host of an International exchange-student party, try not to show up drunk and agitated and then force your wife to shoot you in the head. 3rd July 2012

Natalie’s award-winning bartender Tom Laslavic isn’t about to flip some bottles for you and re-enact a scene from the 1988 movie, Cocktail. He’s just not that kind of guy. He’s more the quiet, methodical type, the kind of bartender who truly hones in on the needs of his customer. What he’ll do for you instead is construct a cocktail that will make you slam your open palm onto the bar and say, "Now that's what I call a drink!"

His signature cocktail, Camden Hike, was recently featured in the 2012 book, The American Cocktail. The prominent ingredients feature Cold River vodka, a puree of native blueberries, blackberries, black currents and a syrup of Maine wild flower honey that he gets from Fresh Off The Farm. The result is refreshingly tart, loaded with antioxidants and topped with a spear of blackberries and blueberries.

The drink originated from a 2010 Maine Restaurant Week contest sponsored by Cold River Vodka whose logo is “The Spirit of Maine.” The competition took that logo to be its motto.  “I thought, what ingredients would you find in Camden on a hike on an August summer day?" Laslavic said. "You’re going to find the berries, the honey, and if you’re nice enough, you can knock on someone’s door and get the lemon.”

The idea of the Camden Hike, he explains, was inspired by a college friend whose father made homemade wines.  “He called his varieties, ‘The Country Meal,’ ‘The County Mile’ and ‘The Country Walk,’” said Laslavic. “Each one had the flavor of what you’d find on respectively in a country meal or on a long walk, such as honey and berries and that was what led me to the idea of the Camden Hike.”

From the publicity generated from this contest, the editors of Imbibe Magazine got in touch with Laslavic and asked if he’d like his cocktail featured in The American Cocktail.  The editors interacted with Laslavic by email, so the cocktail in the book is not actually the one that Laslavic makes — it’s an approximation.

We set out to see how the real cocktail is made and what it really looks like.

First you add a ½ oz each of the wildflower honey, crème de cassis and fresh squeezed lemon juice. Then, you add 1 oz each of the purees of blueberry and blackberry. Finally, add 2 oz of Cold River vodka. Shake with ice and strain off the ice into a cocktail glass. Top with soda water and garnish with a lemon twist and spear of blackberries and blueberries. To see how to make one, watch the video.

“I think most people expect this to be sweeter than it is,” said Laslavic.”It’s a very well-balanced cocktail and the flavors are very fresh. It’s all those properties of Maine and very soothing.”

Just drink it with a straw or else you’ll look like a kid who just finished a grape popsicle.