Charcuterie & Shaker Baking

Today’s Maine Sunday Telegram includes an article about the baking traditions of the Shaker community in New Gloucester, and

During the first weekend of December, Brother Arnold baked 800 biscuits and 200 cinnamon rolls, rolling dough out on the same marble slab that Shakers have used since the dwelling house was built in 1883. He has baked more than 80 fruitcakes so far this year, plus coffee-can and beer-batter breads.

“Food really is important to the Shakers. It always has been,” Brother Arnold says as he moves around the kitchen with the ease that comes from cooking here for more than four decades.

an article about the profusion of cheese and meat board options now available in Portland.

If the now-trendy boards appearing with increasing frequency on menus across southern Maine are any indication, what customers are getting is full. No matter what you call them, charcuterie boards are all about abundance. And in a phase of the pandemic where you might have to wait months for lumber, a new car or a snowblower, there is something reassuring in being presented with an edible, over-the-top display of bounty.