“The minerals in the mud around here are really good for your skin." —Willie Drury

Rick Frantz and Jennifer Fox are part of Portland’s vibrant waterfront scene. They own Andy’s Old Port Pub on Commercial Street, and they take the ferry home each night to Great Diamond Island. Casco Bay is literally their backyard. 

The consensus to purchase the property outright came as a surprise to the committee.

Donald Trump may have carried Washington County in the 2016 election, but you wouldn’t know it by the reception progressive Democrat and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio got in Eastport on Jan. 13.

As I’m writing this column, the sky is monochromatic and flat.

Two new cookbooks from Midcoast chefs—Full Moon Suppers at Salt Water Farm in Lincolnville by Annemarie Ahearn and The Lost Kitchen: Recipes and a Good Life Found in Freedom, Maine by Erin French—suggest that our rugged, salt-hued terroir

By design, Caught, with text by by Glen Libby and photos by Antonia Small, is a book you can keep on your coffee table both for casual browsing and for burnishing your progressive cool. But you might want to look in deeper.

I thought about what it must have felt like when electricity first became available on the islands.

I wrote some letters and notes by hand and put actual stamps on them; very pleasant.