Desserted

Desserted

In 2001 Kate Shaffer left her life time California home to
travel 3,000 miles to Isle au Haut off the coast of Maine. She
intended to be a chef at Keepers House Inn. Her try out came in
April. A ten person work crew was dealing with winter damage and
preparing the inn for a new season. She was to fix them lunch. She
passed the test and won the job.
There were unique challenges in working in an island kitchen.
Groceries came by boat from the mainland. If an ingredient wasn't
available Shaffer had to do without. But she came to love the
gracious kindness of her colleagues and community. It was with great
sadness that she learned in 2005 that the inn would be closing. She
found herself craving something--a something she discovered when she
created her first batch of truffles. She was inspired to start a
chocolate business with her husband.
Shaffer's inspiration also led to the creation of a lovely book,
Desserted. Lovely is the word. The pages are cream colored and
substantial. The pictures are breathtaking. The recipes are
presented tenderly and thoughtfully with readers' questions
anticipated. These delights are for the sophisticated palette: wild
raspberry truffles, Mexican chocolate sorbet, macroons with chocolate
butter cream, chocolate gingerbread pancakes, Black Dinah chocolate
tiramisu...
If the recipes were all, Desserted would be amazing. However,
it also carries a narrative strand, a love story of finding one's true
belonging in a place where day long town meetings are community
affairs, where neighbors look out for one another, where kids go to
the same school their parents did. "It occurred to me that places
like this are as rare and fragile as all the wild places of the
earth. And we are at just as much risk of losing them forever."
Gosh! Let's hope not!
On a personal note, the Community Garden has begun to produce. We
gave our senior citizen friends fresh lettuce, kale, and scapes.
A great big shout out goes out to the community garden crew and our
dear senior citizen friends.
Julia Emily Hathaway


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