the fifty states project #3: ME.

if there's any state whose people possess a sweet collective nickname, it's the citizens of maine. oh you maniacs! ok. technically people from maine are "mainers," but that nickname's lamer than keyser soze so i ignore it. maine officially came into existence back in 1820, when it seceded from massachusetts & became its own state, one that's almost as big as all the other five new england states put together. it's 90% covered in trees, a fact that makes it the most heavily-forested state in the nation & leads to the state nickname, the "pine tree state." other than its bounty of trees & the fact that like much of northern new england, its population is extremely white (96.1%), what really makes maine special?

personally, i've been to maine a bunch & my favorite part of the state is portland, the largest city in the state with 66K residents (91K if you include south portland). it's a coastal city that's filled with all sorts of crunchy restaurants & shops, especially in the downtown & harbor areas. it's rather hip. portland was originally the state capital but after only a few years the capital moved to the more-boring-but-more-central city of augusta, where it remains to this day. the coastline portland's on is almost 230 miles long & along it, there are a bunch of cute towns & fishing villages and thousands of islands. kennebunkport, the summer home of the bush family, is on the coast, as is bar harbor, a popular summer locale. there are lighthouses & rocky beaches all sorts of scenic junk along the coast, so it's where a lot of the action is.

if you're looking for interesting places to visit in the state, you should start with the grand view topless coffee shop in vassalboro. i say that because earlier this week, the owner announced that he's finally decided to close the place. it opened in '09 to all sorts of community protest & soon after, it burnt to the ground. it later reopened, but the community has continued to fight against it. the last straw came when he put up a sign that said "boobies wanted" & the community told him it was too big & he had to take it down. that's when he finally decided it wasn't worth the harassment. as soon as he runs out of inventory, he's shutting the place down, so time's of the essence if you want to check it out. you could visit strong, maine but it's already too late for you to experience the town in all its glory. it was once "the toothpick capital of the world," as the strong wood products incorporated plant pumped out 20 million toothpicks a day until it shut down in 2003.

foodwise, maine's all about lobsters, of which they're the largest producer in the united states. if you travel to maine & don't eat at least one lobster, you've kinda failed. the state also produces 25% of the nation's blueberry crop, so you should probably ask whoever's serving you your lobster to sprinkle some blueberries on it while they're at it. when it comes to snacks, the official state treat is the whoopie pie, a dessert that both maine & pennsylvania lay claim to. it's a bitter rivalry. in late march, south portland's wicked whoopies made a 1,062 lb whoopie pie to snatch the world record for "largest whoopie pie" away from PA, who'd held the previous record at a pansy-ass 200 lbs. maine's official state soft drink is moxie, whose creator was born in union, ME. i've never had the stuff but they love it so much that on july 8th, lisbon falls is holding their 27TH ANNUAL moxie festival. i suppose i should have got a whoopie pie & a moxie for my snack-drink pairing but whatevs. i don't want to be too predictable.

so it's a pretty cool state. if you've never been, you should at least go check out portland some time. be careful though...the place is FULL of maniacs.

...& now i leave you with my favorite maine story, one that didn't even take place in maine. back in college, i was working at a b.u.-maine women's basketball game, when who should walk into the arena but famed maine resident stephen king, with his wife & kids in tow. they'd traveled down from their home in bangor to watch their lady black bears, who at the time were a powerhouse & were essentially maine's equivalent of a professional sports team. during every timeout, he & the family would all pull out books to read. during one of the TV timeouts, mr king got up to use the restroom & as he walked past me with his head down, he repeated the words "tv timeout" to himself over & over & over again. ever since then, every time i see his face, the words "tv timeout tv timeout tv timeout" repeat over & over & over again in my head. he really is the king of horror!

snack: little lad's herbal bbq popcorn
drink: shipyard XXXX ipa

for my maine-made snack, i bought a bag of little lad's herbal bbq popcorn that i found at whole foods. it's true. i actually stepped foot in a whole foods by choice. i always feel dirty after patronizing one, but this time, i did it for the love of snack journalism. little lad's makes their popcorn in corinth, a town of 2,500 people in the center of the state. they also have a restaurant in portland that just reopened in march, but their website is frustratingly hard to read though so i'm not entirely sure what their deal is. they at least have a restaurant and a factory where they make popcorn & likely some other stuff. they apparently also have some sort of health education initiative thing going, as a portion of the proceeds from my popcorn purchase went toward health education in africa.

it's all healthy & simple & whatnot, as it's non-GMO popcorn made with herbs & spices, soybean oil and sea salt. if you were judging by the above photo, you'd probably think there's not all that much flavoring on it. that's because most of the herbs & spices had settled on the bottom of the bag & i didn't notice until after i'd taken the photo. once i shook the bag up a bit, i was left with a popcorn that had herbs & spices on it & sorta tasted like bbq but sorta tasted like weird. it wasn't disgusting but it wasn't all that tasty. it didn't help that the bag contained a TON of broken half pieces, meaning that each & every time i tried to cram a handful of it into my mouth, a few tiny pieces would shoot off onto the floor. i kept having to enact the five second rule. it was rather exhausting. to be blunt, while it's not entirely bad, i'm not sure if i'd get it again, especially if it means i have to go to whole foods to get it.

as far as beers go, shipyard brewing, out of portland, is arguably maine's most well-known brewery. i came across their shipyard XXXX ipa a few weeks back & decided to grab a few bottles. while i know that an "XXX" rating means "triple sexy," i'm not entirely certain what it means when there are four "X's." whatever it is, it's probably quite X-TREME. oh wait. it apparently stands for the number of hops & malts in it--four of each. that's not as pornographic or X-TREME as i'd thought. anyway, the beer's an american double ipa that's part of shipyard's "pugsley's signature series," which also includes their smashed pumpkin, a pumpktoberfest favorite. their 2009 edition of the XXXX ipa took home the silver medal at the u.s. open beer championships & the stockholm beer & whiskey festival, so i guess people think it's good.

personally, i could take it or leave it. it's a copper beer that's filled with a hefty amount of hops. it smells hoppy & it tastes hoppy, but the flavor's somewhat off. there's some caramel & some citrus in there but it's 9.25% ABV, so you can definitely taste the alcohol in it. it's not necessarily a bad thing, as it's more smooth than bitter. still, the flavor's not all that tasty & i don't think i could drink more than a 22 oz bottle of it in one sitting. in short, if you're looking for a strong ipa, you can definitely do better.