Sur la Plage

Yesterday my husband and I drove to Old Orchard Beach seeking an old-fashioned beach experience, even if it was 60 degrees and threatening to rain. Still, in Maine, if it's not snowing it's summer, so off we went. We were not disappointed.

There it was, the beach town in America circa 2011: Colorful kiddie rides, police cruisers keeping the peace, towels hanging in shop windows reminding you where you are, tired-looking smokers collapsed on benches, overflowing trash cans and the occasional three-legged dog. Down at the pier people of all shapes and sizes lined up for pizza, fried dough, French fries, hot dogs, nachos, corn on the cob, fried clams, lobster rolls, sodas, ice cream and more. Despite appropriate beach attire being quite revealing, by the time you're there it's too late to do anything about your body so caution is thrown to the wind and dieting is forgotten. Hence there was not one health food stand or V-8 bar to be found.

Shouldering past all those temptations, we went for a walk on the actual beach, marveling at the few brave souls in the water who were almost all teenage boys and the one determined kite-flier who achieved modest success at last. Next we wandered through the arcades and enjoyed several rousing games of Skee-Ball, finally arriving back where we started and getting down to the real business of summertime: eating.

I bellied up to the bar and purchased French fries from two different vendors, one right after the other just as a quality control experiment, and ate them all by myself although Mitch, who is a saint and much stronger than I owing to his membership in an exercise cult that has toughened his resolve as well as his calves, did his fair share of sampling. The fries were ridiculously good, although the ones from the first place were so much better than the ones from the second place that I almost went back for another batch, but by then I was fairly nauseous.

You might be thinking "Quelle cochon!" and who could blame you, however I believe I deserve kudos for not ordering poutine, the latest Canadian import invading America: fries smothered with sausage gravy and cheese. To be honest, not that many people were ordering those. Nevertheless, the nation of France must be thanked for those fries, if nothing else.