OBSESSIONS

WHAT WE CAN’T GET ENOUGH OF THIS MONTH.

EAT

FRESH MANGO

WHY DO WE LOVE IT? Lately I’ve been obsessed with mango. I’m from Colombia and one of the things I miss the most about my country is the huge variety of fresh fruits and how cheap they are there, so when I see good looking mangoes at the store I have to get a few. When in season they cost less than a dollar a piece! A great way to eat mangoes is by peeling them with a potato peeler, cutting along the seed and chopping them into bite size pieces. Then just add some fresh squeezed lime juice, salt and pepper and enjoy! (Some people add chili powder or hot sauce too!)

— CAROLINA RAVE

VISIT

BANGOR'S EUROPEAN MARKET

WHY DO WE LOVE IT? It’s not quite a secret, but one of Bangor’s best-kept lesser known prizes is the European Market on Buck Street that runs from 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. every Saturday in the Sunnyside Greenhouse. What looks like a cute little shop and greenhouse from the outside, gets transformed every Saturday into a farmers’ market-style treasure trove offering everything from the usual fare of breads, cheeses, homemade baked goods, jams and veggies all the way to Asian dumplings, fancy macarons, locally sourced meats, hand-knit baby clothes, Mediterranean soups, Greek treats, cake pops and more. Pop in this weekend to pick up lunch, sweets and unique hand-made gifts.

— AMY ALLEN

MAKE

HOMEMADE ORANGE CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES

WHY DO WE LOVE IT? I call them ‘Bengals’ cookies. It’s not their official name because we don’t have permission for that, but here’s how they came about. I wanted to make a dessert for the Super Bowl that would reflect the orange and black of the Cincinnati Bengals but didn’t have time to do anything elaborate. I started thinking and poking around and found a recipe for orange chocolate chip cookies. And they are delicious! Basically, it’s a standard chocolate chip cookie dough with orange extract in an equal amount to the vanilla extract and finely grated orange peel added to it. Baking and the rest are the same. These cookies have become a favorite in our family — and so easy.

— JULIE HARRIS

SIP

LYCHEE BUBBLE TEA AT FAT PANDA

WHY DO WE LOVE IT? When I was in college, a roommate from Hawaii loved to introduce me to the snacks she adored back home — from candies and crackers to jells filled with lychee fruit. A couple decades later, and I still love lychee (and a lot of the foods she introduced me to). So when I saw that Fat Panda Asian Market, which opened at 356 Harlow Street over the winter, had lychee bubble tea, I needed it. It was filled with the familiar flavor that’s so hard to find here. And while the tapioca pearls are good, when Fat Panda has lychee cubes, I always get those instead — double the lychee goodness! While you’re there, try the bao buns and do walk the aisles. From prawn chips to so many kinds of ramen to all the varieties of furikake you can imagine, there’s so much good stuff there to pick up.

— SARAH WALKER CARON

READ

THE STORYTELLER — TALES OF LIFE AND MUSIC BY DAVE GROHL

WHY DO WE LOVE IT? I read Dave Grohl’s book while looking forward to seeing the Foo Fighters this summer on the Bangor Waterfront — just before the untimely passing of their drummer Taylor Hawkins. With the tour canceled and the Foo’s future uncertain, this book is a lovely tribute to how the band came to be, including an inside look at the close relationship between Grohl and Hawkins.

But here’s what it really comes down to — I’m a sucker for a fun fact and this book is packed full. Speaking as a child of the 90s (see what I did there — I’m also a huge Pearl Jam fan), any story that offers a behind-the-scenes glimpse into Nirvana (did you know Kurt Cobain had a pet turtle?) is gold. In truth, there’s actually less about Nirvana and more about Grohl’s early years with Scream, a punk rock band from Washington, D.C., and later how Foo Fighters came to be. Spoiler alert — after Nirvana, Dave very nearly ended up as the drummer for Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers (he actually performed with them on Saturday Night Live — and if you really want to go down a rabbit hole, Grohl has been a musical guest on SNL 14 times — more than any other musician). All told, this is a fun and enlightening story of Grohl’s life on the road as a musician, and now a serves as a beautiful salute to Taylor Hawkins as well.