The Fort Edgecomb Bicentennial is now a little less than six months away. Just to remind you of its importance, let me introduce an occasional historic quiz: What is the significance of December 22, 1807? Send me your educated guesses by way of the contact information at the end of this column!

Remember, the town offices will be closed from December 24, 2007 to January 3, 2008. If you have important business to do with the Town, do it now! Nor will the Selectmen be meeting during that period. You can always e-mail select people@edgecomb.org about issues that concern you.

Everyone's comments about the Bypass should be in the hands of the Department of Transportation planners by now. Thank you all for expressing your concerns!

For lack of more hard news, as the snow drifts down (last measurement Sunday evening on my backdoor bench was 13 inches), let me share a recipe an E-friend sent us, from her ancestral first edition copy of "Buckeye Cookery and Practical Housekeeping," an Ohio cookbook published in 1877, page 288:

Two large potatoes, passed through kitchen sieve,

Unwonted softness to the salad give;

Of mordant mustard add a single spoon -

Distrust the condiment which bites too soon;

But deem it not, though made of herbs, a fault

To add a double quantity of salt;

Three times the spoon with oil of Lucca crown,

And once with vinegar procured from town.

True flavor needs it, and your poet begs

The pounded yellow of two well-boiled eggs.

Let onion atoms lurk within the bowl,

And, half-suspected, animate the whole;

And lastly, on the favored compound toss

A magic tea-spoon of anchovy sauce.

Then, though green turtle fail, though venison's tough,

Though ham and turkey are not boiled enough,

Serenely full, the epicure shall say,

'Fate can not harm me - I have dined today.'

Warmest Merry Christmas greetings from your friend at 234 River Road, 633-2978, jocam@midcoast. com .

This column appears in the Boothbay Register, The Lincoln County News, the Wiscasset Newspaper, and at www.Edgecomb.org .