>> NARRATOR: Come along for a once-in-a-lifetime journey through New England as you've never experienced it before.

A true insider's guide from the editors of Yankee magazine.

Join explorer, adventurer, and traveler Richard Wiese and his co-host, Yankee senior food editor Amy Traverso, for behind-the-scenes access to the unique attractions that define this region, and uncover the hidden New England that only locals know.

It's the ultimate travel guide from the people who know it best.

This week, we venture into the wild.

First, Richard boards a small boat off Chatham, Massachusetts, to track and tag great white sharks along the Atlantic coast.

>> Fin up, fin up, fin up!

>> Dorsal fin!

>> NARRATOR: Next, Amy heads to a remote corner of Maine to visit the Lost Kitchen, one of the most sought-after dinner reservations in the country.

>> TRAVERSO: Do you feel like you won the Golden Ticket?

>> Then we go mountain biking on the trails in Vermont's Northeast Kingdom, taking in stunning scenery at every turn.

>> WIESE: Seeing the color of the leaves, cows in the field-- I mean, it's... it truly is magic.

>> NARRATOR: Back in the test kitchen, Amy whips up an incredible graham cracker pie.

>> TRAVERSO: Your making a graham cracker crust, you're making a vanilla pudding, putting them together, and some whip cream, and you're done.

>> NARRATOR: That's all coming up on Weekends with Yankee.

>> Funding provided by: ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ >> The Vermont Country Store, the purveyors of the practical and hard-to-find since 1946.

>> NARRATOR: Today's journey starts as we cross over from mainland Massachusetts onto Cape Cod, a sandy peninsula jutting 65 miles out into the Atlantic.

Richard's been invited on a scouting expedition with one of the top shark experts in the country.

>> My name's Greg Skomal.

I work for the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries, I'm a fisheries biologist.

>> NARRATOR: These massive fish, they have gotten a bad rap, after a fictional shark scared audiences out of the water in Jaws.

But Greg and his team of trackers are determined to dispel the public misconceptions about the great whites and keep their populations thriving.

>> You know, if you see the movie Jaws, you'd think there's white sharks all over New England, right?

And, uh... but that's a very old movie, and at the time, white sharks-- yeah, they were here, but not in the kinds of numbers we're seeing now.

You know, we basically overfished the white shark, but we put protection in place at the federal, at the state level in the late '90s, and that is paying off.

We're now seeing the growing population of seals, another conservation success story, has resulted in these white sharks coming in to feed on them.

>> (on radio): ...he's in the middle of a very large cloud, about ten boats out of you, still tracking south, if that's what I'm looking at.

>> Yeah, okay, that's about a mile or two.

>> So we've got this great boat, we've got a pulpit on the boat that lets us approach the shark, we got speed, so we can get to places, but we have to find the shark, and that's where the spotter plane comes in.

>> WIESE: Oh, is that the spotting plane?

>> Yeah, right there.

We put our eyes in the sky, and our spotter pilot goes out, finds sharks, so we could actively go to that animal and research it.

(radio chatter) >> Look at the fin!

>> Dorsal fin, dorsal fin!

>> Fin up, fin up, fin up!

Fin up!

That's beautiful.

We're putting all kinds of different tagging technologies on the sharks, so it's a great way of us looking at the local ecology of the species.

♪ ♪ >> Coming up, coming up, coming up.

There you go.

>> Tagged.

>> Good job, man, good job.

>> (radio): Just picked up a third one.

>> Who is it?

Cool Beans!

(laughs) >> WIESE: Well, they've spotted an old friend called Cool Beans.

12-to-13-foot great white shark, female, and now they're switching, they're going to do a biopsy.

>> We're taking this biopsy, because that muscle sample can be used to tell us a lot about the biology of the shark itself.

What has it been eating, and you get a sense of its genetics, and whether it might be ready to reproduce or even pregnant.

>> WIESE: Oh, you're right on him.

>> Try that one.

You got that one.

And we're learning about sharks, and we're sharing that with people.

And the more people understand these animals, the more they ignore, you know, what Hollywood puts out there.

You know, they're understanding reality of how sharks are, and how important they are to the environment.

>> WIESE: Is there concern that a large population of great white sharks might cause some human interactions at some point?

>> Oh, absolutely.

You know, that concern exists, you know.

If you manage a popular swimming beach here on Cape Cod, you are concerned about the potential of a white shark interacting with a human being.

You know, our last fatal shark attack, in Massachusetts was 1936, and it wasn't even on Cape Cod.

The bottom line is, when someone says to me, "Hey, I'm going to the beach this afternoon, what should I do?"

You know what I say to them?

"Drive safely."

Because you're more likely to get killed or hurt in your vehicle, as opposed to a shark interacting with you.

♪ ♪ >> WIESE: I mean, I have to tell you, I know this is research, but this is pretty darn exciting.

>> Oh, it's real exciting.

>> WIESE: This is awesome.

♪ ♪ >> Right there, right there, right there.

>> Ah, look at this, it's going right here, John.

♪ ♪ (exclaiming) ♪ ♪ >> Between 12 to 13.

Nice-sized fish.

>> All right, cool.

(radio chatter) >> WIESE: You could have many experiences in life, but to see a great white shark up close is up there, this is absolutely special.

Look at him, he's right there.

>> Look at that!

>> Nice, nice.

Great to have that tagged-- double tagged!

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ >> NARRATOR: Next, we drive north to rural Freedom, Maine, home of the Lost Kitchen.

Chef Erin French's restaurant is so in demand, that when reservations open in the spring, thousands of calls come flooding in within the first 24 hours, enough to fill all the spots for the year.

Amy gets a rare, behind-the-scenes look at why people go to such great lengths to eat here.

Freedom, Maine, is pretty rural.

There are 719 people who live here.

It's quiet.

We have one general store, and that's about it.

The year that I found this space, I moved home, here, in 2013, back home to my parents, tail between my legs, and after a really painful time in my life, started to pick up the pieces again.

I had come into struggles with prescription medications for anti-anxiety and depression.

I had gone through a pretty rocky divorce and moved back in with my parents and found myself back home again, in my 30s.

(chuckles) ♪ ♪ >> TRAVERSO: I wonder-- I'm sort of fascinated to know how you got this precious reservation, because I know it's not easy.

>> It is very hard to get a reservation, and I was one of those 10,000 people.

>> TRAVERSO: And you just-- it was like an old-fashioned radio contest, right?

You just, like, kept hitting redial?

>> Yes, and I would sleep for a little bit and then try again.

>> TRAVERSO: You ser... it really was that...?

>> Yes, it really was that.

>> TRAVERSO: How would... do you live in Maine?

>> I'll let him answer that.

>> We don't, we live in Nashville, Tennessee.

♪ ♪ >> We have been open for four years now.

We've been booked every day, since the beginning.

We seat 40 people a night, four days a week.

Why don't I open more days?

Why don't I do breakfast, lunch, and dinner?

Why don't we open another restaurant?

And we have had every opportunity to do all of those things, but when I take a step back, and I look at the way that I want to live my life, and the way that we, as a staff, want to live our lives, and that's not the way.

We never got in this to be big, and be strong, and make a ton of money.

We got into this because we love food, we love where we live, and we want to love the lives that we're living.

♪ ♪ >> TRAVERSO: Watching people arrive tonight and get ready to go inside, and you've got your wine, do you feel like you won the Golden Ticket, in a sense, that you got a reservation here this year?

>> A little bit, yeah.

It was quite a process.

It took us maybe 40 or 50 tries before we got through and was able to leave an actual message.

>> TRAVERSO: How did it work?

>> I didn't get to start until probably 7:30 a.m. >> TRAVERSO: Okay.

>> And I called off and on for the next, maybe, two hours.

>> TRAVERSO: What are you expecting for tonight?

What are you hoping for?

>> I think it's going to be fantastic.

You know, every review that I've read or seen, everybody raves about it.

And, you know, we have the cookbook, and so I'm familiar with the food, and I just...

I'm really excited, I'm not going to manage my expectations at all.

♪ ♪ (patrons talking) >> I want people to feel like they are in a private space, that they're in a home, and they're being cared for by a hostess.

I want them to spend four hours, I want them to look back and go, "Where did all the time go?"

And, "That was so much fun, "and everything was so delicious, "and the company was great, and the wine was good, and we laughed and we dined, and wasn't that a great night?"

So that's the way I want people to feel, like, have an experience like you've been in a home.

♪ ♪ (talking indistinctly) (knife clinking on glass) Welcome.

I just wanted to pause for a moment to welcome you all and thank you so much for coming out tonight.

I know how hard you had to work to be here.

(laughter) For those of you I don't know really well already, I'm Erin French, and this is my restaurant and total dream come true.

And I'm really thrilled to share this meal with you tonight.

So I'm raising my glass to all of you... >> Cheers.

>> ...because nothing lasts forever, and I know this, and I'm holding onto this moment right now.

Thank you so much for coming out today, cheers to you all, cheers to Freedom, enjoy.

>> Cheers.

♪ ♪ >> TRAVERSO: So I'm smelling incredible lamb smells coming from the kitchen.

We're at that moment where the main course is about to be served.

This is sort of the peak moment of the meal, but getting up to this point, how... what has the experience been like and how's it been?

>> It's been absolutely amazing.

>> TRAVERSO: Really?

>> I mean, we went through about three or four courses, and then she started the main menu.

Literally, for an hour and a half eating, and all the sudden, she stood up, gave her speech.

She's like, "Okay, here's the menu."

And it just-- it blew my mind.

>> TRAVERSO: There's an element of, like, you're watching this production come together, everything's choreographed, and the way the servers move is choreography, too.

>> It even started before that.

>> TRAVERSO: Yeah.

>> You know, even just coming in, and it's like you're walking through the gift shop.

>> TRAVERSO: Yes, yes.

>> To start off with, and then seeing the menu, and getting to pick your own wines, I mean, from start to finish, this has been such a unique experience altogether.

>> TRAVERSO: Yeah.

♪ ♪ >> TRAVERSO: So after watching everybody have this incredible meal tonight, I'm taking a minute to have a little meal of my own.

Wow.

Not only is the lamb perfect, but I think what brings people here is it's really a transformational experience, and it's community experience, and Erin herself has her hands on every element of the restaurant, from the plates to the cooking to the plating to everything.

It's a really remarkable place.

>> I think I kept trying to find who I was supposed to be, and what I was supposed to be doing in this world.

And later on in my life, when I kept coming back to food, I started putting myself, and just putting my heart out there, and making food the way that I wanted to make it, and not being afraid.

And that's where I sort of discovered what my kitchen would look like, and the way that I wanted it to feel when you came into it, and the food that I wanted to feed you when you were there.

But, you know, for me, it also has become the place where I found myself, strangely enough.

It's where I've discovered who I am.

So I was lost, and now I've...

I found it.

♪ ♪ >> NARRATOR : From Maine, we head west to Vermont's Northeast Kingdom.

There, Richard rediscovers his love of mountain biking and finds a new way to enjoy the peak fall foliage as he joins other riders on a tour through the network of woodland bike trails, in beautiful East Burke.

♪ ♪ >> WIESE: Hey, Collin.

>> How's it going?

>> WIESE: Good, wow.

>> Nice to meet you.

>> WIESE: Where are we in Vermont?

>> So we're in the Northeast Kingdom, we're at Kingdom Trails, it's a spectacular network of trails, there's about 120 miles up here.

>> WIESE: How did this all come about?

>> So this was all ag land, late 1800s, 1900s, and then a couple folks started building trails, and then it really caught on, and then they created this nonprofit, Kingdom Trails, and, you know, put a lot of money and effort into getting the trails to what they are today.

>> WIESE: So where are we heading tonight?

>> So we're going to head down Bill McGill Trail here.

Which is a great beginner trail, it's great to kind of get started off.

Obviously, the view doesn't hurt.

And then we're going to head to a little bit harder terrain, you know, kind of progress the skills and hitch on a little bit of single-track.

>> WIESE: Let's go.

>> All right, sounds great.

♪ ♪ >> WIESE: You know, this feels like-- almost like you're riding on carpet, because these shocks are really just, you know, sort of bumping on here.

It's like riding a unicorn bareback or something.

>> Totally, yeah-- so, you know, the suspension companies, you know, create suspension that moves up and down super freely now.

They've got tons of adjustments, so they've really pretty much perfected the suspension systems, at this point.

>> WIESE: It's just really easy.

>> Yeah.

♪ ♪ >> WIESE: That was fun.

That was definitely fun coming through there.

What kind of people do you see coming on these trails?

>> We see all different types of folks, it's really eclectic.

You know, we see families with kids, that's really... you know, they'll go on, enjoy all of the trails.

You have professional athletes that come here, weekend warriors.

I mean, it really caters to every ability level and is fun for, you know, just about everybody.

♪ ♪ Bikes have evolved a tremendous amount over the years.

You know, they have this crazy suspension that really is able to articulate the ground.

>> WIESE: And the tires are pretty hefty.

I mean, mine look like a motocross bike or something.

>> The trend has been going to larger and larger tires.

Really confidence inspiring, it doesn't go as slowly as people originally thought.

>> WIESE: See, this is fun kind of terrain, I think.

>> Yeah.

>> WIESE: And what kind of response have you gotten from the town, the farmers?

>> Everybody's getting into it.

You're seeing folks that you never would think were getting into mountain biking getting into mountain biking, and the energy behind this whole place is pretty exciting.

(exclaiming) ♪ ♪ >> WIESE: So I noticed that there was a blue square, and in skiing, that's an intermediate trail.

>> You know, they're graded the same way ski trails are, and so I want to give you a little piece of advice.

As the blue squares and black diamonds, the terrain will get a little bit steeper, it'll start to have features like roots and rocks and that sort of thing in it.

What you want to think about is, like, physically bringing your center of mass down through the... >> WIESE: So drop my seat?

>> Drop your seat, exactly.

You want to drop your seat, and want to be standing over the bike with your pedals level, always have your fingers over the brakes.

We want a good bend in our arms.

>> WIESE: Okay.

So 90 degrees here, hands over the brake, seat down.

>> Seat down, yep.

>> WIESE: Let's go.

>> All right.

>> WIESE: Follow you.

>> Position nice and low.

♪ ♪ (exclaiming) Feels good.

>> We'll stop right here, all right?

>> WIESE: Okay.

>> Awesome, good ride, man.

>> WIESE: Yeah, it was good, yeah.

>> Awesome, man, you did great.

>> WIESE: Yeah, you know, I can't say that it felt scary, so, yeah, I felt very comfortable on there.

>> Awesome.

It seems like your skills are really progressing, and, yeah, I think you're ready for the next level.

>> WIESE: Okay, and the next level would be Widowmaker.

>> Yes, don't be so intimidated by the name, it's just a name.

>> WIESE: Just a name.

♪ ♪ Yeah, I mean, I just have the vision of my wife, like, taking a date to the funeral.

>> Well, let's kind of leave that off the back here.

Let's go head to it.

>> WIESE: Okay.

>> All right.

♪ ♪ >> WIESE: Okay, I think we've survived Widowmaker.

>> Yeah, your wife is not going to be a widow, so I think you were successful in that journey-- good job, man.

>> WIESE: Yeah, thanks man.

>> Super good.

>> WIESE: The sun's starting to go down, so I'd like to hit a few more trails before the end of the day.

>> Perfect, let's go hit it.

>> WIESE: Okay, great.

♪ ♪ >> WIESE: This is just absolutely gorgeous.

This is your average weather here in Vermont.

Go Vermont, the big green.

>> Yeah, beautiful.

>> WIESE: Oh, wow.

That was nice.

>> Sweet, that was super fun.

>> WIESE: You know, I have to admit, you know, this opens up a whole new world of possibility for me.

Um...

I just didn't know things like this existed on the East Coast.

>> Yeah.

>> WIESE: And it just adds another season to my repertoire of things I like to do.

And seeing the miles and miles of these beautiful farm fields, and looking at the vistas of Vermont, seeing the color of the leaves, and cows in the field, I mean, it's... it truly is magic.

>> That's awesome, I'm glad you enjoyed it so much.

I got something for us, something well-deserved at the end of a good ride.

>> WIESE: So I'd like to offer a cheer to mountain biking in Vermont.

Thank you for opening my eyes.

>> All right, thanks for coming.

♪ ♪ >> NARRATOR: Our test kitchen segment today brings us back to Maine, where Amy is cooking up a delicious graham cracker pie, using a recipe adapted from Lost Kitchen's chef and owner Erin French.

>> TRAVERSO: So as you saw from our visit to Lost Kitchen, it is really difficult to get a reservation there.

But luckily, Erin French has her Lost Kitchen cookbook, so you can make some of her signature dishes at home.

So I've chosen a dish that is not only delicious, but has a kind of a nice story behind it.

It's a graham cracker pie, and this is Erin's adaptation of a dish that they served at her family's diner in Freedom, Maine, which is where she grew up.

So we're going to start by making a very simple graham cracker crust.

The ingredients are 11 graham crackers.

We're just going to kind of break them up in here.

And a little bit of butter, that's actually one stick.

And a quarter cup of sugar.

So we're going to pulse this all together until it forms something like a cohesive crust.

(whirring) Okay, so it's looking perfect, it's ready to go in the pan.

So I'm going to take it off.

And I have a nine-inch removeable-bottom tart pan, so it just pops out like that, they're very easy to find in any cooking store.

So I wanted to cover the bottom and also go up the sides.

So this is going to go into a 350-degree oven and bake until it's kind of set, but not yet really browned.

So that's just about ten minutes.

So what I love about this filling is A) it's a really easy-- basically just a vanilla pudding.

That's all you're making.

Second of all, it's really richly flavored with vanilla with two sources.

So I'm going to show you how to work with a vanilla bean.

You're just going to run a sharp knife down the center, like this.

Not all the way through, just halfway through.

And then you open it up, and you see all these gorgeous little black seeds.

Now you just take a spoon, and you can use the spoon to kind of fully open it.

Just crape the spoon down the center, and these are like the caviar of the pastry world.

Look at these gorgeous little seeds.

And now we're going to go on with the rest of the filling.

So we've got three cups of milk, this is whole milk.

Going to put it in a saucepan, and I'm going to set it over medium heat.

Now I'm going to add two-thirds of a cup of sugar, a quarter cup of cornstarch-- this is the thickening agent that you use in most homemade puddings.

And I'm going to add my various forms of vanilla.

So I've got my seeds, I've got my bean, which will sit in there while it cooks-- take it out later; and I've got two teaspoons of vanilla extract.

Okay, It's been about five minutes, and look how nice and thick this pudding is looking, with all those gorgeous vanilla beans now well distributed all throughout the matrix of the pudding.

So now we're going to add some egg yolk.

And the way we're going to do that is slowly.

It's a technique called tempering, where you take some of the hot mixture here, and you take your three egg yolks, and you put them in the bowl, and then you slowly whisk in the milk mixture.

So what you're doing is, you're slowly bringing the egg yolks up to temperature.

You're making them warmer without actually cooking them.

Now my eggs are tempered, but they're not fully cooked yet.

We wouldn't want to eat these, it wouldn't be totally safe.

So I'm going to put this mixture back into my pot over medium heat.

Medium low, actually.

And I'm going to cook this until it starts to gently bubble and thicken.

Okay, this looks great.

It's steaming, I just saw a bubble come up to the surface, and I can see it's really thickened.

So I want to take this off the heat now, because if I let it go too long, it will turn into scrambled eggs and not a custard anymore.

I've cleaned out this bowl here.

I'm just going to pour this in here to stop the cooking.

And from here, we can pour it right into our crust, which is ready and waiting in the over.

So I've got this beautiful crust here.

You can see it's kind of golden but not brown, looks really good, a little bit rustic, which is totally in keeping with sort of the aesthetic of the Lost Kitchen, and the flavor is going to be amazing.

So I'm going to pour the filling in here and just fill it up.

And I'm going to put this in the refrigerator for about five hours or up to overnight.

You really want this to set and get nice and firm.

Okay, so the pie is set, and I'm going to apply some whipped cream, because you want all the creamy things on this pie.

So there we go, we're just going to dollop it on, and I'm going to use an offset spatula to spread it around.

All right, looks good.

So I've got some edibles here-- these are roses, obviously.

And this is a flower called stock.

Take a couple buds, here's another pretty one.

Maybe take some petals.

I think this is looking pretty good.

So even if you can't make it up to the Lost Kitchen, you can have a little bit of her food in your own home.

If you want this or any of our other recipes, you can visit weekendswithyankee.com >> NARRATOR: For exclusive video, recipes, travel ideas, tips from the editors, and access to the Weekends With Yankee digital magazine, go to weekendswithyankee.com and follow us on social media, @yankeemagazine.

Yankee magazine, the inspiration for the television series, provides recipes, feature articles, and the best of New England from the people who know it best.

Six issues for $10.

Call 1-800-221-8154. Credit cards accepted.

>> Major funding provided by... ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ >> The Vermont Country Store, the purveyors of the practical and hard-to-find since 1946.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪