Month: February 2014

Crauxnuts at Little Bigs

| Posted in General News

The Food & Dining section in today’s Press Herald includes an article about the cronut tribute pastries (known as crauxnuts) being sold at Little Bigs.

Denise Rowden drove all the way from Brunswick on a recent Sunday to buy some at Little Bigs, a small bakery on Main Street in South Portland. Pamela Fitzpatrick Plunkett, who owns the bakery with her husband, James, has been making her own version of the New York Cronut since the beginning of January. She sells them only on Sundays, starting at 11 a.m, and they sell out so quickly that, unless customers pre-order, they are all gone in a half hour or so.

Maine’s Newest Breweries: Banded, Bissell, Austin, Foundation

| Posted in Beer

I had the pleasure of joining in on the Maine Brew Bus new breweries tour this past weekend. We visited Banded Horn in Biddeford, followed by Austin Street, Bissell Brothers and Foundation Brewing on Industrial Way in Portland. It was quite interesting to see how incredibly different the personalities of the breweries were.

Bissell Brothers will soon be canning The Substance, Foundation is about a week or two away from launching their first beer and Austin Street still seems a few months out from selling their beer.

Authors Joshua Bernstein and Kate Cone were special guests on the tour. Berstein has just published The Complete Beer Course and Cone is working to update her 1997 book What’s Brewing in New England.

Local beer writers Carla Companion (aka author of the Beer Babe) and Tom Atwell also joined in. Companion has posted a pair of reports on Austin Street and Bissell Brothers. Presumably the tour will figure into Atwell’s upcoming What Ales you column in this Thursday’s Press Herald.

For some photos check the PFM Instagram page.

 

This Week’s Events: Imbibe 75, Allagash Dinner, Indonesian Dinner, Bitter’s Workshop

| Posted in Events

Tuesday — the local foods networking breakfast is taking place at Local Sprouts.

Wednesday — Piccolo is holding an Allagash beer dinner; Bunker Brewing, Tandem, and Rising Tide and Speckled Ax are joining the Hunt & Alpine Club to celebrate their inclusion in Imbibe magazine list of the top 75 “people, places and flavors that will shape the way you drink in 2014″.

Saturday — author Ben Keene will be at Rising Tide to sign copies of his book The Great Northeast Brewery Tour, Vena’s Fizz House is teaching a bitters workshop, and the Winter Farmers Market is taking place at the Urban Farm Fermentory on Anderson Street.

Sunday — Chef Thomas Pisha-Duffly will be serving a Indonesian dinner (tickets) as part of the Family Feast series.

Coffee by Design — Coffee by Design has announced plans to open their new cafe in East Bayside on March 4.

For more information on these and other upcoming food happenings in the area, visit the event calendar.

If you are holding a food event this week that’s not listed above, publicize it by adding it as a comment to this post.

Thai 9 Now Open

| Posted in Openings

Portlanders now have another way satisfy their craving for Thai food. Thai 9 has opened their new restaurant on upper Exchange Street at the former location of Little Seoul.

Thai 9 opened on February 10. This is their 2nd location, the original Thai 9 is at the Cabella’s plaza in Scarborough.

Will Bonsall, Maine Seed Saver

| Posted in Farming

There’s an interesting article in today’s Maine Sunday Telegram about Maine farmer Will Bonsall, a leader in the seed saver movement.

The expectation is that Bonsall, 64, will always have at least 700 varieties of potatoes tucked away for posterity, and that every year he will faithfully grow them out, harvest them, share some with other avid growers across the country and put a sampling of each variety back in the cellar in anticipation of the next crop. But a philosophical and political rift with the Iowa-based Seed Savers Exchange, the national seed saving group that helped fund his curating career, has put Bonsall’s potatoes, some deeply obscure and ancient, in jeopardy.

4 Star Review of The Salt Exchange

| Posted in Reviews

The Maine Sunday Telegram has reviewed The Salt Exchange.

This stylish downtown bistro offers very compelling fare done in the haute American style of contemporary classics. At lunch the varied menu offers such dishes as a fish taco, chicken club, and excellent char-grilled burger among the standouts. The dinner menu offers a very good dining experience with such fine preparations as pan-roasted salmon with bacon-lobster mashed potatoes; a butternut squash risotto with cranberries, braised chard and pickled shallots and plum-glazed duck breast. A must have with cocktails is the chef’s black pepper and truffle potato chips…