Lindsey Sterling has published another ethnic cooking adventures on her blog Inside Immigrant Kitchens. This time she’s cooking with Bill Dilios to make Albanian Kotopita (recipe, family history).
My husband’s co-worker’s father, Bill Dilios, taught me how to make his favorite dish from Albania: kotopita. It’s like chicken pot pie, but with filo crust and an epic story inside
PortlandTown has continued his photographic walking tour through this week’s calendar of food events with a stop at the Simply Divine Brownies grand opening followed by a visit to Bar Lola for their Portuguese wine dinner.
An article in Wednesday’s Portland Daily Sun reports on the upcoming arrival of the season’s Beaujolais Nouveau and the release of a new cranberry mead from Maine Mead Works.
Pine State Beverage Company has scheduled its first delivery of the 2009 Nouveau for 6 a.m. on Thursday (Nov. 19).
It will arrive at Rosemont Market & Bakery on Brighton Avenue in Portland where owner John Naylor and his staff will greet the new vintage of Georges Duboeuf Nouveau Beaujolais. They’ll be joined by the newest release from the boys from Maine Mead Works, a cranberry mead that comes on the eve of their one-year anniversary. It’s an old meets new meets older meets newer kind of thing.
Allagash is in the #2 slot in Paste magazine’s list of The 25 Best American Breweries of the Decade (via a post from A Blog About Beer).
Allagash is like a little slice of Belgium without those pesky language barriers. Using Belgian yeasts and coloring brilliantly inside the style lines as with their flagships White, Dubbel and Triple, what really makes this Maine brewery special is their series of barrel-aged beers, led by Curiuex, Interlude and Fluxus—the latter of which includes sweet potatoes and black pepper in its recipe. We’re also impressed with tweaks to standards like the quad Allagash Four that blends four malts, hops and sugars.
The new issue of Down East is out. It includes a review of Grace,
Grace is an ambitious restaurant that successfully bestows on its guests the multiple meanings of its name. “The original intention of grace,” says Anne Verrill, “is everything from beauty down to the actual saying of grace at the table.” After a feast or a bite, a cocktail or a bottle, guests will certainly have plenty to be grateful for.
and a survey of Maine chocolatiers which included Portland area favorites Haven’s, Dean’s Sweets, Sweet Marguerites and Len Libby’s.
Taking this week’s busy schedule of food events as a challenge, PortlandTown is trying to “do as many as I can or at least one every day” and is reporting on the experience. The first post in the series is on last night’s Piatto per Tutti cooking class and includes a number of photos of the Lanzalotta-led class cooking crepe-style cannelloni and olive oil brownies.
Portland Food Heads has reviewed a lunch at the Quality Shop, a neighborhood convenience store located on Stevens Ave.
While that’s not necessarily my thing, the pre-made salads and sandwiches in the cooler are usually what I go with for a quick lunch if I have to hurry back to work. Again, there’s nothing special going on here, but for the price (usually $4 or under), you can’t go wrong.
An article in today’s Press Herald on the closing of LL Bean’s Portland store casts doubt on the possibility of Trader Joe’s landing in the spot.
Alison Mochizuki, spokeswoman for California-based Trader Joe’s, said Monday that “Portland, Maine, is not in our two-year plan.”
Some restaurants do stay open on Thanksgiving. Here’s the ones I know about so far:
There are also several vendors are selling pies, cakes and even entire meals to take home:
UPDATE: The Press Herald has also published a list of sources for Thanksgiving, pies, side dishes, etc and it includes a number of options not already listed above as well as additional details on the ones that are.
Is there a local restaurant, market or bakery that’s missing? Post a comment and I’ll add them to the list.
Hilly Town has published a cookie review of the Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Walnut Cookie at Big Sky, rating it a 4 out of 5 for Flavor and Bang for Buck, and a 3 out of 5 for Texture.
However, in my mind, there is a clear distinction between a chocolate-chip cookie and an oatmeal chocolate-chip cookie. Oats lend sturdiness, texture, and yes – flavor. Oats in a CCC aren’t an ‘add-in.’ They’re a revision (OCCC). Mind you, it can be a tasty revision, as this OCCC from Big Sky proves.