In the new installment of Inside Immigrant Kitchens Lindsay Sterling learns how to cook Estonian Roast Beef and Root Vegetable Salad from Maili Kern.
Maili Kern learned this from her mother in a village on the Baltic Sea in Estonia. It’s a popular dish served on buffet tables at celebrations. The color, bright pink from beets next to bright yellow and white hardboiled eggs, is a stunning example of how powerful simple things can be in the right hands.
Ocean Approved and Maine Coast Sea Vegetables are the focus of a feature story in the new issue of The Maine Switch. Both companies harvest and sell seaweed-based products harvested in Maine. Ocean Approved was also featured in the Boston Globe back in late April.
“You can’t help but notice the health benefits,” says [Ocean Approved co-owner] Olson, whose kelp noodles are a good option for those with gluten issues. “(Kelp) adds vibrancy to the dish without stealing the dish.”
Ocean Approved and Maine Coast Sea Vegetables are the focus of a feature story in the new issue of The Maine Switch. Both companies harvest and sell seaweed-based products harvested in Maine. Ocean Approved was also featured in the Boston Globe back in late April.
“You can’t help but notice the health benefits,” says [Ocean Approved co-owner] Olson, whose kelp noodles are a good option for those with gluten issues. “(Kelp) adds vibrancy to the dish without stealing the dish.”
The Bollard has published the result from its 2nd Smokin’ Sausage Showdown in the new issue.
Fresh Approach won in the sweet Italian category, “…herby and flavorful Sweet Italian. Sporting plenty of fat content, this sausage was juicy and delicious.”
Moran’s Market won in the hot Italian category, “…instantly juicy, peppery burst, but without the blistering heat we expected from that first bite.”
and Pat’s Meat Market won in the wild card category for their Lithuanian sausage which has a “nice, unique flavor, with the herbs and mustard seed cutting through“.
Both Harbor Fish Market and Browne Trading made it on to the short list of authentic Maine seafood markets that appears in the new issue of Down East magazine.
It’s an easy assumption: Maine, a state revered worldwide for its seafood, has an abundance of fabulous and authentic seafood markets. The truth is that authentic fishmongers are a dying breed — even in this seafood-loving state. Nonetheless, plenty of authentic fish markets still exist — you just have to know where to look. So we did the legwork for you. We traveled more than five hundred miles on our quest to find markets that demonstrated three major qualities: selection, freshness, and the more subjective standard of trustworthiness.
Lindsay Sterling from Inside Immigrant Kitchens has published another installment in her series on authentic ethnic cooking. This month’s recipe is for Thai Spring Rolls with Chili Peanut Sauce.
Rattana Sherman, from Bangkok Thailand, is the source of this healthy, scrumptious recipe that my young kids and friends all gobble up with glee. Here she is Maine (on Forest Ave. across from Baxter Woods in Portland) about to show me the curious wonders in Haknuman, our town’s Asian market. You can find what you need in a well-stocked supermarket, but it’s less fun.
Shown in the photo above is Craig Howard hard at work tending The Great Lost Bear‘s new rooftop vegetable garden. Howard has beans, tomatoes, tomatillos, shallots, onions, cucumbers, zucchini, and a variety of peppers as well as lemongrass, and mint under cultivation—all destined for use in the GLB’s kitchen. If the rooftop concept works out, the hope is to expand it in the coming year.
The latest edition of The Maine Switch includes articles about Cultivating Community “a Portland-based nonprofit that connects people to the earth, their food and one another through agriculture” and about Grown@Home which provides “weekly maintenance and new plantings throughout the growing season” for your home garden. There’s also an article by Harding Smith about barbecuing and additional piece about local barbecue sauce manufacturers. Especially interesting in this edition is a piece by Avery Yale Kamila as she tries to establish which watering hole is truly Portland’s oldest bar.
The Boston Globe has an article about the canola crop being grown in Maine and pressed into cooking oil by Maine Natural Oils.
Rodney Chamberland has been working straight out plowing and planting over 100 acres of seed potatoes. The farm’s potatoes come first.
Then, Chamberland plants rotation crops. One he’s seeding this spring will turn into 30 acres of flowering yellow canola. The crop not only improves the potatoes he’ll grow on the same land next year, says Chamberland, but its seeds will also be pressed into one of the Northeast’s only regional cooking oils: Maine Natural Oils.
The article also quotes Leslie Oster from Aurora Provisions,
“I am more than all for it,” says Leslie Oster, the general manager of Aurora Provisions and a Slow Food Portland organizer. “Now, if we could just get someone to invest in a full-scale wheat production mill.”