Tasting in Tongues has started writing a weekly post where author Paul Gagne describes how he cooked up the food sourced at the Portland Farmers’ Market. The latest menu includes a “pork chop on a bed of the parsnip/potato puree with a sprinkling of the balsamic reduction”, Greek salad and fiddleheads with red quinoa.
Category: Cooking
Saturday Farmers’ Market
L&A Farm was selling rhubarb this morning at the Deering Oaks Farmers’ Market but it was going quickly. One of the other vendors still had some fiddleheads as well as some asparagus. And there was the usual spring line-up of flowers, seedlings, cheeses, etc.
Silver Moon now at the Market
Silver Moon Creamery has made it off the wait list and in one of the spots at the Saturday farmers’ market in Deering Oaks. In addition to the flowers (a good idea for Mother’s Day) and seedlings that predominate at this time of the year, I also saw fiddleheads, lettuce, scallions, tomatoes, small cucumbers and more.
Indian Prawn Curry
Lindsay Sterling from Inside Immigrant Kitchens has published another installment in her series on authentic ethnic cooking in this week’s Portland Phoenix.
Cooking Indian food by myself for the first time felt like skydiving; it went against all my instincts. I had one thing going for me: an Indian woman, Aruna Kilaru, had shown me exactly how to do it two weeks before. Aruna, a botany teacher and school principal from Hyderabad, India, had been visiting her daughter and son-in-law in Maine. I met them in, of all places, the office supply store Staples.
Sunday Brunch
This week’s Portland Phoenix provides guidance for cooking up your own Eggs Benedict at home for those times when “it might have been better for your constitution (and reputation) to stay home in your bathrobe.” If you still want to venture out check the Sunday Brunch List for your options.
There are several terrific places where this brunch might go down in Greater Portland, but they are all likely to share one ingredient: a line stretching out the door. Your arrival in last night’s party clothes and disheveled hair barely elicits a nod from your equally hung-over companions, already there staking out a place on the waiting list.
Kelp Noodles
The Boston Globe has a report on kelp noodles, “seaweed in long, green strips cut to the rough dimensions of linguine” produced here in Portland by Ocean Approved. The noodles are available at Browne Trading, Harbor Fish Market and Whole Foods.
Like pasta noodles, kelp is a submissive plate-mate, wrapping neatly around the tender mussels on a fork and bending nicely to their sweet, meaty flavor. Hot, simple food has a tendency to make you smile after a few hours on a cold ocean, and we slip into port a happy crew. The ocean provides – noodles and all.
GRO/Lamb in The Switch
The Maine Switch has published a profile of Grassoots Organic/GRO Cafe.
GRO chef Andrew Borne, who previously worked at a raw foods restaurant in Beverly, MA, explains that “when you cook foods, 90% of the nutrients are cooked off. We soak the nuts and seeds beforehand. (The soaking) gets rid of enzyme inhibitors, which helps digestion.”
This week’s Switch also includes an article by Back Bay Grill’s Chef/Owner Larry Matthews Jr. on cooking local lamb.
I purchase whole lambs for the restaurant from Sunrise Acres Farm in Cumberland Center from April through November. Purchasing the whole animal is a great opportunity for chefs (or a home cook with a good freezer). It allows a level of versatility that you don’t get when you buy single cuts and allows cooks to use more parts of the animal than otherwise would be put to use.
Passover in the Sun
Today’s edition of the Portland Daily Sun includes an article on the kosher seder being held at Shaarey Tphiloh.
At 8 p.m. tonight, the synagogue will open its doors and provide the Passover meal. About 55 meals are expected to be readied, Herzfeld estimated, noting that 45 people have signed up and anyone else who calls and expresses interest will be welcome.
Micucci’s Pasta Sauces
Micucci’s is planning on releasing a series of house branded pasta sauces. The sauces are the creation of chef/baker Stephen Lanzalotta. The set of four sauces include Puttanesca Sauce, Original Pasta Sauce, Marinara Sauce and Vodka Sauce.
Russian Borscht
Lindsay Sterling has published another ethnic cooking adventure on her blog Inside Immigrant Kitchens. Sterling cooked with Alla Zagoruyko and Yulia Converse to produce a traditional Russian borscht: read the article, see the photos, get the recipe.