Category: Farming

Permaculture Interview

| Posted in Farming

The Tuesday Portland Daily Sun includes an interview with Lisa Fernandes about her approach to permaculture.

Me: Are you trying to get off the grid completely?
Fernandes: It’s not our goal to be homesteaders in the city. I don’t think that doing things completely independently is an attractive or reasonable goal. But we do want to be able to withstand the energy challenges in this volatile economy. We plan to grow old here and want a place that will take care of us more than we’ll take care of it. We want it sustainable so that when we’re older there’s no digging or tilling.

Fernandes’s garden is a stop on the Backyard Locavore Tour taking place on August 14.

SoPo Eats

| Posted in Reviews, Farming, Profiles

There have been some new additions to the dining scene in South Portland:

  • Cambridge Coffee Bar and Bakehouse is just across the bridge on Broadway where the Freaky Bean used to be located. It’s owned by Vicki Cambridge who explained to Mainebiz that she, “learned to cook from her grandmother, says she has ‘gained a baking reputation in the community, and having a shop of my own was a logical next step.’ “
  • A new Vietnamese restaurant called Pho Hanoi is giving SoPo pho-fans a way to satisfy their cravings without having to leave their hometown. Where is Jenner’s Mind writes that the pho “certainly rivals the pho at both Thanh Thanh and Saigon”
  • Willard Scoops opened last year and is getting praise for “raises the bar for gourmet ice cream in the Portland area”. Portland Eats writes that he especially “like how some of the ice creams at Willard Scoops use salt to good effect, such as in the chocolate sea salt ice cream and the salt caramel and salt caramel nut ice creams”
  • There’s even someone who’s started raising hops in South Portland.

How to Eat Dessert & Monday Farmers Market

| Posted in Farming, General News

Wednesday’s Portland Daily Sun includes a report on the Monday Farmers Market,

Hopes are high that a new Monday farmers’ market in Monument Square can succeed where others have failed, including an effort last year that fizzled after only one vendor showed up.

This year is doing better, thanks in large part to a market manager being in the right place at the right time.

and a column from Natalie Ladd on her inherited love of dessert which is peppered with recommendations on where to go for a good final (or only) course.

Dessert is a subject I take very seriously, and it requires great restraint for me pass it up. As a diner, it’s often the shining highlight or disappointing deal breaker of any meal. As a restaurant person, it’s a great way to build up the average check by up-selling and padding the check, resulting in more money for house and server.

How to Eat Dessert & Monday Farmers Market

| Posted in Farming, General News

Wednesday’s Portland Daily Sun includes a report on the Monday Farmers Market,

Hopes are high that a new Monday farmers’ market in Monument Square can succeed where others have failed, including an effort last year that fizzled after only one vendor showed up.

This year is doing better, thanks in large part to a market manager being in the right place at the right time.

and a column from Natalie Ladd on her inherited love of dessert which is peppered with recommendations on where to go for a good final (or only) course.

Dessert is a subject I take very seriously, and it requires great restraint for me pass it up. As a diner, it’s often the shining highlight or disappointing deal breaker of any meal. As a restaurant person, it’s a great way to build up the average check by up-selling and padding the check, resulting in more money for house and server.

Local Sprouts Profile & A Wedding Garden

| Posted in Farming, Profiles

The Food & Dining section in today’s Press Herald includes a profile of Local Sprouts Cafe/Bomb Diggity Bakery,

The counter service restaurant is sure to give both ventures a boost. While anyone can walk in and purchase off the menu, those who plan to be regulars may want to consider investing in a community-supported kitchen membership. When members dine at the cafe, their meals are deducted from the paid-in-advance balance, and they receive a 10 percent discount.

and a feature article on a couple in Central Maine that are growing/raising all of the food that will be served their wedding this September.

“But then we also really just like providing for our own needs,” Davis said. “We make our own maple syrup and we brew our own beer and we’ve smoked our own bacon. We cut our own wood. We’re not the kind of people who just sort of sit around. We like to be active and doing things, so we thought this would be a good project for the summer.”

The paper also published a survey of the food and drink to be had at last nights celebration/commiseration parties held by gubernatorial candidates.

Some candidates went frugal – opting to gather in the campaign office and munch on chips – while others spared no expense at posh destinations with lavish drinks and hors d’oeuvres.

Local Sprouts Profile & A Wedding Garden

| Posted in Farming, Profiles

The Food & Dining section in today’s Press Herald includes a profile of Local Sprouts Cafe/Bomb Diggity Bakery,

The counter service restaurant is sure to give both ventures a boost. While anyone can walk in and purchase off the menu, those who plan to be regulars may want to consider investing in a community-supported kitchen membership. When members dine at the cafe, their meals are deducted from the paid-in-advance balance, and they receive a 10 percent discount.

and a feature article on a couple in Central Maine that are growing/raising all of the food that will be served their wedding this September.

“But then we also really just like providing for our own needs,” Davis said. “We make our own maple syrup and we brew our own beer and we’ve smoked our own bacon. We cut our own wood. We’re not the kind of people who just sort of sit around. We like to be active and doing things, so we thought this would be a good project for the summer.”

The paper also published a survey of the food and drink to be had at last nights celebration/commiseration parties held by gubernatorial candidates.

Some candidates went frugal – opting to gather in the campaign office and munch on chips – while others spared no expense at posh destinations with lavish drinks and hors d’oeuvres.

Crash Barry, The Garlic Man

| Posted in Farming

Columnist Crash Barry has penned a feature article for the new issue of The Bollard about working at Nezinscot Farm, a biodynamic farm in Turner, Maine.

Raw garlic oil, alive and intense, overwhelmed my taste buds, scorching my tongue and the insides of both cheeks with a Jalapeno heat. I chewed the clove a couple more times, gulped and swallowed. I felt an electric charge pulse from my brain to my toes, from stomach to fingertips. My body radiated a throbbing, rhythmic energy that moments before had been buried beneath the fertile soil of the Nezinscot Farm, atop a hill overlooking a river in the western Maine town of Turner.

Three Days in the Sun

| Posted in Under Construction, Farming, Profiles

There have been several food articles in the Portland Daily Sun this week. On Tuesday the newspaper reported on the collaboration between Sparrow Arc Farm and Bar Lola on a CSA for the central Maine farm in Portland,

This means the impending CSA will include a wide, eclectic sampling of the 300 varieties of veggies grown at Sparrow Arc, including heirloom tomatoes and cornichons, a type of baby pickling cucumber. “We will be able to offer a really mind blowing amount of veggies to our CSA,” said Linehan.

on Wednesday there was a profile/history of Micucci’s.

Miccucci Grocery Company launched in 1949 and was located in the trunk of Leo and Iris Micucci’s car. Licensing and the official launch came a couple of years later in 1951 so the family splits the difference and says the company began in 1950. From Middle Street to Commercial then to its current home, Leo and Iris moved the location but kept the name.

and on Thursday there was a report on the soon-to-open Bayside Bowl,

A draft menu offered a promise of relatively high-end food for $15 and less. Bayside Bowl plans to serve Focaccioa bread pizzas, mini chicken chimichangas, veggie stir fry, garden burgers as well as traditional hamburgers and cheeseburgers, crab and lobster cake dinners, reuben sandwiches, fish, grilled rib eye, roasted lemon chicken, cocoanut curry chicken poppers, grilled wings, fries, hush puppies, and a variety of kids’ dishes and desserts.