Category: General News

Today’s Press Herald includes a report on the Portland Food Co-op and their new space on Hampshire Street.

Each month, the Portland Food Co-op orders $10,000 worth of goods from the Crown O’Maine Organic Cooperative, United Natural Foods, Frontier Natural Products Co-op and individual farmers and food producers.

All of the food is marked up 10 percent from its wholesale price to cover operating expenses, such as property taxes and electrical bills. Most retailers add a 20 percent to 40 percent markup on food products.

Today’s Portland Daily Sun reports that the Creative Portland is “planning to discuss the feasibility of food trucks during its September meeting, potentially paving the way for a broader citywide discussion on the issue.”

“From an economic development point of view, it’s sort of an incubator for young chefs who want to get started. At the same time, it’s a way for existing restaurants to extend their brand,” [Andy] Graham [chair of the Creative Portland board] said. “Think how cool it would be if Fore Street did a food truck, or if Miyake did a food truck.”

For now, food trucks are not allowed under a smattering of overlapping city ordinances. Various city policies enacted over the years further complicate the picture, said Councilor Dave Marshall, a non-voting member who sits on the Creative Portland board.

MPBN interviewed Anthony Barrasso, owner of Anthony’s Italian Kitchen, for a report on Portland’s efforts to fight obesity with a $1.8 million grant from the CDC.

The city’s handiwork is also visible elsewhere–like at Anthony’s Kitchen, an Italian eatery in downtown Portland.

“This is called Anthony’s Lighter Side and this is our low-cal menu,” says restaurant owner Anthony Barrasso (above). “Three choices of wrap, white, wheat or spinach wraps, and then the dinners that we put out are also, as you can see, pretty fair calories, especially with the wheat linguine.”

The Food & Dining section in today’s Press Herald includes a report on the winner of the Portland Trails recipe contest,

As a mother of two, a grandmother of four and a former sixth-grade teacher, Vesta Rand knows how to get kids excited about food. As an avid walker, she also knows what it takes to create portable eats.

So it’s hardly a surprise that her entry for Portland Trails’ first Trail Gourmet contest took top honors.

and an article about the gardening program at the Center for African Heritage in Falmouth,

Boulis Kodi treads lightly through a thriving garden patch, showing off a summer’s worth of hard work by Nuba Mountain refugees from Sudan.

“This is the sweet corn, and this is the tomatoes over here,” said Kodi, who is the farm manager for the Center for African Heritage garden project at Tidewater Farm, just down the road from the University of Maine Regional Learning Center.

 

Forecaster columnist Edgar Allen Beem writes this week about his personal path to a locavorian point of view.

Small local farms, family gardens, locally owned, independent businesses. If the 21st century turns out to look more like the 19th than the 20th, it may well be a good thing. I have seen the future and it resides in the past.

Eat well, my friends. Eat local.

Otto’s mashed potato, bacon and scallion pizza has made it into the Food Network Magazine’s list of the 50 best pizza’s in the nation. (via the Press Herald)

For much of the year, Maine weather demands serious comfort food, and Otto Pizza’s co-owners, Mike Keon and Anthony Allen, were determined to deliver it: They created a pizza topped with mashed potatoes, meatloaf and gravy. Customers didn’t go for it, but when the two edited the toppings to this perfect combo — buttery mashed potatoes, bacon and scallions — it became an instant best-seller.

Today’s Maine Sunday Telegram includes the results from the Press Herald readership poll and a set of PPH staff recommendations.