Category: General News

The Food & Dining section in today’s Press Herald includes check splitting guidance,

Your friend Joe has just spent the last couple of hours downing expensive single-malt Scotch and a lovely filet mignon, side dishes priced separately.

You, on the other hand, had a light appetizer and have been picking at a salad. You’re drinking iced tea – and not the Long Island kind. (There’s a recession on, you know.)

Here comes the bill.

a report on a new set of farmers markets set-up by Cultivating Community with the goal of making organic food more affordable,

Starting last week, the organization that works to supply low-income Mainers with access to locally grown food began opening a series of farmers markets throughout Portland.

Not only do these markets sell organic vegetables and fruits grown in Maine, they offer a double-coupon program for people receiving the federal nutrition benefits SNAP, often called food stamps, and WIC, including the program’s farmers market vouchers and fruit and vegetable vouchers.

and Joe Appel’s wine column where he explains there just aren’t yet any good local wines that are made from native grapes (e.g. Concord),

In response to my column last week on American wines, a reader wrote that he was “bothered” that all the wines I described, while made in this country, used European varietals. “Surely,” he wrote, “there are good Niagara or Concord wines that exist and are worthy of consideration as truly American wines?” No, there aren’t.

A film crew from Man vs Food was in Maine this past weekend. According to the Press Herald, the show’s host Adam Richman made a stop at Nosh to try the Apocalypse Now burger.

On Monday Richman visited the Maine State Pier and took a schooner ride. Richman also spent the afternoon and part of the evening at Nosh Kitchen Bar on Congress Street, where Chef Jason Loring made him an “Apocalypse Now” burger – three times.

The burger, which sells for $20, is made with American cheese, seared pork belly, cured bacon, foie gras, mayo, and macerated orange and cherries. Loring said Richman also tried his pork belly reuben.

Tuesday’s Portland Daily Sun highlights the German roots of many popular 4th of July picnic foods.

Oh, the Germanity. Hamburgers and Frankfurters, those Fourth of July grill favorites, are reminders of the roots of classic American picnic food. Sausages, cold cuts, cole slaw and potato salad are as likely to be found on a table in Deutschland as they are in Downeast. Without German brewers like Joseph Schlitz, Frederick Pabst, Adolph Coors, Eberhard Anheuser and Adolphus Busch to create the beer establishment, we might have neither cheap beer nor the microbrew revolution. Ach du lieber!

Quimby Colony, the artist-in-residence program established in Portland by Roxanne Quimby, is looking for “accomplished or emerging culinary artists demonstrating creative excellence and a commitment to career development”. According to the information on the Quimby Colony site,

artists will be provided with living quarters, meals, a travel stipend, and the opportunity to pause from the harried pace of a commercial kitchen to allow time to reconnect to inspiration and innovation in our state of the art facilities. While in residence, you may choose to explore a new direction for your culinary  repertoire, or experiment and refine a style based on regional and sustainable ingredients.

The program is headquartered in the old Roma Cafe in the West End at 769 Congress Street.

In this  week’s What’s It Like column in the Daily Sun columnist Natalie Ladd has put together some “things that bug us when the tourist flood gates open”.

Set aside your expectations and be open-minded about what’s on the menu, especially the daily offerings. Let us do what we do the way we do it. Aside from food allergy exceptions, eat the special seasonal sauce our talented Executive Chef has prepared for the haddock. Why eat fresh haddock the same way you eat your frozen fish at home?

According a news brief in the Press Herald, Portland Shellfish Company is recalling “some brands of cooked, ready-to-eat fresh or frozen lobster meat that has the potential to be contaminated with Listeria monocytogenes”. The brands are “Claw island, Craig’s All Natural, and Inland Ocean cooked, fresh or frozen lobster claw and knuckle meat.”