Liquor Law Violations

According to a report in today’s Press Herald, 5 Portland business have been cited for liquor law violations.

Portland Police said college students under the age of 21 volunteered to go into 40 stores and restaurants in the city to attempt to buy alcohol. Five of the businesses – Bonobo on Pine Street; the Express Mart on Congress Street; The Front Room on Congress Street; Bayside Variety on Cumberland Avenue; and Parker’s restaurant on Washington Avenue – sold liquor to the underage buyers, police said.

 

Reviews of Teriyaki Exchange & Dock Fore, TAO Name Challenged

The Press Herald has published a Eat & Run review of Teriyaki Exchange in South Portland,

There was nothing left for me to do but dive in. While I’ve dabbled in chop-stickery, it’s never pretty, so I went with the conventional fork. Read: I can shove more food in my face that way. It took all my calming powers to slow down enough to truly savor the flavor, and I’m sure glad I did.

and a bar review of Dock Fore. Dock Fore opened for business in 1980 in the former Zeitman’s Grocery Store space.

Dock Fore is your run-of-the-mill place, which is unusual for the Old Port. The neighborhood bar sits amidst a bar scene littered with nightclubs, sports pubs and dance floors.

It’s a place to chill, sip a drink and chat with friends. It’s not a place to go shake your booty, drink the latest trendy cocktail or play some bar games.

Also, today’s paper reports that TAO in Brunswick has been sued by a restaurant  with locations in New York and Las Vegas for infringing on their trademark name. This actually isn’t the first time a Maine food business has been challenged in this regard. The Great Lost Bear originally opened as The Grizzly Bear but was forced to change its name when sued by a west coast pizza shop. Alsoo if memory serves, Borealis Breads was originally called Bodacious Breads but had to change their name for similar reasons.

New Food Blog: New Vegan in Maine

A new food blog called New Vegan in Maine launched on the last day of September. The author will be posting daily updates as she goes through a 30-day vegan eating experiment to help manage her insulin levels. (via Avery Yale Kamila)

As day 1 of veganism draws to a close, I’m feeing somewhat proud of how pure I was today. I started the day off with a cup of coffee, starting out with a small cup instead of my usual 16 oz. mug, better to test the soy creamer. Well, half and half it is not…

Porthole Closed

According to a report from the Press Herald, The Porthole has closed and it’s “unclear” when it will reopen.

[Owner Oliver] Keithly said Tuesday he hopes he can work out a plan to renovate and reopen, but he acknowledged it will be difficult. He said he had been planning on closing the Porthole in December and January to redesign the kitchen – which the Comedy Connection shares — but decided do the work earlier after the health inspection and subsequent press coverage.

“Business has been so slow,” he said. “Why prolong it?”

Taste, Memory by David Buchanan

Taste, Memory: Forgotten Foods, Lost Flavors and Why They Matter, a book by Portland resident, local farmer, and expert on heirloom fruits and vegetables David Buchanan, is being launched later this month.

In his Forward for Taste, Memory Gary Paul Nabhan writes,

Taste, Memory may well be the most beautiful book ever written about food biodiversity and how it has “landed” on earth, in our mouths and in our hearts. Once you have read and digested David’s book, you will never again regard this two-word phrase as an abstraction, but as a essential element of our common food heritage, one that continues to nourish and enrich our lives. In turn, we must nourish it, or it will surely fade away. As Poppy Tooker famously says, “You’ve got to eat it to save it.” Taste, Memory offers the rationale and the inspiration you need to embark upon your own voyage of food discovery.

SPACE Gallery is hosting a launch part for Taste, Memory on October 24.

We’ll set up cider pressing equipment and taste a variety of apple blends, as well as samples of hard ciders from David and Eli’s fermentation experiments (feel free to bring apples if you’d like to press some of your own). David will read passages from his book about collecting rare fruits and working with Eli, and the movement to preserve biodiversity and traditional foods. Acoustic live music by Jake Hoffman and Tyler Leinhardt of Sugar Shack.

A pair of excepts from the book (Seeds of an Idea and The Cider Tree) are available on the publisher’s website.

Porthole Reapproval Process Examined

Today’s Press Herald examines the City’s approval for The Porthole to reopen just 2 days after it had been closed for critical health violations.

A string of emails shows that city officials scrambled to reopen three waterfront businesses soon after they were closed this month for health code violations, including a “serious rat infestation.”

The emails show that the city’s health inspector originally estimated it would take a week or two for the Porthole restaurant, the Comedy Connection nightclub and the Harbour’s Edge banquet hall to come into compliance.

They were cleared to reopen within two days.

Food Sciences, Wine Storage and MOO Milk Documentary

Today’s Press Herald includes a front page article on the Food Science program at the University of Maine,

At a time when enrollment at UMaine is down overall, a record number of students is enrolling in the university’s Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition.

advice on how to best  store your growing home wine collection,

How should you store the wine you keep at home for dinner parties or your own drinking pleasure? Do you really need one of those wine refrigerators that are so popular these days? And when should you take the leap to a real wine cellar?

and an article about a documentary on MOO Milk.

In a film that is at turns humorous, heart-wrenching and very humane, Pingree and Mann follow three farm families in Aroostook County and Downeast Maine as they and seven other farms strike out on their own to create Maine’s Own Organic Milk Co., better known as MOO Milk.