Eater Maine is publishing a series this week which asks Maine bloggers and food writers about their favorite servers, bartenders, or other front of house staff. The series kicked off on Tuesday with contributions from Kate McCarty, author of The Blueberry Files, and Shonna Milliken Humphrey, a restaurant critic for the Maine Sunday Telegram.
Category: General News
The Foie Gras Advantage
The new issue of Portland magazine interviewed chef/owner Krista Kern Desjarlais and other Maine chefs about their use of foie gras now that California has banned the ingredient.
We’re not saying Maine’s trendy restaurants are spiking the ball, but Bresca serves a foie gras ice-cream sandwich [$10]. Says chef Krista Kern Desjarlais, 2012 James Beard award nominee for Best Chef Northeast: “Our variation is foie gras ice-cream with a toasted almond chocolate torte and pan-seared apricots with warm caramel sauce.”
Food Bloggers From Away Touring Maine
Sharon Kitchens from Delicious Musings with the help from the Maine Department of Tourism has arranged for a set of ‘from away’ bloggers to go for a week long culinary tour in Maine. The bloggers participating in the program are:
- Rebecca Crump from Nashville
who writes Ezra Pound Cake - Joy Wilson from Los Angeles
who writes Joy the Baker - Jennifer Yu from the a small town in the Colorado Rockies who writes Use Real Butter
I had the pleasure of joining them last night for a 12-course kick-off feast at El Rayo (see photos by Use Real Butter). The meal featured Nonesuch Oysters and goat from Ten Apple Farm. Karl Schatz and Margaret Hathaway, owners of Ten Apple Farm, and Abigail Carroll from Nonesuch were on-hand to join in the meal and provide background on their respective operations.
Today the bloggers are visiting GMRI, The Well, Jordan’s Farm, Broadturn Farm, and Maine Mead Works capped off by a dinner at Fore Street. Tomorrow morning after a fueling up with some baked good from Standard they will travel to the Midcoast and then out on a 3-day trip sailing trip.
It sounds like a really fun adventure and I look forward to reading all about it on each of their blogs in the near future.
Photo Credit: Sharon Kitchens
Workout Food
This week’s Portland Phoenix includes advice on which local restaurants “offer healthy food to enhance your performance and help you fuel and recharge before and after a workout.”
Local Hop Farm, Reviews of Mellen Street Market and Congress Bar & Grill, Lobster Dinner Math
Today’s Press Herald includes a bar review of Congress Bar & Grill,
The menus were tucked in between condiments in round tins on the bar. Specialty drinks range from the house-made sangria for $6 to the “JD Rita,” the bar’s spin on a margarita, for $12. There are eight beers on tap for $4 or $5 apiece, and a number offered by the bottle for $2 to $4. There’s also a selection of white, red and pink wines costing $5 to $7.
and a review of Mellen Street Market.
I ordered a steak-and-cheese with green peppers and onions for $6.49, which I thought was a fair price. The bun was chewy, the veggies were freshly grilled, and American cheese embedded underneath the meat melted into a favorable gooey mix.
The steak? Eh. So-so. It was very chewy, which disappointed me. But it was mostly chunky and not cut into strips, so it was easy to eat.
Also in today’s paper is an article about Rock Island Hop Farm in Springvale which raises hops for Sebago Brewing Bunker Brewing, and a detailed explanation from the President of the Maine Restaurant Association on what factors go into the price of a lobster dinner.
Calculating the average lobster cost at $4.25 per pound, a 1.25-pound lobster means a $5.31 raw lobster food cost for a typically served one and a quarter pound lobster. Add drawn butter, side salad or fries and a roll and you arrive at a total food cost of $6.815. This would result in a retail price of $20.63 for the meal, with a 33 percent food cost. All of that retail price except for $1.03 (5 percent profit) goes to pay the business overhead.
New England Distilling & Maine Coastal Vineyards
The Food & Dining section in today’s Press Herald includes a profile of New England Distilling Company,
Wight’s rum, which will be bottled as Eight Bells Rum, is expected to be on the shelves by the first week in September. It’s the second artisanal spirit hand crafted by Wight’s new company, New England Distilling. His Ingenium Dry Gin, a flavorful sipping gin made with southeast Asian herbs as well as more traditional botanicals, launched in April.
and an article about Maine Coast Vineyards.
Steve Melchiskey has a dream. “I truly believe there’s a future for 10 to 12 good wineries in southern and coastal Maine that use only grapes grown on their properties.”
Melchiskey’s Maine Coast Vineyards (distributed in Maine by Mariner Beverages) is the first, and he’s working hard to create a culture that nourishes more.
Restaurant Inspections
According to the Press Herald the city’s restaurant inspector has been holding a series of sessions to educate people in the industry about the FDA rules in use in Portland.
On July 13, Sturgeon sent a letter to all city-licensed food establishments, inviting their operators to information sessions because she was finding “a lack of education” about the food code during inspections.
Sturgeon and her boss, Michael Russell of the city’s Health and Human Services Department, hosted their third session Tuesday night. About 20 people, most of them restaurant owners, attended the session at City Hall.
For additional reporting read the Munjoy Hill News.
Don’s & Smaha’s
The Press Herald is reporting that Don’s Lunch in Westbrook has been bought by the son of the original owner,
The food truck was bought recently by Jim Richards, the only son of the original owners, Don and Yvonne Richards, who ran the business for 25 years.
and that Smaha’s Market in South Portland has also changed hands.
Smaha’s Legion Square Market has been sold to Alan Cardinal of Scarborough, a former Hannaford Supermarkets executive who will run the grocery store and butcher shop with his wife, Sylvia Most.
Horse-Drawn Grocery Service in Rockland
Chalk this one up in the outside Portland but too interesting to pass up category. From Away has published an interview with Brian Smith from Oyster River Farm in Rockland about the horse-drawn grocery delivery service he’s trying to get going in Rockland.
While he waits for his vines to mature, proprietor Brian Smith has another creative idea for this coming winter. Smith intends to roll out the “Oyster River Farm Express” in Rockland, a door-to-door horse-drawn delivery service of Oyster River farm goods, including locally grown produce, freshly baked bread, homemade sausage, and their own well-regarded wine.
Smith is raising $10,000 on Kickstarter to pay for a vintage delivery cart and other essentials for the service. His Belgian draft horse, Don, will be doing all the hard work of pulling the wagon around downtown Rockland for the Oyster River Farm Express.
It makes me wonder if some sort of farmers market delivery service, albeit using pedal power or standard transportation, could work in Portland.
Fox Family Potato Chips
Bon Appetit columnist Andrew Knowlton has gone public with his “chip tryst” with Fox Family Potato Chips which are made here in Maine.
My latest crush is Fox Farms, the hand-sliced chips made in Mapleton, Maine. The Fox family have been potato farmers since the 1800s, but only recently put these beauties on the market. They’re not too thick but not too thin, they’re cooked to a nice amber brown, and they come in longish strips. During the summer I go to Maine as much as the bosses will allow and each time I return with a few bags.
I even introduced them to my parents. It’s the closest I’ve ever come to chip commitment.
I know I’ve seen the chips for sale but haven’t found a bag at some of the likely spots. Does anyone know where an aspiring tryster can pick up a bag here in the Portland?