Category: People

Hunt & Alpine Bar Manager Trey Hughes will be attending the Bar-5 certification program. This is a high level training program for people in the bar tending profession taught by Dale DeGroff, David Wondrich and others.

Lolita Chef de cuisine Kimmo Meronen is returning to Texas for a reunion dinner with other former coworkers at *17 Restaurant in Houston. The dinner is a benefit “providing emergency assistance funds to those in Houston’s hospitality community affected by the storm”.

Tickets for the event and donations can be made at at agricolehospitality.com.

Forbes has published an article about Erin French, chef/owner of The Lost Kitchen.

At The Lost Kitchen in Freedom, Maine, owner Erin French begins imagining dinner at 7 a.m.—but first, she checks the weather. The evening’s courses, crafted with ingredients from nearby farms, pastures, fields and waters, need to suit the season and the temperature. Maybe it’s fried green tomatoes in the summer or whole-roasted trout in the spring. Forecast in mind, she’ll design her menu based on the produce en route to her kitchen and the food she’d prefer on her own dinner plate.

Maine Icons has published a profile of Alan Spear, co-owner of Coffee by Design.

The property Spear and Lindemann found for the company’s first coffeehouse wasn’t in what many would consider an ideal location. In 1994, instead of being known as the Arts District, Congress Street had a much seedier reputation. The space the two leased was located near the State Theater, which at the time was known more for its adult film showings than its concerts. But it was also conveniently located across the street from the Maine College of Art, home to students in need of caffeine.

Take has published an article about Andrew Taylor and Mike Wiley, co-chefs for Hugo’s/Eventide/The Honey Paw.

Wiley says he and Taylor focus on using the best ingredients possible while presenting them in a thoughtful way throughout all three of their restaurants. “No matter what type of food, the local ingredients are what shine through,” he says.

For the latest episode, Food Stories host Stephen Joffe has interviewed co-owner Meg Stanley and chef Rich Maggi from Lazzari. You can learn about the meaning of the word Lazzari, the inspiration for the restaurant, the history of the building, hear about the menu, learn the secret to their pizza dough and the process of developing the restaurant.

You can listen to the full interview on the WMPG website.

Munjoy hill resident, Sean Ryan Turley, will be writing a weekly apple column this fall for the Press Herald. Turley is an ardent heritage apple enthusiast. Along with his wife Cecilia Ziko, Turley has organized an annual rare apple tasting for the past three years (2015, 2016) that’s assembled upwards of 80 apple varieties for attendees to try.

You can follow Turley on instagram where he publishes under the monicker The Righteous Russet.

The Press Herald has published a feature story on Renee Rhoads, the former school teacher who launched the Mashed food truck earlier this year.

At first, Rhoads peeled every potato by hand – she goes through at least 200 pounds in a week – but after she, her husband, and her sister-in-law spent 24 hours peeling potatoes for a local festival, Rhoads bought a $700 potato-peeling machine. “You don’t start a snow removal business with a freakin’ shovel,” she told her husband. “I’m buying the machine.”