Sweet has posted an article about Peter and Orenda Hale and their two Washington Ave businesses Drifter’s Wife and Maine & Loire.
While opening a natural wine shop like Maine & Loire in a place like Brooklyn might be the long-awaited puzzle piece in certain burgeoning, hip neighborhoods of the borough, that wasn’t necessarily the case for Portland. It was a risk, and one that not only paid off, but led to their newest venture: Drifters Wife, a wine bar tucked inside of the shop.
Great Beer Adventure has posted an interview with Carla Lauter, who blogs under the name the Beer Babe.
Carla’s career in beer journalism started in 2007 when she started blogging about beers that were new to her. As a scientist, she was interested in the wide range of flavors that can come out of craft beer. Carla’s thoughts and adventures in beer can also been found in a monthly column in the Bollard magazine, weekly Wednesday nights on the Seacoast Beverage podcast, as well as weekly Thursday mornings on WCYY 94.3 FM.
Today’s Maine Sunday Telegram includes a profile of restaurateur Jason Loring.
Loring, the 39-year-old co-owner of Nosh, Slab and the newly opened, subterranean Rhum tiki lounge, is slowly undergoing a professional and personal transformation, with the help of his business partners. Once a stressed-out cook (he still doesn’t consider himself a chef) who didn’t eat or sleep well, he has become a busy restaurateur juggling multiple projects.
The article includes the first public mention of Yeti, the waffle and fried chicken restaurant Loring is launching this summer.
Melissa and William D’Auvray at Ebb & Flow have announced plans to move back to North Carolina. The couple are the front of house manager and chef at Ebb & Flow. They’re making the change to be closer to family while raising their son William and continuing to work in their careers.
Melissa and William want to express their appreciation to their staff “for providing consistently wonderful food and personable, professional service on a daily basis. They are the reason we have enjoyed such great reviews since opening”, and to the “thousands of guests we’ve been fortunate enough to serve since opening, especially the countless regulars we see on a weekly basis who have taken the time to get to know us – and little William”.
March 19th will be the D’Auvray’s last day at Ebb & Flow. Owner Angelo Ciocca plans to temporarily close the restaurant for some renovations March 20 – April 19, and will reopen with chef Paolo Laboa at the helm. Here’s a short video about Laboa when he joined the staff of a restaurant in Massachusetts. He is moving to Portland from Napa Valley.
An article in today’s Press Herald explores the challenges for chefs when they change jobs and take on a new cuisine that they haven’t cooked before.
Chefs say they take the leap to stretch themselves and to learn something new. Their strategies for tackling the challenge aren’t so different from anyone’s strategies learning new skills. For chefs, that includes reading, traveling and lots of experimentation in the kitchen.
“This seemed like a great opportunity to manage a kitchen and to force myself to learn new techniques, new ingredients, new flavor profiles,” [Matt] Ginn said, “because it’s easy to fall into a state of complacency.”
Food & Wine interviewed chefs David Levi at Vinland and Justin Walker at Earth about ingredients they forage throughout the winter in Maine.
Though his restaurant, Earth, is closed in the off-season, Walker gets inventive with wild Maine moss in winter. “We have a lot of reindeer moss growing on the Hidden Pond property,” he says. “It grows on ledgy areas. If it’s frozen you can reconstitute it in water, or you can burn it into an ash, which you can do a zillion things with. Or you can fry it. It’s very interesting fried,” he says. “But it’s just an addition—you don’t eat a pile of reindeer moss, unless you’re at Noma.”
The Maine Sunday Telegram has published an interview with Lauren Pignatello, owner of Swallowtail Farm and Creamery and manager of winter farmers’ market.
In the next few weeks, Lauren Pignatello plans to open a cafe called Milk and Honey at 84 Cove St., the new(ish) home of the Portland Winter Farmers’ Market. Her cafe will feature dairy products from Swallowtail Farm and Creamery, the family farm she and her husband, Sean, run in North Whitefield, as well as herbal products, including elixirs, that Pignatello has either foraged or grown.
Charles DeGrandpre, former Wolfe’s Neck Farm manager, passed away recently at the age of 88.
He was recruited to work at Wolfe’s Neck Farm in 1968 by its founders, Lawrence M.C. and Eleanor Houston Smith, early pioneers of organic agriculture. Together, the Smiths and DeGrandpre developed an organic beef farm, which became home to 300 head of mostly Black Angus. He was an early leader in developing healthy soils and nutrient-rich grasses with very few grains.
For more information on his life and accomplishments, see this obituary in the Press Herald.
This week’s Portland Phoenix includes an interview with Masa Miyake,
LO: What would you say is your most popular dish on the menu, and what’s your personal favorite?
MM: The hamayaki (which the menu describes as “lobster, crab and scallop over sushi rice with truffle oil and spicy kewpie”) is very popular. I like Sashimi. I’m excited about local fish and [prepping] it. People also really like the daily Bento Box, which is chef’s choice. (The Bento Box consists of “six different small tastes, from sashimi to meat and vegetables,” according to the menu, and it’s served with miso soup.)
and an article about the emerging interest in natural wine in Portland.
“There’s definitely something afoot,” says Peter [Hale]. Though it gets a lot of attention from high-end publications, natural wine is mostly only popular in “tiny pockets within larger markets” like New York City or the Bay Area. That means Portland, “proportionally, is way ahead of the game” with its single dedicated shop, and Maine is even home to a cutting edge producer in Oyster River Winegrowers, based in Warren.
Ilma Lopez, pastry chef and co-owner of Piccolo, is a finalist for a Golden Bowl award from the Women Chefs and Restaurateurs Organization. The award recognizes “excellence in baking and pastry arts and honoring a woman whose skill in the baking and pastry arts inspires others”.
Annemarie Ahearn, owner of Saltwater Farm in Rockport is a finalist in the Golden Pencil category. The award recognizes “dedication to teaching that is making a difference to the culinary world and honoring a woman who inspires her students to achieve both technically and creatively”.