Category: People

The Huffington Post has published an interview with Kate McCarty, author of Portland Food.

In your opinion, what is it about the Portland food community that inspires so much creativity?
The low cost of entry and accessibility (e.g. rents, prime space) is attractive to many chefs, as well as our abundant local ingredients like produce, cheese, meat, and seafood. Everyone in Maine is into making things, whether it’s cured meats or beer or blueberry jam. All of the chefs I talked to while researching Portland Food mentioned how supportive and collaborative the food and restaurant industry is. We don’t have the same competitiveness in the restaurant industry that they have even just down the road in Boston. All these factors created this incredible restaurant scene for a city of our size.

The latest to Shift Drink interviews from the folks at Knack Factory are out. This time around they interviewed well known bartender and Portland personality Joe Ricchio, and chef and Family Feast creator Thomas Pisha-Duffly.

Eater Maine has published a short interview with Briana Holt, baker at the upcoming West End location of Tandem Coffee.

Do you have a signature dish (or dishes) or plans for limited special items?
The new spot is going to be pretty pie-centric, with a constantly rotating list including seasonal and year-round options. I’m also pretty excited about the chocolate chip cookie, which I hope will cause a ruckus: Traffic jams, people camping out in front of the shop, that sort of thing.

Dobra Tea owners Ray Marcotte and Ellen Kanner are on a research trip to Korea and Japan. You can follow their travels online at dobrateame.tumblr.com. According to a press release,

[They are] seeking to strengthen tea culture in Portland by traveling to meet their tea producers and farmers in Asia and bring their knowledge back home to share. The tea plant – Camelia sinensis – is the focus of this journey. There are six classes of tea including green, white, yellow, oolong, black and pu-er, but the focus of this year’s journey is Korean and Japanese green.

Shannon Moss interviewed Kate McCarty earlier this week on WLOB about her blog and her upcoming book, Portland Food: the culinary capital of Maine. An archive recording of the session is available on the WLOB website.

Knack Factory has published an interview with Stephen Lanzalotta. In the interview Lanzalotta share details on his upcoming restaurant Slab (instagram) and his early history as a cook and baker.

What about baking specifically?
The way I got into baking was crazy. My ex-wife—my wife at the time—and I had moved to Maine to get back to the land. I built a house out of the trees of the land, cut the Spruce logs down and built a log house. I built all of the furniture. While I was doing this incredible endeavor I needed some carb sustenance so I would make these big piles to burn off the Spruce and when it would get down to ash, I would make very crude breads by burying it in that ash.

Knack Factory has published an interview with bartender John R. Myers.

What about those revelations appealed to you?
I think it is just like anything that you start to care about. You start caring about quality on another level, especially when your craft is related to your employment. When you care about doing it, it brings a whole new level of enjoyment. When you care about the quality of ingredients you are using and the fresh juices and the homemade concoctions, it keeps it interesting and makes it worth doing.