Randall Chasse, owner of the Miss Portland Diner for 24 years and the Middle Street Cafe for 6 years, has passed away at age 71.
Mr. Chasse had dreamed of operating The Worcester Lunch Car Company No. 818 since he was a boy growing up in Portland. His father was a well-known sausage maker and the two would drive past the diner often. He bought Miss Portland Diner around 1980 and served breakfast and lunch seven days a week to a loyal following.
The Press Herald has published an article about a Kentucky man who’s traveling the country handing out $500 tips in memory of his brother.
An organization was founded, Aaron’s Last Wish, and about $50,000 was raised to keep the tips flowing. Collins said his goal is to leave at least one $500 tip in every state in the country by the end of January, and he still has about 10 Eastern states to go.
Update: Also see this article from the Bangor Daily News.
The Portsmouth Herald has published an interview with chef Shannon Bard.
Bard grew up in Oklahoma on the Texas border. She and her family sat together and enjoyed large meals prepared by her grandmother and mother. She joined them in the kitchen and spent hours making vibrantly flavored meals prepared from scratch. Meanwhile, her father and grandfather, both small farmers, imparted lessons on seasonal produce and the hard work and dedication farmers put into each and every crop.
“My grandmother had a Mexican restaurant before I was even born and I met my husband in San Diego, where there was a lot of Mexican food. It was my passion,” Bard says.
Today’s paper includes a Q&A with Nancy Jo Polito on the book she recently published about her father Armand Polito.
Armando Polito sailed to the United States in 1920, when he was 10 years old, with his mother and siblings. His father, Giovanni Polito, had been in America for eight years, successfully running the Napoli restaurants in Maine.
The Bangor Daily News has published an article about Sergio Ramos, the certified tequila sommelier and managing partner at Zapoteca.
The beverage formerly inspiring the cry “let’s do shots” is now a top-shelf contender. In a corner restaurant in Portland, one man is doing his part to bring tequila to its richly deserved prominence.
“I’m a defender of the spirit,” said Sergio Ramos, who notes he is one of only four tequila sommeliers in the country.
The Beer Babe has posted an article about the passing of Karen Kay Geary, co-founder of D.L. Geary Brewing.
Notably, Karen was the first female brewery owner in Maine, and among the first in New England and the U.S., after prohibition. Author and beer historian Tom Acitelli commented that, “To be a woman involved in craft beer in the early/mid-1980s was to be in rare company; it was, like the larger brewing industry, very much a man’s world on both the consumer and business sides.” I, for one, would like to thank her for being a pioneer in the early days and paving the way for those that came after her in craft beer. I hope you will join me in raising a toast in Karen’s honor.
Update: For more information see the article in Wednesday’s Press Herald.
Chad Conley, head chef at Gather, and business partner Greg Mitchell have leased the Palace Diner (website, facebook, twitter) on Franklin Street in Biddeford with plans to relaunch the business this Spring. The pair plan to maintain a traditional diner menu for breakfast and lunch. In the evening they’ll be launching a dinner service with more creative fare, and have submitted an application for liquor license. During warmer weather they’ll have outdoor seating.
Conley is a Portland native who in addition to Gather has cooked at Hugo’s and Jean-Georges in NYC. He worked for Eliot Coleman at Four Season Farm in Harborside and helped launch Miyake Farms in Freeport. He and Mitchell met when they were both working Four Season Farm.
The Palace Diner was founded by Louis LaChance in 1927 and is being leased to Conley and Mitchell by the current owner, David Capotosto. It was built by the Pollard Company in Lowell, Massachusetts.
The new Palace Diner joins a growing community of food businesses in Biddeford. the former mill town is home to Rabelais which moved their in 2011, Elements coffee shop/bookstore, Royal Rose cocktail syrup (a Brooklyn transplant), Cobblestones (formerly located on Monument Square), newly launched Banded Horn Brewing and the production facilities for Vervacious. The low rent and steadily growing downtown community are making it an appealing place to launch a business. A number of other Portland chefs have recently considered opening in Biddeford. Conley and Mitchell’s may become an example for other chefs looking to launch their own restaurant.
These photos are from a friends and family breakfast Conly and Mitchell held yesterday to celebrate their new business.
Gather is now in the process of recruiting a new head chef.
The Ink & Pine podcast has posted an interview with David Levi about his restaurant Vinland.
Listen in to hear how top chefs in Italy and Denmark influenced Levi’s decisions about Vinland, how to fill a Maine kitchen with exclusively Maine foods, why lard has a bad rap and much more. Here, David Levi will discuss everything from a future Portland culinary school to foraging for edible mushrooms in New York City’s Central Park to the gourmet preparation of reindeer lichen. What food staples could be locally grown in Maine, but aren’t?
El Rayo’s Henry Jost participated earlier this year in the Bombay Saphire Most Imaginative Bartender competition. Jost (2nd from the left in this segment of the image) and the other 45 bartenders from the competition are featured in a 4-page tableau in the December issue of GQ.
Jost’s entry in the competition was the High Port which is made with “fresh honeydew juice, fresh lemonade infused with three botanicals, juniper berry, coriander seed and orris root; Cocchi Americano Apertif; and Bombay Sapphire gin”.
El Rayo’s holding a release party for Jost on Tuesday, 6-8pm at El Rayo Cantina.
The Press Herald has published an interview with Briana Warner about her new bakery/pie CSA, Maine Pie Line (website, facebook).
Warner, 30, grew up in Pennsylvania and studied international relations and economics at Yale and George Washington University. She first started baking pies when she was dating her husband, Matt, and found out how much he loves them. But she didn’t get really serious about them until the State Department posted her to Guinea, a tiny west African country south of Senegal and north of Sierra Leone, as an economic and political officer. There was a lot of political turmoil at the time – the embassy had to be evacuated while Warner was there – and she used pie as a cultural bridge.
Today”s paper also includes an article about a Maine sweet potato farm and a list of local bakeries where you can order pie for your Thanksgiving table.