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.
Frontier Psychiatrist has published an interview with David Levi about his background and his upcoming restaurant Vinland.
FP: So, the burning question: what is the food going to be like?
DL: Wild foods are the ultimate for me. We are biologically wild animals, we evolved to eat wild foods, wild foods are more nutritious, they are more unusual and exciting and varied than anything we can buy, and they connect us in the most fundamental way to our landbase. I’m really interested in fermentation, especially wild fermentation (as in, fermenting without a starter culture, just relying on wild bacteria and yeast), so there will be lots of fermented ingredients and lots of foods that can be stored through the winter. Clearly, I won’t be using any food ingredients I can’t get in Maine. So, no olive oil, no black pepper, no lemon. This is where creativity comes in.
Former restaurant inspector Michele Sturgeon was given a settlement by the city to leave her job, according to a report from the Press Herald.
Michele Sturgeon, criticized for giving too many eateries failing grades, got $18,600 and agreed not to ‘speak ill’ of city officials or services.
Today’s paper also includes an article about the shutdown’s impact on seafood processing inspection.
Bank of America has published a Q&A with Mainely Burgers co-owner Jack Barber.
We came up with this crazy idea because we were meeting up in Boston at these food trucks. We thought: ‘Why don’t we try to bring these to Portland? No one’s done it yet.’ We seized the market opportunity, pooled our resources with friends and family, and purchased a food truck. At the time, Portland didn’t allow for them. In December, a friend of ours in the food industry suggested that we target a local beach.
Anna E. Russo (article, obituary) passed away last week. Russo and her husband Alphonso ran Al’s Luncheonette on India Street from the 1940s until 1964.
She married Alphonso Russo in 1942, and the couple had six children. Together they operated Al’s Luncheonette at 45 India St. until 1964, when they sold the business to a neighborhood man who was hawking Italian items from the trunk of his car, said her son Joseph Russo. It would become Micucci’s grocery.