A new blog called Feeding Me launched late last month. It’s a project by Henry Leiter to “explore the independent, entrepreneurial spirit of Maine by interviewing local food purveyors and artisans”.
So far Leiter has interviewed:
The annual Food Issue of Maine magazine arrived in subscriber’s mailboxes yesterday. Inside you’ll find:
Portland Daily Sun columnist Natalie Ladd has written about a night when everything went well . . . except the tips.
So why were the tip so overwhelmingly bad?
It stands to reason there should be a direct correlation between customer satisfaction with the big three: Food, Atmosphere and Service (FAT) and a handsome gratuity. Typically that’s how it plays out, but that night, I just couldn’t figure what was going awry. There was the paper napkin upon which somebody wrote, “Fantastic Service! We had a great time,” and left a little over ten percent of their check.
The Maine Sunday Telegram has published an interview with wine professional and Portland resident Layne Witherell.
Q: I thought one of the best paragraphs in your book was the last one, where you hand out advice to people who want to learn about wine. Can you share a few of those suggestions?
A: Just write down everything that you taste or take a picture of that label, so that way you have a memory of what you had. I ran a store for years and years, and (customers) walk in and go, “This was the best wine I ever had.”
Maine magazine has published an interview with Tara Barker from 40 Paper, Ilma Lopez from Grace and Krista Kern Desjarlais from Bresca about the challenge of being a pastry chef and their approach to their craft.
One of the most fascinating things about the modern restaurant kitchen is the average savory chef’s complete aversion to the art of pastry. It is as if that particular vocation is the culinary equivalent of learning a difficult foreign language, with even the tiniest errors resulting in failure. With so many would-be chefs rushing into the cooking profession, why is it that so few dare to tread the scientific world of the pastry chef? What drives those who do accept the challenge?
The article is a preview of the upcoming March food issue of Maine which should be making its way into subscribers mailboxes in the next week or so.
Eli Cayer, owner of Urban Farm Fermentory, was interviewed on WCSH about his new project.
Eli Cayer is a man with a vision. He’s transforming a garage that was home to a taxi company for 10 years into a space where Maine producers can expand in an affordable way.
The Bowdoin Orient has published an interview with Steve Corry, chef and co-owner of Five Fifty-Five.
But while Corry is inspired by his team, he has also developed an individual methodology in his approach to creating a dish.
“First, it has to taste good,” he told me. “Then you have start thinking about balance, which of course plays into tasting good. You also have to consider seasoning. There needs to be acid and fat. There should be a liveliness. Appearance is also important. Visually, the components need to work in harmony. There should be some definition to the dish. There should be a hot and cold component to the plate.”
The Portland Daily Sun has published a profile of the West End Deli and owner Nancy Arnold.
Nancy Arnold, owner of The West End Deli, is not afraid to speak her mind about how tightly she runs her business, whom she choses to do business with, and how she feels about the customers who frequent the little deli, grocery, and beer and wine establishment she’s owned and operated for eight years.
The Food & Dining section in today’s Press Herald includes an article about two local food authors and their books.
In “The MILF Diet,” former full-time Portlander and current summer resident Jessica Porter presents a beautiful cookbook that shows women how to use the techniques of macrobiotic cooking to bring their bodies and lives back into balance.
In “Food Fix,” Falmouth resident Susan Lebel Young provides an accessible self-help guide based on personal experience and the principles of mindfulness to lead readers out of the junk food abyss and into a real food oasis.
The Root has published an interview with Don Lindgren, co-owner of Rabelais.
What is the root of your selection criteria for books?
Well, we have many different types of cookbooks and other food and drink books, so the selection criteria vary. There are tens of thousands of cookbooks in print, and hundreds of thousands of titles printed throughout history, so even the largest store can’t handle it all, but the bottom line for us is that a book needs to treat its subject with respect, and be written by someone who brings knowledge and some skill to the task. In terms of rare books, it’s all about what we find, whether it’s an individual item or a whole collection. I love buying collections formed by chefs and food historians because they often contain obscure books on really specific subjects, like Papaya Culture in Hawaii, or a 19th century Goan cookbook, published in Bombay.