Category: People

The Huffington Post has posted an interview with Portland Master Beekeeeper Erin MacGregor-Forbes.

Having just wrapped up a two-and-a-half year term as president of the Maine State Beekeeper Association, what are the biggest hurdles you see Maine beekeepers facing?
Education is the biggest hurdle for Maine beekeepers and beekeepers throughout the county. There are so many new beekeepers getting into the craft, and not enough educational resources. Beekeeping is much more complicated than just “adopting a beehive”. You really need to be able to understand the biology of what is going on in the colony because the bees can’t just tell you when things aren’t going well. Beekeeping is a skill best taught hands-on or in classroom…

The interview is part of an ongoing series that Maine food blogger Sharon Kitchens is writing for the Huffington Post.

Joe Ricchio has written a piece for Bon Appetit about the Maine connection to Rhum Clément from Matinique.

Sipping Rhum Clément 10-year old Grande Reserve Tres Vieux, a special-edition rum aged in a combination of French and American barrels, may mentally transport you to the tropical idyll of Martinique, but the man behind import, sales, distribution, and marketing of his family’s Rhum Clément does does his business from a decidedly temperate place: Brunswick, Maine.

Sabroso, El Rayo’s in-house blog, has posted an interview with chef Cheryl Lewis.

What drew you to Mexican cuisine? Just before we opened El Rayo, my mother handed me a Mexican cookbook I had written for my 5th grade class. I had made each kid their own copy to accompany my Mexican fiesta of tacos, beans, and buñuelos for dessert. I might have even made a piñata. Mom and I laughed and said something like “we should have known then!” Later, I paid my way through college in California by working in restaurants. In California, Mexican is a powerful undercurrent and when I moved back East I constantly missed that cuisine, always full of piquant flavor and freshness.

Thursday’s Press Herald includes an interview Nels Omdal, co-owner of Frosty’s Donuts. As reported earlier this week, Brunswick-based Frosty’s will soon be opening a location in South Portland.

Q: How many doughnuts do you make each day?
A: Last Tuesday, we made about 140 dozen and sold out around noon. On the weekends, I make 225 dozen. There is usually a line out the door and everything’s gone by 9:45 a.m. On Labor Day weekend, when we opened the Freeport shop, we made 400 dozen.

Today’s episode of Maine Calling on MPBN radio will take a look at the evolving craft distilling industry here in Maine.

Host Keith Shortall will be interviewing bartender extraordinaire John Myers, Joe Swanson from Maine Distilleries and Ned Wight from New England Distilling.

The radio show airs at 12:15 on 90.1 FM. I’ll post a link to a recording of the show once it’s available.

Update: The audio recording of this interview is now available online.

The Press Herald blog Maine a la Carte interviewed Steve Corry about the upcoming L’Espalier dinner at Five Fifty-Five.

The Maine Culinary Podcast has posted an audio interview with Dean’s Sweets.

In today’s Portland Daily Sun columnist Natalie Ladd provides her insider’s view on what goes on behind the scenes and stories of customers behaving badly.

I also had to half-jokingly remind the guy to punch out when heading to the love nest, which he shared with the fuse box, some cleaning equipment, and the Christmas decorations. The restaurant community adopted, Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, long before the military and there are hundreds of stories equally as amusing (and fundamentally as inappropriate) as this one, which always makes me smile.

The Bangor Daily News has published a text and video interview with Eli Cayer from the Urban Farm Fermentory.

The biggest-selling products UFF makes are its kombucha — a sweet but tangy tea fermented with bacteria and yeast, renowned for its properties for detoxification — and its hard cider, which is dry, tart and miles away from the sugary, mass-produced ciders you might find at the grocery store. There’s mead, too. Aside from the drinkable stuff, however, Cayer has a broad, ambitious vision for UFF.

Photo Credit: Bangor Daily News