Category: People

Three Buoys Seafood Shanty

| Posted in Profiles, People

The Munjoy Hill News has published a report on the Three Buoys Seafood Shanty and Grille which opened earlier this week on Cumberland Ave.

The two business partners behind 3 Buoys are former Legal Seafood officials.  Bill Park, chef/owner, directed the test kitchen for it.  “I got tired of being a number,” Park said recently.  Legal Seafood has 30 restaurants between Boston and Florida.  Although they do have growth in mind, the first and highly successful 3 Buoys in York will always be the flagship restaurant for Park.  Currently, he’s looking for the right chef to step into his shoes here so Park can return to the larger York restaurant.  The other business partner is Bill Holler, formerly vp of purchasing at Legal Seafood, Boston, with his wife Nikole.  She’s  former employee in the seafood business and is the operations manager at 3 Buoys.  Nikole is looking for a few good servers, to fill out the staff.  Currently Katie Haggerty is doing that job.

Jeremy Sossei Interview & Dean’s Sweets

| Posted in Profiles, People

Dispatch has published an interview with one of my favorite Portland bartenders, Jeremy Sossei at Boda,

Because you were a novice until three years ago, did you find yourself researching drinking history like a mad man?
Oh God, yeah. Absolutely. I still am. I also went around to different bars and tried to watch and see how people made things. I was never much of a cocktail drinker before this job and honestly I don’t drink a lot of cocktails still right now. This job has kind of spoiled me in that I just developed a taste for hard liquor and it’s hard to go back once you get used to it.

and a profile of Dean’s Sweets.

As [owner Dean] Bingham humbly began recounting his journey in chocolate-making, his wife chimed in. “You were making some chocolate truffles and your friends all said ‘You should sell these!’”

“And I tell people that I foolishly believed them!” Bingham playfully countered.

Interview with Bartender Guy Streitburger

| Posted in People

Eater Maine has published an interview with Gingko Blue bartender Guy Streitburger.

What do you think of current cocktail trends? Are there some that you just say “no,” I’m not doing that?
The more weird trends there are, it makes people want to explore and try out all kinds of new things. I’m not a fan of fruity/sweet cocktails but some customers like those drinks, so I have to be able to make them. A sour apple martini is like fingernails on a chalkboard for me and for the longest time I didn’t carry anything apple so I could just say no. But now, if you really want it that badly, I’ll make it.

Interview with Whitney Reynolds

| Posted in People

Dispatch has published an interview with Brian Boru bartender Whitney Reynolds.

Thoughts on the term mixologist?
Well my idea of a mixologist is a little different. To me it’s mixing everything that goes into bartending, which is creating a certain atmosphere. I’ve always worked at places where it’s not so much about making this amazing drink that you’ve never had before that you can’t get anywhere else. It’s more about knowing who’s walking in the door, knowing their name, and having their drink on the bar by the time they get to you.

Food Gift Ideas, Slow Food Delegates, Butchering Workshop, Restaurant Inspections, Pirates Cooking

| Posted in People, Farming, Cooking, General News

The Food & Dining section in today’s Press Herald includes a set of holiday food gift ideas,

Think of these items as hostess gifts you can take to all the holiday parties you’ll be attending this year, or as not-so-last-minute stocking stuffers. Some of these ideas are things I’ve written about earlier in the year, while others are brand new items I have given as gifts myself.

The common denominator: I promise you I have tried them all and liked them.

an interview with the Maine delegates who attended the Slow Food conference in Italy in October,

Fellow farmer and Maine delegate Sarah Bostick works for the New Americans Sustainable Agriculture Project at Cultivating Community, where she teaches Maine farming techniques to immigrant farmers from warmer climates. In addition, she runs a permaculture design business.

Bostick went to the conference looking for specific ideas that could help her in her work with immigrant farmers.

a report on a hog butchering workshop scheduled to take place at Local Sprouts in December.

Also in today’s paper is an update on restaurant health inspections,

The Wok Inn, which was shut down after failing four health inspections since April, is among four Portland restaurants to be closed in the past two months for health code violations. The other three — Sapporo Restaurant, The Loft and Mekhong Thai — have reopened after correcting violations.

and a report on a program that’s teaching Portland Pirates players how to cook healthy meals for themselves.

Chris Brown, a 21-year-old forward from Flower Mound, Texas, who calls himself “a sometimes cooker,” credited his ease with a knife to a lifetime of hunting deer. “I’m not a big vegetable person, so all these greens are freaking me out a little bit,” he said.

Brown said he is trying to eat better, and hopes the cooking class will help.

Solo Dining & Bartender Interview

| Posted in People, General News

Dispatch magazine has published their list of the 5 best spots in Portland for solo dining,

…I think there’s something totally underrated about alone time.  I especially like eating alone and my buds here at Dispatch agree. In fact, my twitter identity is the @thelonelymower because I often “mow” (meaning to eat quickly/aggressively) alone. Thus, we bring you a list of five great spots to go and have a meal in the company of yourself in Portland.

and an interview with Sonny’s bartender Jon Clemons.

So, what’s your favorite thing about bartending?
Making drinks and watching people—teaching people about cocktails. I love it when people sit in front of me and ask, “What’s that? Why you doing that? What’s that for?” I love turning people on to cocktails that don’t like cocktails. Like some dude sitting in front of me watching me make cocktails and he’s drinking a beer and ten fifteen minutes into it he’s asking me a million questions then all the sudden he’s drinking cocktails. That’s what I like.

HuffPo: Interview with Erin MacGregor-Forbes

| Posted in 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.

Maine’s Spirited Connection to Martinique

| Posted in People

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.

Interview with Chef Cheryl Lewis

| Posted in People

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.

Wall Street Journal: Saigon’s Pho

| Posted in People, Cooking

The Wall Street Journal has published an article by Portland author Kate Christensen about the Pho at Saigon on Forest Ave.

But now, I just got out my laptop and Googled. I found a Vietnamese place called Saigon that delivered, and on the menu was beef pho. I gasped with joy. Within a half-hour the paper bag arrived, containing two huge plastic containers of broth, piping hot and smelling incredible. We squeezed in lime juice and added cooked rice noodles, then thin slices of raw sirloin, which cooked instantly in the steaming soup, then slivers of onion and chili, crunchy mung bean sprouts and fresh basil and cilantro. We fell on it with chopsticks and spoons, too impatient to wait for it to cool. The broth was rich and beefy and very clear, full of the delicate flavors of cinnamon, black pepper and a familiar yet mysterious mix of other spices I’d come to associate with this warming soup.

the article includes Saigon’s recipe for Pho.