Maine Ahead has published an interview with Dan Sriprasert, chef and co-owner of Green Elephant.
Where you studied and/or apprenticed: My formal education was in computer engineering (Thailand) and graphic design (Seattle). Everything I know about cooking comes from my family and from lifelong, hands-on experience.
When you realized you really were a chef: When I opened my own restaurant. It was then that I realized “I’m doing this!” and that it wasn’t a hobby anymore.
The Food & Dining section in today’s Press Herald includes an interview with the creator of Ariel’s Hummus,
With little competition in Maine for fresh-made, preservative-free hummus, Glazer decided to take the plunge and launch Ariel’s Hummus in May. As demand surged, he was soon spending 12 to 14 hours a day in the commercial kitchen at the Shaarey Tphiloh synagogue in Portland, cooking up hundreds of pounds of chickpeas every week.
and an article about the Top of the Crop competition taking place at this year’s Harvest on the Harbor.
If you like food shows on television, odds are you’ve watched “Top Chef,” “Iron Chef” or “Master Chef” and wondered what it would be like to be one of the people tasting the dishes that the contestants create under the watchful eyes of judges like Tom Colicchio and Gordon Ramsay.
Well, here’s your chance.
Chef Shannon Bard was on the Fox morning show last Friday to talk about Zapoteca and demonstrate how she makes the restaurant’s Lobster Ceviche.
Earlier this week the Press Herald published an interview with Rick Micucci from Micucci Grocery.
Q: What are your earliest remembrances of the store?
A: I grew up here. My three brothers, two sisters and I played here as children. And, I’ve been working here full time since high school. When we got our driver’s licenses, we helped our father make deliveries to customers. My father was always looking for good deals on quality food. I remember times when he’d buy an entire (train) rail car full of canned tomatoes. He’d ask my brothers and I to grab a few of our friends and unload the freight car into a truck and haul it back to the store. Sometimes it would take us two days to finish the job.
The August issue of Maine magazine includes:
The articles aren’t online but you can find a copy of the magazine at your local newsstand.
Today Portland Daily Sun includes a profile of Hella Good Tacos,
Vendor of “Hella Good Tacos,” Bankhead said he moved to Portland last summer to take a teaching job while his wife filled a position at the city’s new Trader Joe’s grocery store, which opened at 87 Marginal Way last fall.
“I couldn’t find a good taco, at least one that met what I was used to having back home,” Bankhead said.
The Maine Sunday Telegram has published profiles of Hannaford and its president Beth Newlands Campbell.
Hannaford now has 178 stores, operations in five states, some 26,000 workers (including about 9,500 in Maine) and revenue of more than $5 billion, said Newlands Campbell.
Roughly 80 percent of stores have pharmacies, which account for 10 percent of revenue, said spokesperson Michael Norton.
Hannaford’s corporate owner, publicly-traded Delhaize, owns stores in the United States and Europe and employs some 138,600 workers.
The Portland Daily Sun has published an article about Mark’s Hot Dogs and the food cart’s longtime owner Mark Gatti.
The entrepreneurial spirit and history of the cart began when Mark was fresh out of college. He did a brief stint setting appointments for insurance sales, a high pressure job he was good at, but “hated” and struggled to make money doing a variety of different temp assignments. He reminisces, “I was pushing a broom after a really long and difficult day doing manual labor, making the going minimum wage rate of $3.35 an hour. It was the early ’80s and I had just moved back to Maine from Colorado and had seen a few vendor street carts in my travels. The idea set in and I worked fast to get it going. I knew I had to sell a lot of hot dogs.”
Mark is celebrating his 28 year anniversary this Monday. Mark’s can be found nearly every day at the intersection of Middle and Exchange Streets in front of Tommy’s Park.
Today’s Press Herald recognizes the impact of Chef Beriau has had on the SMCC culinary school and its students as his 26-year career at the college draws to a close.
That story, one of Beriau’s fondest memories of his time at SMCC, perfectly illustrates the way his former students and colleagues will remember him when he steps down as chair of the departments of Culinary Arts and Lodging & Restaurant Management on June 30: Intimidating, but caring and compassionate. A drill sergeant who pushes his students to their limits, but whose heart expands, Grinch-like, when he talks about them.
Did you study under Chef Beriau? Post a comment and share you favorite memories of being in his class.
Maine Digital Press has posted the inaugural episode of the Maine Culinary Podcast. Their plans are to make it a regular semimonthly show. Shannon from Edible Obsessions, Dawn from Appetite Portland and I were interviewed for episode 1.