This Week’s Events: González Byass, Merriam & Beaujolais Nouveau Wine Dinners

| Posted in Events

Tuesday — the González Byass wine dinner is taking place at Bar Lola.

Wednesday — Wine Wise is teaching a class on Thanksgiving wine pairing, The Salt Exchange is holding a Merriam Vineyards wine dinner, and the Monument Square Farmers Market is taking place.

Thursday — Petite Jacqueline is holding a Beaujolais Nouveau wine dinner, The Great Lost Bear is featuring a set of Sam Adams Rarities, and a wine and cheese tasting is taking place at the Public Market House.

Friday — there will be a wine tasting at Rosemont Market on Brighton.

Saturday — there will be wine tastings at Browne Trading and at Rosemont, and the Deering Oaks Farmers Market is taking place.

Sunday — Big Night is the featured film at Petite Jacqueline’s movie night.

For more information on these and other upcoming food happenings in the area, visit the event calendar.

If you are holding a food event this week that’s not listed above, publicize it by adding it as a comment to this post.

Pocket Brunch: Bienvenue

| Posted in Events, Pocket Brunch

The November edition of Pocket Brunch took place this afternoon at a industrial building in South Portland near the oil tank yards.

The theme was French Canadian cuisine:

  • Soup – yellow split pea, heritage pork, and spiced hog cracklin
  • Salad – a poutine of country fries, goose gravy, cheese curds and cranberry ketchup
  • Egg – cretons, hen egg, juniper matsutake salt, super sexe bagel and sausage full of secrets
  • Meat – arctic char pie with puff pastry and a seaweed salad
  • Dessert – maple/black velvet sugar pie and Allen’s coffee brandy ployes cake
  • Entertainment – the backside of the drink menus were bingo cards and the crowd joined in rounds of bingo between courses

Josh Potocki and Joel Beauchamp were joined in the kitchen by Rocco Salvatore Talarico and guest chef Nate Nadeau. Tandem served the coffee and Nan’l Meikeljohn created a set of custom cocktails for the event.

For more photos check out the extensive set of image posted by David Zwickerhill.

Planning is already underway for the December Pocket Brunch. Sign-up on the PB site for their mailing list to be alerted when tickets go on sale.

All About Cheese

| Posted in Cooking

Delicious Musings has published an interview with cheese expert Shannon Tallman about planning a cheese plate, storing, cheese, cheese equipment and cheese books, and her current favorite cheeses.

Cheeses for an intimate holiday dinner cheese plate? **And, would you serve before or after dinner?
You could go either way with whether to serve before or after. I like to have something to snack on if I’m going to spend the afternoon in the kitchen cooking, so putting out a cheese plate for yourself and guests to nosh is never a bad idea. It’s also something that you don’t really have to worry about–like has it gotten cold or too warm.? do you have to refill it?–while you’re off doing other things. One of the loose rules of cheese plating is to work in odd numbers (but no more than 7) as it stands out to the eye on a plate. I tend to work in 3′s to keep the plate focused and to make it easy on myself, but I will occasionally plate up 5 if there are cheeses that I’m really excited about and can’t wait to share.

Shannon is one of the guest speakers from Portland participating in the Winter Food Series at the Captain Fairfield Inn in Kennebunkport.

Under Construction: Hella Good Tacos

| Posted in Under Construction

Hella Good Tacos is planning to scale up their successful food cart operation into a brick and mortar restaurant. Owner Josh Bankhead is raising $25,000 online to start up this new venture. If you’re a fan of Hella Good, then head on over to Peerbackers.com to learn more about his plans and make a pledge to help him out.

Online crowd-funding has been an increasing popular model for local food businesses to raise funds. Food Coma TV, Union Bagel, Roost are a few of the ones that have successfully used this approach to get the financial backing they needed to start-up.

Breakfast FAQ & Silly’s with a Twist

| Posted in General News, Reviews

This month’s edition of The Bollard includes a Portland breakfast FAQ,

“I just want a regular breakfast at a regular diner. Is that OK with you, Mr. Fancy Brunch Guy?”
Go to Steve and Renee’s (500 Washington Ave., Portland). You won’t find a better basic breakfast. The prices are low, and there is no friendlier service anywhere, period. And that’s a fact.

a bar review of Silly’s with a Twist,

In keeping with the more-is-more philosophy at Silly’s, the drink menu is four pages long. A fair amount of real estate is devoted to shakes, which can be made with ice cream and milk from cows, rice or soy. They also serve shakes with booze, like the Ragin’ Ruby (made with ruby port), Twist & Stout (contains Guinness) and the more traditional Mudslide. I tried the Sherry Baby ($7.50), which is made with Sandeman Amontillado. The fruits of the medium-dry Spanish sherry came through nicely and complemented the ice cream well.

The Maine Brew Bus

| Posted in General News

Today’s Press Herald includes a report on the The Maine Brew Bus,

In addition to the new Pour Tour, he offers beer-only tours of breweries and brew pubs York County and Portland. He began the business because he sensed a money-making opportunity in shuttling people around from brewery to brewery for samples and behind-the-scenes glimpses of the brewing process.

For more info visit www.themainebrewbus.com.

Chinese Laundry, Dim Sum Pop-Up

| Posted in Under Construction

Erika Joyce, co-creator of the Cloak & Dagger supper club, has announced Chinese Laundry, “Portland’s first dim sum pop-up”.

At the moment, the Chinese Laundry is ran by two folks from ‘Nam, myself included.  We’re hoping to start popping up in the late winter, early spring.  If you are interested in getting involved- ie, making dumplings/buns, donating space, marketing, etc., shoot me an email, as we hope to get more hands to aid ours!

Growing Ginger in Maine

| Posted in Farming

This week’s food Portland Phoenix reports that several farms in Maine are now experimenting with raising ginger which is normally a crop for warmer climates.

Most ginger comes from Asia. Hawaii is the only US state with a real commercial crop. So when I recently relocated from Oregon to Brunswick, I was surprised to find Kennebec Flower Farm selling tropical ginger — and its cousin, fresh turmeric — at my local farmers’ market. But at least half a dozen farmers with that good ol’ Yankee gumption here in Maine, and farther south, down the East Coast through Florida, are warming up to this novelty crop.

Reviews of Amigo’s & Vaughan Street

| Posted in Reviews, Beer

The Press Herald has published a review of Vaughan Street Variety,

First, the positives: The breakfast sandwich was very good, and for $2.50, it felt like a bargain. I ordered it on an English muffin, which was lightly toasted. The egg was cooked thoroughly, without a runny yolk. The bacon was crisp and plentiful, and the white American cheese was drippy and gooey. It came tightly wrapped in tinfoil, and emitted steam when I unfolded it back home. Perfect.

as well as a bar review of Amigo’s and a report from last weekend’s Maine Brewers Festival.